I requested a photo of this gravestone through FindAGrave.com. I was quite surprised when I saw it. My great-grandfather's first name is spelled 'Juraj,' which is the Croatian equivalent of George. (It is prounouned YOO-rahy.) On every census form, children's birth record, immigration document, obituary, etc. he is 'George,' so I find it interesting that his gravestone says 'Juraj.' What is even more interesting is that his Croatian first name IS engraved, but NOT his Croatian surname, Beljan. Did he choose this form of his name to be engraved? He passed away after his spouse, and since they oftentimes do the majority of a stone's engraving all at once, it IS possible that he chose this name. Also of note is that Ursula's birth year on the gravestone is incorrect according to other sources, such as her death certificate and census forms. The stone lists her birth year as 1874, whereas her death certificate and census forms put her birth year more at 1876-1877.
This is the gravestone of two of my maternal great-grandparents, George and Ursula Bellan. George (born Beljan) and Ursula (born Benicki) were born in the 1870s in Croatia, which was at that time a part of Austria-Hungary. They came to America in the 1890s and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. They had eight children, three of whom unfortunately died as teens and young adults. Ursula passed away in 1946 and George followed in 1954. They are buried in Cleveland's Calvary Cemetery.
I requested a photo of this gravestone through FindAGrave.com. I was quite surprised when I saw it. My great-grandfather's first name is spelled 'Juraj,' which is the Croatian equivalent of George. (It is prounouned YOO-rahy.) On every census form, children's birth record, immigration document, obituary, etc. he is 'George,' so I find it interesting that his gravestone says 'Juraj.' What is even more interesting is that his Croatian first name IS engraved, but NOT his Croatian surname, Beljan. Did he choose this form of his name to be engraved? He passed away after his spouse, and since they oftentimes do the majority of a stone's engraving all at once, it IS possible that he chose this name. Also of note is that Ursula's birth year on the gravestone is incorrect according to other sources, such as her death certificate and census forms. The stone lists her birth year as 1874, whereas her death certificate and census forms put her birth year more at 1876-1877.
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A collection of photos celebrating all of the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers in our families! Enjoy!
Today, May 15, is the United Nations International Day of Families. Some of these family photos I have posted before, and some I haven't. I hope you get to enjoy the day with your family members! Just thought I would post some favorite pics of the mothers in my family: It's graduation season, so I thought I would write a post about the first person in my family to attend college. My great uncle, Rudolph Bellan, attended Ohio State in the early to mid-1920s. 'Uncle Rudy,' as my mom and uncle call him, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in May 1900. He was the eldest child of George and Ursula Bellan, who were Croatian immigrants. Getting a college education was still rare at this time, especially for a child of urban blue collar immigrants. Young people were lucky if they were even able to finish their secondary education. Rudy did not go off to college right after secondary school; in the 1920 census, he is working at a clerical job with a newspaper and still living with his parents and seven siblings in Cleveland. But by 1922, he is listed as a first-year student in Ohio State's student directory. (By the way, Google Books is a great resource for older university directories.) The directory states each student's area of study, year of study, hometown, local Columbus address, and phone number. I also found Rudy's name in the 1922 OSU yearbook in which he is listed as a Newman Club member (Newman organizations on university campuses are typically groups of Catholic students, so this makes sense because Rudy and his family were Catholic.). I haven't been able to find anything from Ohio State linking Rudy to his studies in 1923, but he is listed as a 'student' in the 1923 Cleveland, Ohio directory: I have found a couple of interesting OSU mentions of Rudy for 1924. He is pictured in the OSU 1924 yearbook as a member of Sigma Delta Chi, a 'professional journalistic society.' (Click on the photo for a larger image.) And, finally, from the March 9, 1924 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Rudy is listed as being in charge of the publicity for the campus's 10th annual intramural festival. I have not found anything definitive to this point that proves Rudy actually graduated from Ohio State. The best clue I have right now is that, in the 1940 census, he listed his 'highest grade of school completed' as 'C4,' meaning four years of college. He came back to Cleveland and became a restaurant proprietor. Sometime after 1940, he and his wife moved to Detroit, Michigan, which is where he lived the remainder of his life.
I like Rudy's story because it truly shows the opportunities that awaited for immigrants and their families when they came to America. If George and Ursula had stayed in Croatia, would their children have had the opportunity to pursue a college education? Probably not. In the 1940 census, George and Ursula list their 'highest grade of school completed' as '6,' and even that may have been generous. Not to get up too high on my soapbox, but these types of stories need to be told, and they have relevance with regards to today's immigration issues. America is STILL a land of opportunity for immigrants. Parents still bring their families here to find better lives. Every year around this time, you can Google search for news stories about the child or grandchild of an immigrant who becomes the first in the family to graduate with a college degree. So often, we are so overly concerned about the 'unskilled and uneducated' immigrants that we fail to see the great potential in not only them, but in their children and grandchildren, too. I've talked a lot this week about the Bellan family, the family of my maternal grandfather. I thought I would keep it up by posting a picture of the home they lived in for much of their lives. This is 12212 Parkhill Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as it looks today, thanks to Google StreetView. It is located on Cleveland's East Side in what is today known as the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. Here is a map showing the location (A) of the home in relation to the rest of the East Side and Downtown areas. According to real estate data, the home was built in 1919. George and Ursula Bellan and family moved into the residence sometime between 1920 and 1922; in the 1920 Census the family is not living there, but their son John's death certificate from July 1922 lists it as his residence. George and Ursula lived there for the rest of their lives. Their children all lived there until they were married or, unfortunately, until they passed away. And it was also the first place that my grandfather and grandmother, Bill and Dina (Licciardi) Bellan, lived after they were married.
It's wonderful that the house itself is still standing and in such good condition. Obviously, a lot about it has been changed and updated cosmetically, but the house appears to have been cared for quite well, which, unfortunately isn't the case with a lot of the old homes in the neighborhoods nearby. By today's standards, it is a modest home - three bedrooms and one bath with 1,160 feet of living space. At the time they moved in, all eight of George and Ursula's children were still living, so it was tight quarters (Their eldest child, Rudy, attended Ohio State for a few years, so, at that time, he was not living here year-round.) John passed away, as mentioned above, in 1922, and Mary and Olga passed away in 1927 and 1928, respectively, both from pulmonary tuberculosis. I do not have a photo of what the house looked like back then; of course, I wish that I did. But I can picture my grandfather and his siblings sitting out on that nice big porch on hot days, or maybe running up and down the street playing. Bill Bellan, 1983. Yesterday, I wrote a post about my Great-Grandpa Bellan because it was his birthday. Today, I'm sharing some photos of me with his son, Bill Bellan who was my mom's dad. He would have turned 99 years old today. He was born in Lorain, Ohio, but grew up on the east side of Cleveland, and graduated from East Technical High School in 1933 (see this post), and served in the Army during WWII (see this post). He worked as a printer with Penton Publishing Company for most of his career. Grandpa Bellan passed away when I was about eleven years old, but I do have a lot of memories about him. He and my grandma watched my brother and I for a couple of years when my mom was working full-time. He would pick us up from school in his maroon Oldsmobile. He had one of those floating compass globes on his dashboard that we thought was so cool. He would bring us back to their house and Grandma would get us some food. We loved playing around by his workbench in the basement. He loved building things out of wood and there were tons of tools to look at. He would occasionally help us hammer nails into scrap pieces of wood. And he had a big metal vise that we used to just turn back and forth, opening and closing, opening and closing... Grandpa also loved golf and he had one of those putting mats that would shoot the ball back at you if you got it in the hole, which, of course, we thought was the neatest thing ever. He also played darts with us in the basement. Yes, he let a 5 and 6 year old play with real darts. We never got hurt though, so we must have been properly supervised, right? (Guess this is probably not the best time to mention that he also frequently let us play with an old set of lawn darts a.k.a. Jarts.) Here are some pics of me with Grandpa when I was a baby. I also included one of my brother and me in our sandbox, because Grandpa built it for us.
George Bellan, Sept 1947 On this date in 1873, my great-grandfather, George Bellan, was born in Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary. All I really know about George is from information I have collected from old documents and newspaper clippings. He passed away when my mom and uncle were young children, so they don't remember him. I never got a chance to ask my grandfather about him (he passed away when I was eleven.). George Bellan (nee Beljan) is my only great-grandparent for which I have been able to locate a birth and baptism record from the 'Old Country.' About two years ago, I ordered a microfilm from my local LDS Family History Library and spent a couple of hours going through it. I was able to find his record, along with his sister Veronika's birth record (who also came to the U.S.), and a brother named Francis, who, to my knowledge, stayed in Croatia. The records also list the names of their parents, Francis and Rosa Beljan, which I had not known to that point, so it was a big discovery for me. George's birth and baptismal record from Brod Moravice, Croatia is below. It states he was born on March 12, 1873 and baptized on March 14, 1873. Interestingly, his WWI draft card lists his date of birth as March 15, 1873 and his naturalization card lists it as April 15, 1874. I use this church record as his "official" birthday, so I'm happy to have found it. According to the information he provided to the census taker in 1900, he immigrated to America in 1893, but I have not been able to find his ship manifest to confirm this date. I do have his wife Ursula's ship manifest; she arrived in 1898 and listed George as her contact person. She used his surname on the manifest, but I do not believe that they married until she arrived. She, too, was Croatian and was born in a town relatively close to where he was from but, honestly, they may not have even known each other prior to their 'betrothal.' I still need to search for a Cleveland, Ohio marriage record. What did George do for a living? Census data in this case is not very descriptive, as his occupation/trade is listed as 'laborer' in the steel mills, which pretty much describes the job of every blue collar worker in Cleveland at that time. City directories have been a big help in providing a little more detail. From 1915-1919, he is listed as a 'molder,' and then in 1921, 1923, and 1934 he is a 'cement finisher.' My favorite record, however, is a directory from 1904, which lists his occupation as simply 'saloon.' Unfortunately, it must not have done very well, because this is the only mention of it. :-( George and his wife Ursula had eight children, but unfortunately three of them passed away as young adults. George was active in his local Croatian Fraternal Union Lodge, and in 1945 he was honored for being a 50-year member. George passed away in October of 1954 after living as a widower for eight years. He was 81 years old and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 1933, my maternal grandfather, William Joseph Bellan, graduated from Cleveland's East Technical High School. Below, you can see the cover of his yearbook, entitled Junebug, and his senior year photo. All right, you say, pretty cool family heirloom. Pretty awesome that my grandpa even graduated when a decent number of boys his age left school early to start working. Then, if you flip to the back of the yearbook, there is an autograph page: And there, second from the top, right under his sister's signature (which I find amusing), is 'Jesse Owens.' Jesse Owens, who tied the 100-yard dash world record when he was still in high school. Jesse Owens, who won eight individual NCAA championships in track and field, but who still had to live off campus because of his race, and who worked part-time because did NOT receive any sort of scholarships. Jesse Owens, who, in 1936, went on to win four gold Olympic medals in Berlin, in front of Adolf Hitler.
Now, East Tech was and still is a BIG school. My grandfather's commencement program says that, at the time of his graduation, there were 3,800 students and 110 instructors. To my knowledge, Grandpa was not on the track and field team. He may have had a few classes with Jesse, but they probably weren't good friends. (Interestingly, Jesse is not pictured in his senior year yearbook as is my grandfather. Turns out that he was a few credits shy of graduating high school and had to pass some exams to enter Ohio State.) What I love about this story is the confluence of two typical American family stories of the early 20th century. Grandpa was the son of Croatian immigrants; Jesse (whose real name was James) was the son of poor sharecroppers who left the South as part of the Great Migration. Both sets of parents left their respective homes in search of better lives for their children. And I think it's safe to say that both succeeded. Today is my Mom's birthday, so I thought I would share some photos of her childhood birthdays: And here is one of the birth announcements that my grandparents sent out when she was born:
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