52 Ancestors, Week 10: Translation

I'm several weeks late in keeping up with Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge. While the project is entering Week 16, I'm catching up on Week 10: Translation.

Or, more accurately, "Lost in Translation."

Fifty percent of me is Polish. And I don't speak or understand a word of it. 

Thankfully, my second cousin does. Jay Orbik is a genealogist who's done all the work on our Orbik and Pyterek lines, and has taken the Orbik line into the 1600s. He's fairly fluent, and travels to Poland a couple times a year where he works with a group of genealogists there, Jamiński Zespół Indeksacyjny (JZI), on indexing and publishing projects. It was through this group that he's published two family histories so far: The Orbik Families from Tajno, and One Hundred Percent Polish: A South Chicago Family History.

So thanks, Jay, for all the work you've done! 

The Pytereks were from Gulcz, in west central Poland. Several members of the family came to Chicago shortly after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. They lived in what was called the "Polish Downtown" anchored by St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, which was founded in 1867 by Rev. Vincent Barzynski. He performed the marriage of my great-great grandparents, Alexander Pyterek and Helena Murkowska, in that church in 1876. 

Chicago claims the largest population of Poles outside Poland itself. So the Polish neighborhoods of Chicago would have been fairly self-sustaining, with Polish-speaking residents patronizing Polish-owned stores and shops, attending one of a number of Polish churches, and whose children perhaps attended Polish parochial schools. They read Polish newspapers published in Chicago. In this setting, the Pytereks learned a new language. 

By 1900, Alexander, Helena, and their family relocated to South Chicago; the frame house they owned in the 8600 block of South Baltimore Avenue still stands. Alexander could read and write, and could speak English, according to the 1900 census. His brother Valentine (Walenty) appears on the voter rolls in Chicago in 1890, and is listed as having naturalized in 1878, so presumably he also could speak English. 

An upcoming exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, "Back Home: Polish Chicago" will open May 20. I hope to check it out and discover more about the Poles of Chicago, and my ancestors' contributions to it.