Notes on Our Genealogy

Genealogy is a mental condition that makes you pay attention to long-dead ancestors at the expense of the family around you. I appear to have caught it from my mom , and she got it from her grandfather . I intend to use this site to share some of what they and I have learned. To avoid publishing anything sensitive I'm going to leave out all my living relatives, and instead focus on my grandparents and their ancestors. So let's meet them. Arthur and Mildred (Spicka) Quaid, Helen (Greenock) and Marshall Jackson, in December 1953 I think this may be the only photograph I have with all four of my grandparents, and as you might guess this was taken at my parents' wedding reception in December 1953, at Surma's Restaurant in Chicago. From left to right: Arthur Emmet Aloysius Quaid (1908-1996) was the son Irish immigrants. They married in Canada before moving to Chicago to raise their family. Mildred Ann Spicka (1908-1980) was the daughter of Bohemian immigrants...

Mike Spicka and Leo Kapitan Photo from ancestry.com My grandmother Mildred Spicka Quaid had a twin brother named Millard. They were born July 21st, 1908 in Timken, Kansas. He would come to be known as Mike. Mike quit high school after one year, presumably to go to work. In 1929 he married Helen Esther Kapitan. In the 1930 census they were living in Chicago, and Mike was a chauffeur for a sausage factory. That sounds like a euphemism, but I think it’s census shorthand -- chauffeurs and truck drivers were in the same occupational category. They were living with Helen’s parents and two of their children, but Mike was listed as head of the household. 6840 S. Laflin St. Home to the Spickas in 1940. In the 1940 census Mike and Helen were still living in Chicago, and Mike was now a chauffeur at a box factory called Maxwell Brothers. Helen's brother Leo Kapitan, by now a divorced father of three and also working at the box factory, lived with them. Mike had worked all th...

John Spicka, the father of Mildred Spicka Quaid, was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on July 5, 1897. The sub-headlines tell the story. The Chicago Daily Tribune, page 1, July 5, 1897 Well, that could be anyone with the name, right? The story has some additional details. When reading them, keep in mind some facts about our ancestor John Spicka: his father Vaclav had died the previous year, his mother was named Josie (Josepha), he had a brother named Frank, and he lived at 693 W 16th St. The Chicago Daily Tribune, page 1, July 5, 1897 The story spread across the country. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, page 9, July 5, 1897 The San Francisco Examiner, page 7, July 5, 1897 Courier Democrat, Langdon, North Dakota, page 6, July 22, 1897 The Boston Globe, page 3, July 6, 1897 John Spicka was apparently indicted for manslaughter, but didn't come quietly. A few months later this appeared in the Tribune: The Inter Ocean, Chicago, page 5...

Frank Spicka was the brother of John Spicka, and therefore Mildred Spicka Quaid’s uncle. In 1897 he married Marie Rezabek, and over the next ten years they had seven children, five of whom survived childhood. The last child, Sylvia, was born in October 1907, and by December Marie had died of pneumonia, according to my Mom. In 1909, Frank married Mary Mastni or Mastney, born Mary Havik. She had a daughter from a previous marriage, also named Sylvia. This Sylvia was born in 1899, so she was about 8 years older than Frank’s own daughter Sylvia, and indeed a little older than all the other children. About this household, my Mom wrote: Frank Jr. (Franktisek - born May 20, 1902, died April 13, 1996 in Timken, KS, age 94) wrote a letter (in 1995) to Aunt Helen that she shared with me telling about the mean step mother.  He said that his brother George had had his eyes blackened (apparently by the step mother) and that Frank Jr. was disciplined by having to kneel on a broom handle in a...