Mystery Great Grandma

                   I would love to know more about her but I don't even know her real name.

She went by a few different names and I don't know which is correct.  On her daughter's marriage license her name is Frieda Wiegla. She has been Felixa Rakiecz, Pauline Pacowski and Felicia Pacowski. If that isn't enough there are so many ways that Rakiecz and Pacowski are spelled.  My uncle joked that maybe she was an international spy. All I know is that she is my great grandmother and she must have been a strong women.

I never met her even though I was 10 years old when she died. She didn't even live far away. I just never knew she existed. It's strange how families are. I wish I could go back in time to when I was seven years old and go ask questions.

I'll call her Felicia. Felicia was born in 1889 in Lithuania. According to the 1930 Federal census she immigrated in 1910. I have not found any other records about that. I know this picture of her is from her marriage to Charles Rakiecz and it was taken in Pittsburgh. I know her son, my grandfather, Charles Rakiecz, was born in 1910 in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Did she travel here, get married and have her son all in the same year? I suppose it's possible.

They had two more children, Anna and Mary.

Mary, Anna and Charles

In 1916, these three cutie pies lost their father in a mine collapse in Indiana County, PA. In 1918 Felicia had to put the children in an orphanage in Pittsburgh for a short time.  I don't know much about what happened in between. My mother was told that the youngest daughter started a fire in the home when the children were by themselves. She tried to melt the frost off the window with a candle and it caught the curtains on fire. This is why my mom was told her father and his sisters had been placed in the orphanage. I found some records from their stay at the Orphan Asylum of the Holy Family in Emsworth, PA. The records stated that the children had a stepfather and that he had deserted the family. My mother, aunt and uncle had never been told about this man.

That means Felicia lost her husband and was deserted by another man all within two years. The records from the orphanage had a Pittsburgh address for the family but there was a note that the mother was taking the children back to the mining town after their 7 week stay at the orphanage. I haven't found the family in the 1920 census but I do find her going by the name Pauline with her new husband, John Pacowski, and her three children in Pittsburgh in the 1930 census. When I started doing family research my mother told me her grandmother's name was Pauline. When I found the holy card from her funeral it said her name was Felicia. I thought my mom was confused about Pauline but she must have remembered that from when she was young because that is how I found her.

Felicia with daughters Anna and Mary

My mother always says she is thankful that her ancestors came to the United States so that she could be born here. So I'll add my thanks to Felicia...I mean Pauline....er... Frieda.  I have more work to do!

Felicia's crochet