Portraits

In early May of 1902, Jakob Laczka (Lowchka), 41, a farmer, left his family of six in the tiny farming village of Strójcow (Stroychov) in the Galicia province of Austria to travel over 4,000 miles find work in America, a place he’d never been and who’s language he did not speak. He was 5′ 5″ tall, fair skinned, blond haired and blue eyed and had $11 on him.

He was on his way to meet his brother-in-law, Jan Wdowiak, who left for America six years before. Jan was now was working in a mill in the upstate New York village of New York Mills near Utica and had a job for Jakob.

Left at home was Jakob’s wife, Marianna, and their five children, two boys and three girls, all aged 10 and younger. She was six months pregnant with their sixth child, Julia, when Jakob left. Marianna Wdowiak, born in the neighboring village of Tonia, was the daughter of Jósef Wdowiak and Anna Chrzan.

---

The Laczka Family

1. Jakob Laczka (born 1862, Strójcow) = Marianna Wdowiak (born 1861, Tonia)
   1. John (1892-1968) – arrived Ellis Island 1909 age 17
      1. Thaddeus Laczka (1919-1994)
         1. Thaddeus Laczka (1947-)
   2. Aniela (1893-1983) – arrived 1908 age 14
   3. Stanislaw (1895-1978) – arrived 1912 age 17
   4. Honorata (1897-1939) – all three girls arrived together in 1921 – age 24
   5. Maria (1900 -1986) age 21
   6. Julia (1902-?) age 19

---

Some Background

Laczka

Farming roots are embedded in the the name “Laczka” which translates to “meadow” in Polish.

Strójcow

Though Strójcow (Stroychov) had been part of Austria for over 125 years, people still spoke Polish, followed Polish customs and celebrated Polish holidays. As far as they were concerned this was a still a southern province of Poland.

Poland has few natural barriers so invasion from all sides was common right up until collapse of communism in 1989. In the late 1700s the Prussians (today’s Germans) and Russians stormed into Poland from both sides and, in a land grab, split it, obliterating the nation in what was called The Partitions.

There was fierce resistance in the south around Kraców, where the Laczkas are from, but they were overwhelmed. The Russians and Prussians gave the poorest portion of their conquest to the Austrian Empire as a sort of consolation prize. The Austrians named it Galicia. So 100 years later Polish speaking Jakob listed his place of origin as Galicia, Austria.

The village name “Strójcow” translates to “clothes” or “costume” place which was a puzzler until I found this interesting site.  In Poland each region or village has a traditional costume that is unique to their region. The clothes serve to provide identity, a connection to their heritage and pride similar to the way a uniform might. People would wear these clothes on holidays and special occasions to represent their people and their place.

The costumes of Kraków, 50 miles to the west, came to represent Poland as a whole as a testament to the ferocity of their resistance against invaders. The custom is still alive today. The people pictured below are from a region  close to Strójcow so they may represent what those costumes of Strócow looked like.

Why Did They Leave?

Like any other farming village in the world, Strójcow was settled because it provided the fresh water, arable land and the meadows necessary to feed the livestock. The Vistula River, which borders the village on the north, provided transportation to the big markets in Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk to sell produce and buy goods that they couldn’t make themselves.  In other words it provided a living.

So what changed?   What drove people who never travelled more than 20 miles from their village to leave for America, a very alien and frightening place 4,000 miles away?

In a word, poverty.

In fact, it was a deeper and more deadly poverty than the Irish famine of 50 years earlier. About 50,000 Polish people a year died from malnutrition and the diseases that stemmed from starvation. Eventually three million people left Galicia, about one-quarter of the the population. About 60% of them left for the US.

What Caused the Poverty?

What probably hurt the people of Strójcow more than anything else was the artificial line drawn right down the middle of the Vistuala River when Galicia was carved out by Russia and Prussia and given to the Austrians. Both sides of the river shared just about everything including the Polish language yet the Poles in Strójcow were suddenly looking at a hostile foreign country, Russia, just across the Vistula river from their farms.  Russia was especially brutal sending tens of thousands of soldiers to put down peasant revolts. They were cut off from their markets and their people.

Another cause was the incompetence and indifference of the monarchs and aristocrats of Austrian-Hungarian empire. They confiscated their subject’s land to give to hereditary nobles. They took money and produce from subsistence farmers taxing them into poverty and starvation.

The Catholic church’s corruption and its encouragement of large families further reduced the land and income people could live from. Though Polish life revolved around the Catholic church in America people, once safe, heaped lot of anger at the corrupt Church in Poland.

Lastly the people themselves used farming techniques that hadn’t changed since the middle ages reducing the volume and desirability of their crops.

James Madison, in an essay in how to best govern the newly united states, pointed specifically to Poland as an example of why the United States was so justified in fighting a war to reject a monarchy.

Jakob’s Journey

The first leg of Jakob’s journey began in May of 1902 and was an overland trek, almost certainly by railroad, of over 600 miles from Strójcow to the port city of Bremen, Germany.

On Saturday May 10 1902 he boarded the SS Cassel out of Bremen, Germany bound for New York City.

Ellis Island

Twelve days later, on Thursday May 22, 1902, the SS Cassel, with about 1800 on board, entered New York Harbor and landed at Ellis Island.  Below is page 10 from the ship’s manifest for that day. The handwriting can be difficult to read but Jacob is listed on line 10.

Four more similarly sized ships docked in that one day to give you an idea of the volume of people immigrating in 1902

By afternoon all those who had no money or deemed to have poor health were detained along with women without a male escort.  The rest were assembled for a mental test.

Lunch.

Jakob had $11 with him (about $300 today) which he would need for streetcar fare to Grand Central Depot, train fare for the 250 mile ride to his destination, New York Mills near Utica on the the New York Central and possibly an overnight stay.

Once the immigrants had passed all tests they were assembled here for the ferry to the  Battery in Manhattan

And finally the ferry to America.

Jakob’s First Look at America – The Ride to Grand Central Depot

The spectacular amount of immigration at the turn of the 20th century caused Manhattan to quickly become more densely populated than Calcutta in some neighborhoods. So, in 1902, a fury of bridge and subway construction was underway to alleviate the overcrowding and spread the population across the East River to Brooklyn and Queens.

Jakob’s trolley from South Ferry in Manhattan would have passed here on the way to Grand Central Depot. This is New York’s first subway under construction. It opened two years later and still runs as today’s Lexington Avenue line. Imagine this through the eyes of a Polish farmer from a tight-knit village of maybe 200 people.

Below is Grand Central Depot the predecessor of today’s Grand Central. He would have arrived on a similar electric street car.

And he boarded here.

New York Mills 1902

Anywhere where there was fast moving water in the Northeast a mill appeared. Before electricity water turned the wheels that crushed grain, sawed lumber or spun cotton.

If you were looking for tedious work in harsh dangerous conditions for twelve hours a day, six days a week with Christmas off then mill work was for you.  Mill owners liked Eastern European farmers because they were used to the tedious work, long hours and harsh conditions. They also liked them because they worked hard for low wages. For the immigrant’s part, it was work someone could get without knowing English and you were back among your own people.

Polish immigrants began arriving in Utica and New York Mills the late 1870s and by 1902 entire sections of town spoke only Polish, the church held a Polish language mass, they could read Polish newspapers and shop in Polish food markets.

Many of their descendants are still there along with 14,000 pierogis.

Mill Fire

On February 29, 1904 a fire burned Mill #3 to the ground.  The mill produced corduroy and officials believed that it began in the singeing process where loose fibers are burned off the woven corduroy with an open flame. More than 500 workers lost their jobs. Jakob was likely one of them because in 1904 he appears 200 miles to the west in Buffalo

Buffalo 1904

Whether he was driven out by the fire or left on his own 1904 finds Jakob 200 miles to the west in Buffalo among 20,000 other Poles in another thriving Polish neighborhood east of downtown. He lists Buffalo and his residence on another document so I’m pretty sure this is him

More than a century later 76 Clark Street no longer exists and the neighborhood is pretty desolate and apparently still burning.  If you explore the street names you’ll find references to famous Poles and their places.  Also St. Stanislaus Catholic Church off to the left still remains.

By 1907 Jakob has returned to Poland.   But he’ll be back.

1907 – Daughter Nessie Laczka Comes to America

In September of 1907 14 year-old Aniela or “Nessie” Laczka arrived at Ellis Island aboard the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria.  Nessie was Jakob’s second oldest child and second Laczka to come to America.

This is what you got for your $25 ticket to America. These are not of Nessie’s ship.

Because no female of any age could leave Ellis Island without an male escort Nessie sailed with Wojciech “Albert” Socha, 37, from Palów (Pavlev), the neighboring village to the south. She and he were both headed to Three Rivers, Massachusetts, a mill town just east of Springfield.  Albert was not new to America or Three Rivers.

This was Albert’s second trip to America.  He and Jan Wdowiak originally arrived thirteen years earlier back in 1894.  Jan, Jakob’s brother-in-law, was the one who got Jakob his first job five years earlier in New York Mills.

Why wouldn’t his oldest son, John, be first child to America?  Probably because most eastern European boys finished their education at 17 but girls were not deemed needing an education beyond basic reading and writing.  So 14 year old Nessie lied about her age to skirt around US child labor laws and came first.  More on Nessie in another post.

The Immigrant Pattern

This back and forth movement between the new and old worlds was common.   The head of the family would leave for America and establish a job and a place to live. Sometimes they would escort women and children of someone else’s family who’d already established a beachhead in the new world.

They’d work 12 hour days six days a week and live in sex separated boarding houses set up by the mills.  The mills encouraged them to write home and bring more cheap labor. This arrangement would often last years until they had saved enough to bring the family.

They’d then sail home, sell possessions and arrange passage for the next family members. This also often took years. They’d then sail back to America alone, get another mill job and place to live and finally send for the family. In Jakob’s case his youngest three daughters did not arrive until 1921, more than a decade later.

1909 Jakob’s Second Coming

In 1909, with daughter Nessie working in Springfield, Jakob, now 48, returned to Ellis Island.  On Tuesday July 20 1909 he arrived on the Kaiser Wilhelm II along with Magdalena Socha and four of her children, the youngest less than a year old. Magdalena’s husband had escorted Nessie Laczka two years before.  Madelena and two of her children had already lived in America for several years but this their last look at Poland.

The furious pace of technological advances by 1909 allowed him to cross the Atlantic in seven days, almost half the time of his original trek.

Below is a photo by famed photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, of the steerage desk of the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II. .

In addition to his photographs Alfred had a lot to say about what it was like to sail steerage on this ship.  None of it good.   “Packed like cattle.”  “The stenches are unbearable.”  “Young women who are quartered among the married passengers have neither the privacy to which they are entitled nor are they much more protected than if they were living promiscuously.”  You can read the full story here.

The ship’s manifest.  The Socha family and Jakob begin on line 4.

This is where the trail ends so far.  No trace of Jakob after 1909. There is no record of his wife Marianne ever arriving.  But by 1921 all of his children were in America.