More Surprises in that Forgotten box

While going though that old forgotten box I found some items related to my mother's (Josephine Semik Piszczor) side of the family. Now my mother's side of the family never spoke much of their family at all, so much less about her father's side of the family. About the only thing I knew about them is they came from some town within 50 miles of Krakow, my grandmother left the two oldest boys in Poland with relatives, these two uncles had 24 children between them and the Pope John Paul II was somehow a distant cousin!

Over the years I found some odds and ends like my grandfather Martin's death records (he died in 1942) and my grandmother's Victoria's death notice as well as both of their arrival records. Then a few weeks ago I came across this old newspaper article (see image). I remember when they came though they spoke no English and I had no clue of Polish, but they were amazed at life here in the United States.

So after 40 years I read the article and saw they came from a town named Sucha in Poland. But after a lot of searching of maps and on the Internet I could not find a town by the name of Sucha alone. I was stumped and set it aside until this week.

While going through that old box I found some old mail left behind after my mother death and noticed between all the legal papers an old letter in Polish, a Christmas card actually, complete with envelope with an address on it. What I made out for a town was 'Sucha Besk', so back to the Internet and tried that and after searching the returns I clicked on an entry from Wikipedia and up came the information I have been looking years for. The town name was changed in 1970 to Sucha Beskidzka, and it is south of Krakow and in the foothills less than 20 miles from Nowy Targ where the Piszczors are from!

So it's time for me to figure out how to write a letter in Polish and see if I get an answer!