Andrew Zalewski - Galician trails: the forgotten story of one family

Galician Trails

THE FORGOTTEN STORY
OF ONE FAMILY

ANDREW ZALEWSKI

THELZO PRESS

Galician Trails

THE FORGOTTEN STORY
OF ONE FAMILY

Copyright 2012 by Andrew Zalewski

THELZO PRESS

93 Old York Rd., Suite 1-421
Jenkintown, PA 19046

www.thelzopress.com

ISBN 13: 978-0-9855894-1-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012943890

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

Cover and Interior Design: Peri Gabriel, Knockout Design,
www.knockoutbooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

T HIS IS THE TALE OF three very different families connected to the life of my grandmother, Helena Regiec Sobolewska. She was a quiet woman who seldom spoke about herself. When there had been time to ask Grandma questions about her youth, I never did so; like many others, I was unaware that such opportunities would not last forever. Perhaps not that surprisingly, only much later did I begin to realize that I was missing many details about my grandmothers life. Slowly, the thought became clear to me that unless I tried to find out more about the past, her story might be lost forever.

For me, the real quest started inconspicuously onone of those slow Sunday afternoons. The fun of the weekend wasalmost over, but it was still too soon to get ready for the weekahead. For unclear reasons and not expecting to find much, I typedinto a search engine the name of the town where my grandmother had met her future husband. I remembered that it had an unusual name and had been located in a faraway country; other than that, there was nothing in particular about the place that I could really recall. When I pressed enter, a list of mostly irrelevant links appeared on the screenbut one caught my attention. It led to an old posting that contained a short list of names, including that of my grandfather. For any reader who was interested in learning more, an email address was provided.

I responded with a short note, and soon someone on the other end was asking for my mailing address. Apparently, a long list of my ancestors was available. Although warning bells rang in my head about a possible scam, I took the chance. A week later, a thick envelope arrived from a retired teacher in Canada, who had painstakingly catalogued several families from that place, located thousands of miles from both of us. Here were many of the names of my newly discovered family; the list stretched from the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. Toward the end of this amazing roster, I spotted a detailed entry referring to my grandparents wedding. I knew immediately that I was on to something unique and could not stop there.

What followed was an incredible journey through the Galicia of the Habsburg Empire, the land where my Austrian and Polish ancestors, both Christian and Jewish, had once lived. Against all the odds of passing time and intervening wars, an amazing window into the past had opened to me. Information that had been buried in archives and collections around the worldpersonal records, old newspapers, church and school records, early photographs, and morecame directly to my desktop when I learned where and how to look. Without any need for me to travel (to places that might no longer exist or be quite different than in bygone times), a picture started slowly to emerge. Soon, I had the thrilling sense that an imaginary curtain was being lifted. With each new discovery I made, my fuzzy image of the past was slowly becoming sharper. Multicultural Galicia, a place that well deserved the label melting pot, was unfolding in front of my eyes.

At first, my findings were impersonal in nature;but as the story developed, I realized that this quest was not justabout dates and places. It was an intimate journey back to the peoplewho had mattered to my grandmother, and the world surrounding them. My preconceived notions about the past were quickly challenged, as I realized the surprising mobility of some members of my familythose who had been brave enough to take full advantage of opportunities some distance away. Others had remained tied to their ancestral homes for generations. I often thought about the rich and fast-paced lives some of them had led, despite the many imperfections of life in Galicia.

This story starts with Mathias Lsch and his son, who moved to the town of white gold in western Galicia in 1809. At first, I marveled at the way this Austrian family had replanted itself in a new land and then made the best of it. Yet two generations later, their descendant Andreas Lsch and his wife, Eleonora, would live in a dizzying number of places throughout Galicia. Then their life stories would suddenly become intertwined with that of Joseph Regiec, who had a different tale to tell.

Borders of Austro-Hungary in the nineteenth century.

The saga of the Regiec family stretched from the humble life of a shepherd to the memorable one of the accomplished Joseph. It was he and Stephania Lsch who joined the two families through marriage. Modern people with a deep sense of purpose, they became part of the story of the railroads that were opening the world around them. In time, their daughter Helena Regiec, my grandmother, connected this narrative with a third family through her marriage to Franciscus Sobolewski. The Sobolewskis, nobles turned farmers, had a past very different from that of the Lsches or the Regiecs. My grandmother, an early professional woman, would carry the story forward even when the world around her suddenly moved in unpredictable directions.

When writing about a past with its share of tensions and controversies, it is important to add a few disclaimers. While reading through records of the time, it became apparent to me that some issues had provoked human reactions or official policies that starkly contrasted with the acceptable norms of today. Some readers may find my frequent references to religion, once a much more visible part of peoples self-identification, overly intrusive. Others may be surprised to learn about buried tensions that could quickly flare up between different groups, at times with grim consequences. This was, however, the reality of Galicia. There, the many religious, ethnic, and economic differences were indisputably unique, and a strength of the placebut also a cause of painful fractures along those lines.

Whether Im describing the past or repeating once-prevailing opinions, I must stress that the intent of this book is not to level disparaging judgments at one group or another. Instead, I have tried to carefully observe and record the world as people saw it then, despite what might be considered politically correct in twenty-first-century culture.

This is not a book written by a historian to provide scholarly interpretations. Whenever possible, however, I have thoroughly researched the events I discuss, and have backed up the narrative by references to my sources.