I was born on May 1, 1873 in Želechovice, County of Vizovice, in Moravia. Želechovice is a lovely village with Lužkovice just to the North. Both villages are separated by a stream which runs between them. To the south is a fairly large stream but I cannot remember the name. Through Želechovice is a street and on the south side stands our house. On the North side is a large neighborhood restaurant/bar with a place to dance and next door an ice-house. The restaurant/bar was like a hotel for workmen, who came from a distance and needed a place for the night when visiting a near by railroad. There was also a pretty Catholic church with cemetery, and a little further was a big school. On the South side of the school flowed a stream that divided the two villages. If someone came to school and was not clean, the teacher would send an older child with the one that was dirty to the stream to wash up. It did not matter what time of the year , even when the water was frozen, however, I never had to take advantage of this as I was still small and did not attend school.

Frank Mikeska’s boyhood home in Želechovice which shows the old house and the new addition.  Photo Courtesy of Davis and Mary L. Garrett Hopkins

When I was five years old, I started to graze geese and my older brother Joseph grazed cattle and sheep. We grazed them on public land called “On Railsight.” There were many of us children there and we played together and sometime we forgot about the geese and they would wander off into neighboring fields. The farmer would chase us, but he never caught any of us…that was fun! But we would bring the geese back home unfed , and mother would know this by looking at their (volata) stomach. I was never spanked for this, but for supper she would give me a bowl of water with rocks in it instead of meat. One of the boys taught an old goose to sing a song and when he would yell, “Goose , racket, racket, goose fly,” the goose would start honking and the other geese would become startled and they would all start flying and they would end up in both villages. We would hurry home to tell our mothers what the geese did, but we never told about the goose singing that started the flight. Our mothers would have to round up the geese--ours were all the way to Lužkovice.

In the winter, workmen brought ice that was stored in the ice-house until summer. One time a workman stopped at our house and asked mother if I could go with them to the river to see how they cut and got ice. She dressed me warmly and we went. The river was about four American miles from our house and the workmen were in three wagons. The wagon wheels were metal rims, and the horses had sharp hooves. We drove right onto the frozen river where there more workmen who were cutting the ice. They wrapped me in a blouse (halen) and so I was able to watch and it seemed to me that the ice was three-feet thick. When they brought me home, I was unaware we were back, but nothing happened to me.

Still more from my youth, I remember the first time I went with my parents to church in Zadveřice. My parents claimed to be of the Evangelical belief and the church was in Zadveřice. From this parish and Raková originated the Mikeska roots. My mother and father were born in Želechovice, but all the rest of the Mikeskas, the ones I have met here in Texas, were from Zadveřice or Raková.

The road from Želechovice went through Lipa, past the river from which we got the ice, and then to Zadveřice, There was a modern mill here which was owned by a Bergl, and they said it was an American mill, but it was supposed to be the first mill to use silk bags or bellows like those used to manufacture fine flour. The bags or bellows were said to have been brought from America and people from all around brought their grain to have it ground. The majority of the people being Hanaks and Hane. Not far from the mill was a paper factory, it was no longer operating.

We left for America on the 18^th of October 1880. We had with us other family members, mother had two brothers and their families; and, father had his mother and sister. In our family there were seven, that is mother and father, me and my two brothers and two sisters and also grandmother, my mother’s mother and a stowaway; so, in all, there were ten of us. We left from Želechovice in a hay wagon going through Zlín to Napajedel to the train station and from there to Bremen in Germany. Bremen is a large city by the ocean and we waited there three days for our boat. Kares and Stocky helped prepare us for the journey. The boat was big and they put 1,800 of us on board--mostly in steerage with only a few wealthy passengers in cabins. When we left the pier some were crying, some were smiling, and the beginning of the trip was good. After about three days seasickness set in for keeps and almost everyone was vomiting, so the ship’s apprentice had plenty to do. Many of the older passengers got seasick which we called, “friends with wet quarters.” They were put under deck in a big ale house where they stayed until the seasickness stopped. When we reached Havana in Cuba we were glad we were in America but we stayed there only two hours and then sailed on to Louisiana and only then onto Galveston, Texas. There everyone disembarked and left for various places in Texas. Our family and several others went to Bryan, Texas. We left Galveston by train but we all got on the train except for my father and two of our neighbors, Siptak and Rychlik, who had stopped at “one more” beer joint. The train was ready to leave the station, blew its whistle and started to go. The three friends started running behind the train as fast as their legs could carry them, waving their hats, and signaling the train to stop. The train continued traveling forward slowly and then for some unknown reason it stopped and my father and Siptak completely out of breath caught up with the train and managed to get on board. Rychlik was unable to keep up with father and Siptak, so the train left him behind. He did get to Bryan after two days, but he was without his hat. Our uncle was waiting for us in Bryan with a wagon and brought us to his farm. With us was another family, so that in one small home there were three families.

The negroes were taking the cotton from our house and putting it in their house. So we came out very badly, so we thought to ourselves, “may the devil forgive those negroes their sin, after all they are his people.”

After this experience, our uncle Scasta helped us get the rent money we needed to move on to our own farm. It was a very hard beginning and we really worked very hard. After two years here, my family bought their own farm and we began to work for ourselves. It was nothing but very hard work upon very hard work.

Bryan was very prosperous town and they even had Czech paper called Slovan. The owner and editor was J.J. Kral and working for him he had many good people. Working for him was Havel, Talas, Holik, Hradecny, Fabian, and Kroupa. Fabian was the printer, but he was also a good artist, and he managed to draw may pretty pictures which were hanging on the office wall. In College Station the Czechs and Polish people had a community hall where they had Czech plays. Kral was a musician and he had his own band and at the plays they played music. At one of those plays the first meeting went well and at the next it was even better. There came a lot of drunks and after the plays there would always be a dance where the drunks would cause a commotion and near riot. The musicians would stop playing and with their metal instruments would begin to hit the drunks on the head. The musicians would win, but that would be the end of the dance. After two or three years Kral and his band moved away, the Slovan newspaper closed and I do not know what happened to them all. I do know that one named Kroupa went to Omaha where for several years he ran a restaurant/bar. How the years do go quickly.

I stayed with my parents in Bryan for a while longer but then in the year 1897 I got married and we moved away. I took for my wife Annu {Anna} Mikesovou from Caldwell, Texas. We had the same last names, however we were not related. For the first year, we farmed with Annu’s parents and then we moved away to Brazos County where for the next four years we rented a farm near the Brazos river. The farm was owned by a Criminal Justice Judge named John N. Henderson and for the next three years I worked as “Boss” for him on his plantation.

In time as we worked on the farm we rented, we bought a piece of land in the West (Eola) and in 1904 we moved there and are still there. There together with my life-long bride, we experienced much and lived through good and bad times. We had a large family, eight sons and three daughters. All are alive except one son who went into the Military and died a tragic death four years ago.

On the 5^th of January, my wife and I celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary with our children and their families, and at this occasion we received many pretty gifts as an expression of their love for which we are grateful. All the children are happy and doing well, and we in our Golden Years look forward to a happy and enjoyable old age.

By John L. Mikeska

[Editor’s Note: John Mikeska, a CHS State Member, is also a long-term member of the Texas Czech E-Group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/texasczechs/, and serves as a moderator for that group. He has helped many people with not only genealogy issues but also computer-related issues. John is known as “Sir” John to the E-Group. When Sir John returned from a trip to the Czech Republic a while back, he posted many excellent and informative photos to the e-mail list. The following comments by Sir John provide an account of how the grandchildren of Frank Mikeska “rediscovered” significant information about their family history through “serendipity” and strong connections in the Czech community.]

Mary Lou (Garrett) Hopkins, Davis' wife, is my double cousin, as Mary's mother and my father were brother and sister. We have a 3rd cousin, Jan Mikeksa, PhD living in Praha, CZ. Jan and his wife visited Texas in April 1998 and I visited with him in Pasadena, Texas, after receiving a call from Leonard Mikeska, Vice President of SPJST Home Office, Waco, TX. That is the first I knew of Jan Mikeska and Leonard himself being 3^rd cousins to me. Jan and his wife had arrived the afternoon Leonard called and after a few phone calls, Jan and I were almost too excited to talk to each other. We met the next morning and we both recognized the other from a distance--guess we had that Czech look! Jan was overjoyed at receiving a complete copy of my genealogy chart, since he had learned of my grandfather a few months earlier. He had no idea I existed or even into genealogy, and we both were so pleased to exchange our charts and information. It was Jan that presented me with the article, My Life, written by my grandfather at time of the 50th Wedding anniversary. He found the article in a research book in Praha. I received two pages, which I sent a copy to Davis and Mary Lou (in true Czech tradition, Mary Lou and I refer to each other by the first and second name). They learned of Elaine Gallagher who did the transcription. Elaine found there was evidently more information from way the story stopped suddenly.

Through Davis and Mary Lou's searching in Paint Rock, Texas, area where her parents and our grandparents lived (Eola, Texas), she found a gentleman in Miles, Texas, a member of the SPJST in Miles, recalling the article. After a couple days search, he came up with the remaining page! Elaine finished transcription, and I had ask our own Robert Janak to help, and both completed the work at the same time.

The article baffled us grand children and even our aunts and uncles, for they did not know their father had written the article. Grandfather was more of a stern man, liked his kinfolks, chatted with the sons and men folks and usually did not say too much. And finding he wrote this article? Fascinating. I believe readers will enjoy the article immensely, as he recalled so much as a child, and couple of mischief things they did! With grandfather entering the United states via Galveston on November 11, 1880, when he was 7 years old, it amazed me more he recalled so much.

From the article, Mary Lou, Davis and I were able to visit his town of birth, view the home in which he was born, which incidentally was sold out of the family a few years ago and is still occupied. We were permitted to view the record of grandfather's birth entry, but sadly was not permitted to get a photocopy or photograph the page. The record book is quiet old and they are extremely careful trying to preserve it. Grandfather was born in1873, making his entry into the book 117 years before I viewing it in 2000.

Home