Wacław Jagiełłowicz was born in Lithuania. The place and date of his birth are only estimates, as he was not consistent in how he reported this over the years. In his passport application from March 17, 1925, he responds to the questions on the application that he was born October 18, 1890 in Lithuania. He does not specify a town.
Note that he writes his name without the ł and with a v instead of a w. On his naturalization card, he lists matching information, and his address remains on Wood Street. This is the Back of the Yards neighborhood where many Lithuanians lived by the Stockyards, made famous in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
This card also notes his date of arrival as June 9, 1913.
Interestingly, the manifest of the Eisenbach does have another source for his place of birth. The manifest has sides of the large original page, and he is at the bottom (line 30):
Looking at the right side of that page, there is a blank where he lists his place of birth. This apparent abbreviation has caused a great deal of consternation. We originally took this to mean Preila. However, Preila is a town on the Curonian Spit that would have been part of Prussia / Germany at that time. Given that he had deserted the Czar’s army through Germany, it is possible that he was attempting to disguise his origins. However, he clearly lists the nation on the same line as Russia. On the left side of the page, he lists under Last Permanent Residence and complete address of nearest relative the same thing – Preila. However, he lists the county/district as Wilna. He lists his family contact as his father, Jan Jagiełłowicz, placing him at Preila. This caused us to wonder whether he was dictating, and the person completing the manifest simply assumed Preila from something that he didn’t understand. What makes his choice of location so interesting is that Wacław very likely would have listed his family’s place of origin as Preszogała. More on Preszogała (which has a number of possible spellings) later.
On his 1942 draft registration card, he identified his birth place as the more plausible town of Dotnuva. By that time, he had purchased a farm in Lithuania for his parents, but that farm was closer to Vadaktai. So, his actual place of birth remains a bit of a mystery.
As of December 28, 2019, we do not have primary source documentation of the location of his birth or baptism.
Given our inability even to establish with precision his date and place of birth, it’s not surprising that most of the rest of what we know is from oral history with some corroborating information. Those who knew him explained that Wacław was not a braggart or one prone to fanciful tales, so we have no reason to doubt how he accounted for his own origins.
Wacław explained that his family were Bajori, or Szlachta, and that with the disappearance of his older brother Antoni through being impressed into the Czar’s army, he was the oldest son of the oldest son, etc. Curiously, the explanation of the loss of the family estate attributed to Wacław is a bit of a cliché: that the family lost its lands gambling in Paris. It’s not clear if Wacław actually provided this explanation. What makes it odd is that what we believe to be the correct explanation would seem to have been a much better story to tell – the Jagiełłowicz family appears to have lost its lands and probably its titles for its support of the uprisings against the Czar, most likely the January Uprising of 1863.
The reason it is so difficult to find any information on Preszogała, the town that we believe was Wacław’s hometown, is that after the uprising, the Czar burned it to the ground. He sent ethnic Russians to colonize the area. We have some supporting documentation for this explanation for the family’s change in fortunes, but it remains a mystery why Wacław would not simply have provided this explanation versus the rather cliché and fanciful “lost the family estate gambling in Paris” explanation.
Eventually, I’ll provide more information on what we’ve currently established regarding the Jagiełłowicz family history on another set of pages.
Returning to Wacław, he was the son of Jan Jagiełłowicz and Barbara Montville (Montvilius). He was one of four children of Jan and Barbara. Barbara died when he was young. Wacław related that his father asked him is he wished to say goodbye to his mother, as she lay dying. Wacław explained that, as a boy, he was able to say goodbye to his mother.
Jan eventually remarried, and had many children with his second wife, Anna Iwaszkiewicz. Wacław had many half-brothers and sisters.
Wacław’s son Jan (John James Jagiella) spoke of Wacław’s fascination with the store that an uncle operated. Jan explained that Wacław found commerce fascinating, a bit of a curiosity given his family’s history and the likely agricultural nature of his childhood circumstances. This fascination may explain his life in the United States. As Jan described what he knew of his father’s life, he would work multiple jobs to save money, start a business, the business would fail, and Wacław would start again.
We don’t have a lot of documentation of how Wacław lived from 1913 through to his marriage to Anna Noviskaite in 1925. We know that he listed his occupation in Census records as “Musician” or “Music Teacher”. This is consistent with what we know of the Jagiełłowicz family then and now – many of them were and are musicians. It’s not clear what instrument Wacław played. The family tradition is that he played clarinet, but when, some years after his death, his wife Anna showed me his instrument, she showed me a cornet, not a clarinet.
With regard to the question of Wacław’s ethnicity, the best explanation is that Wacław, if asked, would likely have said, Jestem Litwinem. In other words, he would have said I am Lithuanian, but he would have said that in Polish. His mother-in-law remarked somewhat uncharitably, He speaks Lithuanian like a foreigner! Wacław’s son Jan explained that, although he was culturally Polish, Wacław ended up in the Lithuanian community. One reason, Jan explained, was that at Lithuanian weddings, the band would salute each male guest when they arrived, and receive a tip. Wacław made more money playing Lithuanian weddings, and eventually gravitated into the Lithuanian community of Chicago more so than the Polish community.
On September 26, 1925, Wacław married Anna Noviskaite of Marion, Indiana. They met in Chicago. They raised three sons, Jan, Francis, and Wacław. For many years, they resided at the intersection of 47th and Rockwell in Chicago. Originally, the family lived in a wood frame house on one of the corners. However, they had a problem with rats; so, Wacław had a brick building built on a different corner of the intersection, and moved the family into that building at 2559 W. 47th Street in Chicago. After the war, they moved to 3052 W. 63rd St., near Marquette Park where many Lithuanians settled.
Like many Lithuanians, Wacław earned his living resourcefully. When the depression hit, Wacław was at risk for losing the building he had built on 47th Street. As his son Jan retold, Wacław was a respected member of the Lithuanian community at the time, and reportedly received a loan from a Lithuanian bootlegger that essentially allowed him to pay off his Mortgage. Over the years, Wacław became friends with Barney Pietkewicz, who was a leader of the Crane Savings and Loan. Eventually, Wacław became a Director there. Years later his son John (Jan) obtained his first mortgage from Crane, buying a home in Marquette Park at 6636 S. Washtenaw.
Jan commented that, as children, he and his brother Frank didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed “downstairs”, where his parents told him that they ran a candy store. In fact, they ran a tavern during prohibition, and, for a variety of reasons, Jan and Frank spent much time living with their grandparents in Marion, Indiana.
Wacław returned to Lithuania a number of times over the years. He and Anna traveled, and he continued to operate the Imperial Ballroom, his tavern, for many years. Wacław died July 1, 1971 in Chicago.
In 1959, Wacław collected his wife and his descendants in Cook County, Illinois, and officially changed his and everyone else’s surname to Jagiella. Reportedly, he was tired of going by Jagiello, which he had shortened from Jagiełłowicz, because people thought he was Italian. In any event, since 1959, the descendants of Wacław Jagiełłowicz in the United States have used the surname Jagiella.