Maria Dianis Malina

Maria Dianis Malina was born in Mosovce, Slovakia (then known as Hungary and part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire) Maria’s grandmother died while her mother, Zuzana Dianis, was still young. Zuzana went to live with an older sister and when she got old enough she went to work in the home of a wealthy Jewish family. She was taken advantage of by the Jewish father and became pregnant. So she had to leave her job. Maria was born out of wedlock and her birth certificate states, "father unknown." 

Zuzana knew no nice Slovak boy would want to marry her half Jewish daughter (the attitude prevalent at that time), so she arranged for Maria to come to emigrate to the United States when she was 15 1/2 years old. Zuzana married Unknown Knazovic, but they didn’t have any children.

Her mother had sewn all new clothes for her and she came to America with her petina (feather quilts and pillows, her bible, and brass candlesticks.) Her mother had arranged for her to stay in Chicago with an acquaintance in exchange for work. Maria was not used to doing housework and the acquaintance she was staying with stole all of Maria’s new clothes her mother had made for her. Eventually, she got a job at a hotel in Cicero.

Maria had been educated enough to teach school in Slovakia, but the Hungarian authorities wouldn’t let Slovaks teach. Maria knew five languages: Slovak, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Bohemian.

An acquaintance, Mrs. Proksha, saw Maria struggling alone, without family or relatives, trying to learn English, and she introduced Maria to Jan Malina. Jan Malina was tired of his mother’s letters saying she was dying and then trying to get him to marry a Slovak girl in Blatnica when he would go back to Slovakia to see her. So he proposed to Maria the first night he met her. Maria and Mrs.Proksha stayed up all night discussing whether or not Maria should marry him. She decided her life would be easier if he married him. They were married in Chicago in 1904 and were together for 56 years until Jan died in 1960.