Family Stories: The Nawodylo Family

Family stories are an important part of your family history. But always take the stories for what they are -- memories that have been passed down from one generation to the next. The memories might be hazy and the stories might have been embellished over the years. The family story may be mostly true, but the details may be incorrect. Still, stories are what make genealogy interesting because they make your ancestors come alive. It's important to write them down to share with others. They also offer clues for genealogical research. It's great when you can back the stories up with hard evidence. 

Today I want to introduce another family in my family tree - the Nawodylo family. 

Agatha Frankowski and Gzregorz "Harry" Nawodylo

THE NAWODYLO FAMILY STORY

(This is the family story that was told to me by my mother who asked her uncle Jack Pine (aka Leon "Jack" Nawodylo) about his parents. Jack was the son of Gregorz and Agatha Nawodylo. He changed his last name to Pine because he "liked it better." Through my genealogy research, I found that some of the facts in this story are incorrect. I will address those inconsistencies in another post.)

Agatha was Polish.
Harry was Ukrainian.

They were both rent-out children. Their families were very poor and couldn't take care of their kids so they rented them out to people with more land (for gardens -- farms). Those people clothed the kids and fed them and the lived with them too.

They were working for 17 years in Germany (near Bremen) but Uncle Jack didn't know what they worked at. Buscia (the Polish word for grandma) and Dziadzia (grandpa) met in Germany.

They left Germany when they could get out (Uncle Jack thought it was 1909) and came to U.S. on a boat. It took a whole month and everyone was very sick on board. Uncle Jack thought it was a sailboat. He remembers them (Buscia and Dziadzia) talking about Philadelphia or Ohio when they came to the US but he doesn't know for sure.

They knew a family named Biela in Chicago. They stayed there for a few weeks -- were married and then went to Canada. They had a homestead -- 3 cows, 1 steer, 2 oxen, no tools except an axe. Raised cattle -- maybe had 27 head. You paid $10 for a homestead of 160 acres. After one year you had to have a cabin. By the second year you had to have a barn. Then a hay loft. They sold the cattle to a man (Buriko/Bureiko) but Dziadzia had no place to cash the check from the man. The storekeeper didn't have that much money, so Dziadzia kept the check 3 months. By the time he went to a bank, the man had withdrawn all his money and left for Chicago. Dziadzia got his gun and was going to go to Chicago to kill the man because the family lost almost everything because of the bad check.

The Nawodylo Family
(back row, from left) Anthony  (aka Tom Nash), Agatha, Gzregorz (aka Harry), Leon (aka Jack Pine)
(front) John, Mary, and William

Dziadzia came to the US (Chicago) finally in 1924 and left the "ranch" behind. Dziadzia offered it to Uncle Jack and Uncle Tom (aka Anthony "Tom" Nawodylo or Tom Nash) but they didn't want it. They would have had to pay 4 years back taxes (not much money really) but it was in the woods and Uncle Jack said, "What would he do there with no tools, no tractor, etcetera?" 

It was too hard to write Gzregorz all the time and someone called Dziadzia "Harry" once so he called himself Harry after that. Uncle Tom had to apply for citizenship papers too because he was born in Canada but Uncle Jack was born in the US.


Dziadzia worked for the Great Northern Chair Company -- not a railroad. He stoked boilers and was a watchman at night. He separated bales of cotton for 2 years too. The cotton was on fire on the outside for some reason, so it had to be separated from the good inside part. This took 2 years to do.

Dziadzia also worked at St. Constance (church in Chicago). He was a janitor and he rang the bells. This was sometime 1948--1951.


He worked at Stewart Warner Company as a security guard (not sure if he meant this was before or after he worked at St. Constance). Uncle Jack got him the job. He got to carry a gun and all. Jack asked how he liked it and he said, "What?"  He said that all he did was set the clocks and check the place, walk around, then go sit down again. He didn't think it was much of a job.

Uncle Jack said he never knew Dziadzia or Buscia's parents' names. Kids were to be SEEN and not heard and they never mentioned their families. 

Buscia's sister's daughter (her neice) was in Deep Dale Saskatchewan, Canada. Uncle Jack didn't even know she had a sister. He didn't know the sister's name nor does he remember the girl's name.