Steven's Grandparents - Sepia Saturday

When in America earlier this year I found this photo on the wall of my daughter's and son-in-law's home.

Maria Skǒumka and Tadeusz Alfonse Glogowski

This is a photograph of of photograph of a photograph taken before WWII in Warsaw. Maria and Tadeusz  were the grandparents of Steven, my son-in-law.

Tadeusz had been born in the Ukraine but after the Russian Revolution his mother took him at the age of 14 and Stefan, his 16 year-old brother, to Poland. Both brothers were Russian speakers. However Stefan did not like Poland and returned to Russia when he was 17 only to be arrested as a spy. He spent 8 years in Siberia before going to live in Palestine.

Tadeusz’s mother had high hopes for him; he was introduced to the Polish Ambassador in 1921-23 and mixed in Polish society’s highest levels. A clever man he was a humorist but he didn’t particularly like the ladies amongst whom his mother hoped he would find a wife. He married Maria Skǒumka, an orphan girl whom he had met in a pub when she was 17. They had a daughter and Stefan, a son who was to become Steven’s father. The daughter died when Stefan was 2 years old.

Tadeusz became an accountant and worked for a Warsaw tyre company. He was killed in 1939 when the Germans bombed Warsaw; he did not get to the air-raid shelter with the rest of his family when his home was hit.

It's ironic that thanks to Steven I can post this information about his grandparents but can only search census records and the like to find out about mine.  

I managed a related couple in a sepia photo to link to other posts here

Icebreakers - Sepia Saturday

For my sins over the 20 years before I retired I led training courses in may parts of the world – UK, Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and Mexico. With up to 20 people on a five day course and especially where the candidates were from different companies the initial problem was to get them to talk to one another. We had to devise a means of breaking the ice.

We often posted an introductory slide of an icebreaker in the Arctic with people standing on the pack ice.

Hence my topic for this week:

The earliest icebreakers used by the Russians in the Arctic and on Siberian rivers were called kochi or iceboats. The rounded body lines of a koch allowed the boat to be pushed upwards out of the ice and to rest on the surface.

The first steam powered icebreaker was a wooden paddle steamer with a strengthened hull intended to break ice in the harbour at Philadelphia in 1837.

 City Ice Boat No. 1

The first European steam-powered icebreaker and the first ever icebreaker with a metal hull was the Russian Pilot built in 1864. The Pilot has been featured on a Russian postage stamp.

The Pilot had all the main features present in the modern icebreakers, and that's why it is often considered the first true icebreaker.

However it is a ship built in England for the Russians that is considered the first modern polar icebreaker:

 The Yermak was built by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1898. The Yermak was able to run over and crush pack ice.

Of course later ships were diesel powered and now nuclear powered icebreakers are in use.

During the war the Germans used ships like the Hessen as icebreakers in the Baltic Sea.

This photo was taken from the battleship Scharnhorst in January 1940. The Hessen was later used as a target ship for the Scharnhorst.

More at : Sepia Saturday 59