Roots, shoots and stories

 My mum, Helen Young Anderson, and dad, John McAra, got married on the 17th of October 1940 at 17 Netherton Road, Wishaw, Helen's parents' house and her home at that time. This was, of course, during World War 2. John, being a civil engineer, was in a 'reserved occupation' and as such was exempt from military service. However, at the time of their marriage, John was working away from his hometown of Cleland, Lanarkshire and living in 'digs' in Hayes, Middlesex. Helen joined him there after their marriage. After the war ended they returned to Wishaw. Marriage certificate of John and Helen The photo below shows the wedding party - bride and groom, best man and bridesmaid. The best man was John's brother, George McAra and the bridesmaid was Helen's younger sister Ann Anderson. When you think of weddings taking place in wartime, you don't imagine the wedding party being dressed up. But as you can see, they all were very smartly dressed. Note the men even...

My father-in-law Jan Stepek, along with his mother and two sisters spent two years in a Soviet labour camp and as refugees during WW2.  Amazingly, despite this, they were able to correspond to family back in Poland. Often these letters were censored or just not delivered, but some still got through. The Red Cross was responsible for delivering letters and parcels, something that still happens in parts of the world to this day which people are unaware of.  After the war, one of the sisters, Danuta, was the first to return to Poland, some 24 years after she had been deported to the camps. There she met her father's two sisters for the first time. After an emotional reunion and conversation one of the aunts left the room and returned with a box. In it was a collection of photographs, documents and some of the letters which had got through to Poland from the labour camps. This was the first time Danuta has seen an image of her parents for over a quarter of a century. Most poignant...

My husband's grandfather, Wladyslaw Stepek, was born in November of 1893, the eldest of nine children. Unlike five of his siblings, Wladyslaw survived childhood, a childhood spent on a small farm in Haczow, a village in present day south-eastern Poland, but at that point in time was occupied by Austria. He had, however, caught tuberculosis as a child and did almost die. His next challenge came when both his parents died and at the age of 19, he found himself an orphan and head of the household. We think at this time he was studying pharmacy at university. However, in the following year1914, everything changed with the onset of World War I. Wladyslaw Stepek Wladyslaw was quickly conscripted into the medical corps of the Austrian army against his wishes as he was a fervent supporter of the resumption of Polish independence. His situation worsened when he was captured by the Russian army in 1915 and sent to Mariupol in present day Ukraine. There he was sent to work in a chemical facto...

 At 2 a.m. on the 10th of February 1940, Janina Stepek and her three children, Jan, Zosia and Danka were woken up by loud knocking at the door of their home in Eastern Poland. It was the Soviet Red Army and Ukrainian Militia, the Soviets having invaded Poland some five months earlier. The family were ordered to pack what they could and be ready to leave within thirty minutes. One officer, in an act of kindness, told Janina to pack as much as they could for cold weather. They were taken by cart to the nearest train station, along with the entire population of the village. There they discovered that the inhabitants of many villages had been similarly forced to leave their homes. After several hours in the freezing cold, they were bundled on to cattle trains. Each wagon took fifty people, crammed together. There was no toilet, there was a stove in the centre of the carriage and there were some shelves which could be used as beds for some. The doors slid shut and locked everyone in, le...

My mum would have been 28 years old, when she received the news that her cousin Andrew Adams had been killed in action in 1943.  Andrew, aged only 22 at the time of his death, had been a Royal Airforce pilot, in No. 37 (Bomber) Squadron. (Volunteer Reservist) In February of 1943 the squadron was based in Gardabia, Tunisia, running its tactical operations from there in new Wellington X aircrafts, forming part of the North West African Strategic Air Force. Vickers Wellington bomber    Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1333375 These craft were medium sized twin engined bombers. They usually had a crew of five. The bomb load comprised more than one fifth of the total weight of the plane. Anyone interested in the specifications of these aircraft can read about them here  .  On one of his missions on the 19th of April 1943, following a raid on Creteville, Tunisia, the aircraft piloted by Andrew developed a fire in the engines and he was forced to...

When in 2001 my father in law Jan Stepek had the first of a series of strokes, my husband Martin realised that if Jan died, he would not know much about his past. Martin already knew some basic facts about his father's early life: Jan had been born and raised on a farm in Eastern Poland, he and his family were deported when WW2 broke out, his mother had died during the deportation period and somehow later on he served in the Polish Navy. The bare bones of a story which Martin has only recently fully told in his book "Jan Stepek  Part 1 : Gulag to Glasgow". So... Martin determined that if his father recovered sufficiently, he would ask him to share the whole story of his early life. Thankfully this was the case. And what a story emerged! As well as interviewing his father, Martin interviewed and filmed his father's two sisters who had also been deported. This meant he had three different perspectives. Over and above this, he researched online and discovered various key...

Many people come from families with a long tradition of serving in the Armed Forces, others find their family only serving in times of war. Neither of my parents, nor any of my grandparents served in the forces. During WW1, both my grandfathers were 'too old' and both in "reserved occupations". These were jobs which exempted you from serving in the military as they were seen as being vital for the defence and smooth running of the country. John McAra as a miner and John Anderson as a metal and steelworker fell under this banner.  During WW2 my own dad was also in a reserved occupation , being a civil engineer. This job took him away from his native Lanarkshire and as such he spent some time during the war living down in Hayes, Middlesex and in Wrexham in Wales. While there however, he did serve in the Home Guard - I vaguely remember him mentioning some of his duties included ensuring people got safely into air raid shelters, but I am sure there was more to it than tha...

 My husband's grandfather, Wladyslaw Stepek was a man with strong political opinions. He grew up in Haczow, in south east Poland at the turn of the 20th century. Towards the end of WW1 he was arrested by the Austrian occupying forces for agitating against their presence in his country. When he was released he continued to oppose Austrian rule and, after a fiery speech to his community in a local hall, he persuaded over one hundred men to attack and successfully disarm the nearby Austrian garrison.  Part 2 of 3 documents we have found, giving a contemporary's account of the Wladyslaw's speech to raise volunteers, with some of their names (own photo) After the war ended and Poland regained its independence, he volunteered to join the Polish armed forces whose task was to defend the newly established borders with Russia. Most of this took place in modern day Ukraine. Wladyslaw (highlighted) around March 1920 in group defending Poland's borders  (own photo) In the following...

My husband's paternal line is Polish and his grandfather, Wladyslaw Stepek, fought in two World Wars.  When WW1 started, Poland was under the occupation of three different empires: German, Russian and Austrian. Wladyslaw's family lived in the Austrian occupied area. In the summer of 1914, twenty-one years old, he had studied chemistry, so when conscripted into the army, he was placed in the medical corps. The following April he was captured by the Russian Army and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Ukraine. He spent two years there before being released - the full story of that is given in my week 11 post "Lucky"  https://rootsshootsandstories.blogspot.com/2023/03/week-11-lucky-52ancestorsin52weeks.html   Wladyslaw's POW camp release form On his return home he was hospitalised and, when he recovered, he agitated against Austrian rule for the return of Polish independence. This resulted in him being imprisoned again, but for a shorter time. When he was released the...

Nowadays, the word 'travel'  conjures up pictures of holidays, of good times spent with those we care about. In past times, for our ancestors, travel would have meant something very different - a search for work in a different part of the country or a start of a new life in a far away place. For others, however, travel was something they undertook to save their very lives. It is the 11th September 1941. This morning, Janina Stepek (38) and her three children, Jan (19), Zofia (16) and Maria Danuta (14) make a momentous decision. Some weeks previously the family and the other prisoners in the Charytonowo Labour Camp in northern Russia had been informed that they were now free to leave, due to the German invasion of Russia. So today, the youngest child is now well enough to undertake the journey. They have to head south - north leads to the Arctic, west leads to the frontline and east is the vast wastelands of Siberia. They have also been told that Polish officials have been permi...

Sometimes when you find yourself in the very worst of circumstances, it is the actions of other people which can make all the difference. It is the 6th of December 1941. In a cattle train on the outskirts of Moscow are a hundred or so Polish refugees. They have all been recently released from Soviet labour camps and are trying to find their way to safety. Among these people are my husband's grandmother and her three children. They haven't eaten for days and death from starvation is near. The train is stuck in a railway siding due to heavy snow on the tracks. Hours pass by. Then they hear the sound of another train approaching. It also grinds to a halt because of the snow. It is full of Russian civilians fleeing the German advance which is nearing Moscow. The hungry Poles leave their train to beg for some food from the Russian passengers. But Martin's grandmother, Janina, is too near starvation to stand let alone get out of the cattle train. So her younger daughter Danuta st...

 Maria Danuta Stepek (known as Danka) was born in 1927 in Maczkowce, Poland. She was the youngest of three children of Wladyslaw and Janina Stepek, my husband's grandparents. She had a happy childhood on her parents' farm until the outbreak of war in September 1939. When the Soviet Union invaded from the east, her father Wladyslaw was quickly informed that he was on a list of those persons to be arrested and executed. He fled into hiding with the Resistance and this was the last time she saw him. Four months later, 12 year old Danka, her sister Zofia (14), her brother Jan (17) and her mother were deported to northern Russia near the Arctic Circle. The journey took three weeks by cattle train and ended at a political labour camp where they lived and worked for the next eighteen months. All her family members, including Danka herself, fell ill in the camp and all were malnourished. Her mother lost 4 stones in weight. On their release in October 1941, they had to make their own wa...

 For this week's #52Ancestors topic, I am returning to Martin's family tree, this time to his father, Jan Wladyslaw Stepek (1922-2012). In my  Week 9  post, I told the story of Janina, Martin's grandmother, being deported with her children, to Siberia by the Russians. That part of the story ended with her death in Tehran in 1942. Prior to them leaving the Soviet Union, they were stuck in Uzbekistan, free from the camp but uncertain of their future. At this stage, rumour was spreading that there were Polish officials trying to find the refugees and help them. They also were recruiting men into the army. Janina and her three children were all malnourished at this stage, which gave Jan, (Martin's father) a dilemma. Should he do his patriotic duty and try to find the officials and join the army or stay to help his mother and his two sisters survive?? He was just 19, so he asked his mother what he should do. She said, "Go! Whatever happens to us, happens. You must do yo...