Плеш

Family history

The Pleșu family also comes from Capaclia. In documents the name is written Pleș, but at home it was pronounced “Pleșu”, a common Romanian form of the same name. Archives should be searched under both forms.

Ivan and Ekaterina Pleș are known. On 8 February 1921 their daughter Maria was born. Besides her, the family remembers her brothers Nikolai, Ivan and Vladimir and her sister Elena.

Documents have also turned up for Maria's brothers: Nikolai Ivanovich Pleș, born 1918, and Vladimir Ivanovich Pleșu, born 1925, both from Capaclia, were wounded at the front in the spring of 1945 and returned to their units (S325).

According to his granddaughter Yekaterina Grigoryevna, Ion Pleș built mills all over Moldova and was a rich man; later the family was dekulakized. They lived in the village of Sadâc near Capaclia (S323). There are no Pleș from Sadâc in the lists of those deported in 1949 — apparently the farm was confiscated without deportation.

Where the family came from. In the neighbouring village of Porumbești, the 1850 revision recorded 12 Pleș households — about 60 people; the eldest, Dmitry Fyodorovich, was born around 1770 (S326). Our Pleș family probably descends from them; on the tree they are shown with a dotted line above Ion Pleș, but which of them is the direct ancestor is not yet known.

In 1938 Maria Ivanovna married Grigory Călugăreanu, lived in Capaclia all her life and died on 27 July 2013. Her gravestone names her “Maria Ion” — Maria, daughter of Ivan.

What we are still looking for. Where and when Ivan and Ekaterina married is not yet known: they are not in the marriage records of Capaclia and neighbouring Capaclia-Nouă for 1905–1909. Ekaterina’s maiden name is also unknown.