Helena Bożeniec-Jełowicka h. własny was born in Sapiechow,Lublin Voivodeship , Poland on 12th February 1870 and died on April 14th 1962 in Pleasantville, USA.
Family Background
Helena was the daughter of Zdzisław Julian Jan Bożeniec-Jełowicki (1846-1893) and Karolina Kępińska (1840 – 1896). She had two brothers: Stanisław Jełowicki (1863–1917) and Wacław Jełowicki (1846–1948) and one sister: Jadwiga Bożeniec-Jełowicka (?- 1942), later married to Dr. Kazimierz Ciągliński.
In 1895 she married Kazimierz Pawłowicz h. Przyjaciel and had two children: Krystyna and Bohdan.
Early Years of Marriage
From 1901 to 1902, she moved with her husband and children to Dąbrowa Górnicza and in 1902 to Korwinów, where her husband was the director of the “Korwinów” brick factory near Częstochowa.
Her son, Bohdan, describes some of the memories of these times in the article “Wspomnienia Z dzieciństwa” [Memories of Childhood] . In this piece of writing, Helena is portrayed as calm, composed and dignified, particularly during a strike incident in 1905 which involved her husband and the workers from the brick factory, where he was the director. This event resulted in Kazimierz’s arrest and imprisonment in Raków for several months, during which their house was occupied by Russian officers.
In 1908, the family relocated to Warsaw, and in 1913 they settled in their own house at Kanonia 14, where her husband had also established his consulting office. Later, she welcomed her son Bohdan and his wife, Wanda, into the home when they returned from Brazil in 1924. It was there that her grandson, Leszek, was born on June 6th, 1925. The entire family eventually moved again later that year, this time to the house her husband had built at Goraszewska 8 in City Garden Czerniaków, located in the green outskirts of Warsaw.
City Garden Czerniaków
After Kazimierz, her husband, had passed away on June 16, 1927, Helena was grateful to have her son and his family living with her for some time. On November 1928, Helena became a grandmother again when Hanna Antonina was born.
Between 1929 and 1934, however, Bohdan was often away traveling. He had accepted a demanding position as the chief ship inspector at the Polish Emigration Office. In this role, he undertook as many as 34 international trips, during which he inspected ships departing from European ports bound for the United States, Canada, and South America.