Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Dear Hearts,

February 7th is the birthday of Hannah Grace Sullivan: daughter of Paul and Stephanie; sister of Jack, Emma, Liam, Callum and Ewan; cousin, niece, friend and teammate to a ton of others.

While Hannah is enrolled at the University of Dallas (with a few cousins), she spent the past five months abroad studying in Rome at the UD's program. She made the most of the experience by taking several more weeks to visit Austria, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Ireland, Spain and Croatia, finally landing with the Falconer clan in Thurso for a few more weeks.

As a seasoned traveler, Hannah not only navigated international Covid restrictions, but she also recovered well despite having her cell phone and banking cards stolen in Spain! Everyone in Phoenix was happy to have her home for a week before Hannah returned to Dallas and school.

Happy Birthday, Hannah, and may you have 104 more healthy ones, by the Aunt Joannie Sullivan Law of Longevity Anticipation of 2008.

God bless us and save us and keep us from harm

Love, Patty

Happy Birthday, Ewan!

Dear Hearts,

February 5th is the birthday of Ewan Paul Sullivan: son of Stephanie and Paul; brother of Hannah, Jack, Emma, Liam and Callum; nephew, cousin and friend to scores of others. He shares the day with his cousin Rose!

Ewan works both sides of his brain, playing baseball and basketball, while also learning to play piano. He has also taken up archery to prepare joining dad on a hunting trip. Indeed, Paul, Callum and Ewan recently took the Arizona mountains and brought home two javelinas!

He is kind and sweet and has a wonderful sense of humor and giggle.

Happy Birthday, Ewan. and may you have 115 more healthy ones, by the Aunt Joannie Sullivan Law of Longevity Aspiration of 2008.

God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Patty

Happy Birthday, Rose!

Dear Hearts,

Rose is lucky to be surrounded always
by her big, loving family.

February 5th is the birthday of Rose Marie Herrington: daughter of Ella & Phillip; sister of Darlene, Joseph, John, Ruth, James, Anna and Agnes; cousin and niece of a whole bunch of us.

In her two years of life she has traveled afar while being entertained, cuddled and cared for by her seven siblings; watched six of those siblings go off to school in the fall; and spent the majority of her life in some sort of quarantine situation. Through it all, Rose has remained as cute as a button and sweet as can be.

So, happy birthday, little Rosie, and may you have 123 more healthy ones, by the Aunt Joannie Sullivan Law of Longevity Aspiration of 2008.

God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Patty

God Bless Alfred

Dear Hearts,

February 3rd is the 156th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Wlodzimierz Wilkoszewski: son of Romualda and Edward; husband of Wanda; father of Norbert, Alfred Jr., Carl, Eugene, Irwin, Stewart and Blanche. He was called Snaz and lived his whole life in Chicago and was probably the man responsible for changing the family's surname to Wiley. You can see the details on the family record here.

Jim actually knew him and offers these sweet memories:
"It was my job to wake him up with a little bell and walk with him to the dinner table. He would hold my hand and talk a sort of fake language to me, and his white hair stuck straight up in a point like the roof of a cottage.

His wife, Wanda Zinn was the daughter of Josef Zinn and Antonina Grabska. She died in the flu epidemic of 1918. Boompa kissed her goodbye that morning, went to school and when he came home, she was dead and quickly buried in the epidemic graves in the Polish Catholic cemetery on the North Side. He never saw her again, but just before he left us, he sat straight up, opened his arms and said, "Mama, Mama." Then lay down, sighed and slipped peacefully into his mother's arms and the arms of God.

When Wanda died in 1918, Al was left to raise 7 kids. He was multi-talented, played the piano like a maniac, was a bank clerk and a prodigious drinker, and loved to brawl. His 6 sons and 1 daughter all turned out wonderfully, though. He invented a fart machine that he would sit on and embarrass Mary Claire and Helen when their boyfriends came calling. I saw one--it was ingenious, but he never got it patented. Worked excellently. True story."

Please watch over us, beloved ancestors. God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Patty & Jim

God Bless Alfred

Dear Hearts,

February 3rd is the 156th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Wlodzimierz Wilkoszewski: son of Romualda and Edward; husband of Wanda; father of Norbert, Alfred Jr., Carl, Eugene, Irwin, Stewart and Blanche. He was called Snaz and lived his whole life in Chicago and was probably the man responsible for changing the family's surname to Wiley. You can see the details on the family record here.

Jim actually knew him and offers these sweet memories:
"It was my job to wake him up with a little bell and walk with him to the dinner table. He would hold my hand and talk a sort of fake language to me, and his white hair stuck straight up in a point like the roof of a cottage.

His wife, Wanda Zinn was the daughter of Josef Zinn and Antonina Grabska. She died in the flu epidemic of 1918. Boompa kissed her goodbye that morning, went to school and when he came home, she was dead and quickly buried in the epidemic graves in the Polish Catholic cemetery on the North Side. He never saw her again, but just before he left us, he sat straight up, opened his arms and said, "Mama, Mama." Then lay down, sighed and slipped peacefully into his mother's arms and the arms of God.

When Wanda died in 1918, Al was left to raise 7 kids. He was multi-talented, played the piano like a maniac, was a bank clerk and a prodigious drinker, and loved to brawl. His 6 sons and 1 daughter all turned out wonderfully, though. He invented a fart machine that he would sit on and embarrass Mary Claire and Helen when their boyfriends came calling. I saw one--it was ingenious, but he never got it patented. Worked excellently. True story."

Please watch over us, beloved ancestors. God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Patty & Jim

God Bless Romualda

Dear Hearts,

February 2nd is the 190th anniversary of the birth of Romualda Gorczynska Wilkoszewska, Boompa's grandmother, who was born in Konin, Poland.

She was the daughter of Major Anthony Gorczynski, a Polish officer in Napoleon's army. She and her husband, Edward Zygmunt Wilkoszewski, had many children, some records say 22! Romualda died in Chicago on July 8, 1898 and is buried at the Polish Cemetery at Norwood Park there.

(On a personal note: I would love to see one of our younger generation bring back the name Zygmunt!)

God bless you, Romualda. We pray you are enjoying blissful eternity with our ancestors.

God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Patty

God Bless Jeremiah

Dear Hearts,

February 2nd is the 171st birthday of our ancient patriarch, Jeremiah Patrick O'Sullivan. He is one of our ancestors who made the trip across the Atlantic from Ireland.

To follow is Jim's beautiful story:

Jeremiah was born during a famine year in 1851, the youngest son of ten, to Timothy and Mary Barry.

In Ireland, people were dropping dead in the fields and the English were evicting them and picking them off. Some British soldiers abused a member of the family. Jeremiah snuck up on the English rent collector and killed him with a hardened cabbage stalk. He then fled to Cobh, down outside of Cork city and then took ship to Nova Scotia, on the run. He went inland for a few years, chased by the authorities, eventually came across at Sault Ste Marie on a raft- an illegal entrant- to the Upper Peninsula and down to Chicago, met Anna Meany from Clare and had six children, four daughters, Margaret, Eileen, Mary and Anna, and two sons, James Patrick and John Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was about 5' 9" tall and broad as a barn, though thin in his youth, stocky later. He lost his leg several years before he died in 1930. He had it buried with military honors, honestly, as a member of the old version Old IRA, the Fenians, in the Irish cemetery on the South Side, Mt. Olivet. The plot document reads, "Section 1, Jeremiah P. Sullivan; section 2, 'leg of.' "

If you ever wanted to make Mary Fran scream laughing, you just had to sidle up to her and say, "Leg Of."

Our cousin, Father Jim McKittrick, sent me some documents that had Jeremiah's name as Jeremiah B. O'Sullivan, but the "O" had never been substantiated as far as I can tell, until two summers when I found Timothy’s grave in Mahoonagh parish, Limerick, and saw that it was “O’Sullivan.”.

Jeremiah got us here, and he lived 79 years and did it pretty hard. Here's to Jeremiah Barry O’Sullivan, born in Mahoonagh parish, townland of Cooley Gorman, County Limerick, Eire, on 2 February, 1851, and died in Chicago of complications due to the amputation of his second leg on 6 November, 1930.

They say he was wild when he drank, that he was mean and rough. But he got us here, and he stuck up for his family. And he's my great-grandfather.

Rest in Peace, Jeremiah. Thank you for bringing us to America. God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.

Love, Jim & Patty