The Spiraling Chains: Kowalski - Bellan Family Trees
  • Home
  • Licciardi
    • Licciardi Family Photos
    • DeRigo
  • Bellan
    • Beljan Family in Croatia
    • Benicki >
      • Zagar
  • Bodziony
    • Bodziony - Poland
    • Golonka >
      • Bawołek
    • Krupa >
      • Kołodziej
  • Kowalski
  • The Spiraling Chains

May 31, 1889: The Johnstown Flood

5/31/2013

0 Comments

 
On this day 124 years ago, the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was destroyed by the worst flash flood in our nation's history.  The flood was caused by extreme amounts of rain swelling the man-made Lake Conemaugh to epic heights, which caused its poorly-maintained earthen dam to collapse.  The lake completely emptied, sending a wall of water equal to the flow of the Mississippi River down the Little Conemaugh River Valley.  Several smaller towns along the way were destroyed as the flood moved downstream, during which time the water became filled with all sorts of debris: wood, metal, livestock, trees, stone.  Johnstown was hit in the mid-afternoon, less than an hour after the dam broke.  The devastation in Johnstown was indescribable. Over 2,200 people perished in the flood.  Sixty-seven year old Clara Barton and her 'forces' arrived less than a week later to help survivors; it was the first large disaster relief campaign headed by the Red Cross.
Picture
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Picture
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Picture
Source: Wikimedia Commons
My husband and I visited the National Park Service's Johnstown National Memorial in 2004.  We attended a wedding not far from there, and, both being meteorologists, we were very interested in the event.  The Memorial site is located at the site of the former Lake Conemaugh, fourteen miles upstream of Johnstown.  I took several photos:

Imagine this basin full of water (those railroad tracks were not there).  This was Lake Conemaugh.  At the time of the flood, it held approximately 20 million TONS of water.  The lake was surrounded by a large clubhouse and lake houses owned by members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a summertime haven for wealthy Pennsylvania executives and entrepreneurs, including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew W. Mellon.
Picture
Part of the basin of the former Lake Conemaugh.
Here I am standing at the site of the dam.  If you look across the river, you can still see where one side of the dam was situated.
Picture
And here is the view downstream, through the opening where the dam used to be.  I drew a red line to indicate (roughly) where the top of the dam would have been located.
Picture
Looking downstream through dam opening.
Like most National Parks sites, this one was wonderfully informative and interesting.  I highly recommend visiting if you are ever in this part of Pennsylvania.  Now that I do a lot of genealogy research, I find myself looking at this disaster from more of a family history perspective.  Ninety-nine entire families completely perished in the disaster.  Almost 100 children lost BOTH parents, and more than 320 people lost a spouse.  Over seven hundred victims were never identified, but their remains are buried in Grandview Cemetery, which sits on a hill overlooking the town of Johnstown.  Not only did this disaster affect the physical structures of Johnstown, but it forever altered the stories of these families.  

For a detailed account of the flood and its aftermath, I highly recommend reading David McCullough's book, The Johnstown Flood.  I'll leave you with one more neat image I found on Wikimedia Commons.  It is an 1889 stereoscope of the dam site after it collapsed (looking upstream).
Picture
Source: Wikimedia Commons
0 Comments

Happy Birthday, Mike!

5/30/2013

1 Comment

 
Today, May 30th, is my younger brother Mike's birthday.  We are only 18 months apart in age, so Mike was my first friend and playmate.  We played with Matchbox cars together, made pillow slides down the stairs, threw toys down the laundry chute, jumped on our parents' bed, rolled around in appliance boxes in the basement, and played video games together on our Atari 2600 and (later) the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  We played checkers on this big blanket-sized checkerboard with checkers the size of our hands.  We were also fans of board games like The Game of Life, Clue, and Midnight Party.  We listened to Michael Jackson, The Cars, and Huey Lewis and the News cassette tapes on our mom's tape player that she kept in the kitchen.
Picture
Mike as a newborn.
Picture
Mike with our Grandpa Kowalski
Picture
The obligatory "Let's put the baby on the toddler's lap" photo.
Picture
Waving 'hello!'
Picture
Tummy time!
Picture
Out for a stroll.
1 Comment

Wordless Wednesday: Yola and Dina Licciardi, 1920s 

5/28/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
My Great Aunt Yola (left) and my Grandmother Dina Licciardi (right) as young girls, probably around 1922-1924.
0 Comments

Church Record Sunday: Catholic Directories on Google Books

5/18/2013

2 Comments

 
Over the past week or so, I have been (slowly) researching one of my husband's distant uncles, Henry Drees, who was a Catholic priest in Ohio during the late 19th and very early 20th centuries.  I have been using various Catholic directories on Google Books to trace his career and places of residence between census schedules.  Wikipedia does a nice summary of the evolution of Catholic Directory publishing in the 19th century.  

What makes these directories so helpful?  The directories, usually published annually, provides a listing of every Catholic-run church, hospital, school, college, orphanage, asylum, convent, seminary, and missionary in the United States.  And, actually, many of the directories that include the U.S. also include British North America as well.  This one, from 1876, includes a listing of clergy from Ireland, too:  
Picture
Each diocese/archdiocese is given its own sub-section; within the city proper, the parishes are listed alphabetically by name (left).  Then, every smaller town in that diocese that has a Catholic church is listed alphabetically (right).  If the church has full-time pastor and assistants, their names are listed.  Some of these directories will provide a church's "ethnicity," if its services were typically conducted in a language other than English or if the majority of its parishioners were of a particular nationality.
Picture
Sadlier's Catholic Directory, 1891,
Picture
Sadlier's Catholic Directory, 1891.
Obviously, if you have relatives who were Catholic priests, these directories are wonderful for figuring out which institutions they served at and when.  As I mentioned above, these directories also list Catholic schools and hospitals, which were often run by women's religious orders.  The directories DO list the names of the women in charge of these institutions, BUT many women serving in Catholic religious orders adopt new religious names once they take their final vows.  So, unless you know the name your relative took at the time of her vows, you might not be able to find her if she is listed, say, as Mother Superior of a convent.

The directories also have an obituary section in which the deaths of priests and other female and male religious members that occurred over the past year are listed.  Typically, due to space constraints, not much information is listed: Date, name, location, age, order - SOMETIMES place of birth and cause of death are listed, but not always.  The bonus in the obituaries is that women religious often have their birth names listed next to their religious names and titles.

Even if you do not have ancestors who were priests or other Catholic religious members, you may find these directories helpful.  Perhaps you know your relatives were Catholic and you know the town in which they settled.  Use these directories to figure out what church they attended (and then try to track down those sacrament records!).  Perhaps you don't know where your Polish Catholic immigrant great-grandparents attended church in a bigger city, like Cleveland.  Use these directories to figure out where the Polish Catholic churches were located and start researching those churches first.  Remember that Catholic churches and schools are not static entities; new ones open, old ones close and merge with other parishes.  These directories give us a snapshot of which parishes and schools were open and active every year in just about every location in the country.   

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many Catholic directories from the 19th and early 20th centuries can be viewed and downloaded for free through Google Books.  Simply go to Google Books and type "catholic directories" in the search box.  You will be able to browse through them and, if you are looking for a specific year or range of years, you can narrow down your search even further.
2 Comments

International Day of Families

5/15/2013

0 Comments

 
Today, May 15, is the United Nations International Day of Families.  Some of these family photos I have posted before, and some I haven't.  I hope you get to enjoy the day with your family members!
Picture
Schroeder Family, 2012
The Schroeder Family: My parents-in-law with all of their children, children's spouses, and grandchildren, 2012
Picture
Schroeder Family, 2011
My husband and me with our children, November 2011.
Picture
Kowalski Family, 1997
The Kowalski Family: My parents, siblings and me, 1997.
Picture
Kowalski-Patrick Wedding, 1978
Aunt's wedding photo. My dad's parents, siblings, and spouses, 1978.
Picture
Kowalski Brothers
My grandfather (second from left) with his brothers, Stanley, Joe, and John Kowalski.
Picture
Bellan Family, July 1960
The Bellan Family: My mom (far left) with her mom, dad, and older brother, July 1960.
Picture
The Licciardi Family, Christmas 1952.
Adele and Louis Licciardi (center) with their daughters, Yola (left) and Dina (right), and their grandchildren.  Christmas 1952.
Picture
Walter Schroeder with sisters.
My husband's paternal grandfather, Walter Schroeder, with his four sisters.
Picture
The Licciardi Family, late 1920s.
My maternal grandmother's family.  From left: Louis, Yola, Dina, and Adele Licciardi, probably late 1920s.
Picture
The Bellan Family, late 1910s.
My maternal grandfather's family.  George and Ursula Bellan (seated) with their children, Rudy, Olga, Mary, George, John, Edward, William, and Theresa. Late 1910s.
0 Comments

Happy Mother's Day

5/12/2013

0 Comments

 
Just thought I would post some favorite pics of the mothers in my family:
Picture
Me with BOTH of my grandmothers, early 1980s
Picture
Me with my paternal grandma, Veronica Kowalski
Picture
Me with my maternal grandma, Dina Bellan
Picture
My great-grandmother, Adele Licciardi, with her two daughters, Yola (left) and Dina (right). 1935
Picture
Veronica Kowalski holding my dad as a baby, with her two older children, Joy and Dan, 1951.
Picture
My mom with me as a baby.
Picture
My mom w/ my little sister, Becky.
Picture
My mother-in-law holding my daughter, 2010.
Picture
My husband's grandma holding my son, 2007.
Picture
Me with my son, 2008.
Picture
Me with my daughter, Mackinac Island, 2011.
0 Comments

Funeral Card Friday: Dominik Kowalski

5/9/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Funeral Card of Dominik Kowalski
This is the funeral card of my great-grandfather, Dominik Kowalski.  Dominik immigrated to the United States in 1912 and settled in Cleveland.  His wife, Wladyslawa, came over the following year with their three young sons, Stanley, John, and Joseph.  Wladyslawa,  or "Lottie" as she was known by, passed away in 1919 of appendicitis and Dominik remarried in 1921.  By the early to mid-1920s, Dominik had established a neighborhood hardware store, which he maintained until he retired.  He and his second wife, Lucy, moved to Arizona sometime in the mid-1940s, and they stayed there the rest of their lives.
0 Comments

Tombstone Tuesday: Jean François Aubry (Obry)

5/6/2013

0 Comments

 
The tombstone of Jean François Aubry, my husband's 4x great-grandfather.  He is buried in Holy Family Cemetery, which is located just northwest of Versailles, Ohio in Darke County.  Jean François immigrated to America from France with his wife, Anne Martine Drouot and his three living children, Etienne, Marie Anne, and Auguste.  They arrived in New Orleans on April 28, 1840, and made the arduous journey northwards to Darke County in western Ohio, where they would settle and set up a farm. (The daughter Marie Anne married Jean Nicolas Grilliot in 1853.)
Picture
Tombstone of Jean Francois Aubry, Holy Family Cemetery
In census and other record sources, the Aubry family is often found under the surname 'Overly' or 'Obry.'  The 1850 Agriculture Census shows 'John Overly' owning a small farm of only 50 acres, with 20 acres listed as 'improved' and 30 acres as 'unimproved.'  He has two horses, two 'working oxen,' a handful of other cattle, ten sheep, and twelve swine.  For the year 1849, he reported producing four tons of hay, 200 bushels of indian corn, ten bushels of oats, and forty pounds of maple sugar.

Jean François passed away April 26, 1873.  The tombstone reads, "Priez pour son âme," which means "Pray for his soul" in French.  

Jean François' birth record is below.  He was born in the town of Herbeuville in the Meuse department of northeastern France.  His parents were Nicolas Aubry and Anne Catherine Colnard.  The birth record indicates he was born in 1802, which is fairly consistent with the ages listed on his U.S. census schedules. (Even if you CAN read French, don't try to find '1802' in the record below; the date is listed using the French Republican Calendar, and needs to be 'translated' to the Gregorian calendar to figure out that it is indeed 1802.)  The tombstone lists his age at death at 66 years, and I believe that the stone is wrong in this case.  By the way, you can search Meuse department civil birth, marriage and death records online at the following website: archives.meuse.fr (click on 'Etat civil' to search.)

Picture
Jean Francois Aubry Civil Birth Record
0 Comments

Cleveland State Baseball 1968 - 1969

5/2/2013

0 Comments

 
So, in case you didn't know, Ancestry.com has a nice collection of school yearbooks in its database.  Sometimes the yearbook results do not automatically show up when you do a basic search through their engine, so make sure to click the 'Schools, Directories & Church Histories' category on the left-hand side of the screen to narrow it down.

I found this photo of my Uncle Dan (standing, third from left) pictured with the 1968 Cleveland State University baseball team:
Picture
Cleveland State Baseball 1968
I've also found Uncle Dan mentioned in CSU baseball stories and box scores published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1968-1969:
Picture
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 18 May 1968
Picture
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 25 May 1969
Picture
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2 Apr 1969
Random fun fact:  The 'Dick Globokar' who is mentioned several times above (and who is also pictured in the team photo - kneeling, last guy on the right) ended up being my high school geometry teacher in the mid-1990s.  
0 Comments

    Emily Kowalski Schroeder

    Emily Kowalski Schroeder

    Archives

    April 2017
    March 2017
    August 2016
    July 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012


    Categories

    All
    Anniversaries
    Antoni
    Aubry
    Bellan
    Bernard
    Bernhold
    Birthdays
    Birth Records
    Blogging
    Bodziony
    Braun
    Brunswick
    Bulcher
    Catholic
    Cemeteries
    Census Schedules
    Civil War
    Conferences And Talks
    Cousins
    Death Certificates
    Decorating
    Dna
    Drees
    Editorials
    First Communion
    France
    Funeral Cards
    Galicia
    Germany
    Golonka
    Grilliot
    Heirlooms
    Holidays
    Homes
    Hut
    Immigration
    Italy
    Janning
    Kahlig
    Knob
    Kowalski
    Krupa
    Licciardi
    Magottaux/Magoto
    Mapping
    Marriage
    Military
    Obituaries
    Occupations
    Organization
    Parazzini
    Poland
    Research
    Rolfes
    Schools
    Schroeder
    Ship Manifests
    Sports
    Surnames
    Tips
    Travel
    Tumbusch
    Voisinet
    Watercutter
    Weather
    Weddings
    Wellerding
    Wilkens
    Wills
    Wimmers
    World War II
    World War II
    Yearbooks


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.