Sentimental Sunday: Halloween 1967

My siblings and I on Halloween in 1967, 8015 Sharpview, Houston, Texas.  I'm in the back on the left, and I guess I'm a black cat.  My sister Mary is the next tallest; I think she is an owl, as those are feathers all over her head and mask.  My brother Mark is the mummy in the middle, and my brother Brian is Frankenstein.  My little sister Mary, in the front, is a gypsy.  That's a paper accordian skeleton party decoration hanging behind Mark, and you can see the decorated pumpkin bowl full of candy to pass out on the right.


© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday's Faces From the Past: Agota and Steponas Radauskas, 1921

Agota Radauskaitė (1902-1980) visiting her older brother Steponas Radauskas (1899-1944) while he was in the Lithuanian army,  1921.

This photograph is from the private album of Aldona Radauskaitė Zigmantavičienė, the daughter of Steponas Radauskas, a brother of Agota and Leo.   Thank you Aldona!  Thanks also to my third cousin Osvaldas Guokas in Lithuania, who has been sharing all these photographs and information with me!

© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Happy 89th Birthday to My Mom (tomorrow)!

My mom in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Happy Birthday to My Baby Sister (tomorrow)!

Mary sometime during or before July 1966.

© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday's Faces From the Past: Bronė and Steponas Radauskas, BEF 1943

This is a photograph of Bronislova "Bronė" Skačkauskaitė Radauskienė (1905-1961) and her husband, my first cousin twice removed Steponas Radauskas (1899-1944).  I don't know when the photograph was taken, only that it had to be before Steponas' untimely death in early September, 1944.  More likely it was prior to 1943 (because a photograph from that year shows him with far less hair), but I think it was after 1930.  Bronė is thinner in this photo than she was in one taken in that year.

Bronė was born December 28, 1905, the daughter of Petras Skačkauskas.  She and Steponas were married January 29, 1929, in Šeduva, in the Radviliskis district municipality in Lithuania.  They had three children, daughter Aldona Radauskaitė Zigmantavičienė (born 1934), son Antanas, who was born about 1934 and died about 1935 (perhaps a twin to Aldona?), and son Petras Radauskas (1937-2004).  Bronė died July 7, 1961, and is buried with Steponas and Antanas at the Rozalimas cemetery.

The photo in this post came from the private album of Aldona Radauskaitė Zigmantavičienė, the daughter of  Bronislova "Bronė" Skačkauskaitė Radauskienė and Steponas Radauskas (tėtis means dad or daddy or papa in Lithuanian).   Thank you Aldona!  Thanks also to Osvaldas Guokas, who has been sharing all these photographs and information with me!


© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wednesday: Anastasia Radauskas Polianski, 1892-1978

Anastazija Radauskaite was born January 22, 1892, in Gikoniai village, Lithuania, the fifth of twelve children and the oldest daughter of Ignatijus (Ignotas) Radauskas (1858-1913) and Agota Guokiete (Guokas) Radauskiene (1861-1942), the older sister of my great-grandfather Charles (Kazimieras) Guokas (1863-1939).  

Anastasia came to the United States in 1912, and married fellow Lithuanian immigrant Joseph Anthony Polianski (1890-1952) on June 1, 1914, at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Baltimore, Maryland.  They had two daughters and two sons between 1915 and 1934, and eight grandchildren.  Anastasia died in January 1978.

© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Matrilineal Monday: Guokas Family Tree Chart

A couple of my Lithuanian third cousins, Audrys Guokas and Osvaldas Guokas, have been hard at work on a Guokas family tree that spans three countries (Lithuania, USA, Argentina) and goes back (from me) six generations (to our common ancestor, my fifth great-grandfather Stanislovas Guokas, married in 1775), and forward a couple generations as well!  Here's a member of one of those forward generations, pictured with the chart:

Jieva Guokaitė, my third cousin once removed, looks at the Guokas family tree chart that is almost as long as she is!  Photo courtesy my third cousin, Audrys Guokas.


© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Those Places Thursday: Lagoon at Dawes Park, July 1939 and August 2017

The proportions aren't quite right on this one - but here is a then (July 1939) and now (August 2017) picture of the Arrington Lakefront Lagoon at Dawes Park in Evanston, Illinois.  The boys in the photo are my dad, Frederick Henry Pape, and his nine-days-younger first cousin John Charles "Jack" Bleidt (1929-1973).  The boys were ten years old here, and apparently had a model boat in the water.

Here's a photo of the lagoon from August 10, 2017, one of many photos I took of it that day.

© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Tombstone Tuesday: Nellie Julia Polianski Kane, 1915-1943

photo courtesy I See Dead People at FindAGrave

Nellie (Anelė) Julia Polianski Kane (1915-1943), my second cousin once removed, is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn Park, Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  Nellie was born in Maryland, the oldest child of Lithuanian immigrants Joseph Anthony Polianksi (1890-1952) and Anastasia Radauskas Polianski (1892-1978).  She grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Eastern High School there in February 1933.  According to the 1933 yearbook, The Eastern Echo (page 38), "Polly" could usually be found talking and had a hobby of skating, an ardent aversion to reading essays, and a secret ambition to be a nurse.

On the 1940 Census, Nellie is living with her parents, younger sister Helen, and younger brothers Joseph Jr. and Eddie on Pennington Avenue, and working as a bookkeeper for an insurance company.  Just down the street is Vincent Kane, a college graduate from Pennsylvania about her age, doing office work for a chemical company (Nellie made more money than him the previous year).

Sometime after that census was taken (on April 11-12, 1940), Nellie and Vincent Thomas Kane (1915-1989) married.  He enlisted in the Army on February 11, 1941, and served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, ending his military career on his birthday in 1975 as a major.

Nellie died on February 12, 1943, in Huntsville, Alabama, so I am guessing Vincent must have been stationed there about that time.  They had no children.


© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Anastasia Radauskas Polianski with daughters Nellie and Helen, ABT 1930

The photo above is of Anastasia (Anastazija) Radauskas Polianski (1892-1978), in the center, and her two oldest children, daughters Nellie (Anelė) Polianski Kane (1915-1943), on the left, and Helen (Elena) Eugenia Polyanski Hulshoff (1916-2007), on the right.  Anastasia looks a lot like she did on her trip to Lithuania in 1930, and the girls look to be in their early teens, so I'm guessing this photo was taken about 1930.

The photo came from the private album of Aldona Radauskaitė Zigmantavičienė, the daughter of Steponas Radauskas, brother of Anastazija.   Thank you Aldona!  Thanks also to Osvaldas Guokas, who has been sharing all these photographs and information with me!


© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.