The Facts of Life

November 15, 2010

Recently my son of 24 years asked me the heritage of my biological parents. Now you have to understand, the technology generation that my son grew up in required him to text the question to me rather than use a conventional telephone. Instead of picking up the phone and hearing me answer in my usual round the bush diatribe, he texted me the question. Of course, having received the query via text message I felt obligated to answer using the same medium. Never mind the fact that I still use a cheap, bottom of the line, first time newbie phone that only has a telephone keypad on it (after all, it IS a telephone, right?) and not a full QWERTY keypad (I’ll bet he has no clue what THAT is!), and he knows this, I still felt obligated to attempt to fit 20 minutes worth of ramblings into that little 1 x 1.25 inch screen. Suddenly, I found myself searching feverishly for which of those 12 keys would produce the “=” symbol. You see, having found out that my ramblings simply would not fit on that screen I opted to simply send him a URL to the family tree on Ancestry.com  That is a wonderful thing, Ancestry.com, although sometimes I wonder if it simply allows some unsuspecting nitwit (me) to put far too much information into the hands of identity thieves. They say that they hide all information about living persons, and it does seem so. Still, that is a lot of information on the web about my family even if a Great Grandpa seems to have just appeared in Texas with no apparent previous history to be found. Maybe they did not keep prison records very well back in them days.

Anyway, having found a complete barrier to sending him a text message back with a URL to the family tree I decided it would be easier to send a link to the main site with a notation that he would have to search the database for my entry. Well again I found myself then looking for the “_” symbol. Darn cheapo phones. Someone told me just yesterday that I need to get a new phone. He even had a name for it, although it escapes me at present. It would connect to your laptop with one of those USB cables and allow your laptop to access the internet over the phone. I don’t need to get a new phone for that. That’s the way I do it now anyway. So I finally ended up sending him the information but had to use the word ‘underscore’ in place of the “_” symbol.

As it were he must have needed the information real fast because he sent a message back immediately that asked “What nationality?” Well I could see I was not going to get anywhere with getting him to do any research on his own so I finally just sent him what he wanted. My text back to him contained just the requested information. “Moravian.” Within 5 minutes I get another text message from him. “Never heard of it.” So much for a college degree…

So here is the information you requested, Son. I hope this fulfills your requirements and arrives to you within the allotted time that you needed.

My Great Grandfather, Anton, was born in 1861 in Freydek-Mistek, Moravia which, at the time was obviously a part of Austria. It was he who migrated to the United States because he married my Great Grandmother, Johanna (born 1866) in Fayette County, Texas in 1884. Now, since Johanna was born in nearby Zabreh Nad Odrou, Moravia she also migrated to the US. The story has it that they both arrived in the States about the same time but on different ships. Johanna and her family (Peter and Rosina Stavinoha) was in one ship bound for Corpus Christi (I think) but a plague there cause the ship to dock at an alternate port of Victoria, which at the time was on the coast and not inland as it is today. Near that same time Great Grandfather Anton fled his country for reasons unknown (that’s an author’s way of saying he really does not want to disclose the facts of the matter) and bought his passage on board a ship bound for the States as the servant of another family. And, he did so under a forged passport. This part we know to be true because my Aunt, who recently left us, has guarded that passport throughout the years and has preserved it in the family treasures. Well, Great Grandfather Anton’s ship was bound for Galveston yet some catastrophe in Galveston caused this ship to dock at its alternate port as well, Victoria.

It is unclear to me at this point if they met in Victoria or if the individual families both moved inland first to the settlement near Somerville and met there. Regardless, the Great Grandparents (mine, that is) married in Fayette County, Texas.

Back to Moravia. Although at the time it was part of Austria, it bears stating that the European states seemed to wander about aimlessly about the era of the various world wars and I really don’t know myself what political subdivision claimed Moravia in the ensuing years. But, looking at the maps of Austria the area labeled as Moravia appears quite close to some country called Poland. So, I guess you could say we are simply Polaks. Personally, I prefer the mystery of Moravian, hence my text message to you. And by the way, son, the Great Grandparents appear to both have the same Grandparents themselves. That explains a lot, actually…


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