Six young Polish kids in the early days of Houston, descendants of the Polka, Maduzia, Kloc and Steshaczynak families from Bremond, Texas. These families immigrated from the Debica and Pilzno areas of SE Poland.
Left to right, Clara Mae Stash, Mary Ann Stash, Dorothy Riess, Lucile Riess, Walter ‘Sonny’ Smock, Fred William Stash
Houston, Texas
circa 1927
It’s amazing what you can find on the internet now days. A few weeks ago, I posted some photos of the home village of Rip’s Ancestors, the Polka and Kloc families, the small farming village of Gawrzyłowa, Poland. I found this 1849 map of Gawrzyłowa today from the Landowner Records in the Polish State Archives at Przemyśl. It is composed of nine high resolution map scans which I stitched together the best I could. The map pieces do not match perfectly in some areas but this is still a fascinating bit of history. Now I just need to do some more research and figure out what all of the symbols and numbers on the map mean.
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Most of Rip’s Polish ancestors, including the Polka, Kloc and Maduzia families were poor farmers from the small villages in the Debica area of southeast Poland; Gawrzylowa, Jaworze Dolne, Jaworze Grone, Pilzno, Pilznionek and Zawierzbie.
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Rip’s roots can be traced back to two uniquely different American families. His father was an 8th generation American whose ancestors were among the earliest Dutch settlers in New York, long before the American Revolution and his mother was a 1st generation American whose Polish family settled in Texas around 1870.
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Dad’s roots can be traced back to two uniquely different American families. His father was an 8th generation American whose ancestors were among the earliest Dutch settlers in New York, long before the American Revolution and his mother was a 1st generation American whose Polish family settled in Texas around 1870.
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I got started in this whole genealogy thing by accident; I simply wanted to find out if my grandfather Smock was dead or alive. I hadn’t seen him since I was 2 or 3 years old and my dad didn’t care to talk too much about his father who had deserted his family when he was a child. To make a long story short, in a period of a few short months, I visited several county courthouses and found my grandfathers grave and got to meet my dad’s half sister who didn’t even know I existed. While I was on a roll, I decided to trace the Smock name back as far as I could. In the next few months, I researched at Clayton library and on several of the old genealogy bulletin boards (this was before the internet) and traced the Smock family back to a Dutch immigrant who came to New Amsterdam in 1640.
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