While I was slogging through a sluggish weekend and then wrestling the scanner, I had a letter from Mr. Robert Clayton of Ludington, Michigan. He has since proved a new lode to mine of family data. Just as starters, I will quote his letter, which I don't think he'll mind, as helpful as it was: "My father was born a Hlinovsky and later changed the name to Clayton" [because of misspellings and mispronunciations]. "Hlin or hlinov means clay or sandy loam (thus the surname choice, as my grandfather Hlinovsky went by common name of Clay) and more recently means seclusion." As he later pointed out, Hlinov--Hlinsko (?) in my atlas--is southeast of Prague in Moravia.
In honor of his acquaintance and Ryan's double gift of the scanner and this site, I scanned these photos of Joseph and Fannie Hlinovsky Koftan. (I'm sure you noted the original spelling on the certificate.)
Sorry I cropped off the J on Great Grandpa Koftan's name just above. I have some more photos from this visit for later, but these got included because they were on the page with the pair photo. Below are Laurence and Fern with Audree at his parents. I assume it's in Missouri, because I don't recognize the house. I'm assuming it's in the mid Twenties because Audria Margarite was born 27 January 1922, looking about three here, and Gram (Fern) has black stockings on.
Barely visible in the bottom border below is Gram's writing, "Grandma Koftan in Missouri," above my label. Great Grandma Koftan died 14 November 1939, Great Grandpa Koftan 3 March 1945. Both are buried in Clarence, Missouri.
LATER NOTE: I remembered that the Marriage Certificate came from Bill (William Joseph) Langhammer through Phyllis Koftan Presson Flemming, who made three copies and sent them to me for my sisters and me. They should receive their proper credit.
[Great] Aunt Margaret/Babe, Bill's mother, wrote down her "Memories" in 1988, which included the information that "Dad stopped sowing oats to get married. Mom was nineteen and Dad was twenty-four." "She wore a bonnet with a bird and flower on it," but the description was never finished because the children giggled, annoying her. Babe says her parents moved from the Tyndall area to a 1360-acre ranch "about eight miles from" Bassett, living there for about ten years, but, with bad times, trading that place for a 320-acre farm near Clarence, Missouri. Later, after their sons left, the couple bought a 40-acre place near Clarence for retirement. Fannie had the flu after World War I badly enough to require surgery; much later she developed breast cancer and died two years later when it had spread into her lungs despite a mastectomy. Joseph was lonely after she died but refused to stay with any of the children, though he did visit them. He caught pneumonia while visiting Ella, went to Laurence's, and died in a Norfolk, Nebraska, hospital, the body returned to Clarence for burial next to his wife.
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