Mary Sadauskaite Vidunas Yorski

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the Evening News 
(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
Mon, Aug 27, 1945 ·  Page 18

This is the obituary for Mary Sadauskas Vidunas Yorski.  She died at home at 20 Penn Street in Kingston about 6 months and 1 week after that.  Her daughter Anne Vidunas was a Registered Nurse who got her education in New York, two hours or so from Kingston.  She came down to care for Mary.  But, once again, the really new news is her sister Martha Markelonis.  I've been conversing with a cousin, who said that Mary and her sister Martha lived next door to each other.  I did find something like that, but no proof of a sisterly connection until I found this article.  And, here are three other sisters still living in Lithuania.

1920 Kingston Census
Mary Vidunas 71 Penn Street 

 In the 1920 Census, Mary is a widow living with her children on 71 Penn Street in Kingston.  She is not working, her two oldest boys are working either in the Coal Mines or as a messenger for the Telegraph.  The next two kids are in school and the baby stays home.

Mary and Louis arrived in 1905 but are not naturalized by this time.  These two speak Lithuanian as well as English, while the other children speak only English.

71 Penn Street from Google Maps

1930 Kingston Census

This is the 1930 Census.  Mary now lives on 20 Penn Street with Andrew Yorski.  Louis, John and Anna are also living with them, along with Louis' wife Frances and their two children Louis II and Dolores.  Andrew is from Poland and is naturalized.  Mary and Louis are also listed as naturalized.  I think it may be because at that time, women and children were naturalized when the husband/father was.

Andrew, Louis and John work in the Coal Mines.  Joseph is gone in the Army.  Stella is also out of the house.

Interestingly, take a look at their neighbors, the Markelonis at 18 Penn Street.  This is actually the other half of the house.  This is also Mary's sister Martha.  So in one duplex, they had many children including Stella Vidunas and Stella Markelonis; Joseph Vidunas and Joseph Markelonis (who is listed here as Adolph Jr).  They also went by the last name of "Markel" which muddies the water.  But, we may or may not get back to them later.

1940 Kingston Census

In this, the 1940 Kingston Census, we find the family living in the same house, this time with Stella Lowman and grandchildren Mary and Edward.  Andrew still works in the Coal mines.

Interesting, the line above, line 41, is Pamela Jane DeLong.  She is the granddaughter of Adolph and Martha Markelonis of 18 Penn Street.

Penn Street Fire Map 1919

This is the Fire Map for the Penn Street area.  If you find 20 Penn Street, you can see they are within a block of St Mary's RC Church, and the Penn Street School.  I don't know if the kids attended that school, but probably they did.  Also, to the left of the map, is the Kingston Coal Company.  Did the Vidunas men-folk work in this mine?  It would be within walking distance.  It make sense to have the workers' housing that close to the mines.

Penn Street Fire Map 1925

This fire map is from 1925.  Again, you can see that 20 Penn Street is within walking distance of the church and the Penn Street School.  But now there is a new street, with it's own school, Pringle Street School built in 1923.  Again, there is the Kingston Coal Mines.

The Rotterdam, which Mary and Louis Vidunas traveled on

This is the ship that carried Mary and her little son Louis to Ellis Island.

1905 Ships Manifest
Marianna Widenown and son Ludvig

 And this is the Ship's Manifest.  You can see on line 10 Marianna Widenown and her son Ludwig.  They are bound for her husband A. Widenowa on Park Street, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

Again, who knew that Vidunas was spelled this way?  According to people on the FaceBook page "Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society" they found this entry, and everything lines up.  If one takes into account the way the name is pronounced, add in non-Lithuanian people trying to write down the names, and a rushed clerk and we have something weird.


On my to-do list
1. find these three sisters in Lithuania
2. write about Martha Sadausky Markalonis living right next door.
3.  write about immigration proofs
4.  find the naturalization for Mary and Louis.
______________________________________________________

Bibliography

Ancestry.com. (1920). 1920 United States Federal Census. Retrieved from Kingston Ward 5, Luzerne, Pennsylvania : Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com. (2002). 1930 United States Federal Census. Retrieved from Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania: http://interactive.ancestry.com/6224/

4639400_00047/52887690?

backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47

476789/person/150047140756/facts/citation

/600180305279/edit/record

Ancestry.com. (2012). 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Retrieved from Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania: http://interactive.ancestry.com/2442/

M-T0627-03554-00387/28867852?

backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47

476789/person/150047140756/facts/

citation/600180433024/edit/record

Google. (2017). Maps. Retrieved from 71 Penn Street: https://www.google.com/maps/place/

71+Penn+St,+Kingston,+PA+18704/@41.2709

39,-75.9036269,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!

1s0x89c510a0c0441fe1:0x396a7e4a96c53ae

e!8m2!3d41.270939!4d-75.9014382

Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society. (n.d.). Facebook Page. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/groups/

lithuanian.genealogy/

Sanborn Map Company. (1919). Kingston including Edwardsville, Dorranceton and Pringle Boroughs, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, July 1919. Retrieved from Kingston-1919_sheet17: https://collection1.libraries.psu.edu/

cdm/compoundobject/collection/maps1/id/

11918/rec/7

Sanborn Map Company. (1925). Kingston including Pringle and Edwardsville, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, June 1925. Retrieved February 11, 2017, from Kingston-1925_sheet28: https://collection1.libraries.psu.edu/

cdm/compoundobject/collection/maps1/id/

27424/rec/6

The Plain Speaker. (1901, December 27). Newspapers.com. Retrieved from Social Page: https://www.newspapers.com/image/

?spot=8825804

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. (1945, August 27). The Evening News (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) [database online]. Retrieved from Page 18: Newspapers.com

Joseph Vidunas newspaper articles

OMG!  (I rarely say that phrase, but ... OMG!)

I was given access for a short time to Newspapers.com, the value of which I was very skeptical.  Yet it has provided such a wealth of personal information on my family.  This little branch of the Vidunas line is extremely silent.  No oral history passed down from one generation to the next.  Very little in the way of written information.  Until now.

I want to share a newspaper article I found about my Grandfather Joseph A. Vidunas. He was 1st Lt with the 84th, and the article was printed about 3 weeks before he died. Two different headlines, my favourite is "Vidunas Explores Nazi Town"
"With the 84th Infantry Division in Europe -- Lt. Joseph Vidunas, 201 Penn Street, made a personal reconnaissance of the German town of Wurm two weeks before it had been taken by the Railsplitter Division.
"Lt. Vidunas became separated from his company while it was moving into position at the town of Lindern. Arriving at the battalion headquarters in the town of Beeck, he inquired the way to Lindern. Taking the road pointed out to him, he arrived at a railroad underpass. Realizing that he was not on the right road, he decided to find out where he was.
"Entering the apparently deserted town ahead, he spotted a sentry standing in a doorway. He hailed the sentry, asking for some information. Receiving no answer he decided to try the pass word. As soon as the sentry heard this, he turned and ran toward the rear of the house. Glimpsing his German helmet in the shadows, the lieutenant decided that it was time for him to leave. He did.""Entering the apparently deserted town ahead, he spotted a sentry standing in a doorway. He hailed the sentry, asking for some information. Receiving no answer he decided to try the pass word. As soon as the sentry heard this, he turned and ran toward the rear of the house. Glimpsing his German helmet in the shadows, the lieutenant decided that it was time for him to leave. He did."

from The Wilkes-Barre Record, 24 January 1945, page 17

My dad and I never knew anything about his military career.  Growing up, I had two photos to look at, and wonder at.  As I started my genealogy adventure, I found this.  It says:

 AGPC-G 201 Vidunas, Joseph
(13 Mar 45)  01053411

8 June 1945

Dear Mrs. Vidunas:

I am referring to my letter of 13 March 1945, which confirmed the death of your husband, First Lieutenant Joseph Vidunas, on 19 February 1945 in Germany.

The military authorities have conducted an investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding your husband's death and the report has now been received in the War Department.  This report reveals that Lieutenant Vidunas died instantly on the afternoon of 19 February 1945 in his camp area near Brachelen, Germany, as the result of injuries sustained when a pistol which he was handling, was accidentally discharged.  Lieutenant Vidunas was on a duty status at the time of the accident.

Report of death for Joseph Vidunas.
On duty, no misconduct

The Quartermaster General, Washington, D. C., has jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the burial of our military personnel who die overseas and any inquiry, regarding the location of your husband's grave, may be addressed to that official.

There is very little I can say to mitigate your grief or relieve your sorrow but I cannot refrain from tendering my heartfelt sympathy and expressing the hope that you will find comfort in the knowledge that Lieutenant Vidunas died while serving honorably and faithfully in his country's cause.

Sincerely yours,
Robert H. Dunlop
Brigadier General
Acting The Adjutant General of the Army

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the Evening News (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
Mon, Jul 21, 1941 ·  Page 6

In this article (which has a spelling error.  Yes, I am THAT kind of person) in the local newspaper, Joseph Vidunas has been promoted to Tech Sgt.  He's finished his training at the Coast Artillery School, lives now at Camp Davis NC, assigned to the Barrage Balloon Battalion.

But, the most exciting part, the really new news for me, is the last paragraph.  Because he had a musical lyre on his lapel, and because the 1930 census has him as a soldier musician, I figured he was in a band.  I wondered what kind of instrument he played?  Well, here is the answer to my question -- he played in the Army Band and orchestra and was an "accomplished musician on the violin, trombone and saxaphone."  My dad was in the Air Force Band and played the Bass Viol and the Tuba.  I guess musicality is in our genes!  Dad never knew about his father's musical talent.  Now, I wonder ... did Joseph also have a camera in his hand?

Suggestions are most definately welcome.  You see, I didn't get this much information working alone.  I have to thank the Lithuanian Global Society on Facebook, my friend Vikki for lending me access to Newspapers.com; my newly found Vidunas cousins; and the facebook group Friends and Family of the 84th Division.  These people gave me snippets (or huge chunks) of information with which I could flesh out the people and the stories, and chase down new information that nobody else seems to know!  Well guess what!  We all know this now.  Feel free to share your information.

Joseph Vidunas 1911-1945 part 2

1929 Joseph Vidunas
age 17, front
photo owned 
by W.A. Vidunas

1929 Joseph Vidunas
age 17, back
photo owned
by W.A. Vidunas

We left the story with Andrew Yorski’s addition to the family in 1922, when he married Mother Mary Sadausky Vidunas.  This was Andrew's first marriage at age 35, and Mary herself was 35 years old.

In 1920, according to the Federal Census, Louis age 20 and John age 17 are employed, Stella, Joseph and Anne are still in school.  I forgot to mention that Joseph had another sister, Mary, who was born when he was age 2 and died the next year.  We’ve explored possible family dynamics, although I don’t have any proof one way or another.  We’ve seen the houses where they lived, even though those addresses are the 2016 version from Google Maps and Google Maps Data (Google, 2016).

1930s Joseph, Stella, Mary, Anne, either Louis or John

In the decade as he was growing up, Aircraft was first used in war by the US, the Red Baron is killed during WWI (Pearson, 1910 The People History, 2017) and the influenza epidemic Spanish flu kills over 500 thousand in the US (America's Best History, 2016).  World War I ends, women get the vote, and $100 then would be equivalent to $1023 in 2009 money (Pearson, 1920 The People History, 2017) .

The 30's were a time when the depression caused by the wall street crash in late 1929 caused the world to undergo a fundamental change in lifestyles , and as part of the change some new radical politics became popular as seen in the rise of Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism (Pearson, 1930 The People History, 2017).

The 30's also provided a strange phenomenon never repeated where bank robbers and murderers were thought of as celebrities ( a sort of modern Robin Hood ) which in truthfulness they did not rob from the rich to give to the poor just to rob and murder any who got in their way (Pearson, 1930 The People History, 2017).

1930 Census, AnnArundel MD

We next find Joseph in the 1930 Census as a soldier in the US Army, located at Fort George G. Meade, in Ann Arundel, Maryland.  Interestingly, he is listed as a soldier Musician.  I don't have any information as to what instrument he played.  Wouldn't it be fascinating to find out he played the Tuba or the Bass Violin like his son did in the Air Force?  Would that mean that music is genetic?




Meanwhile, the rest of the family is in Kingston, at 20 Penn Street.  Andrew Yorski age 42 is the head of the household.  He owns the house with a value of $4,000.  They apparently did not own a radio.  Mary is 45 years old, and was 16 when she first married, while Andrew was 34 at his first marriage.  

1930 Census, Kingston PA

Lewis the stepson is 27, is married at age 24
John is 24 and single 
Anna is 13 and single, attending school

Joseph Vidunas, 1930s
photo owned by William A. Vidunas

1944 Joseph A. Vidunas
owned by William A. Vidunas

1944 Joseph Vidunas
owned by William A. Vidunas

1944 Joseph A. Vidunas
owned by William A. Vidunas

Balloon Barrage article
from Life Magazine
(Gooley, 2012)

Postcard Barrage Balloon
(Clancey, n.d.)

1940 Kingston PA
Andrew and Mary Yorski

Navy Ship Manifest showing
Tech Sgt Joseph Vidunas heading
towards Canal Zone because of
the attack on Pearl Harbour
(Ancestry.com, 1941)

1945 Headstone Joseph Vidunas, Netherlands

Okay.  I've sat on this post for long enough.  I'm so excited about the new information I've just discovered so I post this incompleted unit for your inspection.  As always, I appreciate constructive criticism and suggestions.




Bibliography

Ancestry.com. (1941, December 21). US World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949 [database online]. Tech Sgt Joseph Vidunas, Battery B, 301st Coast Artillery Barrage Balloon Battalion. Ancestry.com Operations Inc. Retrieved from USS Crescent City AP from Norfolk VA to Canal Zone

Ancestry.com. (2007). US Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945 [database online]. Joseph Vidunas. Ancestry.com Operations Inc.

Ancestry.com. (2012). 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Retrieved from Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania: http://interactive.ancestry.com/2442/M-T0627-03554-00387/28867852?backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47476789/person/150047140756/facts/citation/600180433024/edit/record

Ancestry.com. (2014). US Headstone and Interment Records for US Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949 [database online]. Retrieved from Joseph Vidunas: Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com. (Published 2002). 1930 United States Federal Census. Anne Arundel Maryland, Joseph A. Vidunas. Anne Arundel, Maryland: Ancestry.com Operations Inc.

Ancestry.com. (Published 2002). 1930 United States Federal Census. Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania; 20 Penn Street. Kingston, Pennsylvania: Ancestry.com Operations Inc. Retrieved from Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania: http://interactive.ancestry.com/6224/4639400_00047/52887690?backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47476789/person/150047140756/facts/citation/600180305279/edit/record

Clancey, P. (n.d.). HyperWar Foundation. Retrieved from A Brief History of the US Army in World War II "Barrage Balloon" by Alexander Brook: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-C-WWII/

Gooley, L. P. (2012, January 17). New York History Blog; Historical News and Views from The Empire State. Retrieved from Barrage Balloons in the Adirondacks: http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2012/01/17/barrage-balloons-in-the-adirondacks/

Pearson, S. (2017). 1930 The People History. Retrieved December 2016, from 1930s Important News and Events, Key Technology Fashion and Popular Culture: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1930s.html

Schouteten, P. (2016). Fields of Honour [database online]. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from Joseph Vidunas: http://www.fieldsofhonor-database.com/index.php/american-war-cemetery-margraten-v/49541-vidunas-joseph

Vidunas, L. (1930s). Photograph owned by Louis Vidunas. Vidunas Family, Joseph, Stella, Mary Yorski, Anne, Louis. Kingston, Pennsylvania: unknown photographer.

Vidunas, W. A. (1929). Photograph Joseph Vidunas age 17, 1929. Kingston, Pennsylvania.

Vidunas, W. A. (1944). Photograph. Joseph Vidunas. owned by William Vidunas.