(1930-2023)

April 5, 1930, was surely a joyful day in the Detroit home of Peter Paul and Alice Irene (Tate) Persyk, for it was on this date that the couple welcomed a baby girl, whom they named Janet Mae, into the world after Alice had had seven miscarriages.

Both Peter and Alice were born on family farms in Minnesota. In her “Sister’s Story” video of January 24, 2017, Sister Janet explained that Peter’s family came from Prussia and Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War. The family, not wanting to be discovered by Prussian agents, changed their name from their original German name. The family settled in a farming community named Perham, so they took the “Per” and added an “szyk” to sound Slavic instead of German.

Sister Janet went on to explain that although her father eventually dropped the “z” out of their name, it was spelled “Perszyk” on her birth certificate. When she went to work at the age of 15 and filled out the required Social Security paperwork, she was unaware of that spelling and spelled it without the “z.”

“When I came home, they said, “‘Well, that’s not how you spell our name,’” she said.

Peter and Alice met in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, at a hospital where Alice was a second-year nursing student and Peter was an accountant. The couple married in 1922 and moved to Detroit in 1928 because job prospects there were promising for accountants. Peter became the general manager for the Gordon-Pagel Baking Co., which counted Silvercup Bread among its products. That was the brand whose sponsorship of the radio show “The Lone Ranger” led to the Lone Ranger’s horse’s name being changed from Dusty to Silver.

Read more about Sister Janet (PDF)

 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

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