A Story of
Immigrants
My parents were the son and
daughter of immigrants that came to the United States in
the first years of the 20th Century. They entered through
Ellis Island and settled in the New York metropolitan
area.
From
the Carpathian Mountains of present day Poland came my
mother's parents: Tatiana and Teodor Tyliszczak. She was
born in 1887 in Krynica. He was born June 3, 1883. They
lived on Cambridge Avenue in Garfield, New Jersey along
with many other immigrants from the same area of Poland. My
grandfather was a weaver at the Botany Woolen Mills along
side the banks of the Passaic River. They had four children
Anna, Nicholas, Melania (Mildred, my mother) and Lilly.
With so many children to care for my grandparents sent
Anna, in her teens to live with her relatives in Poland,
but after Nicholas and Lilly died of scarlet fever in the
1920s, she returned to Garfield to live with her
parents.
Here
they are on January 24, 1943, my parents' wedding day
outside of the Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church in
Garfield.
My father's
parents were from Sweden. His mother, Agnes Charlotta
Andersson was from Stockholm, born three days after
Christmas 1888 in the parish of Brannkyrka, within the
Sodermalm area of the city. It was a neighborhood populated
by many workers from the newly constructed factories. She
arrived at Ellis Island on June 4, 1909 aboard the
Lusitania to visit her Aunt Kristina Swensson of
Poughkeepsie, New York.
His
father was Vilhelm Botolf Blomquist born in 1883 in Harad,
a small town southeast of Stockholm near Strangnas. He was
the 12th child of a farming couple Per Johan and Maria
Kristina Blomquist. He left Sweden for New York on
Valentine's Day 1902.
They
lived on Jackson Street in Nutley, New Jersey. Botolf and
Agnes had six children: William (my father), Gudrun
("Goody"), John ("Buddy"), Ronald, Harry and
Frances.
In
September of 2002, I was able to visit Sweden and learn
more about my grandparents and great grandparents, but
that's a story for another page and another
day.
Here are
Botolf and Agnes on Easter Sunday in 1945 outside their
home in Nutley.