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Postard sent to Frania Hutnik in Michałowo, 1928
2026-10-07
In an antiquarian bookshop in Białystok, I
bought an Easter postcard sent to Michałowo, near Białystok. The image on the card shows a man
leaning toward a young woman who is seated and holding a basket of food for the Easter blessing.
Were it not for this specific detail, the card could just as easily have been sent for an
engagement, a birthday, or another secular occasion. It was sent in March 1928 by a man named
Feliks—whose surname is difficult to decipher—to Frania Hutnik, a resident of Michałowo. The holiday
message is written in a neat hand, though the Polish is not entirely grammatically correct. I
decided to find out who Frania Hutnik was. I concluded that in 1928, she must have been an unmarried
young woman. The tone of the message and the style of the card suggest it was written by a young
man—either in love or romantically interested—to a young woman. The surname Hutnik was found in the
village of Oziabły near Michałowo; in Michałowo itself, only one family bearing that name lived
there at the turn of the 20th century: that of Józef Hutnik and Marianna Połocka. It was into this
family that Franciszka was born on May 16, 1909. Józef Hutnik hailed from the village of Oziabły,
while Marianna Połocka came from Kobylanka—facts confirmed by the record of their marriage, which
took place in Zabłudów in 1900.

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