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    Frances Antonich and Fabian Sebastian Bagdes

                Mary-Ellen Bagdes

Actually I know very little about my grandparents.  My mother's parents, Casimer and Ellen, died before I was born.  My father's dad, Alexander, also died before I was born.  My father's mother, Rose, lived in Michigan and I didn't see her very often.  When I did, we didn't exchange many words as she didn't speak much English.  She died when I was a teenager. 

 In Lithuania, people couldn't go down to the docks and hop a ship.  The borders were controlled by the Russians and leaving was dangerous.  My grandmother Rose had to sneak through the Russian lines, travel south through Poland and then to Germany where she took a ship from Bremen.  When she was old and her mental capacity declining she would become fearful from time to time and relive some of the fears of escaping out of Lithuania. 

 SHOW ME THE MONEY!  Mrs. Bagdes-Canning may have told you that her father-in-law was able to get her a copy of the registry page that recorded my grandmother Rose's entrance into the United States. It also showed how much money she had when she came in -- $12.  (Most people came in through Ellis Island, in New York.  Grandmother came in through Baltimore.)

 My mother's father's name was Casimer Antanavicius; this is how is named is spelled on his tombstone.  But in the US he became known as Casimer Antonich.  (In looking through some old papers, it spelled all kinds of different ways.)  My grandmother's maiden name was Ellen Julia Ivanovsky (on other papers it's spelled Ivanauskas) but her last name became Evans in the US.  Grandmother Rose's maiden name was Rachis; granddad Alexander's surname was Bagdzius; it became Bagdes.

 Casimer was a coal miner; he died on April 1, 1929, at the age of 47 "while at work filling in an old mine hole, was overcome by black damp".  (That's from the coroner's report).  To my knowledge he never became a citizen.

 His wife, Ellen died around 1947.  She had a rooming house on the Northside of Pittsburgh and a drunken tenant named John who my parents inherited when she died.  She became a citizen on January 18, 1944.

 Alexander was a coal miner and he died in his fifties of a heart attack.  He was a hard drinking, hard working tough guy.  (When I asked my Aunt Ann about this, she just says "eh! all the men were like that in those days".)  During prohibition my dad had to go out to purchase liquor for his dad from a bootlegging woman who lived in the community.  Try sending a child under sixteen to do that nowadays.

 You've already heard something about Rose and there's a bit more about her below.  She died in her seventies. She never became a citizen because she couldn't read or write.

 OH MY PAPA.  My dad, Fabian Sebastian Bagdes, was born in Madison, PA on January 20, 1917.  He was given the name of Fabian Sebastian because those are the saints for the day on which he was born.  His mother, Rose, was very religious and Dad remembers trooping with her and his sisters to church every Sunday.  Considering that the Russians had suppressed religious practice in Lithuania you can understand why being able to go to church was so important to her.  (Dad was like that too.  We never missed mass on Sunday.  We lived on a hill, at the end of a long dirt road, but neither rain, nor sleet or snow would keep us from church.)

 Dad left high school without graduating.  He has an argument with a teacher, got up, left and never went back.  He was half way through the 10th grade. (I don't think you could get away with that so easily these days.)

 He worked in the coal mines for about five years. After that he worked for Westinghouse Electrical Manufacturing in East Pittsburgh as an assembler.  In June of 43, he married my mother, Frances Martha Antonich and five days later started active service in the US Army. He was sent to surgical technician school in  San Francisco.  As a surgical technician he assisted medical officers in caring for the sick and wounded; sterilized instruments in field hospitals; conducted medical inspections; maintained cleanliness and sanitation of the hospital and dispensaries; and kept records.  (Not by himself of course.)  He worked in Germany from April of 1945 to September of 1945.  He left the service on February 15, 1946, from Indiantown Gap, PA.  He was awarded the Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.