Vincent Norlock

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=105317445

Vincent's name was sometimes spelled "Wincenty Narloch". He was born in West Prussia, in the area that had been taken from Poland and would become Poland again after World War I. His marriage record states that his birth place was Bialem, Polocie, Prussia. Records exist for his family in Osowo, Konitz, West Prussia where they had many sacraments done at the Catholic Church of Karsin in the Konitz Province. He was the son of Jan Narloch and Franciszka Podjaska. He was the 3rd child of 13, but it seems that his 2 older siblings died young. Records seen after the family immigrated to the United States around 1888, list Vincent as the eldest child in the family. By the September 10th, 1888 birth of his sister Theofila, records show the family living on Cleaver Street in Chicago, Illinois, where they lived until about 1915. They were active members of St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church from 1888 through 1905 when Vincent's mother died, and through 1915 when his youngest child was baptised. To backtrack, a year after his mother's death, Vincent married a young woman who had been born in the same region that he had, and who had immigrated with her parents a couple years before he did. She was 23-year-old Leona Madra. He had just turned 21. It has been said that she was a very kind person, while Vincent drank more than he should and had a bad temper. They soon began their family, having 2 daughters and 2 sons in the next 9 years. As late as 1920, they still spelled their surname "Narloch", but at some point it became "Norlock". Vincent worked as a laborer in a foundry, as noted in the US Federal Census of 1910 and 1920. His father died in 1919. Leona died a year later at the age of 38, and Vincent was left to support his 4 young children. His eldest daughter, Eugenia, quit school at the age of 13 to take over the household duties. By the 1930 Census the family had gone their separate ways. Vincent was listed as a widowed boarder living with a family in an apartment building in Chicago and working as a laborer at a Railway depot. His youngest child, Genevieve, lived with Eugenia and her husband, who had wed the year before. Vincent's 2 sons were living in nearby counties, working as laborers and boarding with families. Vincent died at the age of 50. It is said that he died while playing poker, and that he was holding the ace of spades, a symbol of death. He is buried next to 3 of his siblings and their families, though it is not known if his wife, who predeceased him, is buried in the same family plot. He has no headstone, though cemetery records show that his sister Lillian Szczepanski is buried to his right.