Heather
While the bulk of my grandmother’s life (Jennie Majdic) was spent in Hudson, WY she spent a handful of years in Chicago in the 1940s. I mentioned a little bit about her friend Kimiyo in a previous post, but now let’s dive into her trip to Chicago to visit her aunts and all the excitement that happened in just shy of 6 years it seems.
Grandma Jennie graduated from Fremont County Vocational School in 1938. As of the 1940 census taken in April, she was noted at working at the creamery.
We know that Vince entered into active service in February 1943 and registered for the draft in February 1942, giving a Chicago address and having worked at the meatpacking facility, Wilson & Co. Here was how he listed his work history on his military draft card. As we know Vince and Jennie new each other before he left for war, we can assume they met sometime between 1940 and 1943.
It was not surprising that Jennie and Vince met quickly as Jennie went to stay with her Setina aunts from Kansas. While Jennie Setina was the oldest of the siblings and met John Majdic and moved rom Crawford, Kansas to Wyoming to follow the mines, quite a few of her sisters moved to Chicago, likely sometime after their parents passed away in 1923.
While Jennie was raised in Hudson, WY and Vince in Crawford, KS, Jennie’s aunts (all 10!) had been neighbors with the 5 pozun boys back in Kansas, which you can see in this census entry from before Vince’s birth:
So, when the Pozun boys start heading to Chicago, they end up lodging together with the Setinas. You can see here in 1930 where Jennie’s aunts and Vince’s brothers share a house.
In 10 years we see Tillie Setina take on being head of the household, Frank Setina marrying Pearl in 1932, John, the youngest of the Setinas moving to Chicago, Gail Setina and Richard Westray marrying in 1925 and moving in with her siblings, John Pozun moving back to Kansas and Steve and Tony Pozun (Vince’s brothers) stayed as boarders. Steve will go on to marry Tilly in 1941, no longer just a “lodger”.
Grandma treasured her pictures from that time of her life and all her family, hosting cousins and friends alike, the Pozuns, Setinas and Majdics. Here’s a few!
The other snippets we know of grandma’s time in Chicago are that she went to work for the Sloan Valve company to aid the war effort. She was an excellent machinist, keeping up and surpassing the men.
Vince meanwhile would return from the war (injured) and move around the country recovering in a variety of places from April 1945 until November when he was formally discharged. Jennie and Vince would marry in Spring of May 1946 in Chicago and by October 1947 Vince had started work in the coal mines of Superior, WY.
