Tombstone Tuesday: Panko & Bessie Hruszczak

Panko and Bessie Hruszczak, my great grandparents, are buried at the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Cemetery in Valley Township, Chester County.

Their stone reads:

Hruszczak

Panko 1893 - 1968

Bessie 1895 - 1972

Both my great grandparents came over as teenagers, settling in Coatesville. Panko’s Uncle Onifer Romanko – his mother’s brother – was already in Coatesville, also attended Holy Ghost and is buried up our cemetery too. Bessie followed her brother Frank here. After Bessie and Panko married, Frank and his wife and children moved to New Jersey.

One of my goals for 2016 is to concentrate on my immigrants and my ancestral homelands. Panko, on his naturalization paperwork, stated he was from Prusy, Sambor, Galicia. Bessie’s (maiden name was Matys) homeland was Fraga, Rohatya, Galicia.

Tombstone Tuesday is a genealogical prompt of GeneaBloggers.

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