Around 1929, our father received a letter from a nephew who had emigrated to Brazil. He gave his address at that time as John Zefronova Zdebski, Prudentopolis Linka, Inahi N.59, Parana Brazil. To my recollection, he is the only one of the immediate family who immigrated, other than my father. In the United States, there are a number of Zdebski families. There are two brothers in Baldwin, Michigan who came from Terapol Ukraine. On a trip Ruth and I took to Wisconsin to visit a good friend, we decided to take a ferry across Lake Michigan to visit the Zdebski girls, with whom I was a pen pal in my elementary school days, but her cousin informed me that she and her husband had moved to Detroit. Her husband had cancer and later we got a letter that he died. She also told me her uncle who lived in Chicago was the First Violinist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He did not care for city life so he and his family moved to Michigan near his brother’s place. The elder Zdebski brothers are dead, but their children are still living in the area.
There are a number of Zdebski’s in the mid-west. In Chicago there are six families, in Virginia City, Virginia there is one family, one family in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and several mid-central states.
Note: The Editor met Fabiola Zdepski, great granddaughter to Esteban Zdepski, in Curtatiba Brazil in the early 2000’s. Esteban was married several times, and his last wife was still living, meaning Stephen’s remaining siblings (John, Anne and Helen) still had a living Auntie in Brazil at the time. Stephen was named (in part) in honor of Esteban.
When Harry left Ukraine, he had 2 options – with friends/relatives in Brazil and in the US and at the time the GDP of Brazil was about the same as Canada, so the US was not the clear choice.
There are about 300,000+ Ukrainians in Parana province and several US Zdepski’s have made FaceBook friends with those relatives in Brazil.
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