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| Ron's maternal grandmother |
| San Pedro, California (late 1940's) |
| Franciszka (Ossowska) Kaczmarek (1879-1956) |
| Franciszka married twice; first to Jozef Kaczmarek (1879-1927) and, after Jozef's death, to Mike Japczyk, a gruff small |
| business owner who drank considerably and died some five years later. Not long after Jozef and Franciszka married in |
| 1900, Jozef left his wife behind in Poland and traveled to America (1902) where, working as a polisher of medical |
| instruments, he earned sufficient money to support his family and pay for structural improvements to his small tavern in |
| Warderayn, Poland. The first expedition proved so successful that he departed again in 1904, shortly after Marta's birth, |
| and remained in America for a full three years. Soon after his return, a second daughter, Regina (Virginia), was born in |
| 1909. Again, not long thereafter, Jozef embarked on yet another trip to America. By 1912, Franciszka had grown weary |
| of the repeated separations; and, when Jozef ignored her repeated pleas to come home, she approached a local priest |
| for advice. The priest sent a letter to Jozef in America, admonishing him to send for his family. Jozef obeyed and sent |
| Franciszka enough money for ship and train fare. Franciszka sold the family tavern, bundled up her two daughters, and |
| the three of them emigrated to the United States, joining Jozef in the city of Chicago, Illinois. Several years later, after |
| the family relocated to Bay City, Michigan, two more children were born:Joseph Felix (1914-1995) and Bronistawa a.k.a. |
| "Bernice" (1916-1961). Several years after Bernice was born, Jozef moved the family back to Chicago where he found |
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the lifestyle more to his liking. There, at age forty-two, Franciszka gave birth to a fifth child, Evelyn Olga (1921-1999). |
