52 Ancestors 2025: Musical — Enthusiasm vs. Talent

 

Although my last name is associated with the visual arts—painting in particular—I have to say that music has always played a major role in my life. What began as a curated LP collection eventually became a curated CD collection, and now exists mostly through music streaming. My tastes run wide, from Gregorian chant to the masters of classical music, to jazz and rock. While I enjoy listening to music, making music has always been even better.

Those of us with slightly geekish tendencies often find a home in bands. In high school, that meant wind ensembles and pit orchestras, playing clarinet and saxophone. In college, marching band provided instant friendships through practices, games, and road trips. These days, I’ve turned my admittedly modest talents to choir singing—either with my church choir or in combined community choirs. All in all, I’m far more a musical enthusiast and amateur musician than a truly accomplished one.

When it comes to genuine musical talent, however, I have to turn to my wife’s side of the family. Her family is Polish, though because much of Poland was under Russian rule at the time, their country of origin was often listed simply as Russia. One particularly intriguing ancestor—whom we’ve met before—was Wincenty (or Vincent) Działakiewicz, who emigrated from Hamburg in 1904. Born on 5 April 1884, his first 20 years in Poland were eventful. According to family stories, he aspired to the priesthood and attended seminary. There is also a tradition that he received conservatory training, possibly in Warsaw, though documentary evidence is scarce. What we do know is that his ship manifest listed him as an organist, bound for Brooklyn.

At the time, Russia was drafting young men from seminaries for service in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Unwilling to fight for the empire that was oppressing his homeland, Vincent was smuggled out of Poland to Germany, where he embarked for America—and freedom.

In Brooklyn, he met his future wife, Zophia Wysocka, who also came from a family of Polish patriots, and they married less than four years after his arrival. Beyond his family, Vincent’s great loves were music and the Polish Catholic Church. He expressed both through his work as an organist at Polish parishes in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and Glen Cove, Long Island, where he died in 1959. One family story holds that he was a friend—possibly even a student—of the great Polish pianist and nationalist Ignacy Paderewski, and that Paderewski visited him while touring the United States.

As for later generations, my daughter took piano lessons for years and became quite accomplished. My son, however, showed exceptional musical ability, studying classical guitar at the Manhattan School of Music and later film score composition at the Seattle Film Institute. Although he didn’t pursue a high-profile career, he has performed on occasion and, like his father, sings in his church choir—though with considerably stronger musicianship.

My children inherited my enthusiasm for music, but fortunately for them, they were also blessed with far more talent.

Note: The picture is of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Glen Cove, NY. While it's not certain that this was the church where Vincent presided as organist, it was the Polish Catholic church in Glen Cove.

52 Ancestors 2025: Water - A Salute to Polonia

 

So far, this blog has focused largely on ancestors who came to the thirteen colonies or early United States from northwest Europe—Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. But another part of our family came from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Many of the earlier immigrants were refugees fleeing persecution for their Reformed Protestant faith; for Poles, however, the story was one of political subjugation and national loss.

After the successive partitions of Poland by Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, the nation itself disappeared from the map, and its people were reduced to second-class status. Many Poles—and Jews confined to the Pale of Settlement—sought better lives in the New World. Alongside southern Europeans such as Italians and Greeks, they formed part of the great migration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This post tells the story of four Polish families who became part of our own ancestry, along with a brief look at the history that shaped them.

Our first immigrant is Wincenty Dzailakiewicz, who lived in Russian Poland. Born around 1883 (according to census records), he was living in Kleczew when he left Poland. Family lore says he had an interest in both music and his faith and was studying in seminary in 1904. When the Russo-Japanese War erupted that year, he faced conscription into the Russian Imperial Army—an unthinkable prospect for a patriotic Pole. With help from an uncle, he escaped through Hamburg, booking passage on the SS Phönicia of the Hamburg-American Line and departing on 26 October 1904, arriving in New York City on 10 November 1904. Once in America, he continued to serve the Roman Catholic Church as an organist in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and Long Island.

Wincenty (anglicized as Vincent) married Zophia “Sophia” Wysocka, born around 1888 in Russian Poland. She emigrated in 1904 as well. Family stories say her family was relatively well-off but deeply patriotic, and that she and her siblings—Anton (Anthony) and Katarzyna (Catherine, or “Bubbles”)—all came to America. Unfortunately, no passenger list has yet been found to confirm their journey.

Another branch of the family remains partly mysterious. Zygmont Szymanski was born on 23 September 1886 in Tykocin, in Russian Poland, and was living in Łomża before emigrating. His naturalization record provides one clue, but his arrival is puzzling. He stated that he came to New York on 29 May 1900 aboard the Granada, yet no such voyage appears in any shipping records—certainly not one arriving from Europe. In the 1930 census, he gave an arrival year of 1908, but no record supports that, either. Since his Declaration of Intention was filed on 3 February 1908, and these were typically submitted about two years after arrival, it’s likely he came to America around 1905 or 1906.

We have more solid evidence for his wife, Suzanna Sarnacka. She sailed from Rotterdam aboard the SS Rotterdam (of the Holland America Line) on 23 July 1910, arriving in New York on 1 August 1910 at age 17. She was detained for two days—likely because immigration officials worried she might become a public charge—but was released to a family in Schenectady, New York. About three years later, she married Zygmont.

These Polish immigrants, like so many others, built new lives while preserving their culture and faith. During the First World War, the Polish lands became a battleground between the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires, but from the wreckage, Poland regained its independence. Tragically, World War II brought renewed devastation—the German and Soviet invasions, and the murder of around three million Polish Jews during the Holocaust. Afterward came decades of Soviet domination, until the rise of the Solidarity movement helped Poland reclaim its freedom.

For generations, the Polish-American community has celebrated its heritage while contributing to the cultural and civic fabric of the United States. For my family’s Polish ancestors—Vincent and Sophia Dzailakiewicz, Zygmont and Suzanna Szymanski—crossing the water to America meant not just escape, but opportunity, freedom, and hope.