by Cliff Sakry, with editing, research and additions by Mark Keith Sakry  © 2002

Year of Change (1913)

Ending of Adam-Julia era -- Marriages of Paul and Joseph Sakry --

Property settlements -- A Family Together (see group picture of 1913)

-- Death of Julia Sakry

It can be said that 1913 was for the Adam-Julia Sakrys a singular year of endings and beginnings, of gain and loss, of joy and sorrow ... an eventful year of change and transition that touched in some significant way all of their lives.

John, the youngest of the three sons, was falling passionately in love with Elizabeth Eiynck, an attractive young woman from Freeport, Minnesota, who worked as a chamber maid at the West Hotel (16th & Breckenridge North in St. Cloud) where John also had a job as bartender at the hotel bar.

 His two older brothers, Paul and Joseph, also caught in the spell of sudden romance, would this year end abruptly their extended bachelorhood and begin their marriages even as their ailing mother, Julia, who by midsummer had become bedridden with terminal stomach cancer, would be gone before year's end.  She did manage to linger on long enough to realize her motherly wish to see at least her two oldest sons finally safely ensconced in the holy sacrament of matrimony.

In a time when early marriages were the rule among devout Polish Catholic families, it may seem unusual that the brothers took so much time before taking wives.  However, the kind of free-spirited men they were (though very different from each other) may have had a lot to do with the lateness of their ”settling down.”