Was this woman, who lived in Decatur Township and Barnesboro, PA, the cousin of my great-grandfather John Radomsky, who was killed in the mine? If so, she may have been the first in her family to arrive in central Pennsylvania from Nizny Komarnik.

The Slovakian census of 1869 records my great-great-great grandfather, Franciscus Havier Radomsky, and his wife Alsbeta Schwancer living in Nizny Komarnik in a multi-generational household with two of their sons: John Radomsky (b 1819) and Carol Radomsky (b 1837; my great-great-grandfather). Francis and Elizabeth were then in their eighties. Carol was just one year old.

Francis’s elder son John married late (possibly because he had been in the military), and his wife, Anna Biszaha of Rassony (b 1837), was much younger than he. By 1869, the couple had had five children: Veronika (1856), Mihály (1859), Anna (1862), Theresia (1865), and János (1867). Anna Biszaha Radomsky was 32 years old. Church records show that she continued to have children, bearing John a daughter, Julia, on 21 July 1875. This leaves open the possibility that, their older child Anna having died after 1869, they became the parents of a second Anna Radomsky (later Dorko) who, according to her death certificate, was born in Aug 1872.  Other evidence, such as Anna’s Pennsylvania marriage license and the birth certificates of her two youngest children, indicate she was born in 1870 or 71.

What is certain is that, on January 2, 1892, a Slovakian-born Anna, the daughter of John and Annie Radomsky, married Michael Dorko in Osceola Mills, PA. She was 21 years old and a resident of Decatur Township. The Rev. Cornelius Laurisin, an Orthodox priest who had come to town the previous year, married them. (The Nativity of the Virgin Mary Church in Osceola Mills was going up but unfinished.) Anna’s new husband, Mike (born on 2 Sep 1871) was the son of Andrew and Susan Dorko and had been in the US since 1888.

The newlyweds moved to North Barnesboro in Cambria County. They raised a family. By 1910, they’d had nine children, seven of whom were living: Anna, Mary, John Michael, Winifred, Elizabeth, Helen, and Margaret. (A son, Aaron, enumerated as a newborn on the 1900 census, had died by 1910.)

Between 1910 and 1915, Anna’s oldest daughter and namesake married John Ocelvany. The couple had two children in Pennsylvania before moving to Detroit in the late 1920s. Elizabeth, Helen, and Margaret Dorko followed their sister Anna there as they came of age.

Winifred married Michael Matthew Hydock. They lived briefly in Pittsburgh before settling in Cleveland.

John and Anna Dorkos’ only son, John, married Mary Selapeck and lived near his parents until they died. The Dorkos’ daughter Mary also stayed nearby. She never married and was the one daughter who never left Pennsylvania.

Tragedy struck the Dorkos on May 30, 1929, when the 23-year-old Helen, who was single and working in Detroit as a department-store clerk, was killed in an automobile collision. Her remains were transported home and interred in the old section of St John the Baptist Cemetery in Barnesboro.

The following year, Anna Radomsky Dorko, then 58, died of a brain hemorrhage brought on by chronic nephritis (kidney inflammation, formerly called Bright’s disease). She was buried near her daughter. Her husband Mike, who had been a miner, died of cerebral apoplexy in 1937 at age 65.

On September 30, 1938, Anna’s third oldest daughter Winifred Dorko Hydock died at age 38, succumbing to hypertensive kidney disease and leaving five children motherless.

The birth, marriage, and death certificates of the Dorko children attest that their mother’s maiden name was Anna Radomsky. When she died, her husband identified her as the daughter of John “Adamsky” of Czechoslovakia. In 1900, Anna told a census-taker she was born in May 1875, casting doubt on the date of her birth.  (A church record, if any are extant, might establish her age.)

Since the Dorkos have passed on, only their descendants can be looked to for information about this branch of the Radomsky family.

DESCENDANTS

ANNA DORKO (Mrs John Ocelvany) had two children.

JOHN OCELVANY JR. (1915-1994) briefly married Mildred Sotke, then Josephine Sardo; later history unknown.

EDITH ANN OCELVANY (1921- ) (Mrs. Leo J. Lipa) had four children: Kenneth, Dennis, Karen, and Linda.

WINIFRED DORKO (Mrs. Michael Hydock) had five children.

JOHN HYDOCK married Irene J Flagner; later history unknown.

ELIZABETH (BETTY) HYDOCK married three times; no known issue.

JEAN LOUISE HYDOCK (Mrs. Stephen George Hizak) had six children: Arlene, Myron, Arlinda, Carol, Barbara, and Stephen.

JUNE ELIZABETH HYDOCK (Mrs. Travers Voigt) had eight children: Scott (1956-2013), Tim, Travers, Patrick, Terry, Colleen, Elizabeth, and Connie.

MICHAEL HYDOCK JR. married twice. His second wife was Letitia Deitrich. Whether he had children is unknown.

After Winifred Dorko Hydock’s early death, her husband remarried. His second wife, Helen M. (Remers) Rainey, brought one son, ROBERT RAINEY, to the marriage.  Michael and Helen Hydock also had one son together:

JAMES EDWARD HYDOCK (b 1941)

MARGARET DORKO (Mrs. Herbert Clark) married a Detroit police officer and had one child:

PATRICIA CLARK (b 1938; later history unknown).

JOHN M DORKO married Mary Selapeck when they were in their thirties. Unclear whether they had kids.

ELIZABETH DORKO (Mrs. Gilbert Ivo Thurmond) married late and lived with her husband, a chemist, in Asheville, NC. She may have been previously married but whether she had children is unknown.

HELEN DORKO and MARY DORKO died without issue.

This is the fifth in a series of pages about my Slovakian origins.  To go to the first of the pages, click here.

For more on Anna and her family, please see my Dorko-Radomsky family tree on Ancestry.com.

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