Poland Day 5 - Success

Today is our last day here in Kielce and therefore the last day of our quest for Kopys family genealogy, at least directly here in Poland. After breakfast tomorrow, we return that nice (and possibly under-utilized 😉), rental car and hop on a train for the trip back to Krakow where we'll start our formal organized tour.

I'm looking forward to that part of the trip, but I know it will pale in comparison to the fun, excitement, emotion and satisfaction these last few days have provided.

But back to today though!  Today was a day of successes.

After our continued search over the last 5 days, Mary was finally able to locate a restaurant that was both open and offering a selection of the more traditional Polish cuisine. We've had soups and salads and pastas and steaks and pizzas. Don't get me wrong. It was all very good but until this afternoon, we had not been able to find dishes like pierogi, golabki, bigos or kapusta. Finally today we enjoyed a meal of kapusta along with potato and cheese, and mushroom stuffed pierogi. Some of the very best we've ever eaten.

The food find actually came after this morning's greater successes in our ongoing quest for Kopys family history. 

Brother Steve and I headed off to our planned meeting at the local land registry office in the town of Pawlow, not too far from Nieczulice. Mary stayed in Kielce to try her luck at finding maps and land survey information at the regional archive centre there. You know, the ole' "divide and conquer" routine. 

 The hope was that Mary would be able to find maps and land surveys from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, while Steve and I worked to narrow our title search using the knowledge of the local expert and more recent documentation in the Pawlow land offices.

Mary after some time, was able to meet with someone at the archive centre. Despite her best efforts, she was told they could not provide the type of information we wanted for genealogical purposes, even if we were willing to pay for the administrative fees and paperwork. 

Mary's success however was in locating the establishment that provided our delicious mid afternoon, Polish style meal. (re: photo above)

In the mean time, Steve and I had much better success. Although we were not able to nail down the exact location of the house dad grew up in and the older more seasoned "local expert" we were to meet turned out to be a dud, thanks to the efforts of  young Matthew, we were able to clarify some of the family history including the names of our great grandparents. 

 This young (20 something), man went the extra mile for us and along with surprising us with his hand drawn updates to the family tree, he also provided a wealth of information we can use to follow the trail and flesh out more details from home. It dawned on us after, that Matthew's efforts went far beyond his official domain, but he seemed to be genuinely interested in, and having fun at helping our cause. 

Thanks Matthew!

Our next bit of good fortune came when we returned for one last visit to Nieczulice. You know... take a couple more pictures, conger mental images of dad and his sister running to hide in the forest during a WWI artillery barrage and generally trying to imagine what the village looked like 100 years ago.

Will have to use google translate in trying to understand what this monument represents, but its proximity to dad's age made it interesting to me. I wonder what was happening in 1905 to warrant the monument.

With not yet having found empirical evidence, we can't say for sure the house in the photo below was dads childhood home. But with what we've learned since being here, my senses say it's a good bet.

 But now here is the good fortune I was getting to before I wandered off again into my century old mental photographs.

We just couldn't leave the area without saying goodbye to our new found family. So we dropped by with a parting gift. But almost before we could say a word, we were excitedly escorted into the house. Monika, who we now know is a distant cousin, wants to show us some pictures and one in particular has her interest. It had a note on the back dated 1962 and was sent to her grandmother I think. In Polish the note said something like "I've arrived safely in Canada and am visiting with uncle and his family".

The shot below is Steve with Monika holding the picture she wanted us to see.

I near fell off my chair when I saw the picture. I said something like, "oh, that's Cecilia", then I paused for a second before realizing and exclaiming loudly, "and me". The uncle and family referred to in the note was us. The picture includes my dad flanked by Cecilia on the left, mom on the right and me at age 9. Cecilia is a cousin who now lives in Freemont Ohio.

So we obviously have more family linkages to track down, as I'd now like to better understand the relationships between Cecilia, Monika and ourselves. But what a wonderful way to end this portion of our Poland adventure.