Wednesday, January 9, 2013


Yesterday, I'm glad to say, was a productive and energetic dip back into the world of my western Pennsylvania project. Sitting with my feet under the wood stove, I wrote two new drafts, revised three, and did a great deal of research. And in the midst of all this busyness, as I was scrolling through obituary entries from the Connellsville Daily Courier, I happened upon the following, dated Monday, April 11, 1927.
KULBACKI, MRS. BARBARA 
SCOTTDALE, April 11 - The funeral of Mrs. Barbara Kulbacki of Everson will be held at St. Joseph's Church at Everson at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Burial will be in St. Joseph's Cemetery, Scottdale.
This is my great-grandmother, a Polish immigrant, who at various times operated a corner store and ran a boarding house for laborers, who married twice (the first time at fourteen, to a man whom I believe she met on the boat), who had two large batches of children, and who died at age forty-two during surgery for uterine cancer. She left behind a straggling and destitute family, the younger children entirely dependent on the older ones; she left behind a drunken widower, handsome and improvident, who could dance like a Cossack; she left behind my beautiful and very fragile grandmother, Czeslawa, later known as Jessie, later known as Sally, who loved the movies, who was afraid of the nuns, who was nine years old when her mother died, who believed that the forks in the drawer were plotting against her, who sank into darkness and distress, who never recovered from this grief.

I was not looking for Barbara, but I found her nonetheless. What does this mean? Originally I had no intention of including any version of her in the collection, but do you think she is telling me that she ought to be in there?

Here's a photograph of her. I'm not sure how old she was when it was taken: I'm guessing her early thirties, but she could just as well have been much younger. Genetically Barbara's influence was powerful. The cheekbones and the eyes are my grandmother's, my mother's, and mine.



3 comments:

Ruth said...

Perhaps she is asking to have her story included or even told outright!

Maureen said...

Finding that obit is one reason I'm glad we have the Internet. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find information of any kind about my father's parents who were killed in an auto accident when he was just four (he was a first-generation American who became a ward of the state of Massachusetts). So many stories, I'm sure, there must be but all my research has always drawn a blank. My heart would miss more than a beat if I could ever find even a single notice like this that would tie past to present.

I think you should try to include her. What an extraordinary background. You always do wonders with detail like this.

Carlene said...

I believe her appearance unbidden is a direct request to have her story told, or reinvented perhaps.

Lovely woman. She looks young in the photo...and burdened...