The meaning of helping the Poor - Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Topic Info:
The theme for Week 46 is "Poor Man." Like last week, I encourage you to be creative with this theme. How could a person be poor -- financially, "pitiable," poor judgement? Or perhaps you have an ancestor who helped the poor.

This is in opposite topic from last week's one of the word rich.

Once again my mind went to the being poor as in with money, but then bounced to what made me feel poor in regards to relationships. As I've alluded to in prior posts was family and its role into these types of feelings. The when I received the topic information from Amy, I got to thinking about the last sentence in her topic statement of someone helping the poor. These are what I'm going to tackle in this post.

I'm not going to go into the family aspect of the topic, as I'm trying to be politically correct as not everything has to be online. Keeping in this line, I'll reply to the topic by doing an ancestor who helps the poor.

Ancestor that helped the poor
I've written before about my great grandfather Apolonius Jagodzinski. He also went by the name of Leo Jagodzinski and Leo Berry. The names to were to sound more American than the others.

On his travel manifest, he labelled the person he was there to meet up with was Sister Agnieska  Jagadzinska which was under the relative column. I took it Agnieska was his sister as a sibling.

This is off of Apolonius' travel manifest in the relative column. Credit: Ellis Island

However, when I was commenting on one of the many genealogy groups in Facebook, someone looked it up and took the above entry in another direction.

What if Agnieska, now called Agnes to make it more American, was his sister but also a sister as in nun? I never would have put the two together. The Jagodzinski family is one huge brick wall for me. However, I'm the type of person who likes to check out all angles and information anyway.

I went looking and found some interesting information when looking at things this way.

I did find someone by this name come over from Europe in 1901. However, the person who's listed comes from a German background and is going to Philadelphia PA and not Pittsburgh where Apolonius went. I could speak away everything but the German background as Apolonius was Polish and its known as such as my great grandmother, Bernice, would speak in Polish/Russian (according to her Grandson Jimmy - my uncle) so the German background is out.

There was a woman by this name who got married and had at least one child and she put down the entire time she was German.

There was the last residence town name as well - gousawa. There were no towns by this name. I did find a reference to a mill - Gousawa Mill, Poland. Could this be a match of area? The only thing I could find was in Lebanon the country. Other than that, it was a dead end. This did not have many, if any, concrete connections, so I've discounted this link.

Then I came across the 1910 census in Paris, Michigan. It had an Agnes Jagodzinski listed among other women. There was a principal, classmates and a novice listed under relationship. When I scanned across it said she (and her parents) were born in Russia Polish and she was 31 years old. She arrived in 1902 in the US and knew English. Her occupation was listed as housekeeper in a sisters home on her own account.  She could read and write English.

Part of the 1910 Census showing Agnes and who she lived with and around. Credit 

This fit into her brother's Apolonius' information. He said he came from Poland Galiana, which I think is Golina, and he was going to Pittsburgh in 1905. This would have been in the Russian Particician when they left.

This show the particicians when Agnes and Apolonius arrived in the US. Credit

Agnes could have left PA and went to Michigan as by this point I have her brother married and in PA as a married man to my great grandmother.

From Family Search. Regarding the marriage of Apolonius and Bernice. 

If we take Agnes was a sister and was going to be or became a nun (as in sister) then this fit the story.

I was able to find a death certificate for Agnes and it was in Allegheny Pennsylvania. This is where Apolonius said he was going to come although by the time she died in 1952, Apolonius was in New York with his family.

Agnes' Death Certificate in 1952. Credit

What I found interesting on the death certificate was she was a part of the Felician Sister Community and the person who gave the information on her was another sister - Sister Mary Bernadine. She was in Ohio Valley Hospital which is nearby the area Apolonius and Bernice had one child, Stefan, who died in 1915 in Ohio.

Then there was the condition leading to death which is cyst of ovaries. Other conditions listed are Myocardial insufficiency and accrual effusion anemia.

These are all very important as I know on my side we've (and I've had) cysts on my ovaries. Personally I've dealt with anemia due to heavy periods and pain like I was giving birth (what I've imagined) prior to them performing a hysterectomy on me. I believe this is probably what Agnes was experiencing, which caused her heart not being able to take it any longer and she died. Remember back in the 1950s there wasn't the knowledge as there is today.

I do know my grandmother, which if Agnes is the person listed, would have been my grandmother's aunt, had heart problems which followed her for life. However, to be fair, on my grandmother's mother's side, there were heart problems there as well.

Further, my Aunt Honey's daughter, Genevieve, has passed away due to uterine cancer. I'm not sure of much more than this, due to the one medical thing my mother told me, but could this be another link with Agnes? It is possible.

There are too many things that add up and I'll say Agnes is the Agnes, my great grandfather Apolonius, had written down.

When I looked up the Felician Sisters information. It says:

"The Felician Sisters, officially known as the Congregation of Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi, is a religious institute of pontifical right whose members profess public vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and follow the evangelical way of life in common."

I sat back and smiled. I think...I know I found her. This Agnes was part of the St. Francis of Assisi which is associated with the church my great grandparents went to and are buried into one of their cemeteries.

But what about helping the Poor?
Being a housekeeper and cook for them would have meant she would have "profess public vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and follow the evangelical way of life in common."

In fact, they list one of the 8 provinces as being where Agnes had been in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. Once again, another link to Agnes and my great grandparents.

As you can see there are links and Agnes spent her entire life helping the entire public.

There are others who have helped the poor as well, but I figured I'd talk about another ancestor which I haven't mentioned before.