Poland Day 2 - Nieczulice. An amazing day!                                                                                          
                                                                                         
So it's Monday, May 1st and today we head out to explore the village of Nieczulice. This is where our dad, Jozef Kopys, was born and lived until he apparently fled and arranged marriage in 1928. He was 24 years old when he packed up, boarded a ship for Canada, registered at Halifax's Pier 21 and finally landed as an Canadian immigrant in Montreal. He knew nobody, had $25 in his pocket and worked his way across the country with CP Rail, who had sponsored his immigration.

The drive was a pleasant one and we didn't get lost once. Not sure who the better navigator was. We used Googles gps functionality on my smart phone, but sister in law Mary with her paper map, was usually ahead of the Google voice prompts.

A beautiful restaurant and inn we passed along the way to Nieczulice

  As we drove into the village, we anticipated just exploring a little, get our bearings and then moving on to find the local church and community centre. We had been told at the Kielce tourism centre, the church and community offices would be our best bets for the kind of information we were looking for. We had also been given the name of a local historian who spoke English and might be able to help us out. So the plan was to find the significant land marks, return to Kielce, then contact the historian for advice on how to proceed.

We weren't really prepared for what ensued.

The next few shots depict some of the village homes as they stand today, some 89 years after dad left. We apparently caused quite a stir as we parked the car and began wandering about taking pictures of houses in the area. We saw many a curtain flutter open and then quickly closed again as we wandered by. Eventually we saw neighbours gathering, leaning on fences and chatting while looking our way. We can only imagine the conversations.... "who are these strangers and what to they want with us?"

The church on the far left in the photo below, was likely the very church dad would have been baptized in and then attended regularly.  

We're told that after marriage, old traditions had a father giving his son a parcel of land to farm. We're also told a very large portion of the community belonged to the Kopys family (Polish spelling), and without land registry records, we couldn't be too sure which of the houses along the roadway would be the original homestead. The next two shots show what seemed to be the oldest of the homes on the road (which we know is the right road), so we have an inkling this might be where dad grew up.

   As we continue wandering the roadway, we notice a younger man working a small section of field. We approach thinking, with him being young, there is a chance he speaks a little English. Sure enough he knows enough to understand what we are looking for and says there are still a number of Kopys's in the area, but tells us his wife grew up here and also spoke better English. 

   He (Piotr/Peter), rushed off and returned a couple minutes later with his wife, Monika. Sure enough she knows a number of the family and tells us if he's home, she can introduce us to Mirik, whom we think may be dad's great, great nephew. Next thing you know we are sitting at a dining table in Mirik's house (short for Miroslav I think), for probably two hours trying to make family tree connections, with Monica as the translator. What a great experience. My heart was pounding with excitement, especially when he says he remembers visitors from Canada visiting his parents in that very same house, when he was about 11 years old. The timeline works with when mom and dad came to visit Poland for the first and only time since dad's immigration. 

The icing on the cake for me was when we discovered Monika is related as well. We are still trying to tie together all the family links but if I recall properly, her great grandmother was a Kopys. 

 So in the photo below are brother Steve Kopysh, Monika Ulinska, Mirek Kopys and of course myself .

Our last stop for the day was at the local cemetery to see if we can find family grave sites and in particular dad's parents graves. It was a large and crowded facility making exploration difficult. However we found numerous Kopys markers and we still need to make all the linkages but the couple below we think are significant.

We're pretty sure this is the marker for dad's brother Jan who according to the stone,  died at age 68 in 1960 and also for his son (Dad's nephew and Mirik's father) Jan, who died in 88 at age 70.

And lastly we believe these markers are for dad's parents, his mother Katarzyna and father Benedict.

There is much more research to be done over the next couple of days but after today, and even if we make no further family history discoveries, the trip is already well worth it. We also hope to see Mirik and Monika again before we leave to join our organized coach tour on Friday.