Prohibition-era Detroit
Welcome to my musings about historical Detroit and Frankie Jablonski, the character I created to help give voice to the stories of my family and loved ones. My father’s family grew up as Polish immigrants in Detroit, Michigan. The community where they lived—Delray, in southwest Detroit—was only a fragment of what it had once been by the time I began visiting as a child in the 1970s and ’80s.
The stories I heard painted a portrait of a vibrant neighborhood filled with unforgettable characters, busybodies, and everyday hardships, all bound together by a shared language and faith. As a child, I listened and daydreamed about experiencing that place for myself.
Through my writing—and through Frankie’s adventures—I hope to bring you there.
Who is Frankie Jablonski?
Frankie is a spunky 28-year-old widow and mother of two young boys, living in Prohibition-era Detroit in 1928. She is the youngest of eight children, all of whom still reside in or near the southwest Detroit neighborhood of Delray where she grew up.
Coming from a large immigrant family with limited resources, Frankie left school at fourteen and went to work as a nanny for a wealthy family. It was through this relationship that she learned to sew—a skill that would become her primary means of support as her own family grew.
After losing her husband in a workplace accident, Frankie is left to raise her two boys, ages four and six. Struggling to make ends meet while trying to be both mother and father, she is dealt another devastating blow when her good friend and priest, Father Pzechowski, is murdered.
The accused is Isaac Samuelson, a young man well known to Frankie—she was once his nanny, many years ago, before tragedy struck.
Intrigued? Click below to read a sample from The Widow from Delray.
