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Emelia "Amalia" Jurick (b. May 10, 1884, d. 1939)
Emelia "Amalia" Jurick (daughter of John "Jurik" Jurick and Maria Frjoo)890 was born May 10, 1884 in Cerklje, Carniolia, Austria/Ljubljana, Slovenia891, 892, 893, and died 1939 in Chicago, Ill.894, 895, 896. She married (1) Jakob "John" Banko on April 24, 1899 in LaSalle County, Illinois,, son of John Banko and Mararetha. She married (2) Jakob Banko on April 24, 1899 in St. Joseph's Catholic LaSalle County, Illinois896, son of John Banko and Margaretha.
Notes for Emelia "Amalia" Jurick:
April 2003 Birth cert of daughter Griestina says Amelia is 22 at her birth which makes the birth date 1887 Something is incorrect. The sources I have (her 3 daughters & birth cert. all say 1884, which makes her 16 when she started having babies. The birth certificate of Griestina listing her age as 22 must be wrong. Check later
May 2000
She is listed as Amalia Juricic in St. Roch's Baptism Records. Also spelled Urcic in Austria, according to Dottie. Birth certificate of her daughter Helen lists her as Anita Jarin Banko(?) The Jarin is interesting. See hard file of Amelia for certificate. Marriage license lists Emilia Juric (Amalia), English version.
Sources are through conversations I've had with Amelia's remaining daughters Helen, Dorothy "Dottie" and Matilda "Tillie"
Amelia Jurick Banko was 11 yrs. old when she came to the U.S. from (looks like Mrkivice) Austria/Yugoslavia in 1895. The borders in the Austria/Yugoslavia area changed many times, thus we have discrepancies in where these people all came from. Dottie remembers Ljubljana, which is in the Province of Slovenia in Yugoslavia. Helen remembers Austria. She was one of 18 children, nine girls and nine boys, who came over at different times as money permitted. She apparently came directly to the Peru area.
It would seem she was married to Jacob Banko when she was 17, and she began having her 10 children immediately. Daughter Helen says she remembers very little about her father, and what she does remember aren't particularly good stories (See Jacob's Notes). He was a coal miner in Cherry, IL, and died of "miner's asthma" when he was either 46 or 53. This is unclear. I have 1920 in my records, but Helen remembers he was only 46.
Dottie remembers attending the "Austrian Catholic Church", St. Roch's. (See Photo in file) She was having trouble seeing the blackboard in school and Sister Marcillina told Dottie to ask her mother if she could take her to the eye doctor, knowing that Amelia was busy at home with 7 or 8 children at the time. So Sister Marcillina took her to the eye doctor and she got her glasses. Dottie was very fond of her.
Daughter Marjie died in 1906 at four years of age. Dottie remembers her being dressed all in white and laid in a gold bed in the parlor. She can't imagine where they got a gold bed, perhaps from the undertaker.
Amelia was left a widow at 37 and had 7 children remaining at home to raise. Yet Helen tells me her mother was happiest after her husband's death. He must have been difficult to live with and life was certainly hard for them. After reading the following accounts, I marvel that this was indeed a "happier time" for her. She must have been miserable prior to his death.
Jacob left her a $300 life insurance policy and she bought herself a player piano. Now, that takes pluck--spending that money on a piano with 7 children to raise on her own. Helen says her mother loved to sing, although no one knew it before her husband died, and they spent many evenings around the piano singing all the "old" songs.
Dottie was 14 at the time her father died and she went "into service" at the home of a Mr. Becker in Oglesby. He was the president of a cement company. She cleaned house for them and lived in with a friend of hers from school who was 16, and she did their cooking.
Amelia & Jacob had always rented homes when they were married, never could afford to own one. At the time of Jacob's death, daughter Mollie was working in Chicago and sent money to her mother to help her buy her first home at 737 Lafayette St. It had no inside plumbing and simply had the "outhouse" in the back yard. This was the home next-door to my husband's family home, because when he and I got married in 1966, my Grandmother Chris told us she knew my husband's father Matthew from the early days of growing up together and in fact gave her his first kiss. Of course, both sides of our families had strong Slovenian ties, and indeed, attended the same Slovenian church in LaSalle, which was St. Roch's (also the church I was married in). Small world, really.
Amelia was amazingly good-natured in those days. She never spanked her children. Punishment was sitting in chair in the corner. Helen says she spent a lot of time in the chair in the corner. But Amelia was also tough, as she had to be, and she wanted things done her way because it was the right way. Helen remembers her mom sitting at the kitchen table emphatically stating, "I'm the boss in this house."
Dinners were always a "bowl" of something, and bread. Amelia baked those famous Slovenian foods, patitsa and apple strudel. Helen remembers her mother stretching the dough in the air with her hands until it was the length of the dining room table, paper thin, and then making 5-6 strudels with it.
One of the things Amelia did to earn money was to take in laundry. She would do 15-16 white shirts a day, washing them on a washboard, starching the shirts which had the old-fashioned stiff fronts, and then ironing them with the old iron that was heated on the stove. For that she received $3, and the children would walk 8 blocks to deliver them and bring home the empty basket. She also laundered the white aprons of the butchers at Urbanowski's Meat Market, a particularly disgusting job, according to Helen. The aprons were full of blood and she had to soak and wash them in lye and then iron them. For this she was paid $2 a basket. The kids again loaded them on the wagon and delivered them for her.
When Helen was 7 years old she arose at 5:00 a.m. to clean the floors at a barber shop. Her mother would send her out to the railroad tracks with a bucket to pick up loose pieces of coal from the passing trains to help heat their home. The children wore hand-me downs and clothing from the Salvation Army, and Helen didn't have her own new dress until she was 15. She never had a doll except for the rag doll she made for herself.
They attended the Catholic church. At that time the women still wore hats to church, as covering their heads was a sign of respect and modesty. Amelia had no money to buy her girls children's hats, so she purchased second-hand women's hats for them. Helen remembers crunching and folding hers so it wouldn't look so ridiculous, but all the other children knew anyway and laughed at her. It was very painful.
Helen remembers my Gramma Chris dating my Grampa Jim while living in the house on Lafayette St. Sister Dottie was also dating at that time, and they used to fight over who got the front porch swing to sit out with their boyfriends. Amelia never really like Grampa and the truth is she thought he was a bum (according to Helen). Every time Gramma Chris told her mother she was pregnant, Amelia wanted to kill him.
On one occasion at this house, Dorothy's boyfriend and future husband Harold Perry were there with my grandfather. Harold always carried a gun. The two of them were fooling around and my grandfather shot a hole in the wall when the gun discharged. Helen says my grandparents Chris & Jim were incredibly poor, and yet Grampa would be over at the pool hall playing poker while the children had nothing to eat. Helen says she used to "steal" milk from her own home and take it to Chris so the babies had milk to drink.
One of Amelia's more resourceful means to bring in money for the family just cracks me up. In the second home at 1222 11th Street in Peru, she sold moonshine out of the basement for 35 cents a shot! She always let the weeds and grass in the back of the property grow high and out of control so she had a place to dump the mash.
There was a regular customer by the name of Kellish. He would return late at night and steal the booze. The door was locked, but they knew he had a skelton key. Of course, they couldn't report it to anyone because they were engaged in an illegal operation. Yet, everyone seemed to know about her activities. They used to have sugar delivered to the house in 50 lb. boxes! And the grocer used to kid the children when they came in to purchase 2 or 3 pounds of yeast. "Hey, what are you going to do with all that yeast!" I suppose everyone was aware of her dire situation and minded their own business.
She didn't have her own apparatus to make the moonshine, but across town there lived a woman by the name of Jurick (no relation) who was a serious bootlegger with her own still. When Amelia needed to make a fresh supply, this woman would lend her the equipment. When the fresh batch was finished, Amelia loaded the equipment on the children's wagon, piled it high with blankets to disguise it, and the kids walked it back across town. They were never stopped.
This friend also would get word somehow to Amelia--no phones, of course-- that the Feds were in town and then Amelia could get rid of the evidence. Amelia never was caught, but this Jurick woman went to jail three times for bootlegging. Go figure.
In 1927, Amelia's father John Jurick died. They lived only about 3 blocks from each other. I don't know much about them, but apparently it was decided that Helen, who was 14, should spend the nights with her grandmother, Maria Frjoo Jurick, to keep her company. Helen had terrible nightmares back then, and after a short period of time her Gramma Maria sent her home with the message, "Don't send Helen no more. She keeps me awake all night!" When her mother died, Amelia was just brokenhearted, Helen remembers.
Helen tells me when she was 14 years old she wanted to go to work at Westclox but you had to be 16. The midwife for their family forged a birth certificate for her, stating she was 16, and she worked at Westclox then for two years until she really turned 16. At this point, which was 1930, her mother decided to rent out their house and move to Chicago, which was closer to some family, her daughter Dorothy, and with the hopes of finding better employment. A Slovenian friend had an old truck and helped them load it up and move. Only Eve, Helen & Tillie were living with their mother by now. They moved to a small basement apartment, knowing no one and having no jobs.
Amelia was very restless and could wake up in the morning and decide to move that day. Thus, one morning she awakened and decided to move back to the house in Peru, which had been rented out. But Eve, Helen and Tillie were in Chicago to stay. Evelyn had secured her own fake birth certificate and had gone to work for Sears, Roebuck and Helen was working in a purse factory.
So Amelia came home to Peru for a period of time. Daughter Dorothy had sent her mother money for dentures. One day while talking on the phone, Dottie said, "Mom, how are your new teeth?" Amelia replied, "Oh, they're fine. They're in my pocket."
Shortly thereafter Amelia returned to Chicago to live with her daughter Tillie and husband Leonard. She sold her Peru home to a "bunch of Italians" who were serious bootleggers and who proceeded to excavate the whole basement to put in a professional still.
Helen says her mother felt that all her children were now married and it was time for "me to rest" and one evening in 1939, while Tillie & her husband had been playing cards at her sister Dottie's, Amelia had a heart attack. When they returned home they heard Amelia's moaning, and although an ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital, she never recovered. I think I would have liked to have known her!
April 2001
Not in 1900 Census
Baptism Cert. in file (Slovenian)
Marriage License in fileMay 2000
She is listed as Amalia Juricic in St. Roch's Baptism Records. Also spelled Urcic in Austria, according to Dottie. Birth certificate of her daughter Helen lists her as Anita Jarin Banko(?) The Jarin is interesting. See hard file of Amelia for certificate.
Sources are through conversations I've had with Amelia's remaining daughters Helen, Dorothy "Dottie" and Matilda "Tillie"
Amelia Jurick Banko was 11 yrs. old when she came to the U.S. from Yugoslavia in 1895. The borders in the Austria/Yugoslavia area changed many times, thus we have discrepancies in where these people all came from. Dottie remembers Ljubljana, which is in the Province of Slovenia in Yugoslavia. Helen remembers Austria. She was one of 18 children, nine girls and nine boys, who came over at different times as money permitted. She apparently came directly to the Peru area.
It would seem she was married to Jacob Banko when she was 15, and she began having her 10 children immediately. Daughter Helen says she remembers very little about her father, and what she does remember aren't particularly good stories (See Jacob's Notes). He was a coal miner in Cherry, IL, and died of "miner's asthma" when he was either 46 or 53. This is unclear. I have 1920 in my records, but Helen remembers he was only 46.
Dottie remembers attending the "Austrian Catholic Church", St. Roch's. (See Photo in file) She was having trouble seeing the blackboard in school and Sister Marcillina told Dottie to ask her mother if she could take her to the eye doctor, knowing that Amelia was busy at home with 7 or 8 children at the time. So Sister Marcillina took her to the eye doctor and she got her glasses. Dottie was very fond of her.
Their daughter Marjie died in 1906 at four years of age. Dottie remembers her being dressed all in white and laid in a gold bed in the parlor. She can't imagine where they got a gold bed, perhaps from the undertaker.
Amelia was left a widow at 37 and had 7 children left at home to raise. Yet Helen tells me her mother was happiest after her husband's death. He must have been difficult to live with and life was certainly hard for them. After reading the following accounts, I marvel that this was indeed a "happier time" for her. She must have been miserable prior to his death.
Jacob left her a $300 life insurance policy and she bought herself a player piano. Now, that takes pluck--spending that money on a piano with 7 children to raise on her own. Helen says her mother loved to sing, although no one knew it before her husband died, and they spent many evenings around the piano singing all the "old" songs.
Dottie was 14 at the time her father died and she went "into service" at the home of a Mr. Becker in Oglesby. He was the president of a cement company. She cleaned house for them and lived in with a friend of hers from school who was 16 and did their cooking.
Amelia & Jacob had always rented homes when they were married, never could afford to own one. At the time of his death, Daughter Mollie was working in Chicago and sent money to her mother to help her buy her first home at 737 Lafayette St. It had no inside plumbing and simply had the "outhouse" in the back yard. This was the home next-door to my husband's family home, because when he and I got married in 1966, my Grandmother Chris told us she knew my husband's father Matthew from the early days of growing up together. Of course, both sides of our families had strong Slovenian ties, and indeed, attended the same Slovenia church in LaSalle, which was St. Roch's (also the church I was married in). Small world, really.
Amelia was amazingly good-natured in those days. She never spanked her children. Punishment was sitting in chair in the corner. Helen says she spent a lot of time in the chair in the corner. But Amelia was also tough, as she had to be, and she wanted things done her way because it was the right way. Helen remembers her mom sitting at the kitchen table emphatically stating, "I'm the boss in this house."
Dinners were always a "bowl" of something, and bread. Amelia baked those famous Slovenian foods, patitsa and apple strudel. Helen remembers her mother stretching the dough in the air with her hands until it was the length of the dining room table, paper thin, and then making 5-6 strudels with it.
One of the things Amelia did to earn money was to take in laundry. She would do 15-16 white shirts a day, washing them on a washboard, starching the shirts which had the old-fashioned stiff fronts, and then ironing them with the old iron that was heated on the stove. For that she received $3, and the children would walk 8 blocks to deliver them and bring home the empty basket. She also laundered the white aprons of the butchers at Urbanowski's Meat Market, a particularly disgusting job. The aprons were full of blood and she had to & soak and wash them in lye and then iron them. For this she was paid $2 a basket. The kids again loaded them on the wagon and delivered them for her.
When Helen was 7 years old she arose at 5:00 a.m. to clean the floors at a barber shop. Her mother would send her out to the railroad tracks with a bucket to pick up loose pieces of coal from the passing trains to help heat their home. The children wore hand-me downs and clothing from the Salvation Army, and Helen did have her own new dress until she was 15. She never had a doll except for the rag doll she made for herself.
They attended the Catholic church. At that time the women still wore hats to church, as covering their heads was a sign of respect and modesty. Amelia had no money to buy her girls children's hats, so she purchased second-hand women's hats for them. Helen remembers crunching and folding hers so it wouldn't look so ridiculous, but all the other children knew anyway and laughed at her. It was very painful.
Helen remembers my Gramma Chris dating my Grampa Jim while living in the house on Lafayette St. Sister Dottie was also dating at that time, and they used to fight over who got the front porch swing to sit out with their boyfriends. Amelia never really like Grampa and the truth is she thought he was a bum. Every time Gramma Chris told her mother she was pregnant, Amelia wanted to kill him.
On one occasion at this house, Dorothy's boyfriend and future husband Harold Perry was there with my grandfather. Harold always carried a gun. The two of them were fooling around and my grandfather shot a hole in the wall when the gun discharged. Helen says my grandparents Chris & Jim were incredibly poor, and yet Grampa would be over at the pool hall playing poker while the children had nothing to eat. Helen says she used to "steal" milk from her own home and take it to Chris so the babies had milk to drink.
One of Amelia's more resourceful means to bring in money for the family just cracks me up. In the second home at 1222 11th Street in Peru, she sold moonshine out of the basement for 35 cents a shot! She always let the weeds and grass in the back of the property grow high and out of control so she had a place to dump the mash.
There was a regular customer by the name of Kellish. He would return late at night and steal the booze. The door was locked, but they knew he had a skelton key. Of course, they couldn't report it to anyone because they were engaged in an illegal operation. Yet, everyone seemed to know about her activities. They used to have sugar delivered to the house in 50 lb. boxes! And the grocer used to kid the children when they came in to purchase 2 or 3 pounds of yeast. "Hey, what are you going to do with all that yeast!" I suppose everyone was aware of her dire situation and minded their own business.
She didn't have her own apparatus to make the moonshine, but across town there lived a woman by the name of Jurick (no relation) who was a serious bootlegger with her own still. When Amelia needed to make a fresh supply, this woman would lend her the equipment. When the fresh batch was finished, Amelia loaded the equipment on the children's wagon, piled it high with blankets to disguise it, and the kids walked it back across town. They were never stopped.
This friend also would get word somehow to Amelia--no phones, of course-- that the Feds were in town and then Amelia could get rid of the evidence. Amelia never was caught, but this Jurick woman went to jail three times for bootlegging. Go figure.
In 1927, Amelia's father John Jurick died. They lived only about 3 blocks from each other. I don't know much about them, but apparently it was decided that Helen, who was 14, should spend the nights with her grandmother, Maria Frjoo Jurick, to keep her company. Helen had terrible nightmares back then, and after a short period of time her Gramma Maria sent her home with the message, "Don't send Helen no more. She keeps me awake all night!" When her mother died, Amelia was just brokenhearted, Helen remembers.
Helen tells me when she was 14 years old she wanted to work at Westclox but you had to be 16. The midwife for their family forged a birth certificate for her, stating she was 16, and she worked at Westclox then for two years until she really turned 16. At this point, which was 1930, her mother decided to rent out their house and move to Chicago, which was closer to some family like her daughter Dorothy, and in the hopes of finding better employment. A Slovenia friend had an old truck and helped them load it up and move. Only Eve, Helen & Tillie were living with their mother by now. They moved to a small basement apartment, knowing no one and having no jobs.
Amelia was very restless and could wake up in the morning and decide to move. Thus, one morning she awakened and decided to move back to the house in Peru, which had been rented out. But Eve, Helen and Tillie were in Chicago to stay. Evelyn had secured her own fake birth certificate and had gone to work for Sears Roebuck and Helen was working in a purse factory.
So Amelia came home to Peru for a period of time. Daughter Dorothy had sent her mother money for dentures. One day while talking on the phone, Dottie said, "Mom, how are your new teeth?" Amelia replied, "Oh, they're fine. They're in my pocket."
Shortly thereafter Amelia returned to Chicago to live with her daughter Tillie and husband Leonard. She sold her Peru home to a "bunch of Italians" who were serious bootleggers and who proceeded to excavate the whole basement to put in a professional still.
Helen says her mother felt that all her children were now married and it was time for "me to rest" and one evening in 1939, while Tillie & her husband had been playing cards at her sister Dottie's, Amelia had a heart attack. When they returned home they heard Amelia's moaning, and although 911 was called and she was rushed to the hospital, she never recovered. I think I would have liked to have known her!
April 2001
Not in 1900 Census
Baptism Cert. in file (Slovenian)
More About Emelia "Amalia" Jurick:
Baptism: May 14, 1884, Cert in file (Slovenian).896
Date born 2: Emelia On Griestina's marriage license.
Burial: Unknown, Chicago, IL.897, 898
Event 2: Amalia on Griestina's birth certificate.
Fact: Married St. Joseph's Cath. LaSalle.898
Immigration: 1895899, 900
More About Emelia "Amalia" Jurick and Jakob "John" Banko:
Marriage: April 24, 1899, LaSalle County, Illinois,.
More About Emelia "Amalia" Jurick and Jakob Banko:
Marriage: April 24, 1899, St. Joseph's Catholic LaSalle County, Illinois.900
Children of Emelia "Amalia" Jurick and Jakob "John" Banko are:
- Amelia "Mollie" Banko, b. April 16, 1900900, d. date unknown.
- Marjie Banko, b. Abt. 1901900, d. Abt. 1905900.
- Vince Banko Banker, b. January 17, 1902900, d. date unknown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin900.
- "Dora" Dorothy Banko, b. February 5, 1904, Main St., LaSalle, Illinois900, d. date unknown.
- +Griestina "Christine" Banko, b. October 7, 1905, First Street, LaSalle, Illinois901, d. January 29, 1977, Peru, Illinois902, 903.
- Auguest Banko, b. August 28, 1907, 443 Main St., LaSalle, Ill.904, d. Abt. 1910904.
- Julia "Ursulam" Banko, b. Abt. 1909904, d. Abt. 1930, Peru, Illinois904.
- Helen Banko.
- Eva Banko.
- +Matilda "Tillie" Banko.
Children of Emelia "Amalia" Jurick and Jakob Banko are:
- Amelia "Mollie" Banko, b. April 16, 1900904, d. date unknown.
- Marjie Banko, b. Abt. 1901904, d. Abt. 1905904.
- Vince Banko Banker, b. January 17, 1902904, d. date unknown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin904.
- "Dora" Dorothy Banko, b. February 5, 1904, Main St., LaSalle, Illinois904, d. date unknown.
- +Christine/Justina Mae Banko, b. October 7, 1905, LaSalle, Illinois905, d. January 29, 1977, 1212 Calhoun St., Peru, Illinois906, 907.
- Auguest Banko, b. August 28, 1907, 443 Main St., LaSalle, Ill.908, d. Abt. 1910908.
- Julia "Ursulam" Banko, b. Abt. 1909908, d. Abt. 1930, Peru, Illinois908.
- Helen Banko.
- Eva Banko.
- +Matilda "Tillie" Banko.

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