Helena Kalinowska Smolinski eventually became better know to her family as Nana. She was 16 when she married Boleslaw Smolinski (Smolnek) in their homeland, Poland, though during this period their hometown, Kolno, was considered part of Russian Poland.

(Poland, as an independent country, did not exist for more than 100 years; in the late 1700s it was partitioned among Russia, Germany and Austria. Not until the end of World War I was Poland restored.)

Boleslaw Smolinski was one of three brothers who left Kolno and emigrated to the United States. There's some evidence his parents also left Poland for the United States, though they may have returned.

Helena and Boleslaw left Kolno in 1903 and lived awhile in New Jersey where they had a daughter (Wanda). They returned to Poland where son William (Boleslaw) was born, then moved back to the United States and settled in Solvay, NY, where they had two more children, Helen and Edward.

According to notes left by my mother, my grandfather was the son of Boleslaw Smolinski and Rose (or Rosa) Koziol. My mother said this was Rose Koziol's second marriage. She would later marry for a third time, to Felix or Peter Lubak. While married to Boleslaw Smolinski, Rose had three sons, Boleslaw, Ignacy and Jozef, who after they settled in the United States were known as William, James and Joseph.

The 1910 United States census data provided interesting information. According to that census, Boleslaw Smolinski (my grandfather) was 26 years old at the time, living at 319 Second Street, Solvay, New York, and employed in a steell mill. His wife, Helen (or Helena), was 24. They had four children – Wanda, 5; Boleslaw Jr., 4; Helen, 2, and Edward, an infant.

Sharing the house with them, according to the census, was Stanley Smolinski, 56, and his wife, Rosa, 45, both born in Russia-Poland. Also in the house were Ignacy (James) Smolinski, 22, and Joseph Smolinski, 20. (Joseph would later move to Highland Falls, NY, after he joined the U. S. Army and was stationed at nearby West Point, where he would remain the rest of his life.)

I'm assuming Stanley and Rosa were Boleslaw's parents, though I'm curious why the name Boleslaw would be translated two different ways, as Stanley for my great-grandfather, and as William for my grandfather and one of my uncles. In any event, by 1920. Stanley and Rosa were gone, perhaps back to Poland, or, creating a scenario from my mother's notes, Stanley may have died (or he and his wife divorced), clearing the way for Rosa to marry for the third time.

My grandfather deserted the family after Edward was born, leaving his wife to raise the children alone. Apparently he settled near Elmira. His whereabouts became known to his wife when he wrote to her, requesting a visit. She refused. From then on Boleslaw was a closed subject to one branch of the

His brother, Ignacy (James), remained in Solvay with his wife, Strina (excuse the spelling if it is incorrect) and their two daughters, one of whom was named Agnes (or Agness). I don't recall any visits with the family, though they lived only a few blocks from our house.

There were, however, frequent visits to and from younger brother, Joseph Smolinski and his family, though I don't recall any mention of what may have happened to Boleslaw.

(Apparently he started another family, which the Solvay Smolinskis discovered by chance many years later in Washington, DC, when Tim Smolinski, son of Tom and Edie Smolinski, met another Smolinski who worked at a store near Falls Church, Virginia. Seems that Smolinski, who was from the Binghamton, NY, area, recalled hearing that his grandfather had lived in Syracuse where he had been married previously. That man could well have been my grandfather, but we've never been able to verify it.)

As for Master Sergeant Joseph Smolinski, he and his wife, Katherine, had three children, Olga, Mary and Joseph Jr., who became a priest. Olga married and had a son, Ray Mesaris, who lived with his grandparents after his parents died. Ray spent a couple of summers with my Uncle Bill Smolinski and his family next door to us on Russet Lane.

The Kalinowska side of the family remains a mystery to me. During my early childhood I met a woman I believe was Helena Kalinowska's mother, Babka. I think she lived in Pennsylvania with or near relatives. There is a link between my family and the Scranton, Pennsylvania, area, but specifics remain unknown to me.

The link actually may be stronger with my grandfather's side of the family because several families named Koziol (which we always pronounced KAY-zill) settled in or around Scranton. My mother's notes don't indicte whether her paternal grandmother was born Rose (or Rosa) Koziol, or whether that was the last name of her first husband. We were often visited by a woman named known to us as Stasha Waynai, who was a relative. She lived just outside of Solvay in Westvale with her husband, Louis Waynai. "Stasha" apparently was a nickname. She had been born Stella Koziol in Lomza, Poland.