Poland Pilgrimage Day 14

Today was a tiring day by getting up early, having a good breakfast at the hotel and then by heading to Katowice from Opole.  Of course, the GPS had another melt down due to "detour" signs caused by big construction projects.  Believe it or not, we eventually made it to our goal and went to the Archdiocese archive.  It didn't really have records that we would be using at the library, but there were some of interest, but definitely not of primary importance in any way.  After finishing here, we took some pictures of the vicinity and then walked quite a distance uphill to the car.  Parking here was not easy to find.  We then headed for Warsaw and believe it or not, we made it, and dropped off my rental car at the airport.  We had to explain all about the accident and the worker there called the police number and verified everything.  He said that there should be no problem.  So that was out of our hair.  They keep changing my Warsaw to Frankfurt flight and so I have to keep a close watch on this so I get there, eventually!  Today there wasn't too much rain and after we got back, I walked to the store about 1/2 mile from Danuta's.  It was nice to walk a bit again.  And tomorrow is souvenir day--I hope.  For some reason my suitcase is bulging w/o anything in it much.  I don't understand this at all...
Anyways, I hope that I don't have to pay extra.  I am tired of stuffing everything to the brim.  I will be glad to go home, see the grandkids and even go back to work!  See all you Utahns fairly soon!

Poland Pilgrimage Day 13

Here is a funeral procession in Jemielnice.


My trip is rapidly coming to its end.  Today we went to the archives in Groslawice.  There we found a building with no marks to indicate what it was, including a building address number.  We rang the bell and it was the right place.  Aside from the woman that worked there, we were the first there at 8:00 am.  By the way the Mercure hotel has a very nice breakfast.  And all you can eat, fruit, meat, coffees, teas, herbal and other, many fruit juices, many rolls, bread varieties and omelettes, vegies, cheese, Kielbasa, scrambled and hard boiled eggs, bacon, cereals, fruit and other salad type things and just about anything.  Very nice.  Anywys, back to the archive, there I had the same forms to fill out and then the book request.  The young woman that worked there spoke German, so that was nice for me.  I had quite a list of land records that I requested.  Here the copies were double the price as the other state archives where we have been.,  This was a little strange to me and so I kind of held back on the copies that I requested.    Most of the books from which I requested copies did not yet have page numbers.  Apparently I was the first to use these books.  It was interesting on the land records as one file was for one person and his family and one that I got for the Pallus family was very thick and I wanted the whole thing! Unfortunately for me, this wasn't an option.  There were some court records as well that were interesting.  I had thought it would take forever to get through all the files, but it didn't, so we went to the archives in Opole.  There we checked some civil registration records that were interesting.  The archive in Groslawice did not have a catalog of their holdings so it was not possible to request other things.  After we were done in Opole, we walked to the Mercure hotel, put our things away, paid our bill and then went to the Pierogi place that a taxi driver had recommended to us. Danuta didn't want to drive to Groslawice because of all the detours so she paid the taxi for me.  The pierogi place was great and I also had a cabbage roll with rice and vegetables.  It had tomato sauce over it.  I also had a blueberry pierogi.  Very tasty.    I uploaded some pictures and tried to load a few more, but nothing happened.  Will keep trying.  It is only 6:00 and Danuta is sawing logs.  Poor girl.  It is a bit cold in the room and outside it didn't rain as much as days past, but still cold windy with scattered showers, some quite hefty.  Well tomorrow we go to the Archdiocese archives in Kattowitz and I am thinking that after that we will go straight to Warsaw.  I am watching German TV right now as I work on this.

Poland Pilgrimage Day 12

We are at a relative in Nogawczyce.  The lady 2nd from left is 82 and a Palus wife and the other two ladies are her daughters.  I was happy to meet them along with Dominika, who is a young woman that helped me find some common genealogy over the past 3 years.  She told me that in the beginning that Nogawczyce had only 2 families, Palus and Heide.  Pretty much everyone that lives in town today is from one of these families, unless they are move-ins.  Dominika's mom gave me a book and fed us dinner tonight.

They had old family photos which I took pictures of with my camera and believe it or not they looked better in the photo of the photo than in the original.  Everyone was so surprised.  Here is a Palus gathering at the Jaryszow church where they attended.  I was told that the family was ordered to change the spelling from Pallus to Palus or they would be in trouble with the Polish government. 

Here is Dominika in the center and her sister-in-law at the left.  The father of the family and the husband of the sister-in-law work in Germany and come home every 2 weeks or so for the weekend.  That is a tough life.  But the pay in Poland can not support the family.

!

Yes, here he is, ready to get me the 35th time.

Poland Pilgrimage Day 12

Well today is coming to a close.  We are at the Mercure Hotel in Opole/Oppeln and it was a bear to find.  As with Gliwice, Opole was having road work too in the inner city right around where we needed to be and therefore we had lots of trouble trying to get to the hotel.  Finally the taxi driver thing again.  So we made it from Katowice where we had been in the state archives again.  It was good at the archives and we finished up the requested books.  After we got to Opole it was late in the day and we walked to the shops and looked for souvenirs.  We were told those type of shops no longer exist because people now buy all the Chinese stuff instead.  So the souvenir thing is not so successful but we still have 4 days...oh dear, that doesn't sound too good at all.  And during the day we are in archives so that makes it rough, also...Wish me luck or my grandkids will be sad...

Poland Pilgrimage Day 9 or 10??

I am kinda of losing track of the days.  Have I been here 10 days and miscounted or only 9?  I will call it 10 I guess because of sheer exhaustion.

Poland Pilgrimage Day 11

Danuta and I are at the archives in Katowice again.  We are waiting for a book order.  My feet are freezing because I didn't bring any WARM clothes and it is really cold right now.  At least for me, having left hot Utah not too long ago.  We will have most of the work done after this new request comes.  The helpers have been good and pretty quick to get things going.  So I can't complain.  This morning was the last day in Koszecin and the church bells rang in the morning.  I will have to remember that sound as in America, at least Utah, we don't hear any. 
As I got up to leave the Ulfik's yesterday, they began to sing Polish songs.  It was really sweet.  I think that they are amazing people.  I feel really comfortable there with them.
Today the rain continues and I don't care for it.  It is getting old.  Till later, tonight when I can write about something again.

Mosquito Meat

Well, the studio apartment at the Prince's palace was very nice, except for ONE LITTLE THING!  There has been lots of rain and cold weather.  And for those who have been in Europe, they aren't big on window screens here....Well, as I went to bed I kept hearing a mosquito buzzing in my ear.  No sooner had I swatted him away, then he was back again.  This guy was hungry...then he brought some friends with him, or maybe it was family, don't really know.  I pulled the covers over my head, but soon got a little low on air.  So I pulled the covers as high as possible. The buzzing continued and the hungry thing got more and more on my nerves.  I put my head where my feet had been.  Nothing deterred the beast.  I finally gave up.  There was nothing that I could do...In the morning my arms were mosquito lunch.  (Or in this case, his midnight snack) but then I saw him on the wall and took my shoe and splat.  It was an ugly sight.  He may have won the battle, but I won the war, at least against him...

Poland Pilgrimage Day 10 part 1

Today was Sunday and Theresa's sister from Milan and her son are here, and Ewa and Arthur, Jan's oldest daughter and her husband and 2 sons came.  Dinner was around 1:00 and Marysia made Roladen, Kloese, and red cabbage, the cold kind and then some drinks.  I poured some "bubble" water in my drinks and they said they had never tried that and so they all did it and decided that they liked it that way.  It was kind of funny.  They stayed in the kitchen talking from 1:00 till about 7:00.  And I think we ate the entire time.  Oh the pounds!  But it was fun and funny to hear Polish, English, German and Italian spoken all at the same time.  Crazy!  It was a really fun afternoon.

Christina, Danuta, Marysia, Thomek, Jan and Artur.

Christina, Danuta, Ewa, Malgosia, Theresa, Babcia, Marysia

Nicolai, Marysia, Sonja, Danusia, Christina.Robert, Camil eating Roladen and talking, all day long!
It was really sad to say goodbye but now we are at the palace hotel and it is not a bad room and its quiet and inexpensive, about $20 a person per nite with breakfast.  Anyway, we leave here in the morning and that will be the last day at Koszecin.

Poland Pilgrimage Day 10

Jan and Mr. Wieczorek. Jan called him to have him bring me some information, which he did and he let me take photos of anything I wanted to have. Wieczorek is also a name on my family pedigree. He is also married to an Ulfik woman.

Here is lunch in Tworog.  We had chicken, potatoes, salad and cabbage.  It was quite good.

Here is the Argentian group that performed.  Danuta liked the guy in the middle.

So actually as I am writing it is Sunday in Poland. I am hearing the bells announcing mass at my grandmother’s church. It is sort of a neat feeling. It is about 7:15 in the morning. I wake up fairly early in Poland because the sun starts rising about 4:30 in the morning. Unlike Germany, I don’t see any rolling shutters in this part of Poland, so the light comes into the room that I am sleeping in. Unlike yesterday, at this time there is no rain. Yesterday it rained and rained, non-stop. I was a little sad about that because I wanted to roam the vicinity on the weekend. That had been on my agenda, so to speak. But in a while we did that anyway.


So yesterday after breakfast we were not able to go to any archives because they are closed for the weekend. We will go back to Katowice tomorrow in the state archives and finish that up as best as possible. That will probably be my next chance to post my blog and communicate with the outside world. Unless at the palace tonight I can get an internet connection. So Danuta and I got into the car, set the GPS and headed to my ancestral villages to see them again, get some pics and just feel the ambiance of being there. (at least for me, anyway) So we headed to Wisnicze and took some picture, to Toszek, to the city market square and to the church and the castle which sits just above the church. It was nice to see it all again. There always now seems to be those renaissance days at the old castles in Germany and Poland that depict the middle ages with knights and ladies in waiting and the whole thing. I have yet to see one, but maybe one day the opportunity will rise and I will. We drove to Himmelwitz/Jemielnika and tried to get to Dziewkowice, which is pronounced Jeffkowitze in Polish. And we couldn’t get there, every street leading to it was a dirt road full of mud because of the rain that was falling. Not that I wasn’t feeling very adventurous, but the last thing we needed was to be stuck in mud and not be able to get help. Here is the forests, there are many times that Danuta’s cell phones don’t get reception and also the GPS loses satellite transmission. Such is life. Anyway, we saw lots of the old ancestral towns and I had just wished that I didn’t have to stay so much in the car, but yesterday’s rain was cold and windy. I definitely didn’t bring clothing or shoes for what happened on Saturday.

We had told Jan that we would be home around 2:00, and after a nice lunch at somewhere around Tworog, at the Restaurant Lido, and a short shopping stop at a Netto, which Danusia says is like Aldi, but from Denmark, not Germany, we headed back to Koszecin. Jan seems to have LOTS of local connections to historical type people. He knew a man Edward Wieczorek (also a name on my Koszecin pedigree) who had made arrangements with a town near Graz in Austria. ( can’t remember the name, but have copies and photos about it) and he had a lot of historical information. It was really interesting to me because of the fact that there is a town in the district of Graz where we went in 1984 because it was called “Gralla”. It is very near to the now arranged for sister city of Koszecin. The reason they wanted this as their sister city is because the prince from Koszecin, Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen went there after the war to live and he died there. I was given lots of historical information about this and its all jotted in my notebooks. I found it so interesting because of the name Gralla, my mom’s maiden name and the town Gralla which is also in the Graz area. Anyway, Mr. Wiecorek, was a nice man and let me photograph his papers and also gave me some as well.

Then it was time to get ready for the “Folklorico” at the palace of Hohenlohe. There was a nice theatre there and Jan, Danusia, Weronika and NIcoli, who is the nephew of Jan who just arrived from Milan, Italy where his mother, the sister of Theresa, married an Italian and lives. Anyway, the production features, Belo-Russian, Argentine, Portuguese and Turkish folk dance troupes from these countries and they put on a really nice performance. Koszecin is trying to be “the” cultural center of Southern Poland and the well-known performers, in the group called “SLask” are based out of the Palace in Koszecin where they have tryouts from performers from all over Poland and dance summer camp training during the summer. They travel in a large bus all over showing the presentation. They are quite famous.

After the performance there was a stand of books and things that the palace sells. I saw one book, that I didn’t remember seeing or owning. I have to have everything ever written on Koszecin, you know! So I opened it up just to take a look and there was the picture that I know from another book, with my great grandfather, Franz Gralla and the other 35 forestor’s of Koszecin with the Prince. So of course, I bought the book and then Jan said, look the author is my neighbor. So after we returned to the house Jan calls him and he comes over to sign the book and talk. He is very nice and says he remembers that the son of a forestor on page 32 of the book, told him about the forestor Gralla. He also said my grandfather was not the only “Robin Hood” type around these parts and told us some stories and then said his brother Josef Tyrol, who lives 32 km away is writing a book, also about the Robin Hoods. I couldn’t believe it. And so he calls his brother and his book is almost ready for production and I should send him a picture of Franz in his uniform, which I will after I get home. I was given his email address. Danuta and I will try to get together with him later today because he also sits regularly at the church in Sadow where the Priest informed us the other day that he has no Communicanten books which I really wanted. However, this Josef says that this is not true, they are there. So we will see if we can get the information that I need through him., somehow.

So tonight is our last nite at the Ulfik’s, Jan’s sister, Marysia made Roladen/Rolada for lunch today and we will stay for that and then make our way to the palace studio apartment that we reserved. While taking care of that reservation, yesterday or whenever it was, the worker there took us through the palace. The rooms, like hotel rooms were absolutely beautiful with all the amenities. So one last night in my little Koszecin and then in the morning to Katowice archives, and after hopefully to Gliwice to try to pick up the book at the museum that we tried to get earlier but ran out of time because of our Post office experience. Then we drive to Opole. We will stay 3 nights there and after we are all done with everything, on Thursday afternoon we will leave for Warsaw. We will arrive there later in the evening.

This morning is quite cool and I have my little jacket on. Wish I had brought a warmer one. It took me a while to fall asleep last night because my feet were so cold. So I put on my one and only pair of socks I had brought with me.

I forgot to mention that the whole family gathered around the outside fireplace to talk and visit. Unfortunately, there were mosquitos. It reminded me of having s’mores in the backyard like we do around the outdoor firepit we have outside. But this time no roasting marshmallows, etc. That’s all for what happened on Saturday. Hopefully I will have time tonight to write about Sunday’s adventures.