Ron's Paternal Grandparents

Ron's paternal grandparents

on their wedding day (circa 1914)

Front Row (fourth from left): Angeline (Glowiak) Karpinski (1892-1982)

Back Row (third from left): Jan (later John) Karpinski (1894-1972)

As a young woman in Gdynia, Poland, Angeline GLowiak played an active role in union politics. In 1915, not

long after their wedding, she and her husband, Jan, emigrated to The United States, settling in the Midwest

metropolis of Chicago, Illinois. There, on the north side of town in a predominantly Polish neighborhood, they

had a new two-story house built on a vacant lot at 2819 Melvina Avenue. There, in their new home, the couple

raised six children: Stephen Francis (1917-1944); Edward Joseph (1919-1986); Emily Sophie (1921-2006);

Irene Florence (1923-1988); Joseph Stephen (1927-1998); and Jeanne Agnes (1935). For many years, Jan

worked for a local ice company. In those days before home electric refrigerators, he delivered heavy blocks

of ice door-to-door, carrying them on his shoulder from the street into each customer's kitchen. Angeline and

Jan lived out their remaining years in the house on Melvina Avenue, rarely venturing beyond the city limits.

Toward the end of World War II, Jan and Angeline's son, Stephen Francis Karpinski, a sergeant in the U.S.

Army infantry, fell in battle at Luxembourg in September 1944. As a result of his courageous actions, he was

posthumously awarded a third Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal for valor. Angeline never recovered

from the loss of her first-born child, refusing to spend any of the government life insurance money they had

been paid. "That's Stevie's money," she insisted. "He's coming home some day."

In 1948, government officials contacted Jan Karpinski and offered to repatriate his son's remains from the

United States War Monuments Cemetery in Luxembourg, Belgium, and re-inter them at Rock Island National

Cemetery, located in Moline, Illinois, not far from Chicago. Jan quietly agreed. He never told his wife.