My Old Ohio Home

Daniel Orschak,
1922, Newburgh,
Cleveland

This website includes a picture of the 1922 second grade class at Holy Name Parish on Broadway on the southeast side of Cleveland. My mother was in that class and identified most of the children in the picture. She identified the fourth young man from our left in the front row as Daniel Orschak. There was a Daniel Orschak living in the area, described below, who is probably him.

Daniel Orschak was born May 31, 1912, the third child and first son of Fred W Orschak and Margaret Isabel Kearney. His two older sisters were named Henrietta and Angela; his younger sister was Beatrice.

In 1920 Daniel and his father were living with his father's brother Herman at 2538 East 23rd Street. Henrietta was living with her uncle Charles Clark (formerly Orzechowski/Orschak) and his other two sisters were boarding with the Hugh Donahue family on Force Avenue. I didn't find Daniel's mother on that census.

In the 1922 City Directory, Daniel's father Fred was listed at 9324 Richmond Avenue, and in 1930 the whole family was at 9120 Bessemer Avenue except for Henrietta, who had married Roy Borgman in 1928.

Daniel was living at home in 1940 at 3939 East 93rd, and working at road construction for the government. He was employed as a kitchen worker in 1942 when he enlisted in the Army. I'm not sure if he returned to Cleveland after the war; he wasn't in the 1954 City Directory. Daniel died on March 12, 1967 in Erie County, Ohio. He had never married. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Warren, Ohio, the same cemetery as his sister Angela, and near to his mother's grave in Saint Mary's Cemetery.

The Orschaks

This was my second try at tracing the Orschaks' ancestry—I didn't get very far the first time. It turned out that Daniel's father's generation changed the name from Orzechowski to Orschak about 1897, or at least by the time the 1898 Cleveland City Directory was issued. I don't think the name was ever spelled the same way twice, so please overlook any variations in this article. If you research the family, beware of the possible differences in spelling.

In the 1895 Cleveland City Directory Daniel's father, Fred Orzechowski, was listed at 33 Nursery Street with his brothers Charles and Herman. In 1898 all three were at the same address with the surname Orschak. This was their parents' home until they died—Henrietta (Wizotzki) Orschakovski on November 29, 1892, and William Orschakovski on June 26, 1893.

From what I can tell, William, Henrietta and family arrived in the United States about 1873, although I didn't find William in the City Directory until 1878, when he was living at 34 Berg Street. Their daughter Henrietta, or "Minnie", was born in January 1872 in Germany and their son Fred William was born in October 1873. Unfortunately the Bremen passenger lists for this era have been destroyed  if I remember right, but I didn't find them on the New York arrivals either.

William and Henrietta may have been from Strasburg, West Prussia, now a part of Poland. The 1880 census said they were born in Prussia, a birth record for their son Edward said Poland, and the rest of their records said Germany. If they were from Strasburg, then all of these statements are true. There is a record of a baptism of an Auguste Orzechowski on 12 Aug 1866 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Strasburg whose parents were Wilhelm Orzechowski and Henrietta Wysocki. This could be them, but it would be nice either to find Auguste with them in America, or to find a baptismal record for their son Herman or daughter Minnie in Germany.

That is the best I could do for the "ancestral home" of the Orzechowskis with just the records online. William's petition for naturalization might have more information, and the baptismal records might be more complete for that church, but just not online yet.

There is more information on the Orschaks in the Cleveland Families tree on this site.

The Kearneys and McGowans

Daniel's mother Margaret Kearney was the daughter of Daniel Kearney and Bridget McGowan of Youngstown, Ohio. That Daniel died, apparently in Youngstown before 1891, and Bridget remained there until at least 1900.

Bridget came from a large family. One source said that her parents Charles McGowan and Mary Logue had twelve children, all born in Ireland and that they all emigrated to Youngstown. The ones that I found definite proof of were Mary McGowan, born April 1836, who married a Mr. Patterson; James, born in 1845, who died single in Alabama in 1912; Susan, born in 1840, who marrried a Mr. Dailey, and a brother William.

There is a Mary McGowan who died at the age of 84 in Youngstown in 1891. She had been born in Donegal, Ireland. If this is the mother of the family, then that is where they probably were from in Ireland. A number of trees at ancestry.com say they were from there, and a posting on Facebook says that the son William was born in Ballyshannon, Donegal.

If you are a relative or descendant of Daniel Orschak you are welcome to download the class picture and pass it on. If you would like a larger image, with possibly better resolution, contact me.

Sources

Cleveland and Youngstown City Directories and censuses, at ancestry.com, familysearch.org, and HeritageQuestOnline.com.
Ohio Deaths, Ohio Marriages, Ohio Births, at familysearch.org
facebook.com
findagrave.com
Rootsweb.com, Donegal General Message Board, "MCGOWAN, LOGUE of Donegal," posted 17 July 1998, http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.britisles.ireland.don.general/738/mb.ashx