Pioneer Czechs
In Colfax County
Written in 1926.
All the matter pertaining to settlement of Schuyler and vicinity and biographies of the pioneers of that vicinity, the list of business and professional men in Schuyler, information regarding the Bohemian school in Schuyler and Dry Creek cemetery, has been furnished by Mr. Joseph Sudik of Schuyler, Nebraska. Mr. Sudik’s work not only represents the larger part of this history, but it represents also that part of it that required interviewing many people to obtain first-hand evidence and is therefore very valuable.
Messrs. J. M. Mundil and Anton Odvarka Sr. furnished data on pioneers in the vicinity of Clarkson, Mr. Mundil further prepared data regarding Bohemian cemeteries in the county, with the exception of Dry Creek cemetery.
Mr. Jos. B. Sindelar, Howell, furnished data on settlement in Tabor, the history of the church and cemetery there, and the first dramatic performance given in that settlement.
Mr. Joseph F. Zajicek, West Point, Nebraska, prepared the reminiscences of Mr. Fr. Cejda, a Colfax county pioneer, as given him by Mr. Cejjda, who now lives in West Point.
The remainder, pertaining to religion, lodges, newspapers, political life, teachers, etc., was taken from the History of Bohemians in Nebraska, written in 1926 by Rose Rosicky of Omaha, for the Nebraska State Historical Society. Miss Rosicky has gathered all this material together and prepared this history of Colfax county in accordance with it.
I.
BIOGRAPHY OF VACLAV SUDIK AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HIS SON, JOSEPH
(Written by Joseph Sudik, author of a great part of this history.)
My father, Vaclav Sudik, was born in the village of Menany, County Beroun, in house number 32, in 1838. He was the son of Joseph and Katherine (born Kovarik). His parents had a peasant estate. My father married, at the age of seventeen, Marie Bartos, daughter of John and Frances (born Horakova) Bartos in the village of Lodenice, aged fifteen. They settled on an estate known as No. 29, in Zelezna, County Unhost. The marriage was arranged for material reasons, because property was involved, for my parents were but children at the time. The estate that my mother brought to my father as a dowry was in poor shape, the land being impoverished. It was during the political revolution of 1848 that a form of peonage existing in Austria was finally abolished. Every peasant was, until that time, obliged to work a certain number of days for the lord of the manor, for the nobleman who owned the largest estate in the vicinity, and this at the cost of letting his own work go, when his labor was most needed. Thus many peasants had to neglect their own and the results were evident. My father could not make good, for in addition to this, the property was encumbered and there were two pensioners, to whom he was obliged, according to the law and custom of the country, to furnish a living until their death. To explain this, when the owner of an estate becomes old and steps aside for his son or sells, the next owner must, according to stipulation, furnish a lodging and certain products, such as grain, potatoes, milk, butter, etc. during the aged one’s lifetime. Our granary burned, thieves broke in and took away clothing and feather beds, and these and other losses made my father’s lot difficult. He then sold half of his land, but did not improve his condition materially.
Many of our countrymen were emigrating to the United States and my father decided to do the same. We arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, in November 1875, having spent sixteen days on the ocean, on a ship named Luevia, from Hamburg to New York, then four days by rail. A Mr. Vaclav Kucera operated a saloon and summer garden in Omaha, on Fourteenth Street near Leavenworth, and it was the stopping place for many of his countrymen, who were arriving in by the hundreds. An election was impending, the talk was mainly about polities and my father voted for the first time. He became acquainted with a Mr. Vaclav Fiala, a tailor, who had taken a homestead in Colfax county. He gave to my father the address of some countrymen living in Colfax county, I am not sure who, for at the time I was engaged in husking corn on the farm of Mr. Bleick, eight miles northwest of Omaha where I stayed until New Years and earned my first wages in this country, sixteen dollars for six weeks’ work, They wanted me to stay during the winter for $4.00 a month, but my father did not agree. I think the man, to whom my father was directed by Mr. Fiala, was Frank Polak and with his help we came to Colfax county, settling nine miles northeast of Schuyler, where father bought a farm from a Mr. Benson. We moved on it February 1, 1876. It contained 120 acres, 25 acres under cultivation. Aside from this, the property consisted of a small frame house with a leanto, 16 x 20 feet in dimension, a pair of old horses and harness, one cow, six ducks, a dozen chickens, 100 bushels of oats, 6 bushels of corn in barrels, a barn of flax straw, an old wagon and a harvester. The kitchen had contained a stove and dishes, but the neighbors appropriated same (I do not say they were Bohemians) before we arrived. Father paid $800.00 for this property. He bought 40 acres more, from the railroad company, at $5.00.per acre, ten years’ time to pay, at 6 percent interest, and we began to farm.
There were five children: Frank, Joseph, Vaclav, William and Vincenc. The sixth, Edward, was born on the farm in March 1876. One sister and one brother had died in Bohemia, as small children, ane one brother in this country. My brother Frank, a butcher, had stayed in Omaha, to work at his trade. I was sixteen at the time and the main portion of the work fell upon my shoulders. Father had our neighbor, Felix Sevcik, a blacksmith, make a harrow patterned after those used in Bohemia. He did not fancy American implements, which is true of most of our countrymen, until they realize how much better the American implements are. Besides this, he had Mr. Sevcik make a sort of soil cutter. I think it was a 4 x 6 fastened to a shaft, furnished with eight knives. He expected to cut the virgin soil with this and then plow it. A good idea, if it had worked, but it did not, simply because it would not penetrate the ground. My father had to listen to a good deal of banter from the neighbors on account of this, and was at a financial loss too. But an experiment is an experiment and if this one had been practical, father would have patented it and we could all have become rich.
We all liked our new home. The location was beautiful, the soil productive and future prospects very promising, but we missed the social life. We had hard times for the next several years, for the grasshoppers ate up our profits and other troubles pursued us. But we kept up our courage and were rewarded. Five years later we bought 80 acres from Felix Sevcik and a finer team, and in other ways began to prosper. With the neighbors collectively we owned a thresher, rented more land, and began to see much better times.
(To be continued.)
