(Credits: Far Out / Panna Maria Historical Society / brooke rosemary)
When you think of states in America, it’s often Texas that is amongst the first that comes to mind, with the ‘Lone Star State’ feeling like a real slice of Americana.
With a culture of guns, Stetsons, black gold, pick-ups, barbecue and American football, and stateside icons like Beyoncé, Matthew McConaughey, and Willie Nelson, among others, being born and raised there, Texas is as American as they come, except in one small, rural community, Panna Maria, which oddly has an incredible Polish heritage.
The story of how this piece of the American frontier became forever Polish starts in the middle of the 19th century, when Leopold Moczygemba was born in Upper Silesia, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and now mostly Poland, and partly Czechia.
Then, in 1852, the Polish Franciscan missionary arrived in Texas to minster Catholic settlers, and Moczygemba was so happy with his new surroundings, he sent letters back home to family and friends, urging them to emigrate to America. With political oppression and poverty rife in Upper Silesia, many were happy to move, with the promise of cheap land and opportunity, making America look attractive, as well as the chance to create a Polish Catholic community.
Around 100 families left Upper Silesia in 1854, taking a long journey to their new home. It started with a train journey to Bremen in Germany, before crossing the Atlantic by boat, eventually landing in Galveston, and after the nine-week ocean crossing, they then had to walk 200 miles, with many being barefoot, across Texas.
(Credits: Far Out / Renelibrary)
It’s said that they arrived on Christmas Eve, 1854, just in time to celebrate midnight Mass with Father Moczygemba under a huge oak tree, and they named their new home Panna Maria, which translates to ‘Virgin Mary’ in their native tongue, with the Panna Maria Oak, still standing today, having become a symbol of the town’s founding and its links to the homeland.
After building a church, they became the first Polish Catholic parish in the country, with the St Joseph’s school, founded in 1868, the first Polish language school in the nation, and while Catholicism was central to the newly founded town, so were traditions from their homeland, so Polish customs were retained, and the language flourished, with a regional Silesian dialect being spoken there.
Throughout the remainder of the century, these Polish settlers began to branch out, spreading across other communities in the state, such as Cestohowa, Falls City and Yorktown, yet Panna Maria remained small, its customs and commitment to maintaining its Polish heritage key to their longevity. The immigrants had a wider impact not only within the state but the country as a whole, and their expertise in architecture saw European-looking buildings pop up around the state, while many descendants of those original volunteers bravely served in the military during the two great wars.
To many driving through, it might look like anywhere else in the state, but it’s a town that still has its roots very evident, not far below the surface, with a museum that tells the story of immigration to the country, and many residents still carrying Polish surnames, and Polish food is also celebrated even now.
America is a country built on the backs of immigrants, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Panna Maria, which shows the determination of those first Poles to cross the Atlantic, as well as emphasising the importance of religion and community for the Polish diaspora, and while many residents today might not have even set foot in Europe, they still carry the language and culture forward, blending it and combining it with that of their home state.
