Leon Czolgosz - Early Life

Early Life

Czolgosz was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1873, one of eight children (six sons and two daughters) of Mary (née Nowak) and Paul Czolgosz, Polish Catholic immigrants from Prussia.

According to a different source, Czolgosz's ancestors were immigrants from what is now Belarus. His father might have immigrated to the US in the 1860s from Astravets near Hrodna. At immigration, he stated his ethnicity as Hungarian and changed his surname from Zholhus (Жолгусь, Żołguś) to Czolgosz.

He was baptized in St. Albertus Catholic Church. His family moved to Detroit when he was five years old.

He left his family farm in Warrensville, Ohio, at the age of ten to work at the American Steel and Wire Company with two of his brothers. After the workers of his factory went on strike, he and his brothers were fired. Czolgosz then returned to the family farm in Warrensville. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to work in a glass factory in Natrona, Pennsylvania for two years before moving back home.

Read more about this topic:  Leon Czolgosz

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Foolish prater, What dost thou
    So early at my window do?
    Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away
    A dream out of my arms to-day;
    A dream that ne’er must equall’d be
    By all that waking eyes may see.
    Thou this damage to repair
    Nothing half so sweet and fair,
    Nothing half so good, canst bring,
    Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.
    Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)

    The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)