Saturday, May 12, 2012

My Carpatho-Rusyn FAN Club ~ Augusto

This is another of the FAN Club photographs belonging to my grandparents Stephen Popp (Stefan Papp) and Anna Pereksta of Binghamton, NY. 


This photograph is of a dear friend of my grandfather's, Charlie Augusto. On the back my aunt wrote "Charles Augusto - Dad's kryan  Cumberland, Kentucky." Kryan or krajan means countryman. Augusto and my grandfather, Stephen Popp (Stefan Papp) both came to the United States from Berezovo in the Maramoros district of Hungary. Today it is in the Ukraine.

My father vividly remembers a visit Augusto made to Binghamton, NY when he was a boy. The visit took place sometime during the mid to late 1930s. It was an evening or week-end when my grandfather was at home. There was a knock on the door and Augusto and Ivan (John) Tegze walked in the house. My grandfather and Augusto embraced fiercely and my father saw his father cry for the first time in his life. The men would not have seen each other since Augusto's last visit home to Berezovo, most likely before WWI.

Charlie (or Wasily) Augusto was born about 1882. He appears to have gone back and forth between Berezovo and the United States. He gives his arrival date as 1908 in the 1930 census; 1892 in the 1920 census. There are multiple immigration records that may belong to him. He was a miner in Pennsylvania and Illinois before settling in a Kentucky mining community where he ran a grocery store. He is listed with 8 children in 1930 census so this photograph showing nine children was likely taken several years later. His surname appears as Agosto, Agoszto, Augusto, August and Augusta in various records.

I believe Augusto was related to Ivan Tegze, perhaps his brother-in-law.

There are handwritten ink numbers associated with the children, but I have no information regarding the meaning of the numbers.

I would be delighted to share high resolution scans of these images and source information with anyone researching these families. Please leave a comment or email me (there is a link in the righthand column).