07/28/2022
As we end the week, we come to my Lithuanian roots on my paternal side when my Irish/German mother, Kathleen Werthwein (daughter of Christian Werthwein & Rita Mullady), met John Thomas Klimas, grandson of two pairs of Lithuanian immigrants, Joseph Jonas Klimas and Marcella Anna Liskowskas & Jonas Saulyš and Teophila Zavackias. Today's background highlights the immigration and naturalization records for the Saulyš/Saulis side, my father's maternal line.
Jonas Saulyš left Lithuania in 1913, at the tail end of the first wave of Lithuanian emigration. Under the rule of the Russian Empire, Lithuanians were heavily persecuted, the native language was banned, and males could be drafted into the Russian army for 12 years, essentially sending them to the front line and likely death, particularly with the looming war clouds in Europe. Some 20-30% of Lithuanians fled their country during this sixty years wave of emigration, the majority being Catholic Lithuanians. Leaving his native village of Bridai in Šiauliai County, Lithuania, thirty-year old Jonas Saulyš sailed on the Printz Adalbert from Hamburg, Germany to Philadelphia in April of 1913.
Quickly simplifying his name, John Saulis made his way to Pittsburgh and married Lithuanian immigrant Teofile ("Tillie") Zavackias in November of that same year (wedding portrait, bottom right). John and Tillie lived in Pittsburgh in a rich Lithuanian community and had two children, Stanley John ("Steve") born in 1914 and Helen Margaret born in 1916. He was counted among the number of immigrants that worked in the steel industry, working for U.S. Homestead Steel and Carnegie Steel, then making steel wheels for railroad cars. John began the naturalization process after WWI and became a naturalized citizen by 1925 (center photos of documents). Importantly, this allowed John to finally safely travel back to Lithuania in 1928 to visit the remnants of his family (at least six siblings) after the death of both of his parents after his departure. He returned on the Majestic into Ellis Island with the passenger list (top right) noting his status as an American citizen.
As WWII loomed and alien registration requirements were being implemented in the United States, Tillie (Zavackias) Saulis pursued her own citizenship in 1940, filing a petition (document bottom right) through an expedited process offered to spouses of naturalized citizens and was granted a certificate of naturalization in 1942.
The Saulis famiily is an interesting view into a story where life was dramatically improved by a new start in America. Both parents were American citizens by the outbreak of World War II. Steve became a part of what the much loved American tradition of football, playing in the National Pro Football League in 1937 for the Pittsburgh Americans (now Steelers) the Boston Shamrocks in 1938; he the went on to serve in the Navy in WWII. Helen served in the Women's Auxiliary Corps in Pittsbugh and was then promoted to Sergeant of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps with over 300 women under her command in Westfield, MA. On a visit to a cousin in New Haven, the strikingly tall, athletic, and motivated Helen Saulis caught the eye of Joseph Jacob Klimas, a bright young man and son of two Lithuanian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. During WWII, Joseph first worked for the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a civilian engineer, then joining the Navy in 1944 to eventually serve as the Quartermaster of a PC-1547, a small patrol craft vessel in the South Pacific. Helen and Joseph married in Pittsburgh while on leave in January 1945 and wrote hundreds of letters to each other until both were discharged. The couple made a home in Plainfield, Union County, New Jersey after the war, quickly becoming a family of six with the birth of John in 1947, Marcella in 1948, Andrew in 1949, and Edward in 1955. John T. Klimas and Kathy Werthwein both attended North Plainfield High but wouldn't reconnect and date until 1969, marrying in November in 1970 and beginning their family in 1973 in Buffalo, New York where the young father was finishing medical school.
Named after Jonas Saulyš/John Saulis who sadly passed the year he was born, John Klimas fondly recalls trips to both Lithuanian family homes in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn for holidays where the elders spoke passed their Lithuanian traditions on to their descendants, attended Lithuanian Catholic parish churches, debated the news in Lithuanian newspapers printed in New York City, and spoke to each other in their native language. He reflects on his memory of his grandparents, "So while I have read or heard of stories where grandchildren have great experiences and fun with their grandparents, the language barrier largely precluded that. With kisses and hugs, they showed their love and as a small child that was enough for me."
This feeling of family and an awe of how all sides found their way to America grew to a passion for John and Kathy's first-born daughter. It is what inspired me to pursue the field of history academically and choose genealogy as a career, working to research, record, and remember each step my ancestors took in the (not-so-distant-past, historically speaking) to give rise to the life I have today.
