So this summer I was talking with JaJa (polish for grandpa) and I asked him the story behind the spelling of our last name. His demeanor suddenly changed and I started to wonder if it had been a good idea to even ask that question. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was totally worth it and he was excited to tell me. He told me that when he was born he never did get a birth certificate. He was born in February 1929 in Detroit, MI late at night. The doctor that delivered him wasn’t able to record his birth information or issue a birth certificate because he died later that night after the delivery! He went throughout the first 16 years of life without an official identity and to add to the ambiguity of his name, his grandpa who had immigrated from Poland and his sister went by a different spelling than his mom. Grandpa and sis took the original spelling, Szymanski, while his mom went by a phonetic spelling, Shemanski. At age 16 he and his brother got jobs at a potato farm, grating potatoes, but to work there they needed social security cards. The lady that hired them offered to get the cards for them so they told her their names and she did the paperwork and sent off for their cards. When his card arrived it said Elmer L. Schemanski rather than Szymanski like his grandpa’s or Shemanski like his moms! Turns out the lady who took his information didn’t ask him how it was spelled, she simply wrote it how she thought it sounded…