Gabriel Dziadik, a self-made Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant businessman, helped his fellow countrymen and women make the long journey from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the small town of Derby, Connecticut.

Chris Wolski
Published: December 19, 2024

Planning to travel halfway around the globe from Austro-Hungary to America without benefit of a phone, the internet, or any guarantees must have been daunting 100-plus years ago. Then arriving in a new country with an unfamiliar culture and language couldn’t have been anything but overwhelming. That’s where the systems and infrastructures related to moving large numbers of immigrants came into play—as Joe Gayetski outlined in his recent C-RS webinar Before the Boat.

Ticket agents, who arranged all the particulars to make the journey as smooth as possible, were key in those systems

My Carpatho-Rusyn great grandfather, Gabriel Dziadik, a self-made Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant businessman, was one of those agents.

Through his notary-legal offices in Derby, Connecticut, he offered a full-service menu of immigration services. According to his own unique promotional flyer he could:

• Arrange to have money sent back to the old country “cheap and safe.”
• Sell tickets around the world “according to current rates” on main lines from New York.
• Arrange transportation to the boat free of charge.
• Take care of all legal affairs civil and criminal in “our land” (Ukraine) and in the U.S., including buying, selling, loans, and inheritance.
• Handle the so-called “army matters” that would help avoid paying the fine upon a potential return.

Without a doubt, reading this (or having this read to you) must have offered some piece of mind. Not only were these the kinds of services an immigrant would need to make the journey successful, but they were being provided by a fellow countryman, a “Ruthenian* brother.”

Dziadik handled tickets across the various lines, including Cunard, Holland America, and the American Line, and at multiple ticket levels. When an application was received, Dziadik’s oldest children—Peter and Stephna—processed the orders. Tickets were either purchased by Dziadik or through another Carpatho-Rusyn businessman, Alex Horbal (note the stamp marks on the receipts accompanying this text).

These receipts provide a fascinating snapshot into immigrant demographics 100-plus years ago: first, they indicate the complexity of the immigrant story—both single tickets likely for a man seeking his fortune and tickets for families following a husband who had gone ahead to establish a foothold as it were in the U.S; second, they list the prices these immigrants were paying—showing the kind of financial gamble they were taking and the potential rising fortunes of those who were already in America.

Two examples: A third-class cabin on the Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania cost $36.50 in 1908 ($1,252.36 in 2024 dollars); and a second-class cabin on her sister ship RMS Laconia (for a family of four; including an infant) cost $137.50 in 1912 ($4,474.62 in 2024 dollars). Translating the costs to today’s dollars shows the kind of financial investment that was required to leave the region covered by the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires for a new start in America.

It’s unclear how many ticket applications Dziadik’s business processed and how many tickets he or his agents issued. But based on records for his other businesses, Dziadik doesn’t appear to have continued ventures that weren’t profitable.

Back to their Own

Born in Brunary Nizne in 1868, Dziadik emigrated from Galicia, Austro-Hungary in 1886. He first landed in Western Pennsylvania like many other Carpatho-Rusyn and Polish immigrants to work in the region’s coal mines.

By all accounts he was subsidized labor—essentially indentured—expected to work in the mines to pay off his debt, first as a chute boy and later leading a mule hauling coal to the surface. An accident with the mule—it crushed him against a mine wall, breaking his leg—forced him out of the mine. He worked off his remaining debt to the coal company cobbling shoes. After a stint working as an underground laborer on the Croton Aqueduct, and marrying his old-country Polish sweetheart (who emigrated sometime after him and worked as an indentured servant), the growing Dziadik family found themselves in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley and one of the many factories employing Central and Eastern European immigrants—“back to their own,” as Walter would write in 1988.

Dziadik—working as a so-called “straw boss,” an assistant supervisor that had some responsibility but little authority, likely because of his English proficiency—was employed by Radcliff Bros., a woolen mill factory that manufactured men’s stockings, sock, and underwear. He worked there for about nine years at $9 a week for six 10-hour days. At the turn of the 20^th century, he purchased the existing grocery store. 

Offering an Anchor

Dziadik’s support didn’t end with his legal and ticketing services. He helped to anchor Rusyn and other immigrants in their new communities. He had, by his own account, a “first-rate” store that offered “fresh and healthy” produce, groceries, and meats, medicines, lotions—for hair and face, and to whiten teeth. There was also a Ukrainian bookstore with a full array of general and religious books. He offered to help find work for both men and women—references required.

The store was staffed by an array of Polish-Russian-Slavonic permanent help, reflecting the blending of these groups in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. Letter writing and quasi-legal help was provided by part-timers. As Dziadik’s nine children came of age, they helped out in the store and office, including basic accounting. In addition to the store, Dziadik offered private banking services—officially licensed by the State of Connecticut to do so.

Immigrants—primarily because of the multi-lingual staff—came from nearby Shelton, Ansonia, and Seymour. These customers fueled Dziadik’s expansion into letter-writing, steamship services, money orders, and correspondence with lawyers in Austro-Hungary.

As most workers were living paycheck-to-paycheck, the store operated primarily on a one-week credit basis. Customers were issued a small memo book listing their purchases, which they had to settle up on Friday or Saturday—payday. According to a 1988 family history written by Walter Dziadik, Gabriel’s son, non-immigrants occasionally came into the store asking for credit—but being burned once by non-payment showed that non-immigrants were non-payers—so they’d be turned away.

While by all accounts Dziadik was fair-minded and even-handed, he was a canny businessman—with a wild creative streak. In 1910, he needed to raise some cash—for some business purposes and for daughter Stephna’s impending wedding to a Ukrainian Catholic priest. The means of raising that cash: selling some land adjoining the residential neighborhood where the wealthy industrialists lived in nearby Ansonia. When there were no takers—Dziadik put up a billboard advertising his steamship and private banking business. Appalled by this use of the land, the industrialists took legal action but were unsuccessful in getting the billboard removed. They relented and purchased the property—with the Ansonia YMCA and Connecticut National Guard buildings now occupying the spot.

Among his other business holdings were a 400-seat movie theatre—which existing records from 1913 indicate showed a wide variety of subjects from all of the major film production companies at the time—and a duckpin bowling alley in the basement of the same building.

Dziadik sold the store and ceased the steamship business in the late 1910s, focusing instead on his real-estate business and entering semi-retirement. The movie theatre and bowling alley, which was managed by his son Stephen (and later co-managed by Walter’s brother—my grandfather—Michael) remained among his business holdings. The theatre would close with the advent of sound with the bowling alley expanding into that space, and operating until the early 1960s.

Unfortunately, Dziadik died young. In Dec. 1919 at age 51, he contracted and died of encephalitis lethargica—or “sleepy sickness,” a disease that had piggybacked on the Spanish flu pandemic.

*Note: Gabriel Dziadik—and my family until recently—used “Ruthenian” and “Ukrainian” fairly interchangeably to describe our origins. I think Gabriel’s use of the terms is interesting, illustrating the rather fraught history of Carpatho-Rusyn ethnic identity even among immigrants of that generation. I’ll be using these terms only when used in the family documents I used for researching this article.

Chris Wolski is a member of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society.