Historical Note
The following email was sent in by Janet Morence and was included on this website on July 21st, 2001.
From: "Janet Morence" jmorence@highlandil.com
To: fl4tree@yahoo.com
Subject:Lucille & Sarah Kotowski
Date:Fri, 20 Jul 2001 8:02I've been working on various parts of my family for a little over ten years. My grandmother, Cecilia Wachowski Czerwinski was born in LaSalle, LaSalle County, IL. ( It's also LaSalle Township if you get into the censuses).
Since I have a grandson to take care of I can't do the traveling to research. I live in downstate Illinois over 3 hours from LaSalle. I can view microfilm of the LaSalle newspapers at my nearby public library thru inter-library loan. Not many available but enough that I have been able to makes some finds.
The newspapers didn't mention the Polish immigrants much at the beginning (1904) but gradually there are mentions of births, marriages and more of deaths.
Yesterday I was viewing the 1923 LaSalle Daily Tribune and Peru Evening Press (that's the whole name). The sister of Lucille and Sarah had moved back from Chicago to LaSalle for a few years. Her husband Charles Wolfranski and a partner had bought the LaSalle Hardware Store, several years before and as prominent citizens, little items appeared in their one column called Twin City Items in the LaSalle section. In 1923 Charles Wolfranski sold his interest and moved back to Chicago with wife and two sons. Before that there were items about the visits of various family members from Chicago. It was in that column that it was mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wolfranski returned from Chicago where they had attended the wedding of her sister, Sarah Kotowski and Anton Adent married on 25 April 1923.
So far this is the only reference to Anton Adent that I have. I imagine Anton was his name since Anthony is of a different ethnic origin. It was probably quickly Americanized to Tony and Anthony.
This same column mentioned the week long visit of the sisters and the existing spouses of that time in 1921. It seemed to be a going away party since the series of notes ended with the announcement that the twin sisters, Veronica and Marie were entering the convent in Des Plaines. I guess there wasn't any brothers.
I plan to slowly work thru the LaSalle paper and hopefully find the Obit for Josepha Wachowski Kotowski (the mother of all the sisters) eventually. I think she is the only one I don't have a d.o.d. of all her siblings.
I have queries on the LaSalle genweb page, but so far have had no response. I did receive a couple responses by writing to people in the area with family surnames.
The LaSalle Genealogical Guild is active and trying to get the various churches to share their records in return they would handle all their genealogical requests. St. Hyacinth hasn't agreed yet. This is where the baptisms of Sarah and Lucille might be if they where born in LaSalle.
From: "Janet Morence" jmorence@highlandil.com
To: fl4tree@yahoo.com
Subject:Lucille & Sarah Kotowski
Date:Fri, 20 Jul 2001 22:13:52 -0500I have just started a little more intensive search of this part of my family, so I do not have a great deal about them as yet.
Lucille and Sarah's parents were Franciszek Kotowski and Josepha Wachowski. They were married at St. Hyacinth Catholic church in LaSalle, LaSalle County, Illinois on 28 April 1885.
Josepha was born 22 September 1862 in Kraczki, Wirsitz, Westpeussen in the Glesno Parish. She was the daughter of Jacob Wachowski and Magdalena Durecka and granddaughter of Jan Wachowski and Anna Szartrowska & Paul Durecki and Dorothea Nowak.
Josepha immigrated to LaSalle, Illinois where her stepmother, brother, sister,half-sister and cousins also lived. I don't know when Josepha & Frank Kotowski left La Salle to live in Chicago. Do know they were there in the 1920s. Suspect all of their children were born in LaSalle.
Other children besides Lucille and Sarah were Mrs. Charles Wolfranski, Mrs. Stanley (Theresa) Kazmierczak, Clara, and twins Veronica and Marie, who joined a convent in Des Plaines, Il. in 1921.
At this point I don't know if there were other children. My cousin has a group picture which includes Josepha and her brother Xavier and two of his daughters. Trying to get copy made.
Xavier Wachowski was my great grandfather. When did the sisters move to Michigan? I grew up across the state in the Detroit area.
I have a long ways to go on this family.
Janet
This letter was forwarded to this web site on April 16th. 2002Hello Renee,
I wrote to both of you some time back about the parents of Sarah & Lucille Kotowski Adent. At the time I thought my great grandfather's sister Josephine Wachowski was their mother. I have since learned that Josephine was Frank Kotowski's first wife and died before January 1890. Frank Kotowski married a second time and she (Mary Szpajer) appears to be their mother. I am very sorry about the error. I should have waited for more documentation. Strangely enough I am also related to the second wife, Mary Szpager. As second cousins, twice removed the relationship is not as close as that with Josephine Wachowski. 1920 U.S. Census for Chicago, Cook Co,. IL. Roll 625-312 Image 465 SDN 1 EDN 607 sheet # 6A Ward 9 West 123rd street 528 106 116
Kotowski, Frank age 55 p.o.b. Poland,
Mary wife age 41 p.o.b. IL.
Clara age 22 p.o.b. IL.
Theresa age 20 p.o.b. IL.
Sarah age 17 p.o.b. Minn
Mary age 16 p.o.b. Minn
Veronica age 16 p.o.b. Minn
Larry age 14 p.o.b. Minn.
Lucy age 11 p.o.b. Minn.There is more to this census but the copy I viewed on the internet was too small to read. So you might want to look at this closer at a library. There was a Frank Kotowski in the parish of Wilno, Lincoln County, Minn. called St. John Cantius in 1900. Other parishioners had moved there from La Salle, IL. where your Frank Kotowski married. Need to follow up on this but it could be where Lucy and Sarah Kotowski Adent were born. These are St. Hyacinth parish records in La Salle, IL. Frank Kotowski, son of Michael Kotowski and Mary Bugalski married Josephine Wachowski, daughter of Jacob Wachowski and Magdalena Durecki on April 28, 1885 in St. Hyacinth's Franciscum Kotowski viduum (widower) ex loco La Salle filium Mathei Kotowski & Mariae Bugulak or Budilak Mariam Speir, ex loco La Salle, filliam Anthonii Speir and Victoria Walloch Presentibus testibus Josephine Szpajer & Anthonis Szczepinski January 14, 1890 at St. Hyacinth The surname Szpajer has an unbelievable number of mis spellings in the records of La Salle. Some of the others are Spajer, Spayer, Spejer. Speier. Szpajer is the way it is spelled in the records in Poland. Victoria Walloch Szpajer was a first cousin of my great grandmother. Victoria's father Jacob was a brother of my great, great grandmother Veronica Waloch Panek. I suspect the first wife of Frank Kotowski never had a child. I'm still searching. The Waloch/Walloch families had a great many twins. Jacob and Veronica had twin brothers. The twin sons of yet another brother, both lived in La Salle, IL. There are a great many Wallochs in the United States. Find a Walloch and they are probably related, especially if they have twins in the family. The name was Waloch in Poland but Walloch seems to be the preference in the U. S. with a few changing their names to Wallock or Walock. The Szpajers and the Walochs came from the same area in Poland as the Wachowskis but different parishes which were east of the Glesno and Sadki parishes that the Wachowskis came from. They can be found in the parishes of Miasteczko Krajenskie, Kosztowo, Krostkowo, Wysoka, Gromadno, Wirsitz all in the Posen Province in the Wyrsyzk district. Anyway this is why documentation is so terribly important when you are trying to trace families. The information about the children of Frank are still correct but their mother is Mary Szpajer not Josephine Wachowski.
Hope this can be straightened out with everyone.
Janet
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