Dad, our EJZ, and his brother Casimir had a younger sister, Melania.
Pertussis vaccine was developed in 1926; by 1933 it had been around for 6 or 7 years. I wonder if Melania had been vaccinated. In any event, the vaccine has never been perfect; mutations of the bacterium do occur; there was no antibiotic to treat a case of pertussis in the 1930s.
Had she lived, she would have been Aunt Melania to the children of Eugene and of Casimir. Her children would have been cousins to our generation; their children second cousins to our children.
Dad only spoke of his little sister a couple of times. He used hushed tones and pretty quickly put an end to the conversation. Thinking back on that, I realize that twice in his life, his womenfolk died while he was away. First his little sister died of a sudden illness, when he was a teenager. Then when he was in Army boot camp in Fort Benning, his mother died of a heart attack. Medical advances having made such deaths less common, it is easy for us of a later generation to fail to realize what it was sometimes like for our elders, even in peacetime at home.
Speaking of peacetime at home, here is the back of Aunt Melania's birth certificate:
Melania was ten years younger than Eugene, having been born 12/14/1933. She died, at home, of whooping cough, when a young girl. Dad was unsure of the year of her death, recalling to me only that she died when he was away at Orchard Lake high school.
When Dad was 16, Melania was six years old.
There appear to be no photographs or effects of any kind of this little girl. It is as if any reminder would be so painful that no reminders were permitted.
What did she look like? Here is her mother, Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewski, shortly after her marriage:
And here is the same lady some years later, probably after having had three children. Note that her husband, our JPZ, arranged a similar pose:
Had she lived, she would have been Aunt Melania to the children of Eugene and of Casimir. Her children would have been cousins to our generation; their children second cousins to our children.
Dad only spoke of his little sister a couple of times. He used hushed tones and pretty quickly put an end to the conversation. Thinking back on that, I realize that twice in his life, his womenfolk died while he was away. First his little sister died of a sudden illness, when he was a teenager. Then when he was in Army boot camp in Fort Benning, his mother died of a heart attack. Medical advances having made such deaths less common, it is easy for us of a later generation to fail to realize what it was sometimes like for our elders, even in peacetime at home.
Speaking of peacetime at home, here is the back of Aunt Melania's birth certificate:
The line at the bottom, centered, italicized, and bolded, instructs Carefully preserve this certificate by having it framed. My instinctive reaction is FDR has been elected 5 weeks and already we are being ordered around! I am satisfied to report that our family disobeyed. They stuck it in a file with other such documents, which I am now going through.
This means that there will be edits to the other pages of this blog, beginning with the Z side and moving along to the M side. I would be so appreciative of additions and corrections to the data up on those family pages.
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