Early Romanian Immigration Video Project

Everyone has a story to tell, and I am involved in a project that attempts to share some of them.

Over the past year I have been deeply committed to two projects related to Romanian immigration to Saint Paul and South Saint Paul, Minnesota. Through funding provided by a Minnesota Legacy Grant, in 2013 I worked with a team to record and preserve oral histories of eleven people who are first-generation Romanian immigrants or their children, who came to Minnesota in 1930 or earlier. A subsequent grant in 2014 allowed us to create a documentary video based on those interviews and my own historical research. I worked with other members of Romanian Genealogy Society (www.romaniangenealogy.com) and Heritage Organization of Romanian Americans in Minnesota (www.hora-mn.org). You can view a clip about the project here: http://vimeo.com/88775412.

For thirty years I've been fascinated by the study of genealogy. One of the most challenging lines to research is my dad's Romanian branch of the family tree. I've written before about my quest to find more about my great-grandfather, Ilie Moisescu, who was born in 1875 in a place called Nagy Szent Miklos, in what was then Austria-Hungary and is now called Sannicolau Mare, Romania. My ex-husband is also of Romanian descent, and his family came from a town called Nagy Torak, Hungary which is a place near what is now Bececj, Serbia.

When I exhausted available records about the Moisescu and Albu families, I started looking at other Romanian families who came to Saint Paul and South Saint Paul, Minnesota. There were practically whole villages of Romanian people who came to Minnesota in the early 1900s! Most came from the regions of Banat and Transylvania, and they came to this area because of plentiful jobs in the met packing industry, railroads, and foundries. By 1925-1930, some estimate that around 2,000 ethnic Romanians were living in the cities of Saint Paul and South Saint Paul. One newspaper reported that the Eastern Europeans outnumbered the Germans and Norwegians 2:1. Usually men came first, and women followed-- whether to help earn money to go back, or to plant permanent roots here. One thing that surprised me was that many - in fact, I would learn, most - of them went back to Romania. Some families traveled back and forth, when they could afford it and when immigration policies allowed it. Others were never able to reunite with loved ones who were left behind.

Some of the family names mentioned in our interviews are Sarafolean, Evasku/Ivascu, Stoi, Choban, Logajan, Popa, and Stoi. The stories of these early immigrant families are filled with emotions ranging from heartbreak to triumph. Some accounts can be found in newspapers and a few were documented by family members, but the collection of stories and traditions that were documented through the oral history process are priceless now and will be for future generations. I just wish we had started this project about twenty years ago, when the parents of the people we interviewed were still living!

The documentary video will be completed this summer, and a premiere viewing is planned for sometime in September 2014.  We will offer copies of DVD and Blu-ray discs for sale, and it will be aired on local cable TV channel 14 in Northern Dakota County. The program will certainly be of interest to anyone with immigrant roots, regardless of your ethnic heritage, and to those who live or have lived in the Twin Cities.

Hungarian postcards

I have these postcards which are about 100 years old and written in Hungarian, and I wonder if anyone can help to translate them.

The first postcard is addressed to "Tek Mojszezku Iles" in Torontal, Nagy Szent Miklos, Hungary (now Sinnicolau Mare, Romania.) My great-grandparents were Ilie Moisescu from Sinnicolau Mare and Gizela Bartusek from Pest. I believe the card was written by Ilie's brother-in-law Feri (Ferenc) Bartusek who lived in Budapest. It appears to mention his nephew Bela and niece Valeria "Vali."

The second one is addressed to my grandmother Valeria Mojszeszku (the Hungarian spelling of Moisescu) and I am wondering if the address is near Budapest. I'd like to learn what it says, and who it is from. Valeria was only 2 years old in 1911; maybe her father sent it to her from New York? (I say this because I know he immigrated to the U.S. first, and the rest of the family followed in November 1911.)

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Romanian festivities

On Saturday and Sunday this weekend, I reconnected with my Romanian roots by attending the festivities of the 100th anniversary celebration of St. Mary's Romanian Orthodox Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I can't say with certainty whether our Romanian ancestor, Ilie Moisescu, attended this church, but I think he must have. His family lived in a house at 1031 Farrington Street (the Rice Street area) around 1918, so they must have attended St. Mary's Church, less than a mile away, built in 1913. At any rate, the 100th anniversary is an important event and one not to be missed, so my trusty Romanian genealogy sidekick Dorrene and I were there!
 
Romanians know how to party, so don't think you can just show up for an hour or two. Plan for an evening, or a daylong activity. Saturday night was a banquet and dance for several hundred people at St. Katherine's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Arden Hills; the Sunday afternoon banquet (with somewhat fewer attendees) was held at the church hall. My favorite parts of the weekend celebrations were the PowerPoint presentation on the history of the parish, developed by Father Mircea Vasiu (he did an excellent job!), and the music and dancing. Besides the wonderful Izvorasul Romanian folk dancers led by John Omorean, there was musical entertainment by an orchestra from Chicago on Saturday night.
 
And the food! Sunday's banquet was amazing. While we waited for everyone who came from the church to be seated, we were served baskets of bread. The servers were running back and forth between the downstairs kitchen and the tables upstairs, carrying their their serving trays and food. (Who knows what mayhem went on in the kitchen down below.) We quickly ate all the bread, and someone at our table asked for more. Bread was soon on its way, along with buttery yellow potatoes with parsley. Then the servers - all volunteers from the church - brought sarmale (cabbage rolls), and they were delicious! The cabbage leaves were soured just slightly, and wrapped around tender pork and rice. On top was savory sauerkraut and chunks of partially-rendered bacon fat. I am telling you, this stuff was good! No sooner than we finished we heard the cry, “We haven’t got any meat!” from one of our fellow diners. In a few minutes we were passing around several platters of very moist roast pork loin containing lots of garlic and mushrooms, and served with “mushroom sauce,” which was really a rich gravy. (Calling it “sauce” makes it seem so much healthier, you know.)
 
In case anyone was lacking protein, a while later we were served platters of baked chicken. The dishes were passed around again, and again. When practically nothing was left, the dessert platters were delivered. Immediately, hands grabbed for the choicest treats. Apricot-filled and powdered-sugared cornulete pastries, flaky baklava, walnut-filled breads, cream puffs, and all sorts of chocolate treats were piled high on paper plates, but quickly devoured.
 
After we had eaten all we could, and then some, it was time for the presentations. The time really flew by, and we were all surprised when the clock showed four o'clock.

Afterwards, we were privileged to be part of a group who were invited to present to the Romanian Consul General from Chicago about the work of our organizations. Dorrene and I were able to talk about the goals of Romanian Genealogy Society, and we hope we made a good impression.
 

Bill Moisescu, Romanian immigrant engineer

This week I was fortunate to have a Romanian-speaking friend accompany me to the Immigration History Research Center ("IHRC") at the University of Minnesota. We looked at several primarily Romanian-language collections. For my personal research, I wanted to find the copy of "America" newspaper that mentioned my great-uncle's graduation from the U of M in 1929. I had the date of publication, so it was easy. Here is the story we found, including a photo of Great Uncle Bela (who used the names "Bill" or "William" in the U.S.) Moisescu:

The date of the newspaper is 2 July 1929. "America" was a national newspaper published in the Romanian language in Cleveland, Ohio and widely read by Romanian immigrants in the early 1900s. I am sure that his parents were extremely proud of his achievement. Loosely translated, it says, "A New Roumanian Engineer.  Mr. William Moisescu graduated on June 17 with a diploma in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is originally from Sannicolaul Mare, county of Torontal, and immigrated with his parents in 1911, living in St. Paul and now in South St. Paul, Minnesota." I don't speak Romanian and I neglected to have it translated properly (I will do so), but I believe it says that he was offered a job at Bucyrus Erie Co. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and that he was the first Romanian in Minnesota to graduate from that university. By December 1929, however, Bill was working as chief architect at the Swift & Co. meat packing plant in South St. Paul, where he lived until he moved to California in 1970. He never had any children.

In 1984, Bill wrote, "All I can hazily remember going to school at the U for 5 days to 6 days a week, hiking down the hill from 9th Avenue, taking street car to St. Paul, transferring, taking another one to Minneapolis. Riding the darn things for 1-1/2 to 2 hours each way. Carried a lunch, had a bowl of baked beans and a slice of buttered bread for 15c at White Castle for supper. I didn't buy any books, studied at Engineering Library came home on darn street car at night."

Bill and his younger sister, Valeria, my "Grandma Val," both graduated from South St. Paul High School in the Class of 1925 when she was only 16. In later years she told me how she resented her brother for being able to attend university. It must have been a huge financial investment by the family (their father Ilie or "Eli" was a barber, and mother Gizella didn't work outside the home), and Valeria certainly had to contribute her earnings to her brother's schooling. "I was just a girl," she said angrily, "Going to work was good enough for me." But more about her later...