Mary Vodicka (Aloysia's sister)

There is not a lot known about Mary other than she was Aloysia's sister, born in the United States and died fairly young in 1919 during the famous flu pandemic that began in 1918. She was only 27/28 years old and she was still single. The one and only document that Louise had of hers was a copy of her death certificate.

Most of what we know so far comes from Barbara's memories of stories told by Louise. Mary, was Louise's aunt and Louise was not even two years old at the time of her Aunt's passing.

It is understood that both Mary and her older sister Aloysia were born in the US after their parents immigrated here. But the family decided to return to Bohemia for reasons unknown. The girls were just adolescents when they left the US and they both returned to the US individually upon becoming young adults. They each came back and worked as house maids for rich families in New York.

I have located what I believe to be records of Mary's immigration crossing as a teenager, returning back to her birth country. The document shows her name to be Maria, which has obviously been Americanized to Mary. These immigration records also show that she was indeed from the Bohmenian town Kasejovice (as recalled by Louise) and her nearest relative from that hometown is listed as Wojciech Vodicka. Wojciech, I found, happens to be a Polish or Czeck spelling for Albert. This makes sense as her death certificate lists Albert Wodicka as her father.

Although we don't know much about Mary's life, apparently she liked to be formally photographed quite often. Of all the family photos collected, she is in the majority of the formal/posed heritage photographs; the type taken by a professional photographer. Posted here are all the photographs of Mary. Only two of them have a note on them identifying the person as Mary. The one with a boy, states it is Mary & her boyfriend (looks like Louise's handwriting) and the other states it is Barbara & Mary. I believe it should read Mary & Barbara as the girl on the left is the same girl as Mary with the boyfriend. (Barbara may be a woman named Barbara Charo of which there are other photos. I am unsure at this writing as to who she is exactly.) Among these images there is one of Mary that has a message written on the back in the Czeck language. Obviously I have no translation at this time. Enjoy the scanned images... they really show off the different fashions of the times and give a small glimpse into Mary's life.