I received this from Jim Malinowski

I checked out your new post and in the process discovered the extensive photo files for the first generation Malinowski family siblings. You have collected an amazing amount of the family history. 
I urge all family members to explore the Malinowski Clan website for the treasures it contains.
Jim

I guess I just assumed you were all poking around this site. If not, go to photos. Just double slick on that tab. Then look through the albums. There is one for each 1st generation member & one for Antoni & Anna as well.

Then look through the family stories – and please send along something you might like to post.

One of the Family stories that is special to me is about my gran & I will share it here. Hope you enjoy it & it inspires you to explore.

Family Strength – A Story

Gran’s Hidden Legacy

By   Nancy Airhart Cuyle

Sophia Davidson, Gran to most everyone, left me a special gift when she passed away in 1972.  I only discovered it many years later.

 Through the years, good and bad, Gran never wavered in her faith in God and love of life.  She appreciated everything around her.  She coaxed hummingbirds to feed from her hand, put feed out for grosbeaks, cheese for chickadees, suet for the flickers and a birdbath for them all.  Her yard was filled with roses, blackberries, fruit trees, daffodils, clematis and many others.  She always had little “starts” on the windowsill or tucked under overturned mason jars in the garden.  Each time she saw something new she had to give it a try.

 Gran also loved to read.  Her bookshelves carried her cherished copies of “Dr. Zhivago”, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, and Robert L. Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses”.  She was also a poet herself.  Each of the grandchildren had a poem written especially for them.  She wrote about everyday happenings and special family events.  Many verses were scattered through her journal.  She kept a record of the migrating and returning of the birds each year and other events in her daily life.

In every aspect of her life, her humor and joy of living came through.  She loved her family.  She held us, teased us, taught us and spoiled us.  She “spoiled us” not with things, as she didn’t have a lot; but with stories, cookies and the little things of love.  She shared with us a wonder and appreciation of the world around us.

Gran’s life wasn’t easy.  As the daughter of Polish emigrants with nine brothers and sisters, she was raised to work hard and value learning.  She and the other children worked on the family homestead.  For the girls this meant mostly household chores to support the family and crew from great-granddad’s logging company.  They cooked and served breakfast and dinner.  A lunch had to be packed for each logger.  Often they made donuts for a morning break.  One bunkhouse was converted to a schoolhouse.  The teacher became another boarder to feed.

Learning was highly valued by the family, although some of the older children had to quit, as early as, third grade to help support their growing family.  Gran was one of the lucky ones, completing the full eight grades at the one room school.  She told us many stories of those early days.  She said that much of the work was memorizing and reciting.  A favorite story was about her little sister, Elizabeth.  She was too young to go to school, but she often came in and listened.  The other children memorized a saying a week but Lizzie only learned: “Find a way or make one hannibal.”  She didn’t know what a “Hannibal” was, just thought it was part of the sentence.  That saying, I believe, struck a chord in her life and memory, as her story placed it permanently in mine.

She went on to nurse’s aid training, married and raised six children.  There were many good years, though filled with hard work.  The family raised their own meat and plowed their fields with horse-drawn plows.  They raised vegetables, canned enough for winter use and made their own dairy products.  Still, they found lots of time for fun.  My Mother, aunts and uncles have many fond memories of their childhood.  They rode plow horses with backs so wide their feet stuck out straight to the sides, found time to fish the creek and all kinds of childish pranks.

Then the first tragedy struck Gran’s life.  Lois, her oldest daughter, a vivacious and talented girl; became very tired and lethargic.  The diagnosis was rheumatic fever.  Lois was 18.  She didn’t give up easily, but after three hard-fought years she died.  Those years were especially hard on Gran.  The younger children tried to help by taking on more household responsibilities, but Gran nursed Lois herself until the end.

 Gran’s faith and strength supported her family through those times.  Of course, having her beloved husband at her side was a terrific help.  Grandfather, I’m told though I never knew him, was a bull of a man.  He moved furniture by trade.  On at least one occasion he single handedly moved a piano down a flight of stairs.

It was a crushing blow to the family when this seemingly invincible man, suddenly had a complete mental collapse.  In the midst of her own loss and grief, Gran kept going – “find a way or make one”.

Gran found a job in the furniture factory to support herself and the children remaining at home.  She continued the heartrending visits to the mental hospital for the next 15 years.  Grandfather died without returning home.

My youngest aunt, Mary Ellen, was the family favorite.  She was a beautiful girl with a natural musical talent.  She taught herself to play the piano, violin, and clarinet.  Her powerful singing voice carried from the window of their home a quarter mile to the fields.  Her brothers could hear her as they worked the family farm.  Everyone glowed with pride when Mary Ellen received a scholarship and would have a chance to earn a college degree.

Mary Ellen was headed home for Christmas in her senior year when a drunk driver swerved into her lane and hit her head-on. Gran was by Mary Ellen’s bed day after day.  Mary Ellen pulled through.  Her leg, however, was shattered and required operation after operation; spread over years.  She didn’t give up.  She finished her degree and has shared her joy in music with hundreds of students. Gran was there to support her the whole way through.

Another of her admonishments if you seemed to pout about a challenge was “if it doesn’t  kill you, it will make you stronger.”  I’ve since learned that this was a modification of the philosophy of Frederich Nietche

I’ve thought fondly of Gran countless times over the years.  I still miss her terribly to this day.  I’ve wondered how she could stay so positive, with all she’d been through.  Her religious beliefs weren’t the whole story it seemed to me.  I’ve known people with strong spiritual convictions who found courage to go on in adversity but not with the good humor and joy of my Gran.

Then one day it hit me.

I was attending a communications class.  It focused particularly on public speaking and the power of positive thinking.  “See yourself as successful and capable and you will be,” the instructor said.  I thought of the many times I’d said to myself over the years – ‘I’ve got my Gran’s Polish/Cossack blood – I’ll find a way, or make one.’

The instructor finished by emphasizing that the most important factor for continued success and the will to take on new challenge, is to reward your inner self.  Experimental psychology studies have proven conclusively, that this is the difference between getting discouraged and taking on just one more challenge.  The instructor extolled the virtue of these kinds of encouraging thought:

‘Pat yourself on the back, you did well if not perfect.  You ran the race even if you didn’t win.  You never grow unless you try the untried.  Reward yourself with something that’s special to you.’

That’s when I remembered.  As you stood at Gran’s kitchen sink looking out into her garden, you’d see the bird bath, St. Francis in a little handmade grotto and this poem carved into a piece of wood:

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft

And of thy slender stores two loaves alone are left

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

This poem has been on my wall for years, as it’s now in my Mother’s garden.  I’ve unconsciously celebrated my victories and challenges over the years with flowers.  I don’t need to share my little victories with anyone; I just reward myself.  Each flower is a double reward.  Its beauty raises my spirit and it always brings back fond memories of Gran.

With no doctorate in psychology or course in positive thinking, this special woman imparted her power and spirit directly to two generations. They will undoubtedly keep passing that spirit.  Gran left a legacy for her family; it’s hidden in each of us.  Strength to draw on when the challenges need to be faced, and a special reward for the effort, win or lose.