A middle-aged couple from some rural county out east came to Saint Casimir today. They had brought with them documents, remarkably preserved from the times before the First World War, for clues to how the lady's grandfather had migrated to the United States. The had been assured that Polish speakers are in abundance in our parish. Richard Zysko and his wife Ella took up the task, and I volunteered myself as an onlooker.
Eventually I had in hand the passport of Grandpa Ivan. It was in Russian, issued by the Tsar. Richard launched into an emotional rant against the Partition of Poland, which led brother to fight against brother along the war's Eastern Front. I was at once amazed and led to feel unworthy of the articles before me, which might belong to a museum exhibit and historical experts much more than at a parish dining table, after a meal of pork and mashed potatoes.
I read the Russian with difficulty. It predated some spelling reforms. It had the wacky and archaic letters "i" and "Ѣ", and none of us knew what to do with them. To make matters worse, the critical details (names) which could help best to piece together the story of Grandpa Ivan were written in highly illegible cursive. The only useful information came from the stamp, reporting a departure from the Russian Empire, November 1913.
With an incendiary mix of Google Translate and guesswork, we put together an interpretation for a mysterious Tsarist-Russian letter: It was a draft letter that had been sent to enlist Grandpa Ivan into service to the Tsar, dated October 1913. The lady pounded the table excitedly, saying, "This was exactly what Grandma told me, but my brothers wouldn't believe me! So Grandpa left Russia to escape the draft, just one month after receiving the letter." The question of which route he took to arrive in Ohio was left answered, but the couple left grateful and satisfied. And such were the sort of small moments that sprout marvellously from time to time in a place like Cleveland.
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