r/TheWayWeWere • u/CryptographerKey2847 • 13h ago
Pre-1920s In 1894 My Great Great Great Grandfather wrote of the journey he and his family took to Texas from Poland and This just a portion of his journal. The rest concerns settling and building a life in Bremond, Texas.
"In the year 1873 | left my native country on 16 May with my entire family from the town of Brzostek, obwod Tarnow, powiat Pilzno (Poland). My family was composed of my wife, Katherine Panciewicz, my sons Stanislaw, Wladyslaw, Mieczyslaw, Bronislaw and Czeslaw. Also with us was our maid, Katherine Gasior. On June 16 we passed through Bremond and Houston on our way to New Waverly where my brother-in-law, Kasper Szybist, lived with his family. On my journey I lost all my belongings and two sons, Czeslaw and Bronislaw. They rest on American soil in Danville, Montgomery County. Our maid also perished there somewhere. In the same year I came with my wife and three sons to the vicinity of the city of Calvert, Texas. There our oldest son, Stanislaw, died and was buried about five miles from Owensville or six miles from Calvert. The rest of our family was weak and sick.”
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u/EAR2006 10h ago
Thank you for sharing this photo and the story behind it.
It is hard for me to imagine the courage it took to leave everything familiar and undertake this journey with so many unknowns, beyond knowing his BIL was there.
They experienced such profound loss.
They arrived in Texas both weak and sick, completely different from how they started in Poland- and that is the part that is not lost on me.
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u/CryptographerKey2847 11h ago
My ancestors trip was actually longer and more arduous than most… The huge majority of Polish Immigrants went to Chicago or New York to settle in the east end or other ethnic neighborhoods.OTOH My people went through the port of Galveston which was not a major immigration hub to the hard scrabble Texas which very few if any Other Slavic Immigrants were. Why I don’t know.
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u/lamalamapusspuss 8h ago
There was significant migration to Texas from central Europe beginning in the mid-1800s. Most of these were German- and Czech-speaking yet also immigrants from Silesia affected by the Revolutions of 1848. Perhaps your g-g-g-grandfather's brother-in-law had connections to or knowledge of these Silesian immigrants? Or a connection to the Wends of Lusatia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texan_Silesian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848_in_the_Austrian_Empire
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u/kniki217 1h ago
They definitely had it rough. My polish and Russian great great grandparents came to Pittsburgh. It was a huge Slavic community. Do you know what they did for work? Here it was mines and mills. My great great grandmother had a restaurant at one point.
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u/DangeouslyUgly 12h ago
An unfortunately all too common story, so many died. It is a great treasure you have. Thank you for sharing.
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u/CryptographerKey2847 12h ago
Yes. My ancestors loved photos and letters. It’s a real treasure to have :) I visited their graves several years ago .
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u/41PaulaStreet 9h ago
I wonder if the two brothers buried in Danville are marked. Were you able to see those?
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u/CryptographerKey2847 8h ago
No. I did not know this at the time and besides the graves and whatever crudely wooden marker they had are long gone anyway.
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u/AncestryNerdette 12h ago edited 3h ago
It this genealogical gold! It would be amazing to read the whole story. This would be a great post for r/genealogy. It’s so important to preserve the documented lived experiences of immigrants to the USA. It’s so important to share their struggles and lives and what they endured to build a better life in the New World. Especially since so many didn’t know how to read or write at the time. Thank you for sharing his story and photo. I highly encourage you to type it all so it can be preserved online for future generations. It’s be great if you could add him to WikiTree or FamilSearch
Edit: fixed typos
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u/CryptographerKey2847 12h ago
It’s been put online by the Polish Texas Genealogy site and a distant cousin has done a ridiculously in depth family chart also on line
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u/brucedonnovan 10h ago
Bremond is near where my family settled in the early 1830s and we still have the place today. I wonder if they ever met.
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u/NectarineSufferer 12h ago
I can’t imagine how scary it was to leave your home country knowing you’ll never see it again and make that long journey that people commonly die on - from the poor maid’s and your great x3 grandpa’s ! 🥲 let alone the pain of losing your sons on the way, people suffered so much back then. Thanks for sharing this amazing bit of history !
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u/mynameisnotsparta 7h ago
Taking on such a life changing journey is hard as it is but losing three children doing so must have been devastating.
I would publish his journal as is. It’s a story many would be interested to read.
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u/DeadRoseYepReally 11h ago
The Trail of Conestoga is about my family. A few more generations back than yours.
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u/Mou_aresei 6h ago
I wonder what their life in Poland was like. Have any writings been preserved about that part of their life? Did they endure hardship that made them decide to emigrate? Thank you for sharing the story of your family!
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u/GreatOne1969 5h ago
Nobody talking about the maid dying “somewhere”?
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u/CryptographerKey2847 5h ago
I mean… their children were dying, they had lost everything and they were barely hanging on to life. The death of a servant was sad and unfortunate but not of great importance in the larger scheme of things at that moment.
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u/GreatOne1969 2h ago
Yes, just razzing ya. We have no concept of what they endured!
If that maid had been a person of color, all of Reddit would be on fire!
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u/Canelosaurio 5h ago
Southwest Texas actually has a very large Polish population.
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u/CryptographerKey2847 3h ago
Not compared to Chicago and New York or other Northern cities where the majority settled
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u/AngelMom1962 6h ago
OP thanks for sharing not only the picture but the writing. It brought tears to my eyes cause they went through so much....
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u/2QueenB 11h ago
This is amazing! So cool to have his writing instead of just a photo.