Legacy of a Lithuanian Grandmother

By Sheriene Saadati

What comes to mind when you think of the word great grandma? Homemade treats? Someone that spoils you? As you will discover in this personal account, great grandma can mean all those things and moretough, hardworking, faithful, and highly protective. This book is about a great grandmothers lifefrom her birth in remote Vaznikiai Village in Lithuania in 1891 to traveling to Baltimore under an assumed name in 1912, to marrying another immigrant from a different social economic class in 1914, to the difficult circumstances that she and her siblings faced in building new lives in the United States. Her story is probably very similar to immigrants from her day but has somehow been forgotten. Through old letters, interviews, and genealogical documents, Iewa Dobaites or Grandma Evas life is recalled and her legacy to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren becomes clear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984549822

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Sheriene Saadati.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2018910187

ISBN:                  Hardcover                              978-1-9845-4980-8

                           Softcover                               978-1-9845-4981-5

                           eBook                                     978-1-9845-4982-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 08/28/2018

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Contents

Brief Overview of Lithuanian History

Preface

Chapter 1Mary (Ona) Dobaitė (1882-1955)

Chapter 2 William (Vincentas) Duoba (1887-1980)

Chapter 3 Anna (Ona) Dobaitė (1889-1915)

Chapter 4 Eva Dobaitė (1892-1983)

Chapter 5 Excerpts from Letters Between Grandma Eva’s Children 1940s-1990s

Chapter 6 Memories of Grandma Eva

Chapter 7 Recipes of Eva Lucas As Remembered By Her Children

Chapter 8 Valeria (1889-1985) and Casimir Lutkiewicz (1891-1967)

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Selected Bibliograpy

Brief Overview of

Lithuanian History

The ancient ancestors of Lithuania were called the Balts. Lithuania became a recognized country in the 1200s and was largely pagan. And, given its location, it was under constant threat of war or fighting a war.

Under Grand Duke Gediminas Lithuania became recognized as a world power in the 1300s.

By the late 1300s Lithuania was ruled by Grand Duke Jogaila. When he married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, they co-ruled Lithuania and Poland. They also converted the country to Catholicism.

In the 1500s, Poland and Lithuania formed a Commonwealth known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Its landmass encompassed what is now known as Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Polish became the language of the nobles and politics. The serfs spoke Belarusian or Lithuanian. There was also a large Jewish population that spoke Yiddish.

Russia captured Vilnius in the mid-1600s, and parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Union were then invaded by Prussia, Austria and Russia. By the late 1700s, Lithuania was completely taken over by Russia. Nobles were allowed to continue to own land, speak Polish and avoid service in the Russian military.

During the 1800’s, things changed. Russia forbade teaching of reading and writing of both Lithuanian and Polish. So those that went to school learned Russian and spoke Polish at home. Serfs or peasants spoke a form of Lithuanian. By the mid-1800s, Russia stripped away the nobility’s land and also conscripted their young men into the army for indefinite periods of time. There were also famines, a severe agricultural depression and increased Russian oppression. This was the world my grandparents were born into.

Preface

When researching my great grandparents - Grandma Eva and Grandpa Charles’ journey from Lithuania to the United States, one word kept coming to mind– legacy. Their journeys from very different social, economic and educational backgrounds, their union in marriage and their children had an influence on all of us descended from the Duoba/Lutkiewicz family lines – whether we reflect about it or not.

Their lives were not easy. They had to not only learn how to live with each other, but also how to live in a country that had different languages and customs and was not always welcoming of those differences.

They also lived in close quarters with other immigrants without the benefit of electricity or running water. There were no antibiotics so diseases like tuberculosis would spread.

They often ate the same food everyday, fresh or preserved because of lack of refrigeration. The places they lived were close to steel and tin mills. That meant the air was dirty and so were the streets. The jobs they had required them to work long hours earning low wages. A kind of monotony would settle in. This could lead to diversions like gambling and drinking to escape.

There were also good times. Going to church and attending Catholic Lithuanian dinner dances were fun events where they could speak their own language, eat their own ethnic foods and socialize with people they were comfortable with. They celebrated weddings and baptisms together.

Doing the research gave me new respect for what Grandma Eva went through and gratitude for the faith she had and tried to pass on to all of us. She was stubborn and opinionated, but she had to in order to survive. She was also loving,caring and protective of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She prayed for all of us every day of her life. It was truly God’s grace that she was a good mother (and grandmother) to us all given how she was raised by a cruel step mother and a poor father that was trying to keep his family fed and housed in a Lithuania ruled by Imperialist Russia.

The following family history is written with Grandma Eva as the centerpiece, since she is the only one that my remaining extended family knew and remembered. It is divided by her and her siblings’ stories – Mary, Anna and Bill Duoba-and by her husband, Grandpa Charles Lutkiewicz’s story.

Their stories are not like rewinding a video and watching. Rather they are a combination of facts from researching death certificates, baptisms, weddings and other documents, and the stories heard over the years. Their stories were based upon their experiences of events. I’m sure they retained more than what they shared, but I never thought to ask until they were no longer around.

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Chapter One

MARY (ONA) DOBAITĖ

(1882-1955)

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Ona or Aunt Mary as she was known to Grandma Eva’s children – Chuck, Tony and Aggie, was from a very small village, Vazniskiai, Kalvarija Municipality in the Marijampolės District. Vazniškiai Village is about 80 miles west of Vilnius and in a very rural part of Lithuania.

She was the first child of her illiterate, impoverished parents - farmer and tailor, Jonas Doba and Kotryna Glaubicaite.

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Translation of their marriage record from Russian reads:

This happened in Gudeliai on the 9th or 22th of February, 1881 at 4‘o clock in the afternoon. In presence of witnesses, farmers, and residents of Gudeliai Village - 45 year old Stanislovas Tamulynas and 40 year old Antanas Tamulynas announced today that a 22 year old single, Jonas Doba, who was born and now resides with his mother on board in Vazniškiai Village (he is the son of the late Mykolas Doba and alive Konstancija, nee Zakszewska) and a 22 year old maiden, Kotryna Glaubičiūtė (Katarzyna Glaubicz), who was born and lives with her father in thier farm in Gudeliai Village of the Gudeliai Parish (daughter of alive Juozapas Glaubičius and the late Agnieška, nee Skinkytė) entered into a religious marriage contract, which was proceeded by reading of the three banns on 30th of January, 6th ond 13th of February in local Roman Catholic church. Permission for this marriage was given by the mother of the groom and the father of the bride. The newlyweds testified on this occasion that no premarital agreements was made before. Marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. Antanas Vilkutauskas-the administrator of this church. This document was read to and signed by us.

Her grandparents were saloon keeper, Mykolas Doba and Konstancija Rzeszewska and farmer, Juozapas Glaubicas and Agnieška Skinkytė.

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Translation of her baptism record from Russian reads:

On 27th of December, 1881 or 9th of January 1882* in Gudeliai at 4 o’clock afternoon, a boarder appeared from Vazniškiai Village. Jonas Doba (23 years old) in the presence of residents of Vazniškiai Village - Adomas Brusokas (40 years old) and Martynas Radauskas (50 years old) brought a female child, who born the previous day in Vazniškiai Village at 10 a.m. to his legal wife Kotryna Gliaubičaitė (23 years old). Holy Baptism was performed by Rev. Antanas Vilkutauskas and this child was given the name Ona. Her godparents were Martynas Galinis and Marijona Glaubicz. This information was read to the declarant and to illiterate witnesses.

*Both Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar dates were used on church records.

The baptism records in those days served not only to record a birth, but to record social and economic status. Before World War I, everyone had an established place in society and was treated accordingly. In this case, it lists Jonas as a boarder, not a noble or town dweller, so he owned no land. This is another way of saying he (and his family) was on the bottom of the social and economic status ladder.

Ona was probably called Mary because of an old Lithuanian tradition that every girl received the name Mary before their first given name (after the Virgin Mary) to make sure she was virtuous.

Not much is known about Mary’s childhood. The earliest story we heard about Aunt Mary was from Grandma Eva. She remembered being placed on top of a table during Mary’s wedding so she wouldn’t be trampled by dancers while watching what was happening. Eva was about 7 or 8 years old at the time.

In 1899, Mary married Lucian Aleknavičius in Balbieriškis Lithuania. This was about 8 miles from where Mary was born. Lucian’s parents were Roza (Sidaravičiūtė) Sidoravitch and Stanislaw Aleknavičius. Lucian was born somewhere around 1877 in an unknown village in Lithuania. His parents were day laborers in Seirijai. This means they worked on rural farmland that they did not own.

Mary was about 11 years older than Grandma Eva and about 7 years older than their sister, Anna. Mary was about 4 years older than her brother, Bill (Vincentas).

According to Grandma Eva, two Aleknavičius brothers married two sisters. Lucian (or Lutzak in Polish) married Mary. And, his brother, Julius (or Lewis) eventually married Anna in 1907.

Before 1902, Lucian and Mary moved to Hamilton Scotland, and Lucian became a coal miner. He was probably recruited to the coal mine, like so many other Lithuanian immigrants.

Because the Czarist authorities would not