PHOTOS OF THREE VILLAGES
HRABOVCIK 2002
PHOTOS
DUDYNCE 2002
PHOTOS
SWIATKOWA
WIELKA 2002 PHOTOS
SWIATKOWA WIELKA 1933 PHOTOS
1933 pictures of Swiatkowa Wielka taken by my father, Fred Dran, when he traveled with his father, Michael Dran, on a visit to the ancestral village.
Michael
Dran (my grandfather) age 73, his sister Pelagia, age 72 and brother Demetri,
age 69.
A group of neighbors: Notice that many of them are holding a folded newspaper and the two young men in the front row are holding an opened paper. I have always imagined that this was a form of protest or of connection to something. If you read my father’s journal, at one point he and a cousin visit Lvov and he notes that there were two Ukrainian newspapers in the city. Perhaps he bought a paper for all of his friends and they are holding them to show the date the photo was taken.
1933 This is a cousin, Michael Dran
(b.1918), son of 
Demetri
Dran. Behind him is his older brother
standing by the tree. Michael
immigrated to the USA about 1947.Photo gives an idea of the looks of a
Swiatkowa W. back yard.
e-mail me at carpatho_mts@hotmail.com
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2002 PHOTOS OF SWIATKOWA WIELKA
In May of 2002 I visited my ancestral villages and now share these photographs with you. Swiatkowa Wielka is now located in southeastern Poland surrounded by Magurski National Park Poland (click your BACK button to return to this site after visiting a link) Another Magurski National Park website: http://teams.karpaty.edu.pl/magury/eglowna.htm
Swiatkowa
Wielka: View of the village church taken from the cemetery across the
road. Church is St Michael the
Archangel, a wooden church with tin roof, established in 1757 as a Greek
Catholic church, now being used by Latin rite.
Swiatkowa
Wielka. Icons on the interior walls
have been restored. This is a view of a
portion the ceiling. There is no
iconostasis in the church at this time. The interior log walls of the building
have been covered with canvas and the icons are painted on the canvas. Every inch of the interior is painted in a
sort of medieval style.
Swiatkowa
Wielka. One of several family shrines
in the village that were erected before 1890 when my grandfather left this
village. Families erected shrines on
their property to celebrate some great happening in their lives for which they
praised God. All through Poland people
still stop and say prayers at roadside shrines like this.
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2002 PHOTOS OF DUDYNCE VILLAGE
In May of 2002 I visited my ancestral villages and now share some photographs with you. Views of the village of DUDYNCE: The road to Sanok is in the far background on the right in the first picture.
The
village once had approximately 80 houses.
Currently the village road is about one mile long, following a small
stream. There are some twenty houses
remaining, most of them built after WWII.
The wooden Greek Catholic Chapel, The Synaxis of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, established in 1802, was dismantled after the expulsion of Lemko
residents in 1947.
View
of the Dudynce village farmlands from the Greek Catholic Cemetery. Many of the metal crosses on the graves
showed evidence of bullet holes. From
my interviews with present day villagers in 2002, I was told that there was
much fighting among Polish, Russian and Ukrainian bandits in this area in
1947. Many houses were destroyed by
fire.
Some
log houses and barns still exist in Dudynce.
Residents in this area have for generations whitewashed their houses.
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Email me at carpatho_mts@hotmail.com
2002 PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE VILLAGE OF
HRABOVCIK
In May 2002 I visited my ancestral villages and now
share some of the photographs with you.
The village of HRABOVCIK on the south slopes of the Carpathian
Mountains, now located in northeastern Slovakia, near the town of Svidnik,
click Welcom in Svidník to see
town Web Page( Use the back button to return to this site) Hrabovcik was originally a Lemko village.
Hrabovcik: This is the view of the village as one heads down
the main road. The nearest town,
Svidnik, is two miles to the east. All of the homes appear to have been built
since WWII. Click Svidník to learn more.
St.
Michael’s Greek Catholic Church in
Hrabovcik, established in 1812, has recently been restored. The construction is of stone masonry and
stucco. The walls are about 3 feet
thick and one has a sense of calm and
coolness upon entering. My great grandmother Catherine Slota Siry
was married in this church in 1878 and
my grandfather Michael Siry/Sirak was christened here in 1885. The German army stabled their horses in the
church during WWII. During that time,
the priest lived in the church to protect the icons.
Interior of St. Michael’s Church, Hrabovcik
Visit Rusíni , select Hrabovcik,
to see other scenes of the village and church.
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e-mail me at Carpatho_mts@hotmail.com