Szczepan Panek 1907

On June 15th, 1907,  a young 19 year old brown haired, blue eyed,  5′ 7″ tall Stephen Panek left  his home town for good and boarded a train from Ropczyce, Poland to Bremen, Germany where he then boarded the ocean faring steam ship the “SS Cassel” which took him to Liverpool, England.  There, after a brief layover, he changed ships to the “SS Noordland”. 

After a ten day journey out of Poland, through Germany, across the North Sea to Liverpool, England, and  then across the Atlantic to the United States, he arrived at the port of Philadelphia on June 25th, 1907.  He was sponsored/received in the US by his Uncle Jan Bursztyn , brother to his mother Katarzyna Bursztyn-Panek. 

​While Stephen’s brothers John, Stanley and Walter  had  already immigrated and settled in Hamilton, Ontario, Stephen ultimately settled in Buffalo, NY, where is Uncle Jan Bursztyn resided and possibly because his future wife Jadwiga “Ida” Hattie” Czajkowski had already immigrated  and settled with her sister in  1904.

​Stephen married Jawdiga in 1910  and shortly after purchased  a home on 60 Pulaski Street in Buffalo, where they would live the rest of their lives.

​Stephen worked as a laborer at various businesses and ultimately landed a position as a mechanic with Penn-Central Railroad.

​Stephen petitioned for naturalization and received his citizenship on October 1, 1912.

​He had six children with Jadwiga “Hattie” “Ida” and was said to be somewhat short tempered.

​Stephen died on March 27, 1953,  at 64 years of age, two weeks before his youngest son Edmund  married Dolores Barlog.