Polish Museum in Winona MN discuss the Kashubians

I think it is fair to say that the Wika's, my father's family were Kashubians.  The Polish Cultural Museum in Winona has a very succint history and description of the Kashubians.  I encourage you to visit the site directly at: 

http://www.polishmuseumwinona.org/

Taken directly from their site,  

Kashubian History

"An area in present North Central Poland stretching West from Gdansk about 70 miles. From the Baltic south to about Wiele, a rather remote part of the country which enabled that different language, Kashubian, to be used yet today.

During the time of the mass migration of Kashubians 1850's to 1890's, the Kashubian language was forbidden to be taught or spoken as the land was under Prussian domination. It is now legal to be taught in schools and spoken openly."

The site goes on to say that after spending sometime in Winona, many of these immigrants moved to Pine Creek or Dodge, Wisconsin (both places where my father grew up) with some of the family moving to Montana.

Just a quick note

I have been behind on my notes but hope to get active again with this blog.  I need to use the disclaimer that some of my information may not be accurate.  I am currently using ancestry.com and you can see the Florian Wicka tree on line.  Should you be unable to access the tree and wish an invite, please contact me.

Conversation with Eugene Wicka of California

I received an interesting call from Eugene Wicka, whom I had contacted regarding the Wika family history.  Eugene was able to fill in some gaps as well as to give me Wika family history. I will try to recount the conversation as I best understood it.

The Wika family comes from the town of Wiele, Poland.  The parish is Ugofzcz, know today as Bitof, which is sister city, I believe, to Winona, Minnesota.  Jan Wika came to this country in 1859 through the New York Harbor.  One of the things that most confused Eugene's search for Wika family history is that Jan's brother Paulus is actually a half-brother.  Paulus came to this country in 1869, also through the New York Harbor.  Other siblings included Joe Wika, Amna Eve (spelling?) and Mariana, the two sisters settling in Montana.  Apparently there are Wikas in New York.

Jan's children included Henry, Andrew who died quite young, John who disappeared with his wife and two children in 1900 after they left for the Dakotas, and Phillip who settled in Montana and Vince, my grandfather.   Phillip was very active in Montana and the town of St. Phillip is named in his honor.  There is also a lot of Wika history to be learned from Wiebow, Montana where there is a museum with Wika artifacts.  There is also a lot of Wika history in Beach, North Dakota.  John, son of Jan, who disappeared was married to Valeria.  His two children were Frances and Vince.  (I do not know if Frances was male or female).  Eugene Wicka did a lot of research on this family but could not get anywhere.  He learned a lot from Dennis Kasperson (spelling).  Eugene also got a lot of information from my aunt Rose, my dad's sister.
The mother of Eugene's wife was a close friend of Rose; so Eugene got a lot of information that way.

Jan's half brother Paulus had one son named Leo.  Leo is the father of Eugene Wika so Paulus would be his grandfather...if I have that right.  Leo eventually went to Montana for a time.

My grandfather, Vince owned a farm near Dodge, Wisconsin.   According to Eugene, Vince tried to sell the property in 1940 but could not find any buyers.  So he held a raffle, and his cousin, Leo won the farm which is still in the Wika name.  Leo and his children, brothers of Eugene Wika owned and still owned property very close to this farm.  These farm's are in Boelle's Valley (pronounced Baileys).

Eugene noted that the family tree history provided by the Bambenek sisters (he mentioned Felicia of Mankato) is not all correct.

One of the main things to sort out are the two wives of Jacobus Wika, father of Jan and Paulus, the half-brother.  One of the wives is M Palubika and the other is speculated to be Magdelena Piecharski.  More work needs to be done to follow this trail.

This  information is garnered from my notes of a telephone conversation with Eugene Wika.  I have a disclaimer that I may not have gotten the information down correctly.  I will use it though to help me with my search.  I will also work with Eugene to try to clear up any mis-information that I may have written.

Vincent Wika's Young Family

Before starting this quest, I never thought about my grandparents being "young".   It was the census record of 1900 that made me try to conger up an image of them as a young family.  At the time, my grandfather, Vincent was 32 years old and my grandmother, Mary (Prondinzinski) was just 23 years old.  They were married in 1894 and at the time of the census they had three children, Cecilia, age 4, Weronika (spelling at that time) age 2, and Robert, age 1.   They were living in Winona, Minnesota at 858 Chatfield Street.   How many times had I walked by this house without knowing that they had lived in Winona.  Another comment of mine is that the census record is so clearly legible.  The handwriting in those days was impeccable.

More Information on Mary Prondzinski Wika, wife of Vince Wika

The Winona, MN newspaper project lists the following information which can pinpoint the residences of Mary and Vincent Wicka in addition to what we know from the Census Records of 1920 and 1930.

In 1929, Mary Prondzinski traveled from Dodge to visit her daughter Celia Stritzel and then her brother, Joseph Prondzinki who was living in Milwaukee, WI

In 1939, Mary and Vincent Wicka were in Dodge, WI and had a dinner.  The invitees included:  Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wika, and children (that would be Barbara and Theresa), Mr. and Mrs Robert Wika, Angeline Przybylski, Adeline Wika, Florian Wika, and Hubert Klinesmith (spelling at that time).  This was prior to the marriage of Angeline and Florian and Adeline and Hubert.

In 1942, (four years prior to Mary's death, she and Vincent were still living in Dodge, WI), the paper noted that Mary traveled to Duluth, MN to visit her sister, Mrs. Mike Smegal, who was seriously ill in the hospital and her other sister, Mrs. George Doell

Tidbits Recenlty Learned from Ancester.com

Mary Prondzinski Wicka was born in Zelewo, Poland.  In an earlier post, I had misread the name from Mary's obituary of which I had a copy...the print was not that readable.  This is perhaps the reason I was unable to locate this on the map of Poland.  There are two provinces associated with Zelewo, Poland and as of today, I am not sure which one is the correct one.  

Per the 1920 and 1930 Census record, Vince Wika was living with his family in the Arcadia township.  My dad, Florian Wicka was with the family at the age of 8 in the 1930 census.   In 1930, my dad, at the age of 19 was listed as a lodger in Dodge Township.  Via verbal family history, I had heard the story that dad moved to Dodge to live with his brother Robert and family as he did not get along with his father.  The 1930 Census Records for Vince Wika and Florian Wika seem to support the oral history. 

Vince Wika's  (in the documentation found thus far, Vincent is listed as "Vince") mother was Mary and we believe her surname was Witkowski.  In the 1930 Census Record she was living with her son.  Her husband, Jan Wika had died in 1906, so it seems reasonable that she would have been living with one of her children. She is listed as being 85 years old with her birthdate being about 1845.  The 1930 Census Record indicates that she was born in Poland and her Immigration date is listed as 1860.

Ancestry.com recommended that the Wika spelling be used for the Family Tree.  At a later date, I may change family members starting with Florian Wika's children back to the Wicka spelling.

Kashubian Surnames

The Polish Genealogical Society, of America, PGSA, provides the following information about Kashubian Surnames. This post may seem to be premature to my documenting other historical data on the Wicka (Wika) family but I did not want to lose this thread. I remember vaguely that my dad, Florian Wicka, in the rare times he spoke about his Polish, claimed that others Poles not too distant away could not always understand his Polish. It is thought that our family were part of the Kashubians. In the following excerpt from the PGSA, it is noted that many of the Kashubians were located in Winona as well as Pine Creek, Wisconsin...locales where my father live. In another posting, I will share more about the Kashubians.

The PGSA says, "This collection of Kashub names is written mainly from the viewpoint of the Barry's Bay, Wilno, Renfrew settlement of Kashubs in Ontario, though it has a lot of information about Kashubs in Poland and in the Stevens Point, Polonia regions and the Winona, Pine Creek areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin areas in the U.S.A. These are by no means all the Kashub names that exist. There are dozens of other names, especially in the Stevens Point area phone directory, which may be either Kashub or Polish, but I am not familiar enough with them. Stevens Point region seemed to be the largest Kashub settlement in the U.S.A. The Barry's Bay area has 3 Kashub Polish parishes; the Stevens Point area must have 10 or 12 quite large parishes, e.g.: Stevens Point, Polonia, Rosholt, Bevent, Torun, Fancher, Guster, Hatley, Galloway, St. Casimir's, Hull, Heffron. ***In Poland, Kashubs living 30 miles north and northwest of Lipusz generally have completely different surnames with very few ending in "Ski". "By 1900, there were 10,000 Poles, mostly Kashub in the Stevens Point area of Wisconsin, 5,000 Kashubs in the Buffalo metropolitan area, 5,000 Kashubs in the Detroit metropolitan area, 5,000 Kashubs in the Winona, Minnesota region, ranked fourth after Stevens Point, 90,000 Kashubs in U.S.A. by 1900; more than 10 times the number in Canada at that time. About 600 families in the combined Sturgeon Lake, New Brighton and St. Paul, Minneapolis areas in Minnesota." (Information from article: "They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups" by Frank Renkiewicz) By 1900 there were more Kashubs in the Winona area alone than in Renfrew County today. Four-fifths of the Polish people in the Winona region were Kashubs. The same would apply approximately to the proportion of Kashubs to other Poles in the Stevens Point region and in Renfrew County, Ontario. Emigration of Kashubs to the U.S.A. seemed to start about four years earlier than to Canada, beginning about 1855. But the villages of emigration named in documents are about the same as those mentioned emigrating to Canada. Thus: Wiele, Lipusz, Le~sno, Brusy, Sierakowice, Ugoszcz, Borzyszkowy, St~e~zyca, etc., from the southern edge to Kaszuby (Cassubia). You will notice that in the U.S., the Poles stuck as closely as possible to the original spelling of their names where as their Canadian cousins have anglicized their names much more. A further variation in the Canadian names is that most of them have added an "e" to the "ski" in their name, e.g.: Olsheskie, Chapeskie, Sernoskie, Recoskie, Kedroskie, Gutoskie. To avoid complications, I only entered the "ski" as it came from Poland, understanding that many, maybe most of the people presently add an "e" to the "ski". "