Family History
The Radons Family: 1774-1932
From
1774 to the present, the Radons name can be found spelt many different ways,
but it’s earliest form RADUNS. Perhaps
this was due to a family member dictating it to another person who spelt it the
way they heard it. Regardless, we spell
it RADONS and pronounce it Rad-ons or Raw-dons.
The Radons appear to have been farmers from the very beginning. The earliest known Radons family lived close to Bromberg, Prussia (now Bygoszcz, Poland). The death certificate of Paul Radons (1774-1856) shows his birthplace as Mumlitz (Mamlitz). Paul was married to Anna Breitkreutz (1779-1851). They moved to the area around Petrikau in Congress, Poland (Piotrkow). A number of Radons can be found around Petrikau especially in the small towns of Zelow, Bechatow, Zabloty, Bogimilow and Rassy. This is the area where Paul’s son, also named Paul, was born in 1810.
At that time, another Radons family could also be found in the Sompolno region, north west of Petrikau. However, to date we cannot connect the two. Unfortunately, there is nothing more known about this Radons family in the Sompolno region after the early 19th century.
In Belchatow, young Paul and his wife Anna Grunwald had at least two children, Gottlieb born in 1848 and Peter born in 1854. There is also information possibly linking six other children to the family including Paul, Jan, Michal, Julia, Edward and Daniel. Sometime during the period 1858 to 1870, the family moved to Volhynia, an area now in Ukraine. This move may have been made to escape the European wars and conscription.
In 1870, Gottlieb married Ewa Stefan (1854-1930) in Lutsk (Luck), Volhynia. Ewa was also born near Pertrikau in the town of Poraj. It seems groups of Germans immigrated together and formed small farming communities.
During the period 1870 to 1894, Gottlieb and Ewa had 11 children, six girls and five boys. They all left Volhynia to settle in Germany, Canada and South America. The list of these children and their spouses shows the connections from which most of we Radons are descended: Reinhold Radons and Wanda Rangno, Daniel Radons and Amelia Kleinke, Rosine (Rosellia) Radons and ? Schmidt, Hilda Radons and ? Metz, Bertha, Natalia, Johnann, Gustav and Wilhem.
In 1925, Gottlieb and Ewa immigrated, through the port of Hamburg, and joined their children in western Canada. In 1930, Reinhold, Amelia and Hilda were living in Winnipeg. On August 27, 1930, Ewa died and was buried in Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. Gottlieb moved to Lipton, Saskatchewan to live on his son Daniel’s farm where he died of kidney failure in 1932.
Gottlieb’s brother Peter, born in Bogimilow, Poland died in 1916 leaving a widow and two sons Gustav and Emil. The first World War forced Peter’s family to move back to Germany were they reside to this day.