Among the many mysterious family photos discovered in the past few years is this one that features (1) Buster Major and (2) Ed Smolinski. It likely was taken no later than the mid-1930s. But where? And who are the other people?

My hunch – which has no basis whatsoever in any evidence – is that the picture was taken in Pennsylvania, during a visit to relatives of my grandmother, Helen Kalinowska Smolinski, whose mother, known (at least to us) as Babka, may have lived in or around Scranton.

Also, my grandmother's mother-in-law, Rose (or Rosa) had remarried a man named Koziol and several members of the Koziol family emigrated to the United States and settled in the Scranton area, a few of them later moving to Syracuse.

Best known to us was Stella (“Stasha”) Koziol, who was born in Lomza, Poland in 1904, and later lived for many years in the Syracuse area with her husband, Louis Waynai. When Stasha died in 1989, she was survived by three siblings in Poland: brother Stefan Koziol and sisters Wanda Koziol and Helen Ragowska.

If anyone can help identify any of the other people in this photo, please email Jack Major at this address: