Maria (Miszuk) Dalidowicz, 103, died peacefully in Greenfield, on March 23, 2015. She was born in Jankowicze, Russian Poland on Nov. 17, 1911, to her parents, Jan and Maria (Pietkiewicz) Miszuk.
She married Jan (later John) Dalidowicz in 1933. She lived at times in a turbulent world starting with World War I, the formation of the second Polish Republic in 1918, and World War II. After the start of World War II, when the Germans attacked Poland from the West in 1939, followed by the Russian attack from the East in the same year, the area where she lived once again became part of Russia.
In 1941, Germany attacked Russia and the area where Maria lived became occupied by the Germans. Due to the activity of the Polish underground in the vast Naliboki Wilderness (Puszcza Nalibocka) situated next to Jankowicze and other villages, the Germans burned most of the villages and took around 20,000 people from the area and shipped them by cattle rail cars to German labor camps.
When World War II ended, Maria’s family and other members of the Naliboki Wilderness ended up in displaced persons camps in Germany. Since the 1945 Yalta agreement between the allies gave the land where Maria was born to the Soviet Union, almost none of the people from the Naliboki Wilderness went back to the land of their birth. Instead they emigrated to United States, Canada, and Australia. In 1950, Maria and her family immigrated to Chicago, Illinois.
Maria worked for the Mystic Tape Corporation, a subsidiary of the Borden Company until she retired in 1976. She continued to live in her own house in Chicago until she was almost 100 years old. In 2011, she came to Greenfield, to live with her son and daughter-in-law.
Maria is survived by her son, Dr. John Edward; daughter-in-law Patricia (Witt); grandchildren Michael Phillip (Kathy) of Dayton, Ohio, and Dr. Peter Christopher of Califon, New Jersey; and great-grandchildren, Joshua, Amy, and Brian Dalidowicz of Dayton, Ohio.
She was preceded in death by her husband, John in 1978; son Czeslaw; five brothers; and two sisters.
She will be entombed next to her husband in Crypt C-1445, Tier 5 at the Mausoleum of the Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, on the Southside of Chicago.
Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday, March 27, 2015, at Casey Laskowski Funeral Home, 4540 W. Diversey Ave., Chicago, IL, 60639. A Mass of Christian Burial will take place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 28, 2015, at St. Ladislaus, 3343 N. Long Ave., Chicago, IL, 60641.
Local arrangements are being done by Erlewein Mortuary & Crematory in Greenfield, Indiana.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions should be given to each person’s favorite charity.
