Author: polishamericangirl

One of my favorite films is Gosford Park by the late director Robert Altman. The film is set in England in 1932, between the wars. In that film, actor Jeremy Northam plays the real-life Ivor Novello, and Novello’s 1922 song, The Land of Might-Have-Been, beautifully performed by Northam, perfectly captured the nostalgia and longing that I often feel but cannot always place (“love grows never old nor tired”). That song may refer to the collective loss of so many during World War I, but it feels timeless.

It may be obvious that one of my favorite time periods is the 1920s and 1930s. So it’s not surprising that one of my favorite novels is Atonement by Ian McEwan — the first part of the book, which is also set in England, takes place in 1935. [Spoiler alert] I loved the ending of the book, when the protagonist, Briony, returns to her childhood home, which is now a hotel, for a family reunion. I loved that ending because of my own desire to connect with my past, my family’s past (including my grandmother’s youth in the 20s and 30s), and my hometown. It was emotionally satisfying to read.

The longing for home, my longing for the past (not just the personal or familial but the larger historical past) and a certain idealized way of life, are common themes in my life, and my memoir may focus more on the idea of home — what home means to me and what it meant to my late mother and grandmother. My grandmother’s home was one of the most significant places of my childhood, and I’ve already started delving into its history.

I have several photos of my grandmother from the 1920s and/or early 1930s, the oldest circa 1927:

In 2013, I had a Halloween costume party at my place with a few friends. It’s fun to compare my costumed appearance to my grandmother’s real-life appearance in the 1930s:

Ah, nostalgia!

In October 2018, Manavendra and I were married in Reading, Pennsylvania. Our ceremony was held at the Reading Public Museum, and the reception followed at Stirling Guest Hotel. The museum was a meaningful location for me, as my parents had their wedding photos taken in the gardens outside the museum in April 1967. Unfortunately, it rained on my wedding day, so we could not recreate their romantic stroll in Trudy’s Garden 50+ years later, and of course I was saddened that my late mother could not be present on her elder daughter’s wedding day. Nevertheless, it was a joyful and memorable occasion. Having the wedding in my hometown was the right decision!

My parents in 1967, strolling through the gardens of the Museum:

My wedding party in 2018, posing inside the Museum:

© 2018 Megan Keller Photography

I remember my maternal grandmother telling me about growing up in a Polish neighborhood in her hometown of Reading, PA. I recall hearing about a Polish festival and participants (including my mother?) dancing the polka. What was it like to be part of such a community?

I read a bit about the Polish immigrant population in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, so I knew about their existence in Pennsylvania (aside from my own family of course). However, I wanted to learn all I could about Reading’s Polish-American community, but until now, I hadn’t found any information …

A reference in an annotated bibliography (The Peoples of Pennsylvania) finally provided some historical evidence of a Polish-American community in Reading in the early 20th century, although I do not know its size. A newspaper was published for that community, starting in 1909, named Gazeta Readingska:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88080884/

Both the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the State Library of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg have this newspaper, so research trips to access their collections are planned for sometime in 2019 (and who knows what else I’d find?). The newspaper may be in Polish, but I still want to see it!

In 2017, I hit a brick wall when trying to trace the Polish ancestry of my maternal great-grandmother (Agata Kolanko). I have her parents’ names and birthplace, but not much else. However, thanks to FamilySearch, I found passenger tickets for ships bound for America for a Kolansko and a Kolano in the early 20th century. Both were from Austrian Poland, as was my great-grandmother, and since the names are similar, they may have been related.

The ticket from 1903 belonging to Josef Kolansko:

The ticket from 1912 belonging to Stanislaw Kolano (Kalano?):

A great find! Both arrived in the port of Philadelphia, as my great-grandmother had in 1899. (I enjoy the Philly connection, as I lived there after college and through grad school, and I still feel some emotional ties to that city.)

I also found records for other Kolano relations, including Aniela Kolano and Amiela Kolano — since their birth years are very close (only one year apart), I thought maybe it was the same person, but the immigration records are quite different. However, both (?) emigrated in 1913 from Galicia and came through Ellis Island.

More records were unearthed for immigrants named Kolanko, who resided in Równe or Krosno (in present day Poland), as did the Polish ancestors on my family tree. Are they also my ancestors? More research is needed in order to reveal the truth and (hopefully) expand the Kolanko family tree.

After my wedding this past October, I finally resumed my genealogy research, albeit not with the same energy at first. I’ve hit some brick walls with the Polish genealogy research, but my aunt mentioned something interesting, that my Polish family surname Menet was actually French in origin. She wanted to know why her Polish ancestors possessed a French surname (and as I learned a bit about the importance of focusing with a research question, this is my first one). I decided to just throw the surname into a Google search and see what came up. I can’t even recall the trail that I followed on the Web, but it led me to a small village in France called Menet, and I wonder if my Polish ancestors came from that village, which dates to at least the 12th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menet

Owing to my Polish brick wall (in that I could only trace the Menet line back to the late 18th century in Poland), I have no idea of their French connection. My aunt also had a DNA test, which indicated that she has *possible* French ancestry. (More preliminary research revealed that Menet is a Huguenot surname, but I know nothing about that history.)

When I hit that brick wall, I had turned to my father’s side of the family, which I was told was mostly English and Welsh (with some French Canadian added into the mix). My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Disney, and I also discovered the French origins of that name! (So I may have French ancestry on both sides.) His family tree has been easier to trace, and I discovered what I consider a fascinating history: Continue reading “French ancestry?!”

In my 20s, or even earlier, I disowned parts of my life. My Polish and German ancestry, my Catholicism, and even the town where I grew up. I was ashamed, or I was disillusioned, or I wanted something better, better than my lower middle-class upbringing, better than the hand-me-downs from cousins, a city that wasn’t in decay but one that was a vibrant center of culture and opportunity … something else, something more.

And eventually, after college and the disappointment of having chosen the wrong profession, I moved away from that city. My mother had died before I even thought of college, and in some ways, I wanted to be far from all of it, all the family messiness and unexpressed grief and all the things I chose by default. Not knowing what I wanted or who I was.

Years passed and as I worked, pursued graduate studies, and embarked on relationships, I started discovering “myself” and my interests and goals, hopes and dreams. I found my own eclectic spiritual path, and that was okay. I made friends in Philly and then in more rural PA and more recently in DC, and I felt like I belonged. At times, I wanted nothing to do with where I came from; at other times I missed what I had identified with or had been attached to during my younger years.

Now I feel a shifting … back to beginnings … wanting to reconnect with family and know more about where we came from. Feeling proud of my immigrant ancestors for realizing their ambition of a better life in America, in spite of hardships during their long journeys, negative stereotyping in the U.S., or poor working conditions in factories in Pennsylvania. No longer embarrassed to say that I’m part Polish, which was a grade school concern, and no longer hesitant to say I have German blood too, since Germany had a rich culture that was there long before the word Nazi was ever uttered (although I am still learning about German intellectual and cultural history).

And as far as my hometown, Reading, PA, my interest has been rekindled. The place where I was born, where my parents wed, where my maternal grandmother lived her entire life, still has meaning to me, even though I was happy to move away in the 1990s. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to get married in my hometown, even though I hadn’t even initially considered it (and of course, due to my love of history, I had to choose a restored Victorian hotel, and my fiancé happily indulged me).

But there’s more there than my own family history, and that’s what fascinates me and provides the backdrop for this family history project: Reading’s impressive industrial past and its gritty present (with its current mix of decay and development), esp. the stories of the industrialists and the immigrants who were part of that past and built the city where I grew up. Reading may continue to revitalize, or it may not, but the past will always remind us of what the city of Reading was once capable of building and becoming.