Magdalena was born in Salaperaugis, Lithuania, daughter of farmer Juozas and Marian Bendarauskaus Shupshinskas. She had 4 sisters and one brother. Although she did not attend a traditional school, Magdalena learned to read and write from a travelling teacher that visited their rural home. Her older sister Veronica left Lithuania for the United States sometime before 1914. In 1922, Veronica arranged for a visa and ship passage for another sister, Anele, to come to America also. Before she was to depart, Anele became seriously ill with Rheumatic fever. Since Anele was no longer able to travel, Magdalena assumed her sister's identity and took her place on the ship to America. Less than a year after arriving in Duryea, Pennsylvania, Magdalena married coal miner Stanley Puzauskas, with whom she had one son, John. After Stanley was tragically killed in a mine accident, she remarried John Yusinskas, and had a daughter, Theresa, and a son, Alfred. After her remarriage she lived in Kingston and Edwardsville Pennsylvania. She became estranged from her sister Veronica after a financial dispute with Veronica's husband in the 1940s. After a flood in 1972, she lived briefly in upstate New York with her son John, before moving back to Kingston. Although she learned to speak English, in her later years she forgot much of it and spoke mostly Lithuanian. She was grandmother of eight children.
Magdalena was born in Salaperaugis, Lithuania, daughter of farmer Juozas and Marian Bendarauskaus Shupshinskas. She had 4 sisters and one brother. Although she did not attend a traditional school, Magdalena learned to read and write from a travelling teacher that visited their rural home. Her older sister Veronica left Lithuania for the United States sometime before 1914. In 1922, Veronica arranged for a visa and ship passage for another sister, Anele, to come to America also. Before she was to depart, Anele became seriously ill with Rheumatic fever. Since Anele was no longer able to travel, Magdalena assumed her sister's identity and took her place on the ship to America. Less than a year after arriving in Duryea, Pennsylvania, Magdalena married coal miner Stanley Puzauskas, with whom she had one son, John. After Stanley was tragically killed in a mine accident, she remarried John Yusinskas, and had a daughter, Theresa, and a son, Alfred. After her remarriage she lived in Kingston and Edwardsville Pennsylvania. She became estranged from her sister Veronica after a financial dispute with Veronica's husband in the 1940s. After a flood in 1972, she lived briefly in upstate New York with her son John, before moving back to Kingston. Although she learned to speak English, in her later years she forgot much of it and spoke mostly Lithuanian. She was grandmother of eight children.
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