Who Is This Beautiful Girl, This Veritable Queen?

The heavy cardboard frame with folding cover is in mint condition.  The frame is glued down solidly over the photographic print;  we cannot take a squint at the back.  There are no labels.

Indications that she is a First Holy Communicant include the white gown, hose, and shoes; white veil; Missal and Rosary.  Absence of a candle, such as we have seen in FHC portraits of EJZ and JFZ and MPZ, is not a contraindication in my mind, as candle and veil are an unwise combination, so it is best to let the boys tote those big candles.

Suggestions that this might instead be a Confirmation portrait include her mature appearance:  typical age at FHC is 8 years, while typical age at Confirmation is 13 to 14 years.  Additionally, her shoes have enough of a heel for a teenager, too much for an 8-year-old.  And look at that gold wristwatch over her elbow-length gloves!  Again, it seems unlikely for an 8-year-old.

I've never heard of veils for Confirmation.  Has anyone else?

Is she my Matynka grandmother, Clara Haremska?  Our CHM was born in 1903 or 1909, depending on to which document we give our trust.  Eight years of age would then be 1911 or 1917.  Fourteen years of age would then be 1917 or 1923.  Those all seem plausible to me from the look of the portrait details.  Also, CHM and all the Haremska women have high brows like this mystery girl.

Clara Haremska married Adam Matynka in 1925.  My Mom, our CAMZ, labeled the back of this 16" by 20" photographic print with the names and the date.  Thanks, Mom!

The print is curled and tattered with age, but remains impressive.

Adam Matynka and Clara Haremska Matynka, 1925

So, again, the woman above and below is CHM, my Grandma Matynka.  Is she our Mystery Queen Girl?  What do you think?

Clara Haremska Matynka, 1925

Now let us consider the Mostkowska -Zdrojewska options.  Here is the wedding photo of our JPZ and Julia Mostkowska.  The date approximately 1920; Dad, our EJZ, was born in 1923.

John Peter Zdrojewski and Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska, circa 1920

Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska, circa 1920

Mayhap Mystery Queen Girl is my paternal grandmother, Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska.  What do you think? Her face seems more square, though.  And here, alas, we have another covered forehead.

Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska

Is Mystery Queen Girl my paternal aunt Melania Zdrojewska?  Melania was born in 1933 and died about 8 years later according to the story from Dad/EJZ.  I suppose the portrait could be from 1941, but it seems less likely.  If Melania actually lived to age 13 and this was her Confirmation photo, then the year would be 1946.  Again, just from the look of things 1946 seems too recent a date for the photo portrait.  Finally, we know that Melania died in the 1930s while Dad/EJZ was a high school student at Orchard Lake.  So, scratch the Melania/Confirmation possibility with confidence.  Melania/FHC remains a possibility, if we allow Dad/EJZ to have misremembered, and that Melania died in 1941 when he was a college student at Orchard Lake, not a high-school student.

I hope somebody actually recognizes this photo.  If so, please let me know!  If not, then I invite the spirits of my ancestors to visit me and set me straight on this.  Let's talk, OK?

Melania

Dad, our EJZ, and his brother Casimir had a younger sister, Melania.

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:

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:

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.