Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family

by Zalewski, Andrew

  THE REGIEC FAMILY HAD quite a different story to tell. Their name suggests deeper roots in Galicia than those of the Lösches; it was not, however, a typically Polish name. The Regiecs were concentrated mainly in the mountainous region of western Galicia, or just on the other side of the highest peaks of the Carpathians—in what was then Hungarian territory and today forms northern Slovakia. The name was often recorded as Regiec or Regec; it bore a resemblance to the Hungarian name “Regetz” that was common further south. Clearly this was more than a phonetic similarity, as one could find some Regiecs living in Galicia who had actually been born in Hungary.28 A family legend, which is impossible to verify today, claims that some Asian blood was a part of the Regiec heritage. Could it be that this story was linked to the Mongol invasions that swept through Hungary, Moravia, and Poland in the thirteenth century? Or to the Tatars, Asiatic tribes migrating west, who centuries later settled peacefully in areas where Regiecs could have lived? We will never know.29

  Map of Galicia. The life journey of Eleonora Wilczek Lösch (born in Andrychow) and Andreas Lösch (born in Wieliczka).

  The marriage book from Olszyny parish. Its content included records from the villages of Gierowa and Roztoka, with entries regarding the Regiec family. The cover is from 1717.

  Our acquaintance with the Regiec family starts with Joseph and his wife, Lucia. They were both born toward the end of the eighteenth century, somewhere in the western part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. We first meet them in the small village of Gierowa on the occasion of their wedding in 1817.30 The 24-year-old Lucia was already a widow, not an uncommon status in those times. The marriage entry in the church record is minimal, with none of the customary references to the parents’ names or the couple’s birthplaces. We are left to wonder whether this was simply sloppy work on the part of the parish priest or, in his view, the two commoners did not merit additional description.

  It is clear that Joseph was a newcomer to that place; village records reveal no one else with the same family name until the births of his own children. There is less doubt about where Lucia was from: Her maiden name was common among country folks in the area. Both husband and wife were simple people. Joseph’s profession is later described in the church records as pastor ovium. Probably he was a shepherd, although that Latin name could also refer to a sheep farmer. Apparently, caring for sheep was a family craft; Joseph’s cousin, who settled around that time in a neighboring village on the other side of the river, is also described as a pastor ovium. In the course of Joseph’s lifetime, the original family name of Regetz (sometimes recorded as Regietz) would slowly evolve to Regiec, which would be used by all his children and the generations to follow.

  Typical village where time stood still. (Maynard Owen Williams/National Geographic Stock.)

  Michaël Regiec, the oldest son of Joseph and Lucia, was born in 1818. Over the years, he would be joined by younger siblings Petrus, Marianna, Adalbertus, Joannes, Catharina, and Josephus Jr. Michaël’s parents raised their children in the tiny rural settlement of Gierowa, between the towns of Tarnow and Nowy Sacz, places that we have already passed on our journey. This nondescript place sat on hilly terrain bordered by the River Dunajec to the west, forests to the south and north, and a natural clearing in the woods to the east. The village, which no longer exists, was a loose spread of 20-odd houses, with fir-forest-covered mountains clearly visible on the horizon. Events in the fall of 1827 underscored the fragility of life there when Michaël’s brothers Petrus and Joannes died a mere two weeks apart. The apparent cause was diphtheria, a highly contagious and then-deadly illness that is prevented today through widespread vaccination.

  Michaël’s childhood was predictably simple; he grew up surrounded by free but dirt-poor peasants and by the serfs living in the village. Sometime during his teenage years or even earlier, he would start working on a large estate that was situated not far from his birthplace, just across the river in the village of Roztoka. As a young man, Michaël was once asked to be the godfather of a child born to local serfs working with him on the estate. As if pointing to the family’s place at the bottom of the social ladder, at the baptism, the mother was only able to give the church scribe her first name. Tellingly, she did not know her maiden name; in its place was entered ignota nominae (ignorant of the name), leaving us wondering at how different life was then, compared to today. Michaël, who as a free man was standing a notch or two higher in the world of Roztoka, had his full name recorded in the parish books along with that of the child’s godmother, the wife of a gardener—without any hint of family affluence.31

  Today we can only wonder how it was possible that Michaël, but not his brothers or sisters, received some education as he grew up in the village. Not only was there no school in Roztoka, it is also difficult to imagine that his parents had sufficient means to send a young boy to a school somewhere else. But despite his humble beginnings, something in Michaël’s early years set him on a trajectory that would clearly define a very different future from that of his parents and even his siblings. Surviving documents bear Michaël’s handwriting, rather than the simple cross used as a signature by many of his contemporaries. The ability to write was a rarity at this time, particularly in rural areas, with many—including members of Michaël’s family—unable to correctly record their own names.32

  Like the Lösches, Michaël and his family witnessed the Galician Slaughter. The danger was real and close to home. In a neighboring village, the manor house was ransacked and its proprietor hacked to death by a scythe-wielding group of roaming peasants. The poor man’s wife and children were spared, and after braving snow-covered roads on foot, they reached the safety of the nearest town.33 As far as we can determine today, the Roztoka estate was not overrun by those seeking vengeance in that volatile winter. Was that just luck, or with Michaël’s help, had marauding troublemakers been chased away? These questions will have to remain unanswered.

  Shortly after these traumatic events, Michaël’s father, Joseph Regetz, who still used the old spelling of the family name, would pass away of natural causes. Notwithstanding this personal loss, Michaël Regiec would suddenly be elevated to an important position in his small community, once again illustrating the continuity of life despite its typical ups and downs. What exactly happened is difficult to reconstruct today. Perhaps the old, aristocratic Jordan family, which owned huge swaths of land on the left side of the River Dunajec, was struggling to keep its large holdings profitable. The death of Franciscus Jordan a few years before at the Roztoka estate could be an explanation for why young Michaël Regiec was needed to run the family’s enterprise in the village. Other portions of this large landholding were slowly being sold to others.

  Roztoka and the surrounding villages [Sukmanie, Milowka, Wielka (Wlk) Wies] all situated on the left side of the River Dunajec. The town of Zakliczyn is seen to the south. (Section of a map from 1937.)

  Regardless of the circumstances, we can only wonder what skills and what strength of personality propelled the 30-year-old Michaël, who until now had been merely one of many commoners, to become the de facto master of the Roztoka estate in a sort of lease arrangement with the Jordan family. Clearly, this was a major advancement, which must have been achieved more on his own merits than through any hereditary passage of privilege.

  The changes in Michaël’s life continued. A few years later, on three consecutive Sundays in January of 1850, announcements were read in a local church about his planned marriage. On February 7, Michaël Regiec and Thecla de Bogusz Traczewska were wed in the nearby town of Zakliczyn. The blackened and torn pages of the church record identify Thecla’s father as a local property owner; that would have further solidified Michaël’s growing affluence. The bride (also known as Magdalena) was ten years younger than her new husband.34 While growing up, she would have had no difficulty meeting Michaël, as they were living in neighboring villages, but it is unlikely that anyone could have predicted their future marriage.

&nb
sp; The Traczewski family traced their roots to a line of minor nobles who used, on rare occasions, the historical cognomen “Bohusz” (or “Bogusz”) together with the family name. In more distant times, the family had been recognized by a coat of arms known as Abdank, which was considered one of the oldest in the region. Legend dated its origin to a mythical period when a brave forebear of the Traczewski family had fought with a strange, dragon-like beast to defend a famous castle.35

  One of the many mysteries of our story remains unsolved: how Michaël not only received some education in a tiny village but earned the personal credibility to lease the estate from the Jordans, and then marry the upper-class Thecla Traczewska, all in the span of a few years. Over the next couple of decades, Michaël would maintain social relationships with the Jordan family—not bad, given the structure of society in those days. Some could say that the times were changing; but there was likely more to the story. Michaël Regiec was a man who knew how to overcome many barriers in order to succeed.36

  Roztoka. The manor house where Michaël Regiec and his family lived was assigned the number “1.” Other buildings (2 through 7) included living quarters for field workers, barns, and stables. [Based on a cadastral (survey) map from 1848.]

  With Thecla’s family approximately six miles away, the young wife was unlikely to have been considered a newcomer. Roztoka was a small place, with about 180 inhabitants living in 30-odd houses. The center of the village was the manor house, where Thecla joined her new husband. In the vicinity, several buildings that belonged to the estate could be found. The Roztoka landholding at this time covered about 531 acres (an area more than half the size of Manhattan’s Central Park), with fields for crops, pastures, and even a few patches of forest that provided firewood and building materials. Just south of the village, the River Dunajec took a sharp turn, forming wetlands along the bend that were often overgrown by reeds. Close by was a spot where three small mills stood. When family members wanted to see the young couple, a river crossing there allowed for a short boat ride for those living in not-too-distant villages on the other side.

  Roztoka was a microcosm of rural life in Galicia, filled with almost never-ending hard work but also with the reassuring cycles of births, marriages, and funerals. Glancing at records for the 30 years after Michaël and Thecla married, we see that Roztoka would welcome, on average, seven infants a year. However, the population would not grow too fast as, on average, six deaths were recorded every year, including those of many newborns and children. It is difficult to comprehend today, but not many Roztoka residents would survive beyond the age of 50 years.37

  Of course, the large manor house was home not only to Thecla and Michaël but also to many of their relatives. Two young women, Thecla’s sister Angela Traczewska and Michaël’s sister Catharina Regiec, lived there until their own marriages years later.38 There we also meet Michaël’s brother Joseph (not to be confused with their father or with Michaël’s son of the same name), who was staying on the estate. He left only when his own marriage to a young widow, Leopolina Granz, made him a small landowner in the neighboring village. Even Michaël’s other brother, Adalbertus, and his wife, Apolonia, who remained small farmers, were frequent guests, visiting from the neighboring village of Gierowa, across the river.

  Although a few family members living on the Roztoka estate helped Michaël to manage it, this was not enough given the tasks that seemed to stretch from the morning to nightfall. To cope with everything on his farmstead, Michaël employed several villagers; in particular, every pair of hands was needed during harvest time. However, only a few of these would have their own plots of land. The estate provided simple living quarters for those from outside Roztoka— servants, shepherds, and migrant farm workers—who tended the farm animals and surrounding fields. Some of them would marry and have children while employed by the Regiecs, listing the estate as their place of temporary residence.

  In stark contrast to his parents, Michaël’s family was clearly accorded a special status in his community. Their house was assigned the number “1,” signifying its importance. And in accordance with the norms of the day, written records made a very clear distinction between the Regiec family and the others in the village. The names of the Regiecs were recorded with the formal Latin prefixes Dominus and Domina when referring to Michaël and Thecla, respectively. Michaël’s name was followed by his title as the overseer (possessori allodii) of the estate, whereas Thecla’s name was sometimes accompanied by a notation of her hereditary status (nobilis). With the exception of the late Franciscus Jordan, no one else had been addressed in such a formal way in the village.39 Even Michaël’s brothers were not accorded such deference. Despite rural isolation, there were clear social barriers that went beyond such formal titles. It was as if some imaginary curtain now separated Michaël from the rest of the community, for after he became overseer of the estate, his name rarely appeared among the best men or godfathers at family events celebrated among his farming neighbors. We can only wonder why Michaël’s younger sister, Catharina Regiec, made an exception when she agreed once to become godmother to a gardener’s baby. But Catharina was considered different in the family, as our story will reveal a bit later.

  The entry marking the birth of Josephus Blasius Stanislaus Regiec, the son of Michaël and Thecla, born on February 4, 1858. The priest made a mistake in recording his names, with a visible correction: A small “1” is written, with a line pointing to the name “Josephus.”

  When my great-grandfather was born on February 4, 1858, the Regiecs’ was already a busy household, with five daughters and one son milling around. Joseph will become an important part of our story; hence, what happened next could shed some light on his character and the choices he made during his life. The events that unfolded were traumatic to the entire family and without any doubt would have an impact on the boy’s life from day one.

  It was not uncommon at this time for a woman of 30 or so years, physically strained by five, six, or more pregnancies, to suffer complications from childbirth, which might easily be fatal. With Joseph’s birth, Thecla developed severe bleeding and passed away the same day. Two days later, life took a turn that might have been strange and confusing, with the simultaneous celebration of a new life and mourning for one lost. The baby was baptized with the customary hope of a better life ahead, but also with a heavy dose of uncertainty. That same day, Thecla, only 31 years old, was buried.

  We can be sure that Michaël’s grief was mixed with a deep anxiety about the future of his small children. But life had to go on; a wet nurse was brought in to keep Joseph alive, other Regiec women arrived to help, and the older children took care of their younger siblings. However, these were only temporary measures for a man with an estate to run and a large household. Startling to us, though quite common by the norms of the day, 42-year-old Michaël Regiec remarried after a customary one-year mourning period. It is worth noting that his deceased wife’s name was respectfully invoked during the three public announcements made before the wedding ceremony.

  Michaël’s second wife, Catharina Barbara Stoczynska, came from the neighboring village of Olszyny. In Joseph’s childhood, we have another unsolved mystery: We do not know whether he was raised by his father and his stepmother, or was cared for by relatives elsewhere. We do know that Michaël’s family continued to grow, with the arrival of an additional seven children over the next 12 years. Ultimately, 11 children would survive beyond childhood. Clearly, this was a household in which a child had to learn to take care of himself or herself, and could not expect to be pampered.

  There is another Catharina in our tale, the rather unusual sister of Michaël who was also part of his household. That young woman must have caused quite a stir at the manor when, one year, her pregnancy became apparent. We can only imagine that the otherwise happy news was met with strong condemnation in raised voices, accompanied by the tears of Catharina; all because the sister of the estate overseer was unmarried. Without any doubt, Catharin
a broke a few rules in Roztoka. Although out-of-wedlock children were not as uncommon as the moral standards of the day would have dictated, most of these were born to poor women; the more affluent had various means to quickly marry off expectant mothers. However, this time, events turned out somewhat differently. When Michaël’s sister gave birth, no father’s name was recorded in the church register. Even if the man’s name was widely known, prevailing customs and the law would have prevented the newborn from being recognized as his legitimate child. But all seemed to have been forgotten when, three years later, Catharina married a young man from not too far away. As if to stress the importance of the moment, the most senior and accomplished member of the family, Thecla’s father, led the happy bride to the altar.40

  There is more mystery about the Regiecs in Roztoka. Sometime in the late 1870s or early 1880s, the large Regiec family must have left the village; someone else was suddenly listed as the overseer of the Roztoka estate in 1881.41 Neither Michaël Regiec nor his second wife would be buried there, and none of their many children would start families in the village, either. Even Adalbertus, the most unassuming of the Regiec brothers, would move away. What caused such change in their lives and where the family moved remain unclear. It is evident, however, that ownership of the Roztoka property changed hands. By the late 1880s, it belonged to the Kochanowski family, who in prior years had been well-acquainted with Michaël Regiec.42