As a young boy of 12, Piotr Pawel has seen the death of several of his young siblings and the November Insurrection, or at least the Russian response to the uprising. By 15, Piotr Pawel had become a man who had seen much sorrow in his family. He had inherited the family farm plot and the responsibility for all of Bartlomiej’s eight surviving children and grieving widow. His older sister Anna Weronika was married off to lesson the burden of supporting the remaining children. Maryanna at 14 was the oldest sibling to help with the farm.

Marriages to Myrclenska and Piotrowska

After five years Piotr Pawel married the daughter of a day laborer (a farm hand), Malgorzata Myrclenska, from Radziwiloborz, possibly a friend to his Uncle Piotr or someone who came to help on the farm. She apparently died, possibly of childbirth, so Piotr Pawel remarried in 1843 to a Teresa Jadwiga Piotrowska (32), daughter of Kacper Piotrowski and Maryanna Bagienska, also a hired hand from Nowa Wies. Children from this marriage were Teresa (b. 4 Sep 1844 - 1847), Jakob (b. 4 Jun 1850) (my direct line), Jan ( b. 8 Sep 1853). Teresa Jadwiga died in 1861.

Marriage to Krupinska

Piotr Pawel immediately married Jozefa Krupinska (b. 1843), a young woman of 20, daughter of Piotr and Malgozata Krupinski, servants in Lopacin and had a son Wincenty (b. 1875.) Piotr Pawel could almost have been the main character, Bornya, of Ladislas Reymont’s nineteenth century novel, The Peasants: Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer,by his marriage of a woman almost as young as his daughter, Teresa, and the conflict that might have caused regarding a dowry or inheritance.

January Uprising of 1863

The January Uprising of 1863 resulted in the emancipation of the serfs, a Russian ploy to reduce the power of the noble landowners and control over the land peasants worked. This only meant a decline in the amount of control the nobility had over the land worked by the serfs. The serfs, however, had no particular desire to be emancipated. It was possible in theory, however, for peasants, such as Piotr Pawel, to “move where they wished, to seek new employment, to make contracts, to buy and sell, to send their children to school, to organize themselves polically” (Davies, God’s Playground). He saw the advent of farm machinery, cooperative efforts of peasants to purchase farming supplies and food eliminating the German and Jewish middle man. For the first time, among peasants there was a sense of national consciousness (Davies, God’s Playground).

Piotr Pawel died in 1877 at age 61.

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