7th President of the Polish National Alliance

Born in Inowroclaw, near Poznan in German-ruled Poland, Jablonski received an extensive education including theological studies at the University of Louvain in Belgium.

 

Coming to Chicago around 1885 he worked as a teacher and took a leading part in the struggle to win Church approval for the opening of Holy Trinity parish. (During the previous decade members of Holy Trinity had fought a losing battle against the Resurrectionist fathers of St. Stanislaus Kostka parish and the Archbishop of Chicago for control over their church.) Jablonski was sent to Rome to urge the opening of the church in the heavily Polish near-northside community of Chicago and in 1893 the Vatican concurred. The Reverend Casimir Sztuczko of the Holy Cross order took over as pastor and served in that capacity as a strong ally of the PNA until his death in 1949.

 

Thanks to this success, Jablonski became famous and at the 1893 PNA convention he was unanimously elected editor of Zgoda, a post he held until 1897 when he was chosen President of the Alliance. As editor, Jablonski's work centered on defending the PNA from attacks from the conservative Polish clerical faction.

 

In early 1901, Jablonski resigned the presidency of the Alliance to accept the editorship of the Milwaukee Kuryer Polski. In 1907 the delegates at the Baltimore convention voted to create a Polish Daily Zgoda and elected Jablonski to edit the new paper, along with its weekly organ. He died only one month after assuming his new post.

 

Buried in Chicago's St. Adalbert Cemetery, the inscription on Jablonski's tombstone reads, "Here rest the remains of the dearly departed Jablonski, able defender of Holy Trinity Parish and Guardian of the Polish National Alliance."