Today we are celebrating the 78th anniversary of the death of Karol Wojtyła senior. The Pope used to point out how much his Father’s attitude influenced his life. In the book „Gift and mystery” he mentions:

“After her death [of his mother] and upon the death of my brother, I was left alone with my father, a deeply religious man. I daily observed his life, which was austere. By profession he was a soldier and after he remained a widower; his life became a constant prayer. Sometimes I would wake up at night and find my father on his knees, just as I always saw him on his knees in the parish church. Between us there was no talk of vocation to the priesthood, but his example was for me in some way the first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary. […] February 18, 1941, I lost my father. I remember that day perfectly: returning from work I found my father dead […]”

Karol Wojtyła Senior was born on 18 July 1879 in Lipnik, today this is the Bielsko-Biała district. At the age of 27 he married Emilia Kaczorowska in the garrison church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Krakow. They had three children: Edmund born 1906, Olga Maria born in 1916 and Karol Józef born 1920, the future John Paul II. Karol senior was a tailor by profession and he was recruited into the army in 1900. After Poland had regained its independence, he served in the 12th Infantry Regiment which stationed in Wadowice. He finished his military service in 1927 in order to take care of his wife and raise his son.

In 1938, after the death of his wife and his son Edmund, he moved with his teenage son Karol from Wadowice to Krakow, where he died three years later. He was buried at the Rakowicki cemetery in Krakow.