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The history of Martin Jancik and Maria Shroba - Page 2.
The next piece of hard data we have about Martin in the US comes from the record of his marriage at the Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The marriage license is recorded on April 23, 1900. His name is spelled Martin Yansic in the county record book. It shows his birth date as April 8, 1878, and his place of birth as Austria. He recorded his residence as the town of Lopez, Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, a small rural town about 40 miles northwest of Wilkes-Barre, and his occupation as 'woodsman'.
In that same record of marriage, Maria Shroba’s name is spelled Schroba. She listed her birth date as January (no day), 1882 (her correct birth date is February 6, 1884), and her birthplace as Austria. In addition, she recorded her residence as Luzerne, a small suburb of Wilkes-Barre on the west bank of the Susquehanna River, and her occupation as 'servant'. We do not know the church of their marriage. We believe that soon after Martin and Maria married, they rented a house on Broderick Street in Swoyersville, PA, (see map) a small town adjacent to and just north of Luzerne. In fact, that street is parallel to, and just one block from Miller Street in Luzerne where Maria’s family lived. We also believe that at the time of his marriage, or very shortly afterwards, Martin changed his profession and became a coal miner in Luzerne county. There is a good chance that he also worked in the Forty-Fort coal mine, along with his Shroba brothers-in-law, as that mine is less than 1/4 mile from his residence.
Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, Edwardsville, PA. Photo taken 2000.
In 1901, the Janciks had their first child, a daughter who was named Anna Julianna. She was baptized at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in Edwardsville, PA on April 1, 1901 according to church records. Martin shows his occupation as “coal miner” in the record. Sts. C&M was founded that same year to serve Slovak families on the west bank of the Susquehanna River and is located only about a mile from where the family was living in Swoyersville. Anna Julianna died as a child, but we have no record of when she died, nor does the county or the Church. We were told that children who died under the age of 10 were commonly not recorded in the county records at that time. Church records from Sts. C&M have been lost or destroyed from 1904 onwards, and there are no existing records of deaths until 1918. We believe that Anna Julianna is buried in the Sts. C&M cemetery, which is located in Pringle, another small town between Luzerne and Edwardsville, but after searching there we could not find her gravesite.
Martin and Maria Jancik with Anna Julianna in 1901.
Martin and Maria Jancik had 10 children. In order from the oldest with their birth years they are, Anna Julianna (1901), Elizabeth (1902), John (1904), Susan (1906), Margaret (1909), Martin (1911), Rudolph (1914), Pauline Anna (1915), Raymond (1917), and Dorothy (1921). As recorded in the 1910 census, the Jancik family consisted of Martin, Maria, Elizabeth, John, Susan, and Margaret only, so we know that Anna Julianna was not living by that date. They were still living on Broderick Street in Swoyersville, PA. Martin shows his occupation as “coal miner” in the 1910 census.
Martin and Maria Jancik with their children in 1910. From the left they are: Elizabeth, Susan (seated) Margaret (lap child), and John.
The Jancik family leaves Pennsylvania for West Virginia, and then Illinois.
Sometime in 1915, Martin moved his family from Pennsylvania to take employment in the lumber industry near Davis, West Virginia. There was a large timber industry operating there at that time. Martin was probably tired of working in the mines and took an opportunity to get back into a line of work he had done in the past. It is likely that Slovak people moved between the two communities of the greater Wilkes-Barre area and the Davis area, and that information shared between acquaintances caused him to make the decision to move there. Part of Maria’s family including her brothers, Joseph and Andrew, and their families had already moved to Illinois by 1910, according to the census. We have evidence that her mother Zuzanna was in Joliet by 1912, but probably earlier, living with her son Joseph. So by 1915 only her brothers John Jr. and Stephen and their families were still living in Luzerne. Possibly it wasn’t very difficult for them to leave Swoyersville.
We have information that Martin’s brother, John, also worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania and later in the lumber industry in West Virginia. We think it is likely that he joined his brother Martin in Luzerne County in the mines when he first arrived in 1911, and that he followed Martin to West Virginia in 1915 to work in the lumber industry in Davis. While Martin worked in the lumber camp, Maria took a job as camp cook. The lumber company made quarters for the family in the back of the railroad boxcar which also served as a kitchen and dining hall for the camp workers. Their 8th child, Pauline, was born there in the boxcar on Christmas Day, 1915.
Maria Jancik in 1913.
In 1916 or 1917, Martin moved his family from West Virginia to Joliet, Illinois to the Forest Park area, on the northeast side of town near Maria’s family. He soon took a job with the EJ&E Railroad Company in Joliet. In the 1920 census he says his job is “car repairman, railroad”. Maria took part time work as a cook for large family gatherings, weddings, etc., and was in much demand, according to my mother. In 1920 they bought a house on Demmond Avenue directly across the street from the Forest Park School, within a few city blocks of the Shroba family homes on California Avenue (see the Shroba family history at this website). They joined the St Cyril and Methodius Slovak Catholic Church on Landau-Henderson Avenues. Martin’s sister, Susan Jancik Shroba, and her family arrived in Joliet directly from Pennsylvania in 1916 or 1917 as well. They left Pennsylvania after John Shroba Jr. was killed in the Raub Coal Mine in late 1915. We are unsure of when his brother John Jancik arrived in Joliet, but we believe it is likely that he accompanied Martin to Joliet or arrived very shortly thereafter. John was unmarried at the time of his arrival in Joliet, but in 1920, he married Helen Gregorec in Joliet.
Maria Jancik dies in 1922 and Martin leaves his family.
Martin and Maria’s last two children were born in Joliet, Raymond (1917) and Dorothy (1921). Raymond died in 1918; he was the second child the couple lost. In 1922, Maria died from complications of appendicitis; she was just 38 years old. Martin continued to head his family for about two years after Maria died. But in May, 1924, Martin transferred the title to the house on Demmond Avenue from himself to 7 of his children notably excluding his son, John. He then left Joliet and his children and went back east to either Pennsylvania or to Davis, West Virginia. We believe that he remarried in December, 1924 in Pennsylvania, which is verbal communication from my mother. The Jancik children in Joliet were left to fend for themselves. By that time the two oldest children, Elizabeth and John, were married and no longer living at home. Susan, the oldest still living at home, and now just 18 years old, took it upon herself to raise the younger children with the help of her new husband, Anton Anzelc. They continued to live in the family home on Demmond Avenue. But, times were tough and Anton was struggling to stay employed and support the family.
Martin Jancik in December 1924.
This arrangement lasted for a little more than a year. In 1925, Elizabeth Jancik Klimek, acting as guardian for the interests of her brothers and sisters, sold the family house to John Yanchick, Martin’s brother, for $4,000. Susan and the family took up rental quarters. For a short time, possibly just the summer of 1925, young Martin, Rudolph, and Pauline were sent to live with their father and stepmother back in Davis, West Virginia, who were working as lumberjack and camp cook. During this time we assume that Susan continued to care for Dorothy. All this indicates that Martin must have maintained some kind of communication with his children and his relatives in Joliet, as family members knew where to send the children. While in Davis at age 9, my mother remembers living in a boxcar in the lumber camp, and playing in the dirt and in the river with her brothers. From her description of the experience, we believe that the children were there in the summer of 1925. However, she says the arrangement lasted only a short time, a few months at most. Then, her stepmother, upset with suddenly having three children to raise, abruptly left Davis and her husband, and returned to Pennsylvania. Martin immediately followed her, leaving the three children in the lumber camp in Davis. Arrangements were then somehow made to send them back to their sister Susan and family in Joliet.
Sometime after the three children returned to Joliet, the extended Anzelc-Jancik family was no longer financially able to stay together. By 1928 Susan and Anton Anzelc, who now had two children of their own, asked for help from their relatives. The Shroba family decided to step in. By this date, young Martin was not living at home. He had developed tuberculosis and was being treated at a local sanitarium where he died in 1930. Only Rudolph (14), Pauline (12), and Dorothy (6) were still dependent and living with their sister Susan, since Margaret was by this date already employed. Rudolph was sent to work on a local farm for his room and board, Pauline was sent to live with her uncle and aunt, Andrew and Susan Shroba, and Dorothy was sent to live with her uncle and aunt, Stephen and Susan Shroba. My mother was 12 years old when she went to live with her uncle and aunt, at their farmhouse at 1599 California Avenue, Joliet, where she lived for the next 5 years. She left their house and moved to Chicago to take a job with the Globe Life Insurance Company when she was 17 years old. In 1937 at age 21 she married Matthew A. Mikulicic and returned to Joliet.
My grandfather, Martin Jancik, never returned to Joliet. My mother recalls that she and her sister Margaret went to Wilkes-Barre by train in 1938 to look for him, but did not find him. Relatives in the Wilkes-Barre area (we are unsure who these people were) reported seeing him from time to time into the 1930’s, but could not clearly remember the last time they saw him, and did not know where he was living. This is the end of the story of my grandfather.
Burial sites of the Jancik clan.
Maria Shroba Jancik (1884-1922) is buried in the Sts. C&M Slovak Cemetery in Joliet on a large 10 grave lot. There is a large stone monument marking the lot with the inscription on one-half only. Others buried on that lot are her children: Martin Jancik (1911-1930), John Jancik (1904-1956), Rudolph Jancik (1914-1983), Dorothy Jancik Novak (1921-1989), and also Dorothy’s husband, Leonard Novak. There is no individual stone to mark the site of young Martin’s grave, and my mother says that Rudolph was later buried on the same grave site. Raymond Jancik (1917-1918), is buried on a single grave site in an area reserved for infants near the center of the cemetery. He is buried among many of his first cousins who also died as infants, the children of Stephen and Susan Shroba, not far from the Jancik family lot.
The Jancik lot in Sts. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Cemetery, Joliet, Illinois. Photo taken 1999.
We have information that Martin Jancik (1878-?) died in Pennsylvania, but do not know when or where he died, or where he is buried. We have searched the State of PA death records and cannot find him. Otherwise, we have no information about him after 1925.
The burial sites of the other Jancik children are as follows. We believe that Anna Julianna (1901-1904?) is buried in the Sts. C&M Slovak Cemetery in Pringle, PA, but after looking we could not find her grave site. Elizabeth Jancik Klimek (1902-1976) is buried with her husband Frank Klimek in Resurrection Cemetery, Romeoville, Illinois (near Joliet). Susan Jancik Anzelc (1906-1978) and her husband Anton Anzelc relocated to Maine in middle life, died there, and are buried at Smith Cemetery, North Windham, ME. Margaret Jancik Porter (1909-1987) is buried in the city cemetery in Brady, Texas, with her husband Kenneth Porter, where they moved after retirement. Pauline Jancik Mikulich (1915-2005) is buried next to her husband in St Mary’s Nativity Cemetery, Crest Hill, IL.
Martin’s brother John Jancik (1892-1955) bought the lot adjacent to his brother’s in Sts. C&M Slovak Cemetery. He is buried there with both of his wives, Helen Gregorec and Mary Schwerha. Martin’s sister, Susan Jancik Shroba (1889-1946), is buried with her husband, Stephen Shroba, also in Sts. C&M Slovak Cemetery in Joliet.
Uncertainty in some dates.
The reader is cautioned that there are some discrepancies in dates and spelling throughout the recorded data of many individuals. Please note some examples below.
Maria Shroba Jancik. Her marriage license lists her birth date as January (no day), 1882. Her death certificate lists her birth date as February 3, 1885. Her gravestone shows her birth date as February 6, 1884 which we can now confirm from her birth record from Seven Sorrows Church in Habovka. She was baptized on that same date. She was, therefore, 16 years old when she married Martin Jancik. She may have claimed to be 18 when she and Martin applied for a marriage license in the county, to avoid legal problems.
Variability in the spelling of the names.
There is a great variety of spelling of the Slovak names on legal and church documents in the US. Generally the church documents use the original Slovak spelling of the names, but on legal documents and in everyday use the spelling varied. Going back to Slovakia, the spelling of both the given names and surnames in the Church records was in Hungarian, Slovak, and Latin. So for example, John is Janos, Susanna is Szuszanna, etc., and surnames, Jancik is Jancsik, etc.
The family name, Jancik, is usually spelled Yanchick by most family members in the US, especially after the family moved to Joliet, but both spellings were probably in use simultaneously well into the 1930’s. Maria’s name is spelled Jancik on her gravestone. My mother clearly remembers being called Jancik (hard J sound) in grammar school, so she must have used the original Slovak spelling until that time. Martin’s name is spelled Yansic on the courthouse records of his marriage to Maria, Gancik on some legal records, Yanchick on the 1910 census, and Yancick in the 1920 census.
The family name, Sroba, is most commonly spelled Shroba. But Maria’s name is spelled Schroba on the courthouse records of her marriage to Martin. Legal documents of property holdings in Luzerne County spell the name as Shroba, and all gravestones in the Slovak cemetery in Joliet use the Shroba spelling.
HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE
The mining of the anthracite coal belt of the Susquehanna River valley around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania reached its peak in 1918. This coal is a valuable commodity being very dense with high heat and low sulfur content, so underground mining remained an economic proposition for many succeeding decades. In the 1950’s approximately 80,000 men were still employed in the collieries of this giant coal field. Throughout this time, the extensive underground tunneling managed to connect virtually all the individual mines. But, on January 22, 1959, a catastrophe occurred which was called the Knox Mine Disaster. Miners from the Knox Coal Company, while illegally mining coal under the Susquehanna River near Pittston, caused the river to breakthrough the overburden, completely flooding almost the entire mining complex. Twelve men died in the accident, and immediately 80,000 men were out of work. Upwards of 400,000 people lost their livelihood that day. Coal mine operators tried diking and pumping the mines, all to no avail. The coal companies lost their assets, and coal mining in this area virtually ceased. Overnight Lackawanna and Luzerne counties became the poorest areas in Pennsylvania with the highest unemployment rate. Real estate became almost worthless. The population slowly began to drift away. Many of the old timers refused to leave, or could not afford to, hoping the industry would come back. It couldn’t.
In the 1990’s, the Catholic Diocese of Scranton which includes both Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, began to combine parishes and parish schools for lack of parishioners, and priests to minister to the remaining people. For example, Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Edwardsville was merged with St. Anthony’s parish in Larksville. St. John Nepomucene in Luzerne was merged with both Sacred Heart in Luzerne and St. Ann in Luzerne and given the new name Holy Family Parish. However, most of the church buildings stand in perfect repair today and are still in use, a lasting testament to these people.
END OF HISTORY
Our visit to Slovakia in May 2001. How we found the Jancik family village in Slovakia.
In May 2001, my wife, Donalyn, and I traveled to Slovakia to find traces of the Jancik family, and particularly to find a birth record of my grandfather. We knew that the Shroba family was from Zuberec, and we have been able trace that family back several generations before my grandmother, Maria Shroba. But, until this trip, no one knew where the Jancik family was from. At the time of our trip, we had only a few pieces of information: 1) Martin Jancik’s birth date of April 8, 1878, 2) that his father was also Martin, and that he had two sisters named Anna and Elizabeth who did not immigrate to the US. This information came from a handwritten family tree by Mother Teresita, whose name was Maria Shroba, a daughter of Stephen and Susan Shroba, and first cousin to my mother. Of course we knew 3) about his brother John, and sister Susan and their birthdates. And, 4) we had a verbal communication from Agnes Yanchick Skolds, daughter of John Jancik, that the family were farmers in Velka Spisska, Slovakia. But, after checking a map of Slovakia, we found no such village or town in Slovakia by that name. However, the Spis stem in Velka Spisska, led us to the County of Spis, to begin our search. This last item was the most important.
Based on this information, we took a hotel room in Levoca, Slovakia, the county seat of Spis. Levoca also has an Archive where Church records are available to the public for research. The evening before our visit to the Archive I checked the local telephone directory for Spis and noted the name of each town and village which had a current listing under the surname, Jancik. Only 8 localities met that criteria. We decided to check those places as our first priority in our attempt to find a birth record for Martin Jancik. After several hours of research, we found him in Nizna Sunava. We have confidence that we have found the correct family, Muransky (Jancik), because of the birth sequence of his brothers and sisters which include Anna and Elizabeth. We also found a consistent house number in the birth records which helps validate that we have the correct lineage.
The following day we drove to Sunava for a visit. We were able to view the inside of the church by inquiring at the house directly across the street for the key. We also met several townsfolk and the town historian who showed us a vacant lot where the Muransky-Jancik house stood. No one spoke English there, but our hotel desk clerk kindly volunteered to accompany us and translate for us. It was spring time and we noticed that the fields were being plowed with horse drawn plows.
Nizna Sunava, Slovakia, taken from the cemetery. Photo 2001.
Tourists from the US will find Levoca and all of Spis County a very interesting place to visit. Levoca is a delightful medieval town and the home of the famous woodcarver, Master Paul (1500-1540). Many of his works are in the churches in Levoca and throughout central Slovakia. We visited the Marianska Hora Basilica and Shrine (Mary’s Mountain) on the hill above Levoca, and Spis Castle which is nearby. The countryside is beautiful with views of the Tatry and Nizke Tatry from every hilltop.
Spis Castle, near Levoca, Slovakia, is the largest stone fortification in Europe.
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If you are a visitor to the Mikulich.com site, and think you may be related to us through a family connection, or have any factual information to add to the history, we would appreciate hearing from you. Please contact the email site shown on our homepage, or send a note to Matthew J. Mikulich.