April 2008 Archives

Here again are the Peters brothers without their two sisters, to have a basis for the wonderful old pictures of a brother's family, apparently very close to Great Grandfather Edward. 

I last had a note from Lenore, who never married, from Northfield, Minnesota, in 1992.  I had written her and her sister, Mildred, about Mom's death.  She was 92 but wrote as clearly as [Great] Aunt Myrtle and included family news:  "Our family has lost some of its members, too.  We were six brothers and sisters of which Nina, Max, and Franklin are gone, Roy, Mildred and I remain.  My father Charles Peters died in 1934 and Mother in 1972."  She mentions Mildred's living in Albert Lea, Roy in Portland.

And she sent this one labelled as "Grandma & Grandpa Peters," "Mother and Father of Charles Peters" on the back, John and Sarah Ann Twigg Peters, Grandma Koftan's grandparents.

While I wonder whether the Berans who lived next door in Center and the Machs who farmed east of town are American-shortcut versions of the Beraneks and Machas I found buried in Pawnee County, I was also remembering another country cemetery, one I've visited three or four times.  When I went to Hastings College for a summer and a year, I liked a girl from Red Cloud; she and others at school made me aware of Willa Cather's My Antonia (as you probably know, that's pronounced AN-toe-KNEE--yah) and her grandson or great nephew being an elder of a church close to campus.  So in my college junior year I read that moving novel, one of the most definitive about the immigrant experience, now ranked regularly among our greatest novels, even by old curmudgeons like caustic H.L. Mencken, and especially meaningful for me because the main family was the Czech Shimerdas and so much, like kolaches, was familiar.  I saw Red Cloud for the first time that year--once--but have been back.  It has since become a national center for Cather studies with regular annual conferences, and I dropped down after a nephew's all-state football game at Hastings College a few years ago to see the restored Opera House where Cather acted in trouser roles (women playing men) and wrote her name on a backstage wall.  Except for her Southwestern writing, such as Death Comes to the Archbishop, almost all of her writings are set on the Nebraska prairie, such as O, Pioneers, A Lost Lady, My Antonia, One of Ours.  The Cathers themselves emigrated from Virginia and, before moving into Red Cloud, first tried farming north of that small town, neighbors to the Sedileks, the Czech source of the book's Shimerdas.

My Antonia is not just about the Czech experience, various other ethnic immigrants part of the cast, just as the Steinauer historical sign mentions.  I don't think it was as devastating for any as it was for the Sedileks.  They had to live in a dugout, as Dad said my grandparents and children did for a time, on the windswept, treeless Great Plains, one overcoat for a large family, so that the father, a classical musician untrained for farming, dug a pit by the stove for his daughters to try to stay warm and later committed suicide in despair.  Neighbors brought them food and fuel when they could.  Anna/Annie became a hired girl in town for well-to-do neighbors of the Cathers so that Willa had a long acquaintance with her and, years later, had the pleasure of visiting her and her family on the Pavelka homestead.  Red Cloud becomes Black Hawk, and the narrator, Jim Burden, is Willa Cather herself.

So to partner Beranek Cemetery are these old photos of Cloverton Cemetery, between Blue Hill and Bladen.  If you know what a correction line is, you drive north of Red Cloud on U.S. 281 until you come to that right-angled jog and turn left, west, off the highway where you can see the signaling rectangle of cedars amid the corn and alfalfa fields.  The photo is angled to take in Anna and John Pavelka's graves to the left, along the north edge. 

 

Here lies My Antonia and her husband.  Since I attended Hastings College in 1957-58, she had died not much earlier (1869-1955), though she lived a long widowhood, John's dates 1859-1926.

 

 

If I recall correctly, you drive south from the cemetery, take the road west for a very short distance, then turn back south to come upon the Pavelka farm.  The view looks west down their entrance lane.  It looks very much like many other Nebraskan farmhouses except that it's maintained and empty because of its historical significance.  Interestingly enough, "Neighbor Rosicky," title character of a much-anthologized short story of hers, was a neighbor to the south. 

 

 

In the PBS "American Masters" series, the chapter on Willa Cather, recently rerun, children are shown pouring up out of the storm cellar in the foreground in the small apple orchard.  I've mentioned the much rougher sidehill version Grandma and Grandpa Koftan had, but the dual purpose was the same, also for the Luckerts.  It was the place everyone took refuge in during a severe storm or tornado, and it was also where canned goods and produce like apples and potatoes were kept, long before atomic shelters were stocked in the Cold War years.  The view looks north and slightly east.

 

 

And this is the overcrowded Cather house, a block west off the south end of Main Street in Red Cloud, where Willa shared a large attic room with her brothers, with a little side apse/room of sorts to herself where she first began to write.

  

 

 

 

 

Despite how the Peters pushed the Irish and knowing my maternal grandmother had a Welsh family name, everyone of their mixed bloodlines contributed to the melting pot I am, the purest one-quarter Grandpa Koftan's Czech.  I've always been partial to that Czech, for him, and because next door to Center was Verdigre, nine miles west, still speaking Czech when I was growing up.  I will always regret that my kidney stone attack in Salzburg kept me from my planned stop, on the way back from Greece and Italy, behind the Iron Curtain in 1969 at one of Europe's most beautiful cities, Prague, often used in films for other places, as a pilgrimage specifically for Grampa.  So it's been very special, knowing how he would've relished seeing his grandmother's, aunt's and uncle's, little cousins' graves, in what a homemade sign now labels Branek [sic] Birgent Cemetery.  I think of that great immigrant desperation to endure steerage, the cheapest ship passage with the animals and cargo, for the many months crossing the Atlantic and then the desperation to survive on a treeless prairie with its continental climate of blazing summers and fierce winter blizzards.  Ever since I've been to Beranek Cemetery, thanks to Robert Clayton's lead, I feel I am squandering my days when I am not busy accomplishing something.  I've said before that Grandma Koftan taught me to love cemeteries, full of history, and here is one of family sadness and great mystery, as I indicated in "Beranek Revisited."  A great great grandmother who lasted only six years here, dying two months before her daughter, her daughter's leaving two young sons, who die at the ages of four and six, two years later in the same month.  A wife buried here, her husband in South Dakota.  One of two wives buried in South Dakota, the other here with their husband.

I may or may not pursue the distant relatives for answers, for I discovered six Zelenkas in the region by Googleing the White Pages for Table Rock and Pawnee City, which explains how the flowers were at the graves of Albert and Barbara Zelenka.  I am curious whether it was disease, hardship, what was so fatal, captured for all time in this tiny country cemetery, seen here from the western gate. 

As the historical sign just across from the dirt road, 500 feet on the way to Steinauer, sings, the area was the American story, an ethnic mix of European pioneers willing to gamble their lives on the land.  Which is why, always in the back of my mind, was Cather's great My Antonia, my next entry's musings. 

     Yesterday, because it was the last warmly sunny one for a bit, I revisited a site I haven't been to for years, though I once went every spring because of the wildflowers in the woods, usually two overlapping, the relatively rare bloodroot and the everywhere Dutchman's breeches.  I've been fascinated with the toxic bloodroot since I belonged to 4-H and attended a camp in Ponca State Park near Sioux City, the only other place I've ever seen it.  I still remember the awe at the running red sap (which can destroy skin tissue) when the counselor pulled one up and cut the rhizome root (like iris).  We were told it was protected because of its rarity.

     So off to western Iowa's famous Loess Hills, a National Natural Landmark, publicized as being the only major loess site here to match China's, though Washington's Palouse district and the lower Mississippi valley also have these odd hills formed of very fertile, fine wind-blown silt piled up over the millenia, here running at the east edge of the broad Missouri River flood plain.  I always think of them as great wrinkled beasts slumped against the land, as some of these photos demonstrate near Little Sioux, for the trees didn't obscure the landscape as they do most of the year.

 

It isn't as obvious as I had hoped, but this view, at the south edge of Pisgah, illustrates the peculiar terraces formed as regularly as Incan or Oriental but natural, the earth sliding down in wide, long stairs like the geological lines on a hiking map.  Incidentally, Pisgah still has the The Old Home Fill-'er-up and Keep-on-Truckin' Cafe made famous by C.W. McCall's hit, "Audubon." 

 

 

At the entrance of my destination, Preparation Canyon State Park, is one of the typical ridge spines that make those huge wrinkles in the hillscape, and some of those terraces are visible here before the eastern red cedar--actually not a cedar but a juniper--start.

 

 

An independent Mormon group in 1853 split off from Kanesville (Council Bluffs) and the main route to Utah from Nauvoo, Illinois, to head north to the Soldier River and settle at the park site, like a similar group that trekked up to my home county and built a canal west of Niobrara, to be mostly killed by the winter.  The town originally was at the east edge of the very hilly park between Pisgah and Moorhead; I have never visited the Preparation Cemetery.  I am fond of the park for its plunging trails into and out of deep ravines, though my niece, when she was little, was terrified by the woods--too much like fairytale nightmares--and we had to turn back to sunnier safety.  However, on this very windy day, my knees were too clenched to go far, but this view illustrates the terrain, with some bloodroot scattered at the left.

 

 

And here is the beautiful little flower with its two odd lobed leaves (often likened to the liver shape), near the end of the season, many plants just having bare stems left.  All the mottled green leaves around the bloodroot plants will shortly be hoisting upside-down pantaloons, hence the Dutchman's breeches name.  Obviously, they will soon cover the forest floor.  My timing and the season once was such that, as I said, I could see both on the same visit.  But it was still worth a spring afternoon.  

 

 

 

For several years my sister Sue has bought a bloc of tickets for the annual ritual celebration of Cornhusker football, a glorified scrimmage between Red and White for the fanatic fans and the usually very impressed recruits, as well as honored alumni and celebrities.  (Supreme Court Justice Thomas was here this year, having married a woman from Omaha and having been a longtime Nebraska fan, growing up in Georgia.  Andy Roddick, the tennis player, was here last year.)

This year a national news story noted that tickets were going for $100--my nephew said E-Bay was trying for $200--though Sue's general admission tickets were $8.00 apiece (for the huge end zones), the east and west sides reserved at $12.00-$20.00.  We sit halfway up on the south, not facing the sun, next to the edge where no one walks in front of us.  (That's to explain where the photos were taken from.)

With always a good turnout, prior to Saturday, Nebraska was fourth on the spring game attendance record, which went like this:  Alabama, 92,138;  Ohio State, 75, 310;  Penn State, 71,100;  Nebraska, 54,288.  With a new-old coach returned to save us from the disastrous Callahan years, Bo Pellini, our mania moved us into second on that list:  80,149.  Here's what it looked like.

Halftime is given over to the adult and youth pledges against using drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, Coach Pellini leading the adults, two athletes leading the youths.  It allows happy fans to flood the cherished turf, as seen here.

Here are the two mascots, Herbie Husker (cowboy hat) and L'il Red cavorting on the field.

And the magic man himself, Coach Pellini.  Go, Big Red--GO, BIG RED!!

I was unhappy I was so unprepared for the first visit and the sun washed out my photos, so a week later--today--I went back with Crayolas, large sketch pad, duct tape, pen, and notebook and now can provide the relevant photos and family history.

The small tombstone for Grandpa Koftan's grandma, Rose Hlinovsky, looks like this.

Shawn Ellingson made it somewhat clearer, especially the bottom phrase, with his Adobe Photo Shop.

The rubbing makes the inscription even clearer.  I don't want any complaints.  Because of the cursed knee replacement, I did these lying on my side.

 

Between her and her husband are two sons.  I'll again show the original and then the rubbing.  The west side is blank.  Why this marker is turned around I can't guess.  I mean the other tombstones face west; this one, east.  Again, Shawn used his Adobe Photo Shop to help clear up the inscriptions, because the mineral salt corrosion is fairly bad.

The left side is for Vaclav, Born Sept. 27, 1875, Died Sept. 12, 1879; the right side is for George, Born April 9, 1873, Died Sept. 21, 1879.  Children of Joseph & Mary Zelenka.  At the bottom is part of Isaiah 40:11 (not cited on the marker):  "He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom."  It is difficult to read.  Vaclav is the Czech form for Wenceslas, the famous Good King of the carol and a saint, Wenceslas frequently a church name here and the renowned square in Prague.

Two views of Joseph Zelenka's tombstone: 

  

NOTE:  Robert Clayton [Hlinovsky] reminded me that, if one Googles "Flickr:Welfl," Mike Welfl's photo shows up.  If one clicks on it, all his pictorial blogs come up; on the right, click on "Early 1900s,'' and in the earliest large-family photo is a Rose A. Hlinovsky Welfl.  Welfl identifies his family connections to Bon Homme County and Tyndall in South Dakota.

Tuesday I went to Lincoln to see the new International Quilting Center on UNL's East Campus in its showy new building and excellent facilities--except for limited parking spaces--thoroughly enjoying myself, after which I took U.S. 34 over to Nebraska 50 and headed for Pawnee County on the Kansas border.  It's about 70-80 miles straight south of Omaha.  That's where Great Great Grandmother Hlinovsky and one of her daughters, a son-in-law, two of their children, are buried, the daughter, Mary, being a sister to Francis/Fannie Hlinovsky Koftan, Grandpa Laurence J. Koftan's mother.

The day was excessively windy, and I had to drive into it going south, but it was sunny, too sunny as I discovered later when I looked at the photos I took.  With two little maps from the Internet, I wasn't sure of the turn-off but quickly figured it out after passing the spot, and went a mile or two back.  It's easy enough:  where the sign says to go west two miles to Steinauer, you turn east and go a mile to a very typical rural Nebraska cemetery with tall cedars.  I was glad the strong winds had dried the deeply rutted dirt road and was bumping along unsure when sister Sue called, a happy coincidence just before I found what I was looking for.  What I bumped over were these  nasty, deep channels up to a foot wide across the road from rapid run-off.

  Anyway, this is what you'll see headed east:  look for the tall cedars in the right distance.

Because the single grave of Rose/Rosa Hlinovsky and Joseph and Mary Zelenka and their two children are all buried there in a single family row, I assume they farmed in the vicinity, made up of rolling hills with plentiful water and trees--though when they came, I doubt there were many trees except along the creeks and rivers.  (Various pioneering trails are associated with the nearby Big and Little Nemaha Rivers.)  I later went about two miles east of Table Rock, southeast of this site, to the Czech National Cemetery but found only a married Zelenka couple there with much later dates.  This is the view south from the west cemetery entrance.

Finally, for this entry, is our family row, looking north.  At the bottom is the small marker for Rose Hlinovsky--her husband, Martin, took his daughters on to Tyndall, South Dakota, where he is buried--then the broken marker for Mary, their daughter, the double marker for the two Zelenka boys, Vaclav and George, and, challenged by the big cedar, the largest marker, for Joseph Zelenka.  (The Pawnee Cemetery records have the family name and Vaclav's name wrong, as Zelenya and Vaglav.)