This page concerns the early years of my paternal grandmother, Adele Kurlandski, née Nawrocki. Her first grandchild, Cathy Kurlandski (later Cathy Schwartz) began calling her “Mimi” when she was just learning to talk, and the nickname stuck.

Casmir and Cecilia

Mimi’s parents were Casmir Nawrocki and Cecilia Jurkiewicz. Their first child was Julie (or Julia), born somewhere around 1904. Adele, or Adelaide, was born 3 years later, on January 29, 1907.

What at first seems a little unclear is when Casmir and Cecilia were married. The next few pictures show their wedding invitation. What doesn’t make sense is the date of the wedding, specifically the year, which seems to read “1908.” Until we get our hands on a some kind of official document, I suppose we won't know for sure, but what is most likely to have happened is that the date originally read "1903" and what was once a “3” bled, over the course of the last hundred years, to make the digit appear to be an “8” now.

That’s generally been my experience in this adventure in genealogy. Not everything is always perfectly clear.

Note that the wedding ceremony was held at the same St. Stanislaus Church mentioned in the pages concerning the Kurlandski side of my family.

As we have said, Mimi was born in January of 1907. Sadly, Cecilia never got to spend much time with her second daughter, for she died very shortly after the birth. The story goes that after Mimi was born, the medical staff did not clear all the afterbirth out of Cecilia’s womb, hence she took sick and shortly after died of perontinitis (blood poisoning).

I've done a little bit of googling on this, and I suspect that Cecilia's actual cause of death was puerperal fever, "a condition that results from an infection of the female reproductive organs, contracted during or following childbirth or miscarriage" (Wikipedia: Puerperal_fever).

Baby Adele was sickly, and almost went the way of her mother. She couldn’t keep down the milk they fed her and she became undernourished. Finally, it is said, somebody suggested they try goat’s milk, and she started to respond. Nevertheless, most of her young life, up to her teens, she was never a very healthy child. The family story is that it had something to do with her lungs: the X-rays showed something, but it wasn’t TB.

In the context of Cecilia’s death and her daughter’s difficult childhood, it seems worth mentioning that Cecilia had a sister, Estelle, who died at a very young age. Another interesting fact, medically speaking, is that Casmir was a pharmacist, and his father and his brother Joseph were both doctors. This may have come in handy as the family tried to care for little Adele—there wasn’t a lot of cash to spare.

Enter Gram Nawrocki

Here we discuss a delicate matter, for it paints a much-loved member of the family in a bad light.

Soon after Cecilia died, Casmir married Mary Lewandowski. The new bride became Mary Nawrocki, of course, and she would live to be over a hundred years old. Eventually she became known as "Gram Nawrocki." I will provide details as I get them, but here is a picture taken of Mary when she was 102 and crowned "Ms. Missouri Nursing Home Queen."

My single best opportunity to get to know Gram Nawrocki occurred on the day of my high school graduation. She would have been about 95 then. My mom and dad celebrated the occasion with a party, and she was invited. For some reason she lost her ride--probably Vick and Florence Marchlewski--and I was the only available driver. I picked her up at the old folk’s home and drove her the hour to our house. In the family there seemed to be some concern that having a teenage boy as her chauffeur might have worried or flustered her, but when we arrived she made a point of saying what a good driver I was.

In the car we talked non-stop all the way. And we continued talking during the entire party. I was young, a little bit shy, and, I suppose, awkward at making conversation with the older relatives who had come to the party. So I stayed next to Gram and let people come to me. On the whole I had a good time at my graduation party.

But it’s true that I did not know her well. She only rarely put in an appearance at the Kurlandski holidays. For the most part she seemed to be member of the Marclewskis, that is, the family of Adele’s sister, Julie. And it must be said that Mimi, who rarely spoke ill of anyone, had very little to say about Gram when, one day, I began making enquiries into Mimi’s early life. She said nothing explicitly derogatory about her stepmother, but I could tell that unhappy memories were being brought to the surface, and I had a hard time getting Mimi to provide any details.

So I cannot reconcile the Gram Nawrocki I knew with the woman who became my great-grandfather Casmir's second wife. Of course I don’t know what really happened. What I describe below is merely what people say happened.

It seems fair to say that Mary Lewandowski was not a very maternal woman, for, according to oral history, she declared that she did not “want to fool around with a sick baby”—that is, baby Adele. She and Casmir never had any children of their own.

As per their "prenuptual agreement," Casmir’s parents, Joseph and Louise Nawrocki, took in Adele. Although Mary is said to have expressed a willingness to raise Julie, Louise kept both girls, insisting, “You’re not going to separate them.” Louise was known as Babka (Polish for "Grandma").

Early Years

Census data corroborates some but not all of the information above. The 1910 Census has Adele in her grandparents' home, but not Julie.

Name	Relationship	Gender	Age	Birthplace	Year Immigrated
Joseph Nawrocki	Head	M	56	Germany	1872
Louise Nawrocki	Wife	F	57	Germany	1872
Anna Nawrocki	Daughter	F	22	Missouri
Frank Nawrocki	Son	M	17	Missouri
Louise Nawrocki Jr.	Daughter	F	14	Missouri
Adelaide Nawrocki	Granddaughter	F	3	Missouri

The same census has both Adele and Julie living in their father's home with their stepmother, Mary.

Obviously, the two families did not get their story straight in advance of the 1910 Census.

Here is one way we might reconcile the family oral history with the census. When Casmir first married, Babka took in both girls. But as Julie got older she spent more and more time with her father and stepmother. By the time she turned five, Julie was for the most part living with them. Not Adele, though--Adele was still living with her grandparents. But Casmir or Mary did not care to admit this, so one of them stretched the truth a little bit when the census-taker came around.

By 1920, however, the census data show Casimire and Mary living alone. Their ages are listed as 39 and 36, respectively, and there is no mention of children. See the link below.

1920 Census for Casimire and Mary Nawrocki

The same census has both Julie and Adele living with their grandparents.

Name	Relationship	Gender	Age	Birthplace	Year Immigrated
Joseph Nawrocki	Head	M	65	Poland	1872
Louise Nawrocki	Wife	F	67	Poland	1872
Frank J. Nawrocki	Son	M	27	Missouri
Louise Nawrocki	Daughter	F	24	Missouri
Julia Nawrocki	Granddaughter	F	15	Missouri
Adelaide Nawrocki	Granddaughter	F	12	Missouri

Note some other interesting differences between the 1910 and 1920 censuses for Joseph and Louise. Anna, their eldest, has moved out. Also, Poland is listed as their birthplace rather than Germany. And, finally, Daughter Louise is no longer listed as a "Junior."

Ciocia and Wujek Move In

In 1910 Babka and her family were living on Minnesota, possibly at street number 4709. Babka and Joseph owned the building and occupied the ground floor flat. Sometime between 1910 and 1920, their daughter Anna married Frank Jankowski, and the two of them started their own family in the flat upstairs.

I knew Anna as "Ciocia," Polish for Aunt. As a child, I pronounced the word as "Chu-chu," with a short u as in "chunk." But a more correct pronunciation of the word can be found here. (At least, as long as the link remains alive.)

Ciocia died when I was about 12 or so, which would have been around 1973. For a time my family lived in Cleveland, so we saw her at most once a year. She lived downstairs from Mimi on Louisiana Street. I remember that every time we would pack up the car to head back for home, Ciocia would start crying, believing that that would be the last time she would see us.

I never knew Frank, Ciocia's husband. He was called Wujek ("maternal uncle"). Its pronunciation can be found here. When my father pronounces the word, he drops the final "k" sound. I don't know whether the version without the "k" is a more informal term of endearment (as in "Ma" for "Mother"), or whether my father mispronounced it as a child, in the same way I always mispronounced Ciocia.

Ciocia and Wujek would eventually have four daughters--Helen, Anna-Marie, Florentine and Frances. They were Mimi's first cousins.

The four girls might have seemed like sisters to Adele, so closely did she grow up with them, especially once Babka's husband, Joseph, died. The story goes that the newly-widowed Babka found herself with no means of support apart from the building she lived in. To get by, she would have to rent out the flat upstairs, so the Jankowskis moved in.

I don't know how many Jankowskis there were at the time, but having been inside several South St. Louis flats, I imagine things were pretty crowded there. (Recall that Adele's sister, Julie, was living with them as well.) When Anna was expecting Anne-Marie, Babka sold the building and gave Wujek the money for a down payment on a house on Pulaski Street. Then Babka, Adele and perhaps even Julie moved in with Ciocia and Wujek at 3227 Pulaski near St Hedwig’s Church. Shortly after that Julie married Vick Marchlewski, and shortly after that Adele moved in with these two newlyweds.

Presently I don't have dates for any of these events. The 1930 Census shows Wujek as the head of the household, living with his mother-in-law Louise and his niece Adele, in addition to his wife and four daughters. So the question arises whether Adele really did move in with Julie and her new husband, or not. Perhaps Julie married after the 1930 Census was taken.

Name	Relationship	Gender	Age	Birthplace	Year Immigrated
Frank Jankowski	Head	M	41	Missouri
Anna Jankowski	Wife	F	42	Missouri
Frances Jankowski	Daughter	F	13	Missouri
Helen Jankowski	Daughter	F	11	Missouri
Florentine Jankowski	Daughter	F	7	Missouri
Anna M. Jankowski	Daughter	F	3	Missouri
Louise Nawrocki	Mother-in-Law	F	77	Poland	1872
Adelaide Nawrocki	Niece	F	23	Missouri

In 1935, Mimi married Louis U. Kurlandski.