The Mad Genealogist

Thanks to all who helped!!

Dear Mr.Nichols,

We have found John Frankovitz brother George …..!
This week I have received the Individual Deceased Personnel File from  US Army Human Resources Command,and in this file was the adress of John’s mother in 1945.
A friend,she is helping me in a fantastic way,send a email to the library in that town and received the answer the next day.
They had found the obituary of John’s mother, she passed away in 1962,and there was the name of the city were John’s brother lives.
Again, my friend searched in the phone books and found what could be the brothers name.
A friend in the US. was so kind to make a phone call to this brother ?, and YES he is John’s brother George.
The friend asked him if it is okay that I will send him a letter and he told her that it is okay.
So finally I(We) have found John Frankovitz family with the help of a lot of very nice people helping me !!!

Thank You again for Your help..

Sincerely,
Frits Kruishaar.

As you know Frits Kruishaar of the Netherlands has been taking care of the Grave of TEC4 John Frankovitz. He is not related but a kind person who appreciates what our soldiers did for his country in WWII. He has even gone the extra mile by trying to learn more about the family of this fallen comrade. Well he finally located them:

Finaly we have found the relatives of John Frankovitz. We found the Steph-grandson of John’s oldest brother Joseph,Joseph passed away in 1991. The grandson was surprised but also pleased,he forwarded the email to his father and was sure that his father would answer. After three weeks I still haven’t got a answer,perhaps he needs some time to think about it, or it brought back to many memories. Well,if the family isn’t interested to have contact with me,I will respect that. If there is news about the contact with the family,I will let You know. Thank You very much for all You efforts in helping me. Sincerely, Frits Kruishaar.

If you wish to contact Frits Kruishaar then feel free to do so. I think a simple thank you would be in order.

I received an email a few weeks ago from Frits Kruishaar of the Netherlands. I will keep you informed of Frits responses. If anyone out there can help it would be most appreciated. Please leave a comment here or email Frits at the email address Below. His emails read:

Let me please introduce myself,my name is Frits Kruishaar I am 56 years old and I am living in the Netherlands.
The reason for this e-mail is that I’ ve adopted the grave from TEC4 John Frankovitz,killed in World War 2 and buried at the American Cemetry in Margraten the Netherlands. From now on I will care for his grave.
My main goal is to gather as much information about John Frankovitz as possible,and to find his relatives to let them know that I ‘am taking care of the grave from there loved one.
To find his Family I’am asking your help,I wonder if it’s possible to check the obituary Index for the obituary from George Frankovitz born. Feb. 20, 1918 died. January 1986 last address Haledon, Passaic Co. New Jersey. If there is, will you please be so kind to sent me a copy from the Obituary?. I realy hope that you can help me with some information or do you know somebody who can help me ?. Any information is very useful. Looking forward to hearing from You. With kind regards.

Frits Kruishaar, Treebeekstraat 148, 6446 XZ Brunssum, Nederland
e-mail adress : f.kruishaar@hetnet.nl

I thought this was such a kind thing to do for a complete foreign stranger to take the cause of the upkeep of an American Soldiers Grave. So I did some digging and on Ancestry.com I found Johns Service record which I emailed back to Frits in this email

I think this is great. I am looking but have not found any info on George. I will email you everything I can find. I am going to email you the 1930 census with John and George on it, Look at the bottom of the page.
U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

Name: John Frankovitz
Birth Year: 1920
Race: White, citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: Pennsylvania
State: Alaska
Enlistment Date: 3 Feb 1943
Enlistment State: Pennsylvania
Enlistment City: Erie
Branch: Branch Immaterial – Warrant Officers, USA
Branch Code: Branch Immaterial – Warrant Officers, USA
Grade: Private
Grade Code: Private
Term of Enlistment: Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Component: Selectees (Enlisted Men)
Source: Civil Life
Education: 4 years of high school
Marital Status: Single, with dependents
Height: 73
Weight: 173

I located a 1930 Census record (Click Here to See Census) at Ancestry.com that Shows John and George as Children of John and Victoria Frankovitz. I email this To Frits and this was his response:

Did You mean that John and George were from Allegheny,PA.? John Frankovitz name is on the WW2 memorial in Erie. I’ve also already tryed to locate them in Erie County and Allegheny.The librarian from Erie County send me this e-mail :
I think that we have hit a major roadblock in our search for relatives of TEC4 Frankovitz.  I checked our obituary index, which goes back to 1822, but there are no Frankovitz’s in the index.  I don’t know if I should be surprised or not, but if he was from this area, you would think that there would be other relatives.

The fact that there are no Frankovitz listed in our index only means that an obituary was not placed in the Erie newspaper.  The family could have been from a distant part of the county and there wasn’t any need to place an obituary in the Erie newspaper. He also contacted the Erie History Center,without a result.
A veteran from WW2 was so kind to reqest the Obituary from Joseph FrankoWitz ( also in Erie),and this was his conclusion:
I had hoped to secure the obituary of John but there is no record of one, probably because John was killed and buried in Europe.
This leads me to believe that John may have been a loner.  If John were  the brother of Joseph it would seem to me that Joseph’s family would have  mentioned John’s death in the military in Joseph’s obituary. The only link  that I can imagine is the fact that it was common in Eastern Europe to  pronounce a “W” as though it were a “V”.
Later we received this from this veteran from WW2 also living in Erie County :Also found a George Frankovitz b. Feb. 20, 1918 d. January 1986 last address Haledon, Passaic Co. New Jersey. I find an Ann Frankovitz age 87 living  Haledon NJ 07508  Ph # 973-595-5536
With this information I suspected that the Frankovitz Family had moved to Passaic County.

And this is the last Update I received from Frits:

Thise-mail is just to keep You informed about my search.
Today I received a e-mail from the Wayne library in New Jersey with the obituary from George Frankovitz.
We had found George’s name and believed that it could be John’s brother.
It turned out to be the wrong George Frankovitz,this George was born in New York.

Looking forward to hearing from You. Sincerely, Frits Kruishaar.

Hopefully Someone out there can help Frits in his search. I am keeping my eyes and ears open.