Shortly before my Father’s passing I began working on his genealogy.  I asked him all sorts of questions. I interviewed some of his oldest relatives. They offered many stories, some photos and answered some very pointed questions. His family’s story expanded exponentially the more research that I did. It became obvious that I needed a singular focus.

    His grand-parents, Marianna and Julian Kurzynowski emigrated from Poland and came to settle in Jackson.  The story from my Dad was that they came here because my Great-Grandmother Marianna Kurzynowski had two uncles who were already settled here. Their names were John Chlebus and Stan Laski.

    My Dad’s family is very large and intertwined with many other families in Jackson’s Polish community. Tracking all those families through the generations became overwhelming pretty quickly. So when I discovered that John Chlebus was identified in several different places as the first Polish immigrant to permanently settle in Jackson, I decided to focus my work on him and his story.

   Many of those early immigrants were related in one way or another.  Poles saved their money and sent for their family members or others from their village in Poland. They knew each other.  Prominent Polish families got their start in what was considered an area of the city filled with derelicts and “foreigners”.  "Muttonville" was made up of the neighborhoods that surrounded and were north of what is now the Keeley Park. Somewhere behind the Park, near the railroad tracks and the river there was a meat processing plant. Hence the nickname.

   John Chlebus is, part of my family’s history, part of Jackson's and part of Jackson Catholic's as well.  Complex, courageous, trusting and empathetic to a fault.  John Chlebus changed the DNA of Jackson forever.

"John Chlebus was a practical man.  He was ignorant at first of the peculiar methods of business and society employed here.  Fortunately, he was blessed with plenty of shrewdness which eventually made him the most outstanding pole in the city.  He arrived in 1877 and started a grocery on the corner of Blackstone and the northern Polish community of Jackson was in the first period of formation.

   Chlebus was a plunging pioneer who quickly learned the ways of eking out an existence.  Within 10 years he had a solid group of Polish families living around him.  His grocery business had prospered and he started a saloon. A few years later he established a bakery a few blocks from his home.

   Now he was the motivating factor in the social, political and business life of his community.  New Polish residents went to him for advice. He gave it freely.  They wanted money to build their homes.  He loaned unselfishly.  He got new arrivals jobs in factories, in coal mines, in business places.

   He was a philanthropist. No charitable cause ever suffered because John Chlebus was among the first to contribute.  Broken down, homeless poles in the city were always certain of a warm spot in Chlebus’ home. He fed them and sent them away with money to buy clothes." 

William Kulesa 1937