The highlight of our trip was meeting and visiting with Laura’s Polish family. Laura is fortunate to have a cousin in the US whose family still lives in Krakow. Maria Paganini contacted her sister Christine, niece Anna and another cousin Wieskaw Czamara to set up the visit to Laura’s grandmother’s birthplace in Pasierbiec, Poland.
What an amazing day we had!
Laura’s grandmother, Barbara, was one of five children. Her brother Jozef’s family owns and maintains the farm today. A commitment was made to Josef that the farm would be kept in the family. Today Jozef’s great grand children are fulfilling that promise.
The farm is located about one hour south of Karkow nestled in the foothills of the mountains in southern Poland. The church that my grandmother attended as a child was still in existence but not used today. A new and much larger church was built next door.
The land is no longer used for farming. It is very rocky and hilly. Not the best type of land for cultivating much of anything. But a beautiful and peaceful landscape. The original farm house burned down and the structure today was the replacement. The story told was that my grandmother’s father went to American to earn money to rebuild the home that had burned down and then returned to Poland and built the home that is standing today.
Later that morning we visited three distant cousin’s homes. Wieskaw and Marzena Czamara, who hosted us on the visit to the farm, Antonio and Bozeman Wrona, and Grazyna Wrona and her children Krzysztof and Urzszula. Each family treated us to wonderful Polish foods and pastries. Their hospitality was like sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen when we visited her growing up. Loving!
We were very fortunate that Anna and her husband Romek Bartoski chauffeured us from Krakow to the farm. The four of us also visited several cemeteries in the area where family members had been buried. This helped to connect Laura’s grandmother’s family tree.
We could not be more grateful to Anna and Romek for sharing their day with us. The visit, memories made and history learned would not have happened without their efforts.
Only a few words can describe meeting and connecting with Laura’s Polish family members … loving and our hearts were full of at the end of the day!
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