Notarial deed no. 277 — the sheet of paper where it all began

On 16 January 1922, at the notarial office of Józef Mańkowski in Lipno, Franciszek and Waleria Kępiński bought a farm of 15 ha 87 a 96 m² for 3,150,000 marks. The sellers were Emil and Róża Barc. The notarial deed bears the number 277.

Three million one hundred and fifty thousand marks — today the figure means nothing, for it was a currency soon devoured by inflation. But at the time it was the price of ten years' work across the ocean, turned into a piece of Polish soil.

I wrote the last sentence of this book in Wielgie on 19 January 2022 — three days after the hundredth anniversary of that deed. I did not plan it. It simply worked out that way.