Ancestors

Theodore Kukolax

Theodore Kukolax was born in Austria, about 1870. His cemetery memorial gives September 1872. The censuses put his birth anywhere from 1869 to 1876, and his gravestone's first figures are worn past reading. Clerks spelled his surname as they heard it: Kohulak in 1910, Kuhalad in 1920, Kukolak in 1930, Kukolax in 1940 and on his stone.

"Austria" in the censuses of his day meant the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which took in Galicia, now divided between southern Poland and western Ukraine. In 1920 Theodore gave his mother tongue as Russian, and so did his wife. In 1910 he was plainer about it. The census taker wrote his birthplace, and his parents', as "Aust. Ruthenian", and his language as Ruthenian. Ruthenians, also called Rusyns, were the East Slavic people of Austrian Galicia and the Carpathian foothills, Greek Catholic or Orthodox in religion. He came from the district of Krosno, in the west of Austrian Galicia, where the Carpathian foothills run down toward the Slovak border. The Rusyns of those hills are known as Lemkos. His surname at home was Kukulak. It is a name of the Greek Catholic parish of Tylawa, a Lemko village in the Krosno district, whose books record many Kukulak families in the 1880s and 1890s. Whether Theodore was born there is not known.

His wife was Fannie Glowska, also born in Austria. In 1910 both said they had been married eleven years, so they married about 1899, in the old country. Theodore gave his arrival in America as 1904 in 1910 and as 1900 in 1920, and Fannie gave the same years as he did. They settled in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.

Theodore crossed the Atlantic more than once. On 30 October 1903 he sailed from Hamburg in the steerage of the steamship Pennsylvania, and he landed at Ellis Island on 12 November 1903. The ship's list wrote him as Teodor Kukulak, 31, married, a laborer, Austrian, unable to read or write. His last residence was Krosno, and he was bound for Jersey City. He had paid his own passage and carried 8 dollars. Asked whether he had been in the United States before, he said he had, in Jersey City. Asked whether he was going to join a relative, he gave his wife: "wife Fanny Kukulak", Jersey City, N.J., 141 Essex Street. So Fannie was already living in Jersey City in the autumn of 1903, and Theodore was coming back to her from the old country. Their first surviving child, Anna, was born in Jersey City in August 1906. Five children who lived were born there: Anna in 1906, Andrew in 1907, Daniel in 1909, John in 1912 and Eva in 1914.

On 2 May 1910 the family lived at 120 Dudley Street, in the First Ward of Jersey City. Theodore was a laborer on the railroad. He and Fannie had Annie, 3, Andri, 2, and a baby son of six months, who fits Daniel. Fannie told the census taker she had borne six children and that three were living. The household also held eight boarders, all Ruthenians from Austria: Petro Henbi, John Kerpon, Fetzo Vatralik, Petro Simcik, Michael Howrilak and the Pelihaez sisters and brother, Milka, Paroska and John. The men worked for an oil company, the young women stripped tobacco leaf in a factory.

On 1 January 1920 the family lived in the Sixth Ward of Jersey City. Theodore, 50, was a laborer in a factory. He had not been naturalized, and he could not read or write, but he spoke English. The 1923 city directory lists him with his wife Annie. In April 1930 he was still in Jersey City with Fannie and all five children at home.

Fannie died on 22 March 1933. In April 1940 Theodore, 67, was living in the same house in the Sixth Ward where he had lived in 1935. The census taker listed a wife with him, Annie, 67, born in Austria. Whether she was a second wife or a mistaken entry for Fannie, the records found do not say.

His daughter Eva had married Frank Lasky in 1932, and by 1940 she had four children of her own in the Second Ward.

Theodore died in Jersey City on 16 February 1946, aged about 73. The Jersey Journal ran his obituary two days later. It named his children as Anna, wife of Demitrie Popovich; Daniel, husband of Elsie; John; Evelyn, wife of Francis Lasky; and Andrew, whose wives were Pearl Allen and Stella Pietrowski. He is buried in Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery in Jersey City, under the red granite stone he shares with Fannie. Above their names are a Latin cross and a smaller cross with a slanted lower bar, the cross of the Eastern churches.

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Researched October 2026. Cite: Heirology, "Theodore Kukolax (1870-1946)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/theodore-kukolax-1870-1946-349535.