James was baptized yesterday and like his brother and his mother and his uncle and his grandpa and many other people, he wore our family gown. Here you can see it being worn by the two boys and yours truly:

You might notice that the version that Paul is wearing is different than the one James and I are wearing. The gown actually comes in three pieces: a coat (which you can see down below on the left), a dress and a slip. Paul was too small to fit into the dress and it was 95 degrees yesterday so no need for the coat.

The three parts of the gown were made from the wedding dress of my great-grandmother, Mary Bogacki, whose wedding portraits you can see here:

In January I invited my Aunt Ginger, who is the keeper of the family records and stories, over so I could get the story of the gown written down and I'm posting it here because that will be the easiest place for me to find it.

These photos were circa 1911 and were taken in a studio on Morgan Street in Chicago in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Born in Warsaw, Mary married Vincent Domecki, a blacksmith. According to Aunt Ginger, Mary, who spoke Russian, German, and Polish, made the gown herself with a sewing machine she brought over from Poland.

Mary and Vincent had six kids, one of whom died after birth. You can see their daughter Virginia here after her baptism, being held by her godparents:

That's my dad's mother, who was born exactly 100 years before Paul (on this date, actually.) She was born in Streator, IL and then returned to Chicago where she met and married my grandfather Edward Zulkowski (Edward is also my dad's name as well as Paul's middle name.) They had three kids (my Uncle Dick, Aunt Ginger and my dad) and moved from Bridgeport to the northwest side of Chicago. Zulkowski was the family name until my Aunt Ginger got a bit older and asked my grandpa to change the name to something shorter and that's how it came to be "Zulkey."

As far as Aunt Ginger could count, the gown has worn through about 26 baptisms. As you can see, despite at least one cleaning it's quite yellow. Aunt Ginger, like, Mary, is a good seamstress and has repaired the lining and some of the lace and replaced the buttons. There are some rust spots from former hook and eye closures that unfortunately look a bit like blood which makes the gown look a little creepy if you look at it a certain way but it's a cool family heirloom that will be moving out of my house shortly and will be ready for the next baby as we pass this tradition on.