Two shots of my Grandma circa 1929. That would be a guess gauging from her age and the fashion of her dress. While I don’t have any notes to go from on these two photos they do offer some nice glimpses into Detroit from oh so long ago. The one image shows an Orthodox church (that I can’t identify so let me know if you can) and the other shows was a typical street looked like. As for the baby… Well I’m guessing here but I think that this kid is the same as in the previous post, which may very well be Richard Borowski. This was the boy holding the rings at the wedding two posts back.
Two shots of my Grandma circa 1929. That would be a guess gauging from her age and the fashion of her dress. While I don’t have any notes to go from on these two photos they do offer some nice glimpses into Detroit from oh so long ago. The one image shows an Orthodox church (that I can’t identify so let me know if you can) and the other shows was a typical street looked like. As for the baby… Well I’m guessing here but I think that this kid is the same as in the previous post, which may very well be Richard Borowski. This was the boy holding the rings at the wedding two posts back.
June, 1943 - Brothers Walter, John, and Casimir Zabowski taken in front of the huge Michigan Central Station in Detroit, which is now familiar to many from the countless photos of it in its state of decay. I don’t know what was going on this day, but I can guess. My Grandma was living in Chicago so maybe she came in to see 2 of her brothers that were on leave from The War. And being this was taken in front of the rail road station, one can suppose that they were headed back. It does make you think about things that’s for sure.
I recently posted a photo of my Grand Aunt Rita Ann’s wedding to Al only to discover a week later that I had a few more shots from their wedding day back in 1940. These pictures were shot in front of my Great Grandparent’s home. Speaking of which, that is them in the last shot, which is in rough shape because it appears to have been taped down at some point. Besides be a bit beat up the one bonus is that it was actually labeled.
On the back it states “This is our house.” Now I can’t tell for certain if that was written by my Grandma, but I’m going to guess yes. If that is the case, then this very well could have been their family farm that they lived on for a few years. See, her father tried his hand at many jobs (steel mill laborer, farmer, movie theatre operator, and probably more), and while I knew of this one I never knew for sure when it fell in their timeline. That is until I recently discovered their listing in the 1920 census. It has them living on a farm in Romulus, Michigan, which is now where the Detroit airport is located. My cousin remembered that this is where the farm was and where it sat is now in the middle of some subdivision.
This was Rita Ann (my Grandma’s youngest sibling) & Al Nadolski on their wedding day. I don’t have the actual date, but I was told that they married in September of 1940, which is one of those dates that always make me wonder if they had any inclination of what was in line for them and the country 3 months down the road. Sometime after the attack on Pearl Harbor he ended up in the Navy. Other than that, I don’t really know much about them.
One recent odd discovery I made about them was in my baby book. My father found it and sent it out to me. In it my mom had wrote out my very first trip, which was taken not that long after I was born. It was to visit Uncle Al & Aunt Annie in Detroit.
Well, the writing in Polish is a mystery to me, but one of my relations attached a little note to this one when I asked her to see what she could identify. The note says that “Genevieve (my Grandma) sent this picture of Phyllis Gubala and Edward Zabowski.” As to whom she sent this to, I have no idea. One thing I can tell you is that it was shot by the Mitchell Street home and appears to be dated February 25, 1936. This must have been a date she sent the card out, and not when it was shot. Reason being is that sure doesn’t look like February in Detroit. Of course none of this addresses the appearance of this pony. No clue about that one.
This is just a classic shot. I have zero background on this one, but the guy in the upper left looks like my Grand Uncle Ben (Boniface was his given name - he was the oldest of my Grandma’s siblings) and the older woman in the middle looks like my Great Grandmother Frances Zabowski. The print was a bit overexposed and blurry so I did what I can to make it look its best. As for a date, well I know Frances died in September of 1950, so most likely this was shot soon after the end of WWII. As for a location I was going to guess a church basement with all of those folding chairs, but for some reason it looks like a funeral home. That big wingback chair just pushes me in that direction. Plus, everyone is dressed rather darkly and no one looks that happy. With that, her husband Anton isn’t in the shot. So maybe this was taken at his wake, which would be really odd because Frances died just 3 days after her husband. Most likely I’ll never know the story of this one, but it sure does leave some interesting things to think about.
Here is the continuation of last week’s photos that my Grand Uncle Walter Zabowski sent home from the US Army Field Artillery School at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I don’t know how long he was there for, but I would imagine it wasn’t that long. Reason being is twofold. First off the US was in a rush to build up an Army (and Navy and Marines of course) as fast as possible, and second is that I remember hearing that he was in North Africa. I don’t know when he went there but I can tell you that the US landed troops there in November of 1942, and these photos were dated August of ’42. So really, not that much time in between.
I find it interesting that in these shots the field gear that they are using more closely resembles the equipment from WWI than what we know from WWII. Those Springfield rifles, the web gear, helmets, even those cannon all have a look about them from 25 years earlier. This shows how much the US had to play catch-up and also how quickly things changed during The War.
The captions on back:
2. “When these howitzers go off, they are really loud. Shoot between 8 and 10 miles. The bullet weighs 95 lbs.”
4. “I’m the one with my hands folded and my hat up.”
5. “I’m the first one from the right. I have one foot in the trail hole.”
6. “I’m the second one from the left, stooping down.”
7. “That’s our corporal holding the bullet. I’m the third one from the right.”
8. “I’m the third one from the right.”
This is my Grand Uncle (though we would have called him a Great Uncle) John Zabowski. He spent his entire adult life working on ships in the Great Lakes, most of which was for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company. I even managed to inherit this cool old pocket knife he received from the company. During The War he was a Merchant Marine, and if you’ve frequented this site you’ve probably seen shot of him in uniform like this one of him and two of his brothers in front of the Michigan Central train station in Detroit.
As for this picture I sadly don’t have any background on it. What I can tell is that he looks really young, and probably was early in his career. (He eventually became a Chief Engineer.) I hadn’t realized this was shot on a ship until after I scanned it (look to the lower right of the photo and you can see you are on the deck), which helped my identify him as my Uncle. As for when it was shot, well he was born in 1912, and he appears to be in his early 20s. So let’s say between 1922 to 1926.
Most families have that one spot where they like to take the holiday photos or pictures from other special events. For the Zabowski household that spot was usually in the front of the Maxwell Street home. Just take a glance at this site’s archives and you’ll easily see plenty of images of those front steps, a number of which have someone sitting up on that plinth. Now I’m sure there are plenty of psychological reasons academics (like myself) have developed over the years as to why we flock back to that same familiar spot. Overall though, I think it comes down to being a very photogenic location.
And in this offering we have my Aunty Jo (Gable), my Grandma’s friend Stella Borowski, and my Grandma Gen on the end. While there isn’t a date written on back I can guess that this was taken around the end of WWII or maybe a bit later. Comparing it to this other photo you can see that Jo & my Grandma are wearing the same outfits. So most likely these were shot at the same time. One thing that is missing is the men, so maybe they were still occupied with The War. Also, Stella lived in Buffalo by then and my Grandma was in Chicago. So they all worked it out to visit at the same time. As to why they were all in Detroit at the same time, well those little details are most likely lost to the ages.
This snapshot, while sadly blurred, does offer a good lesson on putting together a family history. In the previous set of photos my Grandma jotted down the address (along with a shot of the house) of where she was living in 1923. This was on St. Aubin Street on the border between Detroit & Hamtramck. I also noticed that this same roll goes into 1924. By the time this picture was taken she wrote down the year, 1926, and that it was taken in front of the Mitchell Street house. So sometime between 1924 & summer of 1926 they moved. These little details help put together a timeline.
Here is another WWII era photograph, and like the last one, it too has a sister shot. This one is of Al Nadolski, and it would be a safe bet to say that he served in the Navy during the war. This photo was taken on the side porch of the family home on Maxwell Street in Detroit, and was shot sometime during The War. Al married my Grandma’s sister Rita Ann, who was the youngest of the Zabowski children. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about Al’s service record.
This was my Uncle John Zabowski (one of my Grandma’s brothers) with his wife Madeline (DeMars) taken outside of her parent’s home in Fair Haven, Michigan. It appears to have been taken at the same time as this other photo of him I posted back in November. These photos were taken in June of 1943 and I would guess that he was on leave at that time. (The uniform he is wearing is of the U.S. Merchant Marine.) My Grandma wrote on the back her mother’s name, so I’m guessing she had planned on giving her this copy but never got around to it.
John spent his entire adult life on the water. While I don’t know what his service record was like, I can tell you that he spent his peacetime on the Great Lakes. He ended up becoming a Chief Engineer on an ore boat for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company. Sadly, I never got to meet him; he was killed by a drunk driver 8 months before I was born.
This is Rita Ann Zabowski, which was the youngest of my Grandma’s sisters. She married Al Nadolski, and as you can see in this photo he served in the Navy during World War II, which may be why he wasn’t around when this shot was taken. I don’t know this for certain, but everything about this photo just has that classic WWII era look about it. Even though it was technically a horrible time (Great Depression followed by a World War), there is just something very pleasant looking about photographs from this era.
My Grandma Gen wrote on the back “First home we have lived in” with the address and the date “1933-1934.” The address is 4427 N. Seeley in Chicago and, unlike Detroit, the building is still there. It’s one of those classic Midwestern buildings that are so much a part of my childhood that whenever I see one it just feels comfortable, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, there is a story… My Grandma left Detroit to visit my Grandfather in Chicago over Thanksgiving in 1933. (He was attending grad school at Loyola.) A day or two after she arrived she sent a telegram home to her family informing them that she was staying and that they had gotten married. Now as radical as that may sound, I also have a theory that this was partially done because of The Great Depression. Everyone was struggling, so it might have done the family a favor by moving out of the house, which of course would require getting married. Sadly, I missed my chance to bounce that theory off of her.
