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LARVALBUG LENS, April, 2003

Our lens this month features the sons of Dorothy (1877-1940) and Joseph A.(1870-1942), who were the paternal grandparents of Val's mother, Evelyn. Joseph A. immigrated to the United States from Zuberec, Slovakia, in 1890, along with his parents. Taken around 1910 in Joliet, Illinois, the picture shows, from left to right, Steven (1907-1987), Charles (1905-1960), Raymond (1903-1944), John (1901-1969), Joseph P. (1899-1969), and Rudolph (1896-1971). Charles was Evelyn's father. The family lived in Pennsylvania, where Joseph A. was a coal miner and later a well driller. In 1912, they moved to Joliet. Rudolph, or Rudy, was a half-brother to the others as he was born to Dorothy during a previous marriage to Mathias, who died only a year or so later, after which Dorothy married Joseph A. in 1898. A curious coincidence was that Mathias had the same last name as, but was only very distantly related to, Joseph A. and the rest of our family.