Casimer Kowalski's graduating class.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
 Cover of SPARS Photo Album We visited my parents' house this past holiday weekend and I found more neat stuff belonging to my mom's parents. I mentioned in a previous post that my Grandma, Dina Licciardi, served in U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve (also known as the SPARS) during WWII. I found her SPARS photo album in a box in her old bedroom closet. Unlike a lot of her family photo albums, just about every photo in the album was labeled - dates, names, places - everything. Obviously, Grandma knew that this was a special time in her life that she would want to remember always. These women (and men) were her 'family' for a couple of years; she lived, played, ate, and trained with people from all over the country - people she would have never met otherwise. I'm sure it was much like the college experience is today. My grandmother never had the opportunity to attend a university, but these ladies, some of whom she kept in touch with for the rest of her life, were her sorority sisters.  A page from Grandma's SPARS photo album Because she saved so many photos, I've created an entire separate photo page on my website devoted to her time in the Coast Guard. (I encourage you to check it out!) After glancing through the album, I soon realized that this is not only an important piece of personal, family history, but that it is also a small snapshot of the nation's WWII war effort. She has photos of the training facilities, barracks, cadets doing calisthenics, her platoon and company marching, the SPARS band performing, not to mention photos of local hotels and other buildings, some of which are probably no longer around. She trained at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Facility in Palm Beach, Florida, and explored lakes and beaches in the area, with a few trips to Miami and Tampa as well. She entitled this photo "First day out! 4 Happy "Boots." The patch on the left is from her uniform - Yeoman, Third Class.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
On this date five years ago, Mr. Bub was born. Many parents probably look at the age of five as sort of a turning point from being a toddler/preschooler to a real kid. I think that a lot of parents would agree with me that celebrating a 5th birthday can be emotional for them. I think it is a little more so for me and my husband. If you would have told me during Mr. Bub's pregnancy that we would be celebrating his 5th birthday today, I would have either punched you in the face (in the belief that you were lying to me), or hugged you tighter than I've ever hugged anyone before (if I had thought you were telling the truth). My pregnancy was complicated by a non-cancerous tumor in the umbilical cord, which the doctors and nurses referred to as an angiomyxoma. Over a course of several ultrasounds, they saw that it was growing as each week went by. The doctors feared that it could obstruct blood flow in the umbilical cord, so I was ordered to have ultrasounds three times a week starting at about 24 weeks. Thank goodness my Aunt Sharon lived nearby; she came with me to just about every ultrasound, which ended up being at least 40 by the end of the pregnancy. And with every one, I would have to prepare myself for the possibility of the doctors telling me that I'd have to be admitted to the hospital OR even worse news than that, which is hard for me to write about. :-( I did actually spend about ten days in the hospital when I "failed" a non-stress test at about 32 weeks. I got to go home for a few more weeks, but then after I "failed" another ultrasound, my doctor scheduled me for a c-section. Because of a vascular disease I have, I had to have a c-section under general anesthesia in the hospital's main operating room. So, unfortunately, neither me nor my husband was able to see Bub come into the world, but after everything we had gone through, we just wanted him out. He was small, a little jaundiced, and we had trouble getting him to eat that first week, but at least he was here and otherwise healthy. So, today we give thanks to God and his angels for protecting Mr. Bub during a rough pregnancy. Happy Birthday, Mr. Bub!
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
Today, November 18th, is Mickey Mouse Day. On this day in 1928, Mickey's first successful cartoon, Steamboat Willie, was released in New York City. In honor of Mickey's "birthday," I am posting a couple of photos of Mr. Bub wearing Mickey ears during his first visit to Walt Disney World in February 2010. He was about 27 months old, and a little too young to appreciate the coolness of the place, but it was fun nonetheless.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
I didn't intend to write a blog post today, but the news today about the closing of Hostess Brands is bringing back some memories that I wanted write about.
I am the oldest of five children; we went through a lot of food and it could get expensive. When I was a teenager, my mom would send me to the Hostess Bakery Outlet on Pearl Road to stock up on bread and snacks. They had carts and carts of the big, long loaves of Wonder Bread. The price was usually something like 2/$1, which means we could get ten loaves of bread for $5.00! I would buy a bunch and my mom would stick them in the freezer. I also usually bought a loaf of rye bread, which my mom liked, and some hamburger buns. And of course, while I was there, I also bought some of their yummy snack items: a box of Ho Hos, a box of chocolate cupcakes, a couple boxes of Twinkies, maybe a box or two of animal crackers, and a couple of Fruit Pies for my dad. I always bought more Twinkies because my brothers didn't like chocolate stuff - weirdos, I know. The low prices, combined with coupons that the store often made available, meant that I would be able to buy all of this stuff for literally less than $20. Granted this was 15-20 years ago, but think about how little you can get for $20 at a food store these days. I had a specific method to eating my Ho Hos. First, I would peel off the chocolate shell until all the spongy cake was exposed. Then, I would attempt to unroll it into a skinny, flat cake and lick the cream off before eating the cake. It was a messy process, so I usually used a bowl instead of a plate to catch the crumbs. You KNOW you had a method to eating YOUR Hostess goodies. Share your memories; tell me about it! ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder  Thanksgiving 1984 Here I am with my brother and cousins at the "kiddie table" at our family's Thanksgiving dinner in 1984. I was 6 years old. Throughout the years, the kiddie table was THE place to eat - no one wanted to sit at the adult table and listen to them talk about taxes, politics, and the pathetic states of our sports teams. (Um, Cleveland - 'nuff said.) Instead, we wanted to be silly and talk about crappy 80s movies, ask ourselves, "What exactly IS in the beet mold?," and, most importantly, poke fun at our elder family members. As I got older, I was often plucked from the kiddie table and asked to sit with the adults when there was an opening - such were the perils of being the oldest. It wasn't much fun. I usually went back and at least ate dessert with my younger cousins.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder A little while ago, I wrote a short post about how Facebook enabled me to reach out to some of my second cousins and in order to share family history information with them. Today, I had another genealogy-related experience with Facebook.
A Facebook friend was sharing some exciting development news regarding her toddler. Since my daughter is about the same age, I made a relevant comment under her post. Of course, I received a notification when the next person commented on the thread. I noticed that this woman's maiden name was Magoto, which is the maiden name of my husband's great-great-grandmother, Amelia Magoto. It's a unique name and spelling (originally 'Magottaux,' but changed after the family settled in America). I went out on a limb and asked this friend of my friend if she was, by chance, from Ohio. Now, I'm not sure where she currently lives, but our mutual friend lives in Kentucky, so it could have seemed like a random question. She quickly responded that she was born and raised in the SAME Ohio county in which Amelia was born (Darke County). At this point, it was pretty clear that she and my husband share a common ancestor. I apologized for hijacking my Facebook friend's discussion and went on to exchange a few messages with Ms. Magoto. And it turns out that her father actually has a family history book that has a lot of information about the Magoto family ancestors, which could turn out to be a great source of information for building my husband's family tree. Lesson of the day: If there is an unusual surname in your family tree and you see someone on Facebook with the same name and spelling, go out on that limb and try to message him/her. You may just find a relative. :-) ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder Today, in honor of Veteran's Day, I am posting a photo of the flag that covered my grandmother's casket during her funeral. I'll explain why it's in my kitchen later...  My grandmother, Dina Licciardi Bellan, was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard SPARS (Women's Reserve) during WWII. At some point, I plan on doing a more detailed blog post with photos about her time with the service, but for now I'll just say that she served most of her time in Miami, FL and that she made some very good friends with whom she kept in contact for most of her life. Here she is in Miami in September of 1945:  So, Grandma's funeral was on a cold, cold January day during my senior year of high school. It was on a weekday - the first day of school I had missed since freshman year. I read one of the readings during mass. We went back to the funeral home and got ready to go to the cemetery. I drove my three younger brothers, while my little sister got to ride in the limo with my parents and aunt and uncle. (To this day, I have still never ridden in a limousine.) The cemetery plot was familiar; my grandfather had passed away eight years earlier. I remember standing there and being very cold while the prayers were read. (I wore a dark navy suit with a short skirt - not my brightest decision.) I was handed her flag and told that my grandmother had wanted me to have it, which didn't come as a huge surprise because my grandfather's flag had gone to my older cousin, and I was the second-oldest. I still felt honored to have it. I took it with me to college and graduate school, and it has always symbolized my grandmother's presence.
So, why is the flag in my kitchen? Grandma was a pretty darn good cook, and she LIKED cooking for her loved ones. I am not a good cook, and I do not enjoy being in the kitchen. On those days when I really don't feel like making dinner (pretty much everyday), I can always look at the flag and remember how much she enjoyed it. Sometimes it motivates me; sometimes it doesn't. And I'm always secretly hoping that some divine intervention on her part will make me a better cook. At least I was blessed with a husband who will pretty much eat anything. :-) ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
Jules Francois ('Julius') Magoto and Mary Rosa Bulcher are the great-great-great-grandparents of my husband on his dad's side of the family. Julius was born in 1835 in the French town of Hannonville-sous-les-Côtes, which is in the Lorraine region of northeast France. He came to America with his parents, Christopher Magottaux and Marie Catherine Humbert, in 1852. In the 1860 U.S. Census, the family is listed as living in Patterson Township in Darke County, Ohio. (Julius is not listed as he had already gotten married.)
Mary Rosa was born in 1846 in the French town of Belfort, which is located in the Franche-Comté region of northeast France. She came to America as an infant in 1847 with her parents, Francois Pierre Burtechert (or Burtecher) and Marie Celestine Voisinet. In the 1850 U.S. Census, they are living as farmers in Loramie Township (Shelby County), Ohio. Julius and Mary Rosa were married September 14, 1869 in Frenchtown (Darke Co.), Ohio. It was the second marriage for Julius, as his first wife, Christine Berge, died in 1868 when she was only 28 years old. Julius and Mary Rosa had seven children who lived into adulthood and many more grandchildren. It was quite common for French immigrants who settled in western Ohio to change the spellings and/or pronunciations of their surnames soon after arriving in America. Sometimes the change was intentional, but quite often it came about as a result of inaccurate transcriptions of the name on official documents, such as land deeds, marriage and birth records, or census schedules. Before I started researching my husband's family tree, I wasn't aware of the French immigrant influence in rural western Ohio. I had known about the settlement of the German immigrants in the Ohio Valley, probably because their influence was more widespread and they arrived in greater numbers than the French. Most of the churches and towns that were founded by French immigrants in western Ohio in the mid-1800s are still around, and even the influence of the language lives on in certain places. There is a town in Shelby County by the name of 'Russia;' however, it is pronounced "roo-shee," which is actually quite similar to the proper pronunciation of 'La Russie,' which means 'Russia' in French. (You can listen to the French pronunciation here.) Interestingly, though, another western Ohio French settlement by the name of 'Versailles' is actually pronounced 'ver-sales', so the original French pronunciation was lost/changed at some point. ©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder Wedding Day photo of my grandparents, Casimer Kowalski and Veronica Bodziony. The wedding took place on July 15, 1939 at Saint Hyacinth Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Their county marriage record is shown below (They misspelled my grandfather's first name.)  Casimer Kowalski and Veronica Bodziony Wedding Party  Cuyahoga County, Ohio Marriage Record for Casimer Kowalski and Veronica Bodziony Source Citation: Cuyahoga County Archive; Cleveland, Ohio; Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Marriage Records, 1810-1973; Volume: Vol 190; Page: 192; Year Range: 1895 Aug - 1941 Jun.
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