Did you ever run across an ancestor whose misbehavior just made you giggle? I recently have with Vincent Rochowiak. Vincent is a son of Laurence Rochowiak and Rozalia Skolomowska. He was born 21 July 1881 in Toledo.

Vincent got himself in hot water a few times. The first time was in May 1901 and the Ameryka w Kuyer Clevelandski (one of the iterations of Paryski’s newspaper, Ameryka Echo) published an article about his misadventure on 11 May 1901:

 A series of nasty scenes took place recently in the evening. Henryk Nadolny and Wincenty Rochowiak, both drunks, or pretending to be drunk, took a position on the corner of Nebraska and Junction Streets, where they were standing in an indecent and unpleasant way. Two detectives were sent from the station, who managed to arrest and incapacitate both peace disturbers for a moment. Immediately, however, there was quite a commotion. Police, struggling in front of the crowd of angry drunks, hid in the pharmacy, where they remained for as long as they could. At the beginning of the commotion, Rochowiak escaped with shackles in his hand. The two previous detectives had others come to their aid, sent to the scene of the scandal. The first to be arrested were: Nadolny, Michael Zielinski and Henry Jankowski. Later, every hour a patrol car brought a new transport, several in number. It was only around midnight that the police managed to restore some peace. In the morning of the morning the police took out warrants on many others, who had not been arrested so far, but who, however, took an active part in the disorder and caught them if they could. Adventures of the area described above were watched by over 2,000 people. We find out that Rochowiak has already been sentenced to the working house days and fined. The other participants in the brawl were temporarily released on a bail of $ 50 each.¹

Vincent would have been 19 at the time of this incident, so I guess we could brush this off as adolescent shenanigans?

Maybe. A little over a year later, another snippet was published on Vincent in The Ameryka. This time, Vincent attempted to enter the circus for free. The snippet was published on 14 July 1902:

Attempting to enter circus for free, W. Rochowiak fought a battle with the circus manager and was arrested and ordered to pay $25. Too expensive of a show!

I don’t know what kind of silliness Vincent was involved in but it does sounds like adolescent shenanigans to me. He must have eventually “straightened out.” He married Stella Dobrich in 1926 at the age of 44. They had no children, and although Stella was a widow at the time of her marriage to Vincent, she had no children as well.

Vincent died at the age of 74 in 1956 and was buried in Calvary Cemetery.

¹ Wincenty is the Polish version of Vincent.