Stephen Kucharik, one of my paternal great grandfathers, is the last of the biographical sketches I thought I had written years ago, but somehow overlooked. Stephen is definitely the black sheep of this branch of the family tree.

Stephen was born on 17 February 1855 in Okruzna, a small village about 40 miles east of Presov. He was the third of eight children born to John Kucharik and Maria Repka, although only three are known to have reached adulthood and married.

Like my Nana Julia’s Rusyn family, the Kuchariks lived in a small village with less than 500 people and the few Kuchariks living there appear to be closely related. In spite of that, for an unknown reason, John Kucharik is found, in back and forth fashion, as Kucharik, then Tomko, then Kucharik, etc. For a long time, I thought John had died and widow Maria (Repka) Kucharik had married one John Tomko.

However, the 1869 Tomko family matched the Kuchariks, name by name, and age by age.

Also, unusual for the later 1800s, Stephen Kucharik was the only member of his family to leave the village and settle in the United States. The Udol residents moved en masse to New Jersey and beyond. That doesn’t seem to be the case for Okruzna residents and definitely not for the Kucharik family.

While the Kuchariks were Rusyn and all that I’ve found Greek Catholic, Stephen courted 17 year old Maria Kacsenyak, a Roman Catholic from Nizna Sebastova, another small village of 500 about 5 1/2 miles away. How they met is unknown.

However, instead of marrying in Nizna Sebastova, they went to a nearby larger town (1200+) and married there on 28 August 1877. I can only speculate, but it might have had something to do with the fact that their first child, John, was born on 25 August 1877, three days before they got married.

Maria would have been something of a social outcast in the tightly knit village community, even more so because she was 17 and the typical age for marriage for young ladies was 21.

Stephen and Maria settled into married life in Okruzna and had two more children, a son and daughter, born before they decided to emigrate to America. There are no family stories about making money and returning home, as with the Udol villagers, and it doesn’t appear that Stephen or Maria kept in touch with family members after they left.

By 1889, the family was living in Delano, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania and Stephen was probably working in the coal mines.

Stephen’s remaining four children were all born in Pennsylvania.

About 1898 or 1899, the family left Pennsylvania and moved to Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey. Perhaps work in the mills was more attractive than the mines.

In any case, Stephen worked for a few years as a conductor on the Erie Railroad, which traveled right through Passaic. Perhaps that is how Stephen came to decide to move there.

His railroad job came to an end and, for the rest of his life, he was a day laborer.

Unfortunately, he also had the affliction that so many other Rusyns suffered. He was a heavy drinker (likely called an alcoholic today) and, by family stories, a mean drunk.

He made several appearances in the Passaic newspapers for court appearances, charged with public drunkeness. One newspaper article reported that he fell out of a second story window at home, hit the cement, refused medical treatment and got up and walked away.

By the early 1900s, the family had socially changed their name to Sabo. Why, I don’t know, but a lot was happening back in Europe in the early 1900s and perhaps Stephen chose the Hungarian surname Sabo (which means Tailor) to show support for Magyarization.

Children: (Kucharik aka Sabo)

1. John, born 25 August 1877, Okruzna, Slovakia; died between 1900-1910; unmarried
2. Mary, born 1 January 1881, Okruzna, Slovakia,; died 20 October 1973, Garfield, Bergen, New Jersey; married (1) Andrew Palasko, 3 February 1902, Delano, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania. He died 3 months later. (2) Ladislav Bubbly, 1906, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey. Mary was the mother of six children.
3. Anna, born 4 February 1885, Okruzna, Slovakia; died before 1889
4. Anna, born 18 April 1889, Mahanoy city, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania; married (1) Nicholas Pezont, c1906, New Jersey (2) George Janicko, 1946, New Jersey. Anna had no children.
5. Child, born and died 1890s
6. George, born 24 May 1893, Delano, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania; died 27 November 1936, Preakness, Passaic, New Jersey; married Julia Scerbak, 6 September 1915, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey. They were the parents of one child.
7. Stephen, born 17 February 1897, Mahanoy City, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania; died 20 May 1976, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey; married Mary Mikulik, 23 January 1924, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey. They were the parents of two children.

Maria predeceased Stephen by seven years. It’s interesting that when she died, my grandfather, the informant, named both his grandparents on her death certificate, correctly giving his grandmother’s maiden name of Haluska.

Stephen Kucharik/Tomko/Sabo died on 4 June 1933, Wallington, Bergen, New Jersey. My grandfather, George, was again the informant, but didn’t even know the first names of Stephen’s parents.

Only one photo is known to exist of Stephen Sabo, probably taken at the entrance to their apartment in Passaic in the 1920s, probably by one of their children who saved up their money and bought a new-fangled camera.

I have to admit Stephen isn’t exactly a cuddly looking grandpa kind of man. He looks like he’s a bit annoyed at being bothered, but this is the only picture I have of him.

Stephen and Mary SABOLL are buried at St. Peter’s Greek Catholic Cemetery in Garfield, Bergen, New Jersey, where the gravestone has the misspelled surname.

Sometimes, knowing a town in which an ancestor lived is deceiving if the street address is not known.

Such is the case with my great grandfather, Stephen Kucharik aka Tomko (in Slovakia) aka Sabo (in America.)

Stephen Kucharik, wife Maria, and children John and Maria, emigrated to the United States in the mid-1880s. They first settled in Delano, Schuylkill, Pennsylvania where three more children were born to them – Anna, George and Stephen Jr.

About 1899, the family moved to Passaic, where they lived out their lives. Stephen died in 1933, wife Maria in 1926 and son John, between 1900-1910. The other children married and lived in the Passaic County area.

Knowing that Stephen and Maria lived in Passaic for decades would seem to imply some stability in their lives. However, census records, city directories and newspaper articles (Stephen was an alcoholic who garnered  multiple mentions in the newspapers because of his drinking issues) indicate that the family moved from one rental apartment to another through all those years.

Almost every place they lived was in the neighborhood around St. Michael’s Church on First Street, as they were Greek Catholics and the mills where the Rusyn immigrants worked were close by.

Remember that data was gathered for city directories in the summer and fall preceding the year.

1891 City Directory – Delano, Pennsylvania, no address listed
1899 City Directory – 82 Third Street
1900 City Directory – 157 Third Street
1900 Census – 70 First Street
1901 City Directory – 204 Second Street/177 Third Street
1902 City Directory – 204 Second Street
1903 City Directory – 110 Second Street
1907 City Directory – 232 Fourth Street
1908 City Directory – 172/180 Second Street/197 Third Street
1908 School Certificate (son George) – 111 Third Street
1909 City Directory – 180 Third Street
1910 Census – 2 Third Street
1911 City Directory – 2 Second Street
1914 City Directory – 228 Fourth Street
1916 Newspaper Article – “of Mercer Street”
1920 Census – 77 Hope Avenue
1924 Newspaper Article – 77 Hope Avenue

There are several years when a Stephen Sabo was living at 290 Hope Avenue. That is a man born c1880 who died in 1918 in Passaic, unrelated to my family.

Stephen Sr. hasn’t been found in the 1930. My grandmother said he was more than a handful to deal with and the kids moved him from one house to another. Stephen Sr. died on 4 June 1933 in Wallington, probably while living with Stephen Jr. and his family.

As seen from all these addresses for Stephen Sabo, living in one city for years didn’t necessarily indicate a stable living situation. Stephen was a millhand and laundry worker who struggled to make enough to support the family.

Some of the above addresses no longer exist because the buildings have been knocked down, but all were small multi-family apartment buildings.