Then I grew up and started researching my family history, and as I did, as many of us do, I realized that the facts didn’t quite fit the story. Of course, in this case it didn’t take much to disprove the story. It only took really thinking through what I knew and realizing that it made no sense. My mother’s cousin Paul was NOT the son of a Paul Janco. HIS father was John, who was the SECOND son of my grandmother’s father Paul! Of course I KNEW that, but when I was young, I didn’t think about it enough to realize what it was that I knew. |
What’s more, I don’t think I realized that my Grandma had an older brother named Paul when I first heard the story. I knew she had a brother John who was older than her—I’d met him more than once—but I don’t think I put it together that they had an older brother Paul, who was indeed the eldest son of my great-grandfather Paul. I learned about this Paul, the brother of John, after I got involved in documenting my family history. My mother told me about him; that he’d died young when he was killed during a labor strike in Chicago. That explained the lack of any children. |
But wait minute…my aunt requested his death certificate. And it changed the story!
It turned out that he did NOT die in Chicago, but died in Granite City, Illinois. And the cause of death was NOT an act of violence, but was pulmonary tuberculosis! He was only 26 years old when he died. He WAS single when he died in 1917, and his occupation WAS laborer, so there was a nugget of truth in the story, and his death DID effectively end the long line of eldest sons named Paul! There is one thing I am not sure of now. Was this Paul the 7th Paul, or was the 7th Paul his father, and he was the 8th Paul? I can only remember my grandmother mentioned seven Pauls, but I don't know if she meant there was a line of seven Pauls, or if she meant that seven Pauls named their eldest son Paul. I wish I would have had the foresight to have asked for clarification!
And as for the other Paul, the son of John? Well, first, he was NOT the eldest son. He had an older brother, John Jr. And when he died, he was neither single or childless! While I’ve not confirmed this story with documentation, my mother and aunt, and their cousin, Paul’s sister, have all told the same story. He was only 20 years old when he was killed in a battle in the Korean War. He was married to a young Japanese woman. And they had a son. After his death, Paul’s father contacted his young widow and offered to bring her and her son to the U.S. to be close to Paul’s family, but she declined. I really can’t blame her. She couldn’t have been much older than 20 herself, and probably knew very little English. I imagine that being less than 10 years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was still a great deal of animosity towards the Japanese, and she knew that. But I do wonder what happened to them. I don’t know the boy’s name. I wonder if he might have been named Paul. I’d love to be able to connect to him and his family to learn what happened. Maybe someday…..