Of Slovakia

I wrote a lengthy post the other day about some of my French Canadian and English Puritan ancestors and some of the intriguing portions of their lives. In fairness to my father's side of the family, I thought I'd post a little bit about my grandmother's Slovak roots. My grandmother's parents immigrated to these United States from the small village of Jakubany in eastern Slovakia (at that time a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The village itself is nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in a region historically contested among the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian forces.

Seems like a rather idyllic place to me. We have records of my grandmother's family living in this same village since the late 1600s. An interesting note is that they were all Greek Catholics - Christians whose liturgy reflects Eastern Orthodox traditions but who are in communion with the Pope. The only church in town (pictured above) is Sts. Peter and Paul Slovak Greek Catholic Church.

This is the interior of the church. Note the Eastern influences including the iconostasis (icon screen), and the rich iconography. My grandma's parents left Jakubany in 1913 and moved to Windber, Pennsylvania. My great-grandfather mined coal and my great-grandmother raised twelve children. When my great-grandfather died of the black lung, the family moved to Detroit, where some of the elder sons had already found jobs at Ford. When my grandma married my grandpa, she stopped attending Greek Catholic services in favor of his Roman Rite tradition.