With their growing family, they decided to move to a farm and bought the 108-acre Reitz farm in Dornsife, PA, Little Mahoney Township, in a Pennsylvania Dutch community. The only other Polish family in the area was the Gappa's, who lived on the next farm and with whom they shared harvesting and butchering chores. Of their 13 children, 11 grew to adulthood.
The family attended St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Trevorton, seven miles from the farm. The children attended the one-room schoolhouse on top of the hill next to their home; however, many times they had to miss school because of the work that needed to be done on the farm. Frank was a staunch adherent to the ethic of hard work and insisted that all the family members do their fair share. He was also a firm believer in education, and provided the land on his farm for the one-room schoolhouse with the proviso that when the school was no longer standing, the land would revert to the farm. Many of Frank's descendants will remember the little red schoolhouse which stood on the hilltop overlooking the farm house.
Frank worked at Alaska Colliery in Mt. Carmel most of his life, as did his sons Jerome, Henry, and Frank for a number of years. Frank Sienkiewicz and some of his sons were coal miners and farmers.
Polish was spoken in the home and the children were all called by Polish names: Heromin (Jerome), Mancia (Mary), Roza (Rose), Lucia (Lucille), Henryk (Henry), Franek (Frank), Magda (Margaret), Stashu (Stanley), Petrush (Peter), Genovefa (Genevieve), and Wladjziu (Walter). Frank and Stella were called Dziadzia and Bosia by their grandchildren. Frank especially enjoyed reading ZGODA the Polish daily newspaper, delivered by mail. According to the genealogy books, the name "Sienkiewicz" comes from "Simon".
Frank became an American citizen on September 6, 1898 in Northumberland County, PA. Because that part of Poland was still under Russian control at the time, his naturalization certificate indicates that he was a native of Russia. The history of the people of Poland, which can be traced to the tenth century, is one of continual warfare in the struggle to maintain their autonomy. The Polish people of the region of the Sienkiewicz family origin, although nationals of Russia, maintained their cultural and social identity throughout all the years during which Poland was partitioned between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, beginning in the eighteenth century. Poland finally became independent in February 1919 following World War I.
The story of Poland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is vividly told in the trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1845-1916), author of QUO VADIS (1895), the novel of early Christianity in Rome from which a movie was made in the 1950's. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. It can neither be proved or disproved that he was a relative, much as we would like to claim him; however, he was a native of Russian Poland and the name "Henry (Henryk)" has been handed down for several generations in this family.
When Frank Jr. and his wife visited Poland, they tried to trace the history of the Sienkiewicz family. They were unsuccessful, possibly because of changing boundaries during the rule of various kings and czars during the many partitionings of the country. They saw a street in Bialystok, Poland, which was named "Sienkiewicz". Perhaps, now that Poland is once again independent, someone in another generation will have better success in tracing the family roots. For now, we must be satisfied to celebrate nearly a hundred years of the Frank Sienkiewicz family in America. There are approximately 190 descendants.
This page is maintained by Meta Sienkiewicz