Joseph — born Josef — was the youngest of three brothers who began our Smolinski family in the United States. Like his brother, Ignacy (James), Joseph left Poland (then under Russian rule) to join the oldest of the Smolinski brothers, Boleslaw (William), who had married Helena (Helen) Kalinowska in Kolno in 1902.

(Boleslaw and Helena are my grandparents. In Polish, Smolinski often appears as Smolnik or Smolnek. Kalinowska also has a variety of spellings, including Kalinowski, Kalinoski and Kalinowsky. I once saw my grandmother's name written as Kalinowskich.)

Boleslaw left for America soon after the wedding, she followed a year later. They were reunited in New Jersey where their first child, Wanda, was born in 1904. For reasons unknown, they returned to Kolno in 1905 and remained there until their second child, Boleslaw Jr., was born in 1906. Then they sailed again to the United States and settled in Solvay, New York, just outside of Syracuse. Boleslaw's brothers, Ignacy and Josef soon followed. So did Stanley and Rosa Smolinski, listed in the 1910 census as the parents of Boleslaw, Ignacy and Josef.

That census shows ten Smolinskis living at 319 Second Street, Solvay: Boleslaw, 26; Helen, 24: and their children, Wanda, 5; Boleslaw Jr., 4; Helen, 2, and Edward, three months; Stanley, 56; Rosa, 45; Ignacy, 22, and Joseph, 20. (According to the census, the household also included a boarder, Peter Naja, 23, a native of Russia-Poland.)

AFTER A SHORT STAY in the United States, Stanley and Rosa separated. He returned to Poland; she remained in Solvay and in 1913 married Stanley Karulevski (Karolewski). On the marriage license, Rosa listed her parents as Martin Koziol and Marian Bugnacki. Karolewski died in 1915, and Rosa would marry again, to Peter Lubak, though the date of their wedding is unknown.

Soon after Stanley returned to Poland, my grandfather, Boleslaw Smolinski, left his wife and children and moved elsewhere. In the 1980s, we discovered Boleslaw may have started another family in the Binghamton, New York, area, but there was never any contact between my immediate family — my parents, my sister and myself — and my maternal grandfather.

We did remain in contact with Boleslaw's brother, Joseph, in Highland Falls, New York, but for some reason did not maintain a relationship with another brother, Ignacy (James), who lived only a mile from our home in Solvay.

Joseph left Solvay after he joined the United States Army. He had the good fortune to spend almost all of his time stationed at the U. S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. He married, settled in nearby Highland Falls, and raised three children. The Solvay Smolinskis frequently visited Master Sergeant Joseph Smolinski; his family even more frequently visited Solvay. One of his grandchildren, Ray Mesaris, who died in 2012 in Florida, spent several weeks with the Smolinskis on Russet Lane during at least two summer vacations.

— JACK MAJOR