Ancestors

Stephen Lepulica

Stephen Lepulica was born in November 1854, in the Kingdom of Hungary. The family's home was Zariecie, a village in the Puchov district of Trencsen county, in what is now northwestern Slovakia. In the church books his name is written Stefan or Stepan, and his family spelled their surname Lepulicza. American papers made it Sepulica, Sepulky and Lepulicia.

He was very probably the Stepan Lepulica baptized at Zariecie in 1854, the first child of Pavel Lepulica and Maria Buday, who had married there on 6 February that year. That identification rests on the index to the Slovak church books, and it is probable rather than proven. It is supported by one detail. His 1901 obituary mentions a brother Paul living in New York City, and Pavel and Maria had a son Pavel baptized at Zariecie in 1856.

He married Anna Gabcan. Their son Pavel was baptized at Zariecie on 8 November 1882 and their daughter Anna on 13 February 1886. The family were Lutherans.

In 1887 Stephen and Anna brought the two children to the United States. They settled near Equinunk, on the Pennsylvania side of the upper Delaware, across the river from Lordville, New York. A neighbor wrote later that "when he came here he had little, if any means." Their third child, Kathryn, was born at Equinunk on 14 February 1890.

He declared his intention to become a citizen before the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas in November 1892 and was naturalized in December 1897. When the Presbyterian church at Lordville was organized, Stephen, his wife and one son were among the first to join. He gave his labor to the building of both the Equinunk and Lordville churches, and bought a memorial window for the Lordville church when it was built. Anna died of consumption, tuberculosis, on 13 August 1898. The 1900 census lists Stephen, 46 and widowed, in Manchester Township with Paul, Anna and Katie. About that year he was elected an elder of the church.

By then, by steady work, he had a comfortable home, a hundred or more acres of woodland and money in the bank. Then, in 1901, he broke down in body and mind. He was committed to the state asylum at Danville, Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth's hospital for the insane. His brother came and took him to New York for a month or so, then brought him back home to Equinunk. He died there in the last days of November 1901, aged 47. The Hancock Herald gives Friday 29 November. The neighbor who signed himself Rex gives the 28th.

He left three orphans: Paul, about eighteen, Anna, fifteen, and Katie, eleven. Services were held in the Equinunk church because his own pastor was away. He was buried with his wife in the Equinunk Cemetery under a plain head and foot stone with no name, though one contemporary source puts his burial at Lordville.

If Stephen Lepulica is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Stephen Lepulica (1854-1901)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/stephen-lepulica-1854-1901-25f548.