Success is not the key to happiness.  Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.        Herman Cain 

The groom's background:  Andrew Mikitisin, is born in Csarno, Austria-Hungary on Monday, October 21, 1895.  Csarno is the same village where Anna Scšur, my grandmother, was born 27 years earlier in 1868.  Some general background on Andrew's early life follows:

Andrew is the first and only child of Paraska Mudry and John Mikitisin who are married in 1894 in Austria-Hungary.  Andrew is born in 1895 and ten years later, Andrew's father follows his brother-in-law FNU Mudry to Oneida, Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines.  In 1904, after settling in Oneida, John Mikitisin sends for Andrew and his mother to join him in America.  Unfortunately, Andrew's father is killed by a train before they arrive.  Hence, Andrew does not have a father and Paraska Mudry does not have a husband when they set foot on American soil in the port of New York on Thursday, March 16, 1905.  They travel to Oneida to meet Mr. Mikitisin. 

Continued from above:  Following  their travel to the village of Oneida, Andrew and his mother learn of the death of Mr. Mikitisin.  Mrs. Mikitisin is distraught and young Andrew is upset and heart-broken.  After a sufficient period of mourning, Mrs. Mikitisin's brother arranges a marriage for her and the widow Mikitisin marries Mr. Graeno, see etching to the left.  Her marriage to Mr. Graeno produces three daughters;  Susan, Anna and Mary.  Two of the daughters grow up and marry gentlemen named Korn and Panarewsky respectively; the third Graeno daughter, Mary, never marries.  In addition to the three girls, Mr. and Mrs. Graeno raise young Andrew Mikitisin while he is at home in Oneida during the period 1905 to 1910.  Andrew will enlist in the service three years later, but he has two intermediate jobs prior to his enlistment.

In July, 1910, Andrew, at age 15, moves to East 22nd Street in Bayonne, NJ where he works for a year.  He then moves back to Pennsylvania, but this time south of Oneida to Allentown in August, 1911 where he works and lives for two years.  Finally, on Friday, November 28, 1913, at the age of 18½ years, he enlists in the Army at Fort Slocum, New York to begin a six year military adventure.

While in the service, Andrew decides to become a U. S. citizen and is naturalized in the 13th Judicial District Court of Louisiana at Alexandria, Louisiana on Monday, September 23, 1918.  His certificate of naturalization is recorded as Certificate No. 1142080.  At the same time, Andrew also legally and officially changes his name from Mikitisin to McDeshen, a name the Kudrick Family will become familiar with in the years to come.

Andrew occasionally takes leave from the service to visit his family in Oneida.  During one of these visits in 1918, his cousin John Mudry introduces Andrew to his sister-in-law Helen Kudrick of Cranberry.   Andrew and Helen apparently are smitten with each other and meet several more times during Andrew's visits home.

Andrew serves 5 years and 4 months including a tour working on the Panama Canal before he is  discharged on Monday, March 24, 1919.    He is furloughed from the Regular Army Service at Camp Shelby, Mississippi to the Regular Army Reserve.  His discharge papers list the reason for his furlough as a family dependence on his support at home although Helen Kudrick may well be the real reason Andrew is furloughed.  As a 1st Sgt. in the infantry at the time of his furlough, he is given the appropriate travel pay to Allentown, Pennsylvania his last civilian residence.  However, Andrew moved back in with his mother and step-father in Oneida.

Within 1½ months after his Army discharge, Andrew McDeshen and Helen Kudrick are married on May 10, 1919.  After their marriage, Andrew and Helen rent one of the duplex houses at 21/23 West Cranberry Avenue next door to Helen's parents at 19 West Cranberry Avenue.  Andrew would later refer to the property at 21/23 West Cranberry Avenue as the "tumbled down shack."

In 1920 Andrew and Helen's first child, Joseph McDeshen, is born in West Hazleton.  Click here for more on Joseph McDeshen.  Soon after their first child is born, Andrew moves his family to Allentown where Andrew seeks out employment.  He finds work at Mack Truck followed by a short term of employment with the Bonnie Tool Company.

However, Helen misses being away from her family and persuades Andrew to move back to West Hazleton.  He again moves his three member family into one half of the duplex property at 21/23 West Cranberry Avenue.  This time, Andrew operates the saloon portion of the building which later became known as Fellin's Saloon.  The McDeshen's live above the bar that Andrew operates.  The bar does a good business being frequented by the local miners.  The other side of the duplex building is rented by a family named Fajoogas formerly of the Hazleton Heights.   

Other events of1919 include:  On Tuesday, January 21, twenty-five  members of the Sinn Fein Society elected to the British House of Commons assemble in Dublin and formally constitute themselves the "Dail Eireann" which is Irish Gaelic for the "Irish Parliament."

John Kudrick, my father's cousin, resides at 135 West Clay Avenue in West Hazleton.  John Kudrick's residence is the last house on the northern side of West Clay Avenue at the Clay Avenue and Wayne Street intersection.  His residence is directly east of the Cranberry School houses.   Click here for more on the John Kudrick relationship.

In baseball, several Chicago White Sox players are accused of taking bribes to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds of the National League.  Players on the White Sox accused of the bribery include pitcher Ed Cicotte, outfielder Joe Jackson and six others.  The players are subsequently acquitted in the world of civil law by a jury, but banned from baseball by newly appointed commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  Some of the banned players find refuge on Coal Region baseball teams in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania.  In boxing, Jack Dempsey knocks down champion Jess Willard 7 times in the 1st round and wins on a TKO in the 3rd round of their title match.

On Tuesday, June 28, Germany and the allied and associated powers sign the peace terms in Versailles in the same imperial hall where the Germans humbled the French so ignominiously forty-eight years ago (1871).  This formally ends World War I which lasted just thirty-seven days less than five years.  June 28 is also the fifth anniversary of the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian student, at Sarajevo.

Ancestry Hub ~ Kudrick Home Page ~ Kudrick Ancestry ~ Ancestry Page ~ Kudrick Family ~ Alex Kudrick
Bartko Family ~ Anna Scšur ~ Helen McDeshen ~ Andrew McDeshen Sr. ~ Joseph McDeshen ~ Eddie McDeshen
Mary McDeshen ~ Eleanor McDeshen ~ Andrew McDeshen Jr.