Story of my grandfather Ignats Mednis

My grandfather’s mother and her bridegroom were quite young when they married. Right after the marriage the husband was conscripted into the army. Since it happened at the beginning of the 1850s, when the service time in the army was 20 years, the wife had to wait for the husband for very long time. By the way, he never returned home and nobody knows more about him. His name also is unknown, because he simply had no family name, as he was a serf.

My great-grandmother lived in Latgale that was part of the Vitebskas province where serfdom was abolished in 1861. She was a serf by birth, but by the Law she became free, as the wife of a soldier, nevertheless she continued to go to work at the manor also after her marriage.

It happened that the owner of the manor she belonged to felt in love with her. She was nice, cheerful and young, he was much older and as far as it is known not attractive at all. Nothing is known how the relations developed, what her feelings were, what they discussed between themselves, but the marriage was completely out of question. First, she was formally married, though nothing was known about her husband, second, the social gap between them was so great that his family could never accept the marriage.

They belonged to the Catholic Church that blamed extramarital love extremely, nevertheless they choose it, or maybe better to say - she agreed to it. My mother, who told me the story, thinks that this was not a short time adventure for the guy from the manor, because the relationship lasted long enough for three children to be born. One of them was my grandfather Ignats. He was born in 1854 that is before the serfdom was abolished and got his family name about 1864 when after the abolition of serfdom the naming was going on. As they lived in Medneva, he got the name Mednis, or may be this name had got his mother, because she should have been a free person.

As for his biological father from the manor, I know nothing about him. My mother thinks his first name was Simon or Simanis or Semjon and the location Semenova was named after him. However no investigations were ever made. I do not know the practice of Catholic priests in the registration of illegitimate children, and I do not know if the Church books contain any information on their biological fathers.

The life of my grandfather without father was not easy at all. He started his working life in childhood when he became a herd in farms. Of course, herds got some food from their hosts, and it was of the quality normal for the house, however my grandfather told my mother that there was not very much of food, and salt was considered in some farms as a luxury for a herd. By the way, Ignats' mother always tried that her son were hired by a well situated farmhost, because in this case the food was usually better.

One can not deny that his father helped them, at least episodically. My grandmother, - Rozālija Mednis b. Logins, the wife of Ignats Mednis, told my mother that one autumn some years after their marriage a cart-load of grain was brought to her mother-in-law from the manor. Rozālija protested furiously and declared that she would never eat this bread brought by depravity. So the cart was sent back.

Last 7 years of her life my great-grandmother spent in bed being paralyzed. This was the God’s punishment for her sinful life, at least my grandmother Rozālija claimed that.

My mother was born some 20 years after the death of her grandmother. Nobody spoke much about the grandmother and even her first name is still unknown to us.

More about the life of Ignats Mednis in the memories of my mother (in Latvian)