I am just going to copy the email that I got with the pictures from the Czech Republic, it explains much better than I ever could.  :)



I am writing to share some photographs I took two weeks ago on April 20th during a month long trip to Europe.  I have never visited Europe before now and I had the opportunity to go with a good friend who is an experienced traveler.  I convinced my traveling buddy, Dan Durning, to take a side trip with me (we were primarily visiting Vienna, Austria) to Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) because I wanted to find the "homeland" of our Great-Grandfather Joseph Sobotka, Sr.

Joseph Sobotka left Bohemia and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1867 to finally put down roots in Cainsville.  In a following email I will also send the short two page description of his history  --  many of you already have this because it was previously printed in a Cainsville History volume.

Anyway, we successfully found  "Stremosice" in the Czech Republic (previously the Kingdom of Bohemia).  Pronounced (as best as I could follow what was told to me) . . .STREM-OH-CHEETZ-YA. . .the village is very, very tiny and as I note further below in a picture caption, we never could find a road sign until we were within one kilometer (about 2/3 mile) of Stremosice.

Stremosice is a quiet hamlet tucked beneath a ridge line in very beautiful country in Eastern Bohemia.  The weather was perfect as you can tell from the photos and those that will follow in a few minutes.

One thing I noticed immediately was how similar (at least to my eyes) was the land around Stremosice to North Missouri and Cainsville.  I suppose Joseph Sobotka knew he had found something like his home country when he stopped in Harrison County !

There was no cemetery in Stremosice and we were told to travel to the next little hamlet to the North (Repniky) to find the closest cemetery.  We did so and you can see the grave stones of Sobotka folks we found.  We identified about five or six such burials.

Each grave stone was marked "Rodina Sobotkova"  --  the word "Rodina" apparently means "family of" and this implies that several persons of the same family are buried in the plot but with only a single headstone.  The ending "OVA" on Sobotka apparently has somewhat of the same meaning, that is, the family name is Sobotka, however, it is noted on the head stones as "Sobotkova" to mean the larger family (several persons) named Sobotka.

We did learn from the first man we met that the old Sobotka homes in Stremosice were directly across the street from where we were standing at that moment, however, the Sobotka homes (two of them) he said were torn down about 25  years ago.  An entirely new home (see photo) has been built on these Sobotka house lots.  Directly next door to the new house, however, is a much older home and we thought it perhaps looked a lot similar to the Sobotka homes.  In the back yard of this older house I found handsome, healthy chickens ! !  

Of course I would be pleased to hear any response you might have to these pictures.  

Best Regards,

JIM LYNCH





Road signs were not plentiful.  We never saw a "Stremosice" sign until this one, 1 kilometer distant (2/3 of a mile)



View of Stremosice from the ridge line above the village.



A second Stremosice view.  The house lots for the old Sobotka homes is the first house to the left of the yellow bush in the center of the picture.





The newer house now built on the previous lots locating the earlier Sobotka homes.





This house is next door to the Sobotka lots and I think it probably looks similar to the now razed Sobotka homes.



Backyard of the house next to the Sobotka lots.  Do you reckon the Sobotka homes had backyard chickens, also?  I think so !



Very small church in center of Stremosice.  Man in blue shirt is my friend, Dan Durning.





Front view of Stremosice church.







Homes in Stremosice.  The house on the left was about the only one in very poor condition.





 



Old water pump in Stremosice.



A Sobotka grave stone in the church cemetery in Repniky.  The word "Rodina" means "family of"  --  that is, the grave contains several family members.

A grave of Sobotka family members who lived in Stremosice.  Definitely our family !

A grave stone in the Luze cemetery, another small town to the West of Stremosice.









Harvest Time

This is a story from Donna Sobotka Cooper....


When harvest time came I remember jumping into wagonloads of wheat and oats.   The wheat was fun, it was nice and smooth and clean, but the oats always itched, I think we kept doing it anyway.


All the neighbors came to help, the men in the field and the women in the kitchen.  I'm sure the kids were supposed to help too, but mostly we just played or got in the way.  I remember long, long tables where we sat to eat, some in the big kitchen and some outside.  The men always ate first then the women and the kids.


Later when the combines came along Mother would still feed all the men.   I remember once someone thanked her for the meal.  She was surprised and said no one had ever thanked her before, they'd told her how good it was or some other compliment, but never said thank you.  A meal was just expected.

The Cars

This one is from Grandma Sobotka about the cars she remembers from when she was a kid, I can't even imagine cars like this!


Our first car was a used Model T.  Pres Wilson from the Ford garage came to our house and stayed all day, even for dinner.  We bought the car for $100.00 (a new one probably would have cost 3 times that much).  It had a top that you could raise or lower (manually, of course).  It didn't have windows, so it got really cold, but it didn't take as long to get where you were going as it did on a horse.  If you were going downhill where you didn't need to accelerate the lights would dim and almost go out.  Roads weren't good and sometimes you really needed to see those ruts or bridges at the bottom of the hill.  One time we were coming home from Bethany it started to rain really hard.  We got really wet, even when we were scrunched up in the middle of the seat.  We stopped at a house on the highway and waited inside until the rain ended.  The cars in those days would run on kerosene, not as well as gasoline, but kerosene was always available.  Everyone had some at home to use for light and other things.  We would put a can of kerosene in the car to use when we ran out (which was a lot).

The next car we had had side curtains.  Side curtains were made of isinglass, a type of plastic that could be sewn on a machine.  It was probably about 10"x6".  Didn't completely cover the window, but you could sew it to a piece of fabric to cover the rest of the window.

Fireworks

This is a story from my Grandma (Linda) about fireworks...

Mother & Daddy ordered lots of fireworks from a wholesale place every year.  Sometimes we'd have company to shoot them and sometimes not.  We would shoot them on the bank by the road and we had to have a washtub full of sand, a 5 gallon bucket for the burnt ones, and some cement blocks for those that needed to be level.  One year some young preachers were there and one of them dropped a match in the box (greenhorns).  That was the end of that.

Memories

I was cleaning house today and came across some memories that Grandma (Linda) had printed out a while back.  In the interest of being able to put some stories up here more quickly i'm gonna supplement my recordings with some of these stories. These stories aren't just from Grandma Sobotka but there are quite a few from other family members, so if anyone knows that they gave stories to Grandma (Linda) and you have an objection to the story being on here please email me.  Otherwise i'm assuming everything is fair game. 


Also I was forwarded some pictures taken by Jim Lynch from his time in the Czech Republic and I thought I would try to post those pictures on here for anyone who hasn't gotten to see them.


So big promises of things to come, I have lots more free time lately so I should be able to actually get some things accomplished!