John Rozela
John Rozela was born Jan Rozyla on 30 April 1892 at Lublin, in the part of Poland then ruled by Russia. His parents were Adam Rozela and Mary Sluszarz.
He left Lublin for the port of Hamburg in Germany and crossed to New York, where he landed in June 1912 under the name Jan Rozyla. He did not remember the name of the ship. He settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
On 8 February 1916 he married Mary Skrobat in Grand Rapids. She was eighteen the next day and also from Poland, from Moszczenica in the Austrian part. Their daughter Helen was born in Grand Rapids on 12 January 1918, and their son Donald followed on 23 May 1922.
The family stayed in Grand Rapids. In 1930 John was 36 and Mary 32, with Helen, 12, Donald, 7, and Mary's younger brother Joseph Bobola, 19, in the house. In 1940 they had lived in the same place in the city's first ward for at least five years, and Donald, 17, was still at home.
John first declared his intention to become a citizen at Grand Rapids in 1923, but he did not finish. On 14 December 1940 he declared again. He was 48, a brass moulder living at 907 Nagold Street N.W., five feet eleven inches tall and 174 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. In 1942 he registered for the draft in Grand Rapids, as every man born between 1877 and 1897 was required to do that year.
He filed his petition for naturalization in 1943, giving his address as 1635 Preston Avenue and his work as brass molder. Mary had become a citizen on 2 July 1942. Their son Donald's residence on the petition was the Army. John became a citizen of the United States in the federal court at Grand Rapids on 30 September 1943.
By April 1950 John and Mary had moved out to Walker, on the northwest edge of Grand Rapids. John died in 1963. He was buried in Section D, plot 377, at Washington Park Memorial Gardens in Grand Rapids. Mary lived another twenty-five years and was buried beside him under one bronze marker.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Rozela (1892-1963)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-rozela-1892-1963-fc7872.