Happy Mother's Day!
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Mother's Day 2019, many of us can scarcely believe it is here because the Twenty-First Century is moving along more quickly than what many of us would wish it to be doing. I suppose that is because time goes faster the older we get. Hey that's proven...but I can't remember by whom at the moment...so I'll just stay with just wishing all of the Mothers a special and Happy Mother's Day today!
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Sharing my most definitive story I've written about my mother based on my research on trying to learn the truth about her real given name.
"In Memory of My Mother’s Many Names"
January 25, 2006
by Linda Jean Limes Ellis
"Researching the facts and foibles
of my great-great grandfather or great-grandmother had never been a problem for
me regardless of the secrets I uncovered about them. However, delving into the life of my dear
departed mother proved personally frustrating because she was my closest friend
and sweet mother for 47 years of my life.
So it was she must have had her reasons why she chose not to share with
me the hidden story behind her real birth name.
I had seen my mother’s name printed
on my parents’ marriage certificate and her own signature affixed to her
original Social Security card. She was
Virginia, Virginia H. or Virginia Harriet – and I never had a reason to think
otherwise. This was until after my
mother died on February 3,
1995 and I learned there was more to my mother and her identity
than I could have ever imagined.
My first revelation came from her
sister, my Aunt Irene, who came with me one Sunday afternoon to visit my
parents’ gravesite at Elmwood
Cemetery in Lorain, Ohio. As we approached their tombstone, she
announced, “You have the wrong name for your mother on the tombstone.” I thought, what could she possibly mean by
that statement? Surely, that could not
be true.
However, my aunt told me that my
mother was named Regina
at birth, but she never liked it. I had
not heard of this before from my mother or anyone! What I did recall though was hearing my
cousin, Lenny, calling my mother “Auntie Ray” (later my Aunt Irene wrote a
letter to me with the spelling of “R-a-e”; short for Regina?)
Still I remained unconvinced.
Soon afterward, I requested a
copy of my mother’s Baptismal and Confirmation records from St. Stanislaus
Church in Lorain, Ohio.
My mother’s family had lived on Apple Avenue, near the church, for years
and I knew she attended “St. Stans.”
My mother was baptized on October 4, 1914. Her baptismal record shows Regina Harriet
Zagorski as her name. I knew from her
father’s naturalization records that Zagorski and Zagorsky were interchangeable. I could live with the surname discrepancy
without any question. But, “Regina” boldly appeared on
this official document, and it was the first time I saw it in print as my
mother’s given name.
My mother’s Confirmation was on December 17, 1926 and the
typed record shows her confirmation name was Rita. The name on her Confirmation was “Regina
Hedwig Zagorski”. I thought, well,
Hedwig may be Harriet in Polish? But, no
an accompanying letter from the church secretary stated otherwise: “Hedwig does
not translate to Harriet.” Yet another
unfamiliar name I would now have to associate with my mother and who she was. And, again “Regina.”
It is widely known that “Regina”
means “Queen.”
Next, I tackled obtaining the
public birth record for my mother. The
registration number was 665 in Registration District 753 in Lorain, Ohio.
But there were two differently
created forms with the “Registered No.665”, AND later, on June 29, 1942, an Ohio
Department of Health Affidavit was filed for a correction to No. 665.
Interestingly, her mother,
Josephine Zagorsky, signed the 1942 corrected Affidavit, which stated:
“I, Josephine
Zagorsky, being first duly sworn, say that I am the mother of Virginia
Zagorsky, File No. 665. Date of
Birth: September 13, 1914, Place of Birth: Lorain,
Ohio; Name of Father: Andy Zagorsky; Maiden name of mother: Josephine Szczepankiewicz;
Remarks: “First name of child was misspelled and last
name was misspelled.”
*******
Now, one File No. 665 Certificate
of Birth shows my mother’s name as “Regina Sagarski” and the other “Virginia
Sagarsky”. The former name’s Certificate
had an addition the later name’s form did not:
“Given name added from a supplemental report” dated October 6, 1914.
The “Virginia Sagarsky” was
written on a Certificate of Birth dated and filed September 15, 1915 and her mother’s
name was shown as “Josephine Grogan.”
Her mother’s name before marriage
was Josephine Szczepankiewicz. Why
“Grogan” was not later corrected to Szczepankiewicz I do not know.
Thus I had in my possession what
essentially amounted to three birth certificates, a Baptismal record (both
original and typed) and a Confirmation for my mother; all with disagreeing
information for her birth name.
But it was what I saw on page 78
of the 1931 Lorain
High School yearbook, “The
Scimitar”, that conclusively convinced me Regina was my mother’s name given at birth.
Under the heading of “The
Sophomore A Girls” - in the fifth column, the fifth name from the bottom
appears the name: “Regina Zagorski.” Who
would have thought how important a high school year book could be in a situation
like this?
I’ve reconciled myself to respect
my mother’s desire to have remained silent during her lifetime about her birth name. I feel comfortable knowing that the name on
her tombstone, “Virginia H. Limes”, is the name she had truly desired for
herself. I know I did right by her. Ultimately, that is all that really matters
for both of us."
