Early Life

Early Photograph of Leon Czolgosz

Leon F. Czolgosz is believed to have been born on May 5, 1873 in either Alpena or Detroit, Michigan to Polish immigrants Paul (Paweł) Czolgosz [chol-gosh] and Mary (Maria) Nowak. He was born into a poor, but hard working family of labourers with seven other siblings, him being the youngest, and would go to school untill the eighth grade.¹ Early on, he was not very academically successful and it is possible that his mother passing away from giving birth to his new sister, Victoria had an impact on this. He was not great at making friends, apparently had no interest in it, and was often bullied for his timid nature, possibly for being "weak and weakly" according to his father who "spent a lot of money to fix him"². He would end up quitting school and become a hard worker trying to get by, by working various jobs including a glass and wire factory as him and his family moved around.

Up to this point in his life, without any big events and more context, he seems to be not too unordinary, but he certainly was an interesting individual. He would often go by many different aliases, the most common being Fred "Nielman" which translates to "nobody" in German or "no man" in Polish. This was the name that he would initially give to the police later on at the time of his arrest. Another odd, but interesting fact is that it can be noted that the "F initial in his name did not stand for anything, he just liked the look of it."³