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Jan Wrobel (1884-1933) On April 1, 1902, the passenger ship SS Batavia arrived at Ellis Island, its decks jampacked with hopeful emigrants from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria and other parts of Europe. Only 16 years old, with $20 and a ticket to Chicago in his pocket, Jan was traveling with another young man from Grón, Jósef Bafia (by the way, many of the family funerals were handled by the Stanislaw Bafia Funeral Home on 18th Street in Chicago, probably a relation). According to the passenger manifest (a portion of which is shown below), they were on their way to visit Jan's brother-in-law, Jan Stepanek on Ashland Avenue in Chicago. The 1910 Census shows a Jan by this name living at 1843 21st Place with a woman Magdalena (presumably his wife and thus Jan Wrobel's sister) and two small children. Stepanek apparently arrived one year before Jan, although we're having a bit of a problem finding his Ellis Island record. Jan Wrobel is listed on the 11th line of this page:
Here is a picture of Jan Wrobel and his wife Wiktoria Kobylarczyk on their wedding day:
Like many immigrants of the day, Jan worked as a laborer and lived among other Poles and probably some relatives on the city's south side, near the famous Stockyards (in the 4200 block of South Pauline Avenue, according to the birth certificate of their son, Andrew). Wiktoria bore several children including sons Andrew, Alex and John and daughters Emily, Ludwina, Anna, Helena and Stefanie. Wiktoria was born in 1883/4 in the nearby town of Chochowa or Sucha Hora and died in 1943 in Poland. Listed as midwife on Andrew's birth certificate is one Karolina Kobylarczyk, apparently the wife of Wiktoria's brother Aleksander. Thanks to Aleksander's obituary published in the Dzienniki Chicagoski newspaper in October, 1933, we have learned the names Wiktoria's other brothers (Jan, Jakob) and sisters (Marjanna, Anna, Antonina), some of whom lived in Poland at the time. When Andrew was still young (4 years old), Jan and Wiktoria moved the family (which at that time also included 2-year-old Emily) back to Grón, as Andrew related to us in a personal conversation in 1993, for economic reasons, as there was a deep recession at the time. The other children, then, were born in Poland. But Andrew, by virtue of his birth in Chicago, would retain American citizenship, which would come in quite handy later. First, let's go on a short tour of Andrew's home.
This page was last updated on May 1, 2004
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