In Memoriam on All Soul's Day for Family in Poland

     My mother was born on All Soul’s Day in the small town of Nisko on the eastern border of today's modern-day Poland but what was then known as Galicia.

← My mother as young woman in Poland before WWII

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She lived through two world wars, lost her country and her family through forced laborer in Nazi Germany, communist take over and then immigration to America. She never tired of talking about her family in Poland. 

In 2006 I am looking for my great grandparents buried in the cemetery in a town called Racławice. The one church, one cemetery for all the local villages was Racławice. The faithful had to walk the distance or take horse and carriage for church services.

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   I am with my husband, my brother and his wife and my niece. We are without any preparation, any other research whatsoever, armed with just countless family stories, the names of her grandparents and where they are buried. 

   I don’t know what I was thinking.  The cemetery is large, the burial site for many of the small, surrounding villages for many years. I thought it would be small. We fan out, we wander, we are unsuccessful (of course!). We start to leave. On our way through the gate a man passes us and hearing us speaking English stops us and says to me in Polish “Were you looking for family?”  I say yes but without success. He asks the name and says “I’ve seen it somewhere.”  I think to myself, what are the chances? but we head back in to search and sure enough, after a while he shouts out. 

    We could never have found it ourselves, tucked away on a little knoll near a tree. On the crucifix their names are engraved on the teensiest little metal plaque. 

     The cement stone on the ground has eroded and is so decrepit and covered in moss as to be almost unreadable. But we found them:  Anna Warchoł and Tomasz Zalewski, my mother’s grandparents on her father’s side; great grandparents to me and my brothers and great, great grandparents to my niece. An amazing feeling.

      We clean it as best we can. Take photos. Say a prayer. Express our thanks to the man who, like in the best of fairy tales, appears unexpectedly just at the right moment to come to our aid. Another minute and we would have been gone, this story untold.

←    In September of  2024  I revisit the grave.  The marker on the ground is unrecognizable, their names erased. I am heartsick.


  I resolve not to let their names disappear into the ground, for the sake of my mother, who so valued family. My cousins Anna and Jadzia in Poland are ken to help and contact a local monument company to make a new headstone and a slab the length of a coffin that is traditional for graves in Polish cemeteries. They keep me posted via phone calls, emails, send photos. My brothers come together to share the cost, all in memory of our mother and ancestors.

On this November 2nd, 2025, All Soul's Day, on my mother’s birthday, her grandparents have a new gravestone, one that will last another hundred years, one that future generations will be able to locate more easily, one where they can leave their flowers and their candles and fulfill the Polish saying:  “Kto  żyje w pamięci swych bliskich,  żyje wiecznie” meaning, He who lives in the memory of his closest, lives forever.

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                      In memoriam. Anna Warchoł (1863-1909) and Tomasz Zalewski(1858-1898)

For customs and traditions associated with All Soul's Day or death and burial customs of Poland see: Polish Customs, Traditions and Folklore, Hippocrene Books, Inc. www.amazon.com/Polish-Customs-Traditions-Folklore-Hodorowicz/dp/0781814510/ref=sr_1_1?crid=45WRULWPPZY7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.q2FzX-R1lP6KGlidZ61Mm2IeBISY4ykf5zVNqCV3xseM1a-jULlckF-6fKfMGhys.tVhxs2RmMjLziMTxtzzk7ZXbhJZ76FzE0WjwLXlzpOs&dib_tag=se&keywords=hodorowicz-knab%2C+sophie+polish+traditions%2C+customs%2C+and+folklore&qid=1762088959&sprefix=Polish