Franz and Catharina spoke both Polish and German. Their daughter Josephine said that Polish was generally spoken in the home and that they switched to German when they did not want the children to understand what was being discussed. Franz also belonged to a Polish organization in Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre and read a Polish newspaper. Although Franz thought of himself as a 'German' he anglicized his name to Frank Smith, and that is how it appears in all the census records. When my mother stayed at Ella's in Wilkes-Barre (about 1928), she slept with her grandfather, Frank Smith. She said she had to lay very still. She remembered him going out to get his Polish newspaper every day. Donald Smith remembers his father, Henry, stating that Frank was a drinker and that he beat the mother frequently. Supposedly he beat her a day or two before her death. She was suffering from cancer and I am pretty sure it didn't matter to Frank. (Research):Born in Grutchno, West Prussia (in what is today Bruczno, Poland), Bertha Ullmann --------------------------------------------------------- Name: Franz Schmidt Birth Date: 4 Apr 1883 Birth Place: Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Gender: Male Race: White Father's Name: Johan Schmidt Father's Birth Place: Poland Mother's Name: Josephine Krueger Mother's Birth Place: Pole FHL Film Number: 1305103 ------------------------------ Prussia was a GERMAN kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg*. For centuries, this state had substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of the Prussian state was Berlin. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, a Baltic people related to the Lithuanians and Latvians. In the 13th century, "Old Prussia" was conquered by German crusaders, the Teutonic Knights. In 1308 Teutonic Knights conquered the formerly Polish region of Pomerelia with Gda (Danzig). Their monastic state was mostly Germanized through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south it was Polonized by settlers from Masovia. The Prussian lands transferred to Poland after the Treaty of Versailles were re-annexed during World War II. However, most of this territory was not reintegrated back into Prussia but assigned to separate Gaue of Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland. With the end of Nazi rule in 1945 came the division of Germany into Zones of Occupation, and the transfer of control of everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, (including Silesia, Farther Pomerania, Eastern Brandenburg, and southern East Prussia), to Poland, with the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, going to the Soviet Union. Today the Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland. During the Soviet Army's takeover of eastern Germany an estimated ten million Germans fled, were expelled from (or were not able to return) to these territories as part of the Potsdam Agreement and the sanctioned German exodus from Eastern Europe." [The full article is way too long to put here. So, like I said above, Prussia was GERMAN at one time, and now only EAST PRUSSIA is part of Poland. Your ancestors would have been called PRUSSIANS.] Franz and Catharina spoke both Polish and German. Their daughter Josephine said that Polish was generally spoken in the home and that they switched to German when they did not want the children to understand what was being discussed. Franz also belonged to a Polish organization in Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre and read a Polish newspaper. Although Franz thought of himself as a 'German' he anglicized his name to Frank Smith, and that is how it appears in all the census records. When my mother stayed at Ella's in Wilkes-Barre (about 1928), she slept with her grandfather, Frank Smith. She said she had to lay very still. She remembered him going out to get his Polish newspaper every day. Donald Smith remembers his father, Henry, stating that Frank was a drinker and that he beat the mother frequently. Supposedly he beat her a day or two before her death. She was suffering from cancer and I am pretty sure it didn't matter to Frank.

Registration number: 10/1883 Marriage License (Translation to English) Franz Schmidt, bachelor 25 years old from Grutschno [today Polish: Gruczno] And Catharina Czajkowska, maiden 24 years old from Niedzitz [today Polish: Niedźwiedź] Were married on November 11, 1883 (eighteen eighty-three) in a Catholic Church in Grutschno Gr. Lonk [“Gross Lonk” is the German name of the village called Luszkowo today in Polish] County Schwetz [name of this town and county in Polish: Świecie]) July 11, 1944 [In the middle of the lower part of the license there is an imprint of a rubber stamp with the words “Catholic Parish” on top, an image of the cross in the middle, and an inscription “Gr. Lonk” (Gross Lonk) at the bottom of the imprint (it’s the German name of the Polish village of Luszkowo)] [To the right of the stamp imprint]: The Catholic Parish Fr. B. Losinski, Parish Priest from Grützen (Grutschno) [In the left bottom corner of the certificate] Witnesses: Franz Czajkowski Franz Litza