At the LMA conference on 28th March we discovered, through conversation with other participants, that St Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery in Langthorne Road, E11 contains the graves of a number of Polish Catholic priests. A quick on-line search also revealed possible evidence of other Polish graves, often indicating WW2 killed in action.
On visiting the cemetery, it’s packed and it would take ages to inspect every stone. Fortunately there was a helpful person on the desk at the enquiries office and he was able to take me directly to two strips of graves very close to the entrance, the stones of which all had Polish names and many of which were priests. I didn’t know what most of them said and was hoping for a bit of insight into Waltham Forest and/or Poland provenance, but Google Translate revealed mainly ecclesiastical aspirations of a spiritual nature.
The priests’ graves were mostly very simple, with a plain slab and few headstones or other embellishments compared to those of others’.
The priests’ names included the following (KS is an abbreviation for Kszadz (sounds like kshts) which simply means Priest. Pralat means Prelate).
-KS Kan Tadeusz Kurczewski 1919-1991
-KS Pawel Rzonsa 1908-1981
-KS Bronislaw Nowak 1928-1998
-KS Pralat Karol Zielinski 1923-1991
-KS Pralat Franciszek Dziduszko 1896-1980
-KS Kanonik Boleslaw Klementowski 1908-1984
-KS Bronislaw Michalski 1892-1968
-KS Pralat Jan Brandys Gornoslaski 1886-1970
-KS Pralat Marian Walczak 1907-1970
-KS Kanonik Nikoda Dubrowka 1901-1979
-KS Marain Sosin 1907-1980
– KS Infulat Paulus 1892-1973
-KS Dr Jozef Koldziejczyk 1912-1980
-KS Pralat Narcyz Turulski 1907-1965
Other names I spotted included:
-Jan Trusewicz 1898-1969 and Olga Trusewicz 1899-1974
-Stefan Rozbicki and Irena Rozbicka
-Walena Sikorzyna 1901-1975 and Mieczyslaw Sikora 1900-1990
-John Mamajeski 1996 aged 76
-Sylwester Edmund Wolinski 1903-1975
-Teofil Wittaz 1886-1953
-Grzegorz Mycko 1905-1986
–Jan Mintowt-Czyz 1940
-Franciszek Trepka 1977 aged 62
Perhaps some of these names could be a seam of enquiry throughancestry.co.uk?
Patricia Cutler 01.04.2014
