We spent a second night at the meat packing place B&B. I forgot to mention the owner upgraded me from a basic room to the honeymoon suite since it had its own bathroom with shower.
We departed the B&B to Kolonia-Brzezno to pickup Mariola to visit the parish church of Wasewo and cemetery. This is the church my family Kruk’s attended and were my grandfather was baptized. The priest was walking to the church as we were arriving. Zenon explained to him this was parish of my ancestors, It was a joyous experience to see the parish my family, great-grandfather and grandfather attended. The priest brought the church chronicle which I wrote a few words in memory of my ancestor. All the departed souls of my ancestors who are now together may they rest in peace until we meet again. The priest invited us to the parish house to view information on the church.
The cemetery is located across the street from the church. Mariola showed the graves of my grandfather’s sister Marianna and her husband Stanislaw Walczak, Mariola’s brother Stanislaw and father Leszek.
Then we drove to the home of Mariola’s brother and his wife in a town Goworowo. They were so happy to see family from the Kruks side as they did not know about their family. All they remembered were a few letters were written to family in America. The family never spoke about Marianna Kruk’s family as they were busy working and surviving during communism times. They said Walczak family would be together for funerals and weddings however they never remembered talking about or seeing family from the Kruk’s side. As Zenon has found through research Jozef Kruk and Marianna Sobotka had 12 children, including 4 named Marianna, however the only ones to survive were Marianna (my great-aunt) and Jan (my grandfather).
We had a lovely afternoon with tea, coffee, cake and stories. We returned to Kolonia-Brzezno dropping Mariola at her home. Zenon and I departed for Wasewo to the Civil Registry Office there to search for the marriage record of Marianna and Stanisław. We found the record, the marriage occurred 11 February 1918, Marianna was 18 and she was from Kolonia-Brzezno, and Stanislaw was 19 and was born in Rososz.
I am excited because the family tree is growing! Zenon through further research was able to obtain my great-grandparents marriage record. From it I learned about names of my great-great-grandparents. Parents of my great-grandfather Jozef were Jan Kruk and Wiktoria Skrzecz. Parents of my great-grandmother Marianna Sobotka were Jan Sobotka and Franciszka Sobotka.
I know this sounds confusing and I am also still a little confused. However, you will notice the same surname appears (e.g. Sobotka) but these are different families.
After our awesome discoveries, we traveled about 20 miles from Wasewo, to stay this night in one of the Ostroleka hotels. Tomorrow we will be traveling to the Suwalki area to try to discover my grandmother’s Wiktoria Murawski ancestors, and maybe living relatives…
Janina, You are very lucky to be travelling with Zenon. My husband, Frank, and I were Zenon’s guests at the beginning of June. He really knows his business and will do anything for you.
We also traveled to Wasewo to search out my mother’s Ambroziak relatives. As you found out, the priest there was very welcoming. We researched the church records and visited the cemetery with great results. We also stopped in Zalesie, Jelonki Parish, where we did much research and found out that my grandfather, Peter Michalski, had twelve siblings that we never knew about. Zenon also helped us to find living relatives, which was amazing.
I hope the rest of your trip is as successful as ours was.
Nancy Zielinski Hodas