Sepia Saturday: Lithuanian Immigrants
Who knows what dreams immigrants
carried with them on to ocean-going vessels,
ships that spirited them away from the land
of their birth, their families, their known world?
Certainly they imagined a better life
for themselves and their children,
born and not yet in being.
What did they bring with them?
What were they forced to leave behind?
Pranciskus Kremenskas from Lithuania
was a handsome, curly-haired 33 year old
when he brought his pretty 23-year old
wife Manki Vaitekunaite Kremenskas
to the land of dreams
aboard the ship Kroonland.
Manki, who became Monica in the U.S.,
was pregnant with their first child.
They had the princely sum of $25 in cash
when they arrived at Ellis Island.
Their destination was East St, Louis, Illinois,
specifically 443 Collenwell Avenue.
Though the passenger manifest is hard to read,
it looks like their "American" contact in Illinois
was a member of Manki's family.
It also appears that a brother or cousin
of Pranciskus (Frank or Franz)
named Kasimier Kremenski sailed on the same ship
and accompanied them to East St. Louis.
taken in 1911, the year
after the young couple's arrival.
Daughter Valarie is seated on her daddy's lap.
Frank worked as a builder and carpenter,
among other things. He built the family
home in an area of Chicago near Midway Airport
and the Lithuanian National Cemetery
where he and his wife are buried.
Daughter Bertha arrived in 1915.
Son Alphonse was born in 1925.
Were there other children conceived
in between? I don't know.
Frank died in 1933
when Alphonse was only seven.
He didn't have time to teach Alphonse
the skills he'd need to be a good husband and father.
Manki died in 1955, having done her best
to raise her Lithuanian-American offspring
to be American.
My sons are some of the great-grandchildren
she never knew,
grandsons of her son Alphonse,
who never knew them either.
For more Sepia Saturday posts,
Comments
Some of my folks hailed from Lithuania as well.
she never knew,
grandsons of her son Alphonse,
who never knew them either."
Yet, your sons will know Manki and Alphonse, because you've kept their memory alive. Excellent post.
And I'm ever thsnkful.
Zachary Kremian - what had become of this story and lives of these humans trying to find a better life.