Miniature Research Project: Polish Chicago

By the 1930s the number of Polish immigrants had exceeded the German immigrant in Chicago, and among them were my great-great grandparents. Since I don't yet know their exact immigration dates and the previous spelling of their names, its been difficult to find their papers, but I do know my great-grandfather's parents were from Wielopole and Kolbusowa. Unfortunately, these cities don't exist anymore, and finding their modern-day equivalents will be a challenging but rewarding chore for the next few days.

Upon their immigration to North America, my great -grandmother Pauline Juhan and her parents Nicholas and Katherine settled first in WI, but later moved with many other Poles to Chicago, in what was known as "Polonia." They lived in Chicago Ward 4, apartments with immigrants from many other countries residing in it. The same was true for my great-grandfather Edward Polek: His parents, John and Francis, moved straight to Chicago upon immigration and lived in Chicago Ward 34. From Census records in 1920, there were 4 other Polish families living in the same Ward, Lithuanian, German, and Russian being present as well. I so wish my great-grandparents were still alive to tell what they must have experienced culturally growing up as first generation immigrants.

When my grandmother was growning up, her parents had decided to stay in Chicago, but moved out of the ward into nicer apartments. She remembers going to church and the entire service being in Polish and she not understanding a single word, and her life mostly centered around the Catholic church upbringing and her other Polish relatives. She remembers having Christmas exactly like we have it today in our new generational family hundreds of miles away from Chicago. So perhaps, in a way, the cultural diversity is still there, but more dependent on the widespread locale of our family and the vastly different life experiences that have marked us.