Sisters, Mae and Bessie, with their mother, Mary
Maryanna
LASZCZEWSKA was born in 1880 or 1881, in Poland, to
Stanley and Antoinette
(GARDNER) LASZEWSKI.
"My mother had a sister named Kate along with Agnes, Stanley, John, Martin, etc." [*AD]
On 17 Feb 1897, Maryanna LASZCZEWSKA, age 18, married Frank DOLECKI, age 27, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. Their four children who survived to adulthood were Mae (1898), Bessie (1900), Lottie (1902), and Aloysius (1909).
Mary became a widow in 1910 when Frank DOLECKI died.
Giovanni 'John' LAVIGNA became her second husband on 24 Jun 1915, in Chicago. He died in 1923.
4th
of July, 1922
Top Row: John LaVigna, Jack
Piasecki, Mary Lasczewski Dolecki LaVigna
Middle Row: Thomas
Piasecki, Mae Dolecki Piasecki, Bessie Dolecki Langner, Marie Langner
Bottom Row babies: James Piasecki, Raymond Martin Langner
Mary
did card readings. She attended weekly meetings at Kamardo's
spiritualist church.
“Grannie's mother was a psychic. She went under the name Mary Ross. She had her own church and was a healer. She had prescription prayers she would give people to help different ailments. The prayers were of a sort that anyone could recite without violating any religious rules no matter what their religious affiliation. Grannie said she wished she could remember some of them.” [*ML]
“After
my father died, my mother and I were living with Gramma Ross in
her house on 29th Avenue and Cicero Street. It was about 1930. I was playing
catch in the back yard. The lots were long and narrow. Gramma had a small
five room frame house. In the back yard had a lot of long space with
sidewalks and trellises. In the back of the lots were the garages. And
behind each was the alley way. Gramma Ross kept her two vicious dogs back
there. Never open that gate or they would go right after you! Well, I was
playing catch with the boy next door. It was nice and quiet. All of a sudden
there was a big explosion. The house next door was a beautiful brick
bungalow right on Cicero Avenue with a two story house in their back lot.
Who was living there, I don’t know. But, the explosion came from that house
in the back. All of a sudden there was fire and smoke. The fire engines were
pulling up. Then there was a man who came running out. Apparently he wasn’t
running to get away from the fire because he kept running long after he was
away from the fire. We were kids and didn’t know any better but, of course,
my mother and Grandma came out and said, 'Get away, get away! Come in the
house!' We had to go back in our house. The police came to the fire too. It
turned out there were bootleggers in there and they had a good, big still
going in there.” [*HJL]
Her son, Al, lived with her after his divorce.
Mary had Parkinson’s Disease.
Sisters, Mae and Bessie, with their mother, Mary
Mae and Bessie
[*AD Aloysius Dolecki, *HJL Herbert Joseph Langner, *ML Marty Langner]
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