To save repeating, I'll begin with the last first, Emil's obituary.
He was Grandpa Laurence Koftan's cousin, and his family retained the original Czech spelling of the family name, as I illustrated in the earlier cemetery photos where Frank and Vince Kaftan are buried with their wives, the same Tyndall, SD, cemetery that Martin Hlinovsky and his family and young sisters of Laurence are buried. Emil and Mamie usually came down every summer with their daughters from Tyndall, South Dakota's major Czech town west of Yankton and merely 40 or 50 miles from my hometown, Center, to visit Grandma and Grandpa and us. We got Christmas cards from them, and I still do from Patsy, though Eleanor and her family have never stayed in touch like her parents and Patsy. This is one sent to the folks in the late Forties, I'd guess, followed by the one I received from Patsy this past Christmas, 2009.
Grandpa Koftan enjoyed going up to visit relatives and to enjoy Tyndall's Czech Days. Sue and I visited in 2001, if the photo date is right. Te widowed Eleanor is a substantial farm owner helped by her children. Patsy lives in Emil and Mamie's home filled with enviable old framed family photos, Emil in the Good Samaritan Rest Home at the time, where Patsy worked then and now. He was 99 or 100, toothless so that I had difficulty understanding him, but Sue didn't. He was lively, alert, remembering us, asking questions about the family, delighted to see us again after decades. He kept busy by tearing up cloths in strips for making rag rugs. I was upset that Patsy didn't let me know of his death until several months after the funeral, or I would certainly have gone to his funeral. Eleanor came into town only because Patsy was very nervous, and she didn't stay long, but I did get photos of her and Patsy and then Emil, Patsy, and Sue at the rest home.
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