This effort began over 20 years ago, with a simple question from my mother. She wanted to know whatever happened to her sister. Mom and her sister were estranged for most of their lives. It’s not a story other families would not have known, but somewhat familiar to families, especially those who may have grown up during or before Word War II.
Mom’s sister, Florence, had a child and she was unmarried. Mom was a 15 year old student at Whitney High School. Her sister was considerably older. She was 26 when her son was born in 1941. Florence likely was ostracized. Their mother, Anastasia seemed to have a legal case going to obtain custody of her grandson. It seems chaos ensued over the next five years. Anastasia died in 1946. Mom married my dad, Edward, in 1947. Somewhere in between Anastasia’s death and mom and dad’s marriage, Mom had custody of her nephew.
Obviously, there is much more to this story and someday, I will write that story. One of the outcomes was my mother and her sister were estranged for the rest of their lives. Mom went on to raise her family, Florence went on to marry, build a life in Detroit, and have another son.
When Mom asked that question “can we find what happened to Florence?,” it was fairly easy to locate her Social Security death record. Mom was just a few years too late–Florence died in 1999.
Starting with that one question, I’ve learned much and researched much about my family. It ignited my interest in history and for me, this is beyond genealogy. It’s not something as simple as who begat who. I’m insatiably curious about how my family and their ancestors lived, where they came from, why they migrated, and the history that surrounded them that drove the decisions they made. An outcome of this was finding out I had a very large and extended family on my mom’s side and a family on my dad’s side that has been harder than heck to research.
If anything here resonates with you, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
— Donna Mierzejewski McManus