THE SHIKOSKI NAME
When I first dated Charles Shikoski he did
not always spell his name the same.
Sometimes his last name included a "w" or ended with an
"e", "i", or even a "y". When we married I told him I didn't care how
he spelled his name, but that he should pick one and use it exclusively. He had served in the army under
"Shikoske". Charley didn't
think the spelling made any difference because his father (Fred Shikoski) had
changed his name, not always spelling it the same.
Neither Charley's father nor Magdalene
spoke to Charley about what his father's original name was. What little information Charley had was
gained when he was very young by overhearing his older relatives talk. He gathered that his Grandfather Valentine
objected to Fred's last name because it wasn't "Polish enough."
I have formed my own opinion about the name
"Shikoski" based upon what little Charley told me; what Winnie
Dudzinski wrote; what Dr. Roger K. Krentz wrote in his book, Korzenie,
about the Polish families who settled in Princeton; and general history. Both Winnie's and Dr. Krentz's accounts
contain some known errors. I have tried
to bring the most reliable information together here in a logical account. The following is my conjecture of the origin
of the name "Shikoski".
Remember that around the late 1800s and early 1900s in America's newly
settled areas, the spelling of names often varied due to immigrants changing to
English from a foreign language, and to the sparse common education of the
people.
In the 1800s Germany ruled Poland. In particular she ruled that area of Poland
around the Poznan (Posen) Province where the Dudzinskis lived. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War broke
out. In 1871 many Poles decided that,
since Germany was busy fighting France, it would be a good time to declare
independence for themselves. The
uprising was crushed. The end result was
a greater surveillance of the Poles by the Germans. Also many Polish citizens began to leave
their homeland for religious reasons, especially after Bismark propagated his Kulturkampf,
which was designed to lessen the control of the Catholic Church over Polish
peasantry.
In Poznan Province in March, 1874, a son,
Florian, was born to Veronica, a sister of Marianne who was the wife of Jan (aka
as John) Dudzinski. Sometime, probably
in late summer or early fall, Marianne went to visit Veronica. Veronica's door was wide open, the house in
disarray, and baby Florian, wet and hungry, was crying. Marianne stayed all day taking care of the
baby and waiting for her sister to come home.
Shortly before dark Marianne returned to her home taking Florian with
her. Veronica was never seen again, but
someone had seen soldiers in that area the evening before. The family assumed that the soldiers knew
what had happened, but because of the political conditions existing at that
time no one dared to ask questions or investigate.
John Dudzinski had two brothers, Szymon
(aka Samuel, Simeon, or Sam) and Walienty (aka as Walenty or Valentine). About this time Valentine was eighteen,
strong, healthy and unmarried. The
family was afraid that he would be impressed into the German army and forced to
serve in one of Germany's far-flung distant areas. To prevent this the family scraped up enough
money to pay for Valentine's passage across the Atlantic to America. He ended up in Montello in the granite
quarry. He worked hard, saved all he
could, and sent the money back to Poland to pay passage for his brothers, John
and Sam. They too worked in the quarry
and earned money to send back to Poland for passage for their families to come
to America.
In 1885 John's wife, Marianne, and her
children came to United States. Florian
was eleven years old, and had been raised by Marianne. He was given the choice of staying in Poland
or coming to the United States. If he
stayed in Poland he would have had to rely on himself as his only means of
support. If he came to America he would
have to work to repay the advance paid for his passage. He chose to come across the sea. If he came under his own name, the steamship
company would have charged him in full for a single man's passage. As a dependent child coming over within a
family, the charge was much less. In
order to save money, Marianne claimed him as her own son, and he entered United
States with her under the name of Florian Dudzinski through the Boston
port. (John had entered through the New
York port.)
After entering the United States, Florian
continued to use the name Dudzinski,
During the Spanish American War in 1898, he was listed in the Town of
Brooklyn Militia Roll under "Dudzinski."
Then Florian fell in love with Mary, the
oldest child of Valentine. They wanted
to get married. Valentine's family
objected. "You can't marry your
cousin! It's against Church
law!" True, Florian and Mary had
been raised by brothers as if they were cousins, but Florian was not John's
natural son; there was no common blood line between Florian and Mary. To emphasize this fact, Florian began using
his original name. There seems to be no
known proof of what that name was. At
least one record named him as "Florian Zeke", and another used his
last name as "Zick". It was
"Zick" that caused the huge problem.
There was a large family living in and
around Princeton by the name of "Zick". Princeton people began to be confused and
associated Florian with the Zicks. (Some
even referred to Florian as "Fritz.)
The problem was that the Zick family was German Lutheran. The last thing wanted by Valentine, who had
fled the Germans in Poland, was a son-in-law connected in any way with the
German Lutherans, no matter how remotely or erroneously. This was the reason Florian's last name was
not "Polish enough" to satisfy Valentine. To counteract this problem, Florian added an
"owski" to his name, making it a more Polish sounding name, less
likely to be confused with the German Lutheran "Zick". He also started using the name
"Fred" possibly to counteract a German sounding "Fritz".
What was Fred's original Polish birth name?
According to a Sept. 21, 1899, baptismal
record in St. John the Baptist Church in Princeton, Hedwig, daughter of Simeon
Duszynski had godparents Valentine Duszynski and Elizabeth Czeky. This was not the only record of that time and
place to use this last name or a similar one, i.e. Czeck or Szec, often in the
same record that mentions a Dudzinski. I
suspect that Florian's original name was one form of this name. The Polish pronunciation of this name could
very well sound close to the sound Charley made when he told me what his
father's original name was. Remember it
was a sound Charley heard when he was a young child and tried to repeat it to
me around fifty years ago when he was forty.
An "owski" added to this sound is close to the sound of
Sikowski or Shikoski (pronounced with a short "i").
According to the marriage record at St.
John the Baptist Church "Florian Sikowski," son of Jacob Sikowski and
Veronica Bornick, married Magdalena Dudzinski on June 20, 1904. It might have been simpler for Florian to
tell authorities his father's name was the same as what he was using as his
own, rather than try to explain the difference.
According to records at St. John the
Baptist Church, Florian Sikowski was the confirmation sponsor of Jacob Roman
Dudzinski on June 1, 1910.
When Charley received his first Holy
Communion in St. John the Baptist Church on June 24, 1916, his certificate
lists his name as "Karol Sikorski".
Somehow some church record replaced the "w" with a
"r". When Virginia and Robert
received their first Holy Communion in Our Lady of the Lake Church, their
catechism teacher was a nun from Princeton, the same nun who had taught Charley
his catechism. She was in her
nineties. Charley saw her and talked to
her once when he had taken the twins to catechism. He had been so surprised that she was still
living, let alone still teaching catechism.
Knowing that they were Charley's children she inscribed their name in
their first prayer books as she remembered it (Sikorski) without checking Our
Lady of the Lake Church records.
Charley's eighth grade graduation diploma
(May 17, 1918" names him as "Charles Shikosky".
What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet! Fred (Florian) was a good man,
devout and stood up for what he thought was right. He was trilingual (Polish, German and
English), a fisherman and a farmer. It
was said that in his prime he could lift a 500 pound barrel of salt. He was a friendly, unpretentious man who
enjoyed visiting with friends and relatives.
I don't think he cared what name he was known by. It was more important that he be a
God-fearing, upright man.
Harriet Shikoski
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