Joseph Fedak

According to Walter Fedyk's book, "The Kaminski Family in America, Joseph Fedak was born in Rava Ruska, in Ukraine on February 18, 1886. His mother died when he was only four and his first stepmother only lived a few years. Joseph grew up in a rural area. At age ten, he and a brother went to work in a coal mine in Germany with their father during the winter. Joseph hated the coal mines and going underground. He had no formal education whatever. He left home at age 14. The next twelve years of Joseph's life shall forever remain a mystery. There is no one left alive that can tell us anything about those years.
On January 28, 1910 Joseph Fedak entered America through Ellis Island, in New York harbor, as an immigrant from the Austro-Hungarian Empire of Franz Josef. Joe's passport and immigration papers showed his name as Fedak. The main reason that we believe that the Fedak spelling is the correct one is the immigration document. Although Joe could not speak English or write in any language, on Ellis Island, when he entered the country, the immigration people asked him his name. When he pronounced it for them, they spelled it, Fedak. Joe's citizenship papers dated September 18,1925 showed the name spelled Fedyk. The difference in the spelling of the name was discovered years later. According to Walter, that explains the two spellings of the family name, although on September 11,1993, in his home on Cresthaven, while showing pictures to Greg and Larry in the basement, he stated that he felt that the Fedak spelling was probably correct.
On November 4,1993, Dad told me and Phyllis, in his apartment, that he was in the eleventh grade in school when his mother realized that there was a difference in the spelling of the name. At that time, Walter was in the seventh grade and Elsie was in the third grade. Dad's Mom was extremely proud that Grandpa Joe, who had never gone to school, had passed the U.S. citizenship oral exam with flying colors the first time he took the test. Dad's rich uncle Dmytro had to take the test twice. All of the immigrant members of the family were extremely proud of their American citizenship. Grandma Helen felt that if they didn't change the family name to Fedyk, they would take away Grandpa's citizenship. At that time, Dad refused to change his name. He said that all through the years he was growing up, everyone pronounced the family name as , never the . In later years, Aunt Elsie gave Dad heck for either not changing the spelling of his name to be the same as the rest of the family, or convincing his parents that the error in the spelling on the citizenship papers could be corrected without a problem. After Dad's death, I discovered his birth certificate. On it, with the correct birthday and mother's name, the child was named, John Fedack. I remember Dad telling me years ago, that his birth certificate said that, but that his parents had decided to change his name to Stephan. His birth certificate indicates that his father's name was Joe Fedak, age 30 and a laborer, and that his mother's maiden name was Helen Kaminski and she was a housewife, age 23. Dad's Baptismal certificate dated June 11,1916, which I have, shows the boy's name as Stephen John Fedak and his parents names were Joseph Fedak and Helen Kaminski.
Joseph had an older brother and a younger brother. His older brother came to America, first. He was the one who got Grandpa Joe into the country and helped get him his first job with the railroad. They worked for several years and sent the money back home to their father who began purchasing farmland for them. After a couple of years, Joe's brother returned to Ukraine. Joe planned to stay a little longer but join them later. Almost as soon as he arrived back home, the older brother and the younger brother who had stayed in Ukraine, were drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. The older brother was killed and the younger was seriously injured and permanently disabled. Joe married and remained here.
Years later, in the 1930's Dmytro Szmagala visited Joe's father and brother on their farm in Ukraine. They offered to sell a third of the land and send the money to Joe. As the depression was worldwide and the price of land was very low in Ukraine, Joe would have received very little if there had been any way to get the money to America. He told his family that they could keep his share of the land. Dad remembers his parents talking sometime in the 1930's about a letter from the old country telling that his father's Dad had died. Dad remembers his father wearing a black armband for a time and that's about all.
Joe was 5' 11" tall, with blue eyes and dark brown hair. He was taller than his sons, Steve and Walter, and towered over his wife, Helen who was only 4'11" tall. Joe and Helen were married in Cleveland on May 29,1915. Steve thinks that a matchmaker got them together although that story is another mystery. Helen told her daughter, Elsie that on their wedding day, when the guests returned from the church, all the food had been stolen. Grandma Helen's cousin, Joe Kaminski's wife was supposed to have stayed behind to watch the stuff and didn't.
While Joe and Helen were renting an apartment on the west side, they, along with the Szmagala family and a bunch of other Ukrainians put their money together and started a bank. The bank built a large building which housed the bank, a furniture store and some other businesses. The way Dad remembers the story, the furniture store sold the stuff too cheaply and the bank failed.