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| Notes |
| Wojciech, or George, was the youngest of six children. Two of his sisters also immigrated to the U.S., while the others remained in Poland or immigrated and returned. Wojciech immigrated to New York at age 19 and arrived on Feb. 13, 1912, aboard the Zeeland (port of origin: Antwerp, Belgium). See the passenger ship records from the National Archives.
The Zeeland
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After they were married in 1913, George and Catherine Lasica lived with George and Sophie (Lasica) Jadenski for a few years at 39 Fourth St. in Passaic, NJ. Later they bought the wonderful house at 8 Herman St. in East Paterson (Elmwood Park), NJ. George became a naturalized citizen at age 42 in Hackensack, NJ, on Sept. 19, 1935. He worked most of his life as a baker. His children, when they became adults, called him "Pop," though we called him Dziadziu (Ja-ju), for Grandfather. The family name is pronounced Wa-SHEE-tsa in the old country, since there's no letter L in Polish.
The family village of Spie, located at longitude 5023, latitude 2155 N (see map), is 135 miles south-southeast of Warsaw; the closest cities are Kolbuszowa and Rzeszow. Spie, remarkably, is less than 10 miles from Kamien, the hometown of Catherine Delenta. The two emigrated to the U.S. three years apart, met here, and married in 1913, 15 months after Wojciech's arrival.
I have only fleeting memories of my grandfather (who died when I was 5); I do remember a Mr. Potato Head game he gave me and my brother. My father says George was a harsh man and a strict disciplinarian. But he was also the family patriarch and had the courage to leave for an unknown land at age 19. |
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| Notes |
| She entered the US through Ellis Island on Feb. 12, 1909, at age 18. Name was also spelled Dalenta and Dalanta. She grew up in the town of Kamien in the district of Nisko in the province of Rzeszow in southeastern Poland (then called Galicia, part of the Austrian empire). She married at age 22 and lived in Passaic and then East Paterson, NJ. We called her "Babci," Polish for Grandmother. |
| Marriage |
May 12, 1913, St. Joseph's Church, Passaic, NJ |
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