FRONT PAGE NEWS (Part 2)

The article appeared on June 21, 1930 in the Fort Dodge Messenger with the headline “Fort Dodge Man Meets His Son For First Time.”  The article related the story of Steve Sr. meeting Steve Jr. at the train station in Fort Dodge. The newspaper article had some inaccuracies –It was not the first time that Steve Sr. met Steve Jr.  Štefanko was about nine months old when his father left him in Drahovce.

The article also said that Steve Jr. lived with his relatives in Prague after his mother had died while he was still an infant.  His mother did not die until he was about five years old and he lived in Drahovce not Prague.  The article described Steve’s Slovakian home as being a forest-clad mountain range. Although it is true that parts of Slovakia have great mountains, the area around Drahovce looks much like the Iowa countryside.

Here is the article that appeared in the newspaper:

FORT DODGE MAN MEETS HIS SON FOR FIRST TIME
Steven Miklo, Sr., of Fort Dodge, and Steven Miklo, Jr., of Prague, Czecho Slovakia, father and son, met for the first time this week.
It is easier to imagine than to  tell about such a meeting.  The father, worried and happy at the same time, ashamed of his tears, waiting a long time at the Chicago, Great Western station for the train to come in. The son, rolling west across the prairie, so strange to one familiar only with the forest-clad mountain ranges of his native Slovakia, wondering and puzzled and filled with anticipation.
Steven Miklo, Sr., came to America seventeen years ago, before his son was born. Steven Miklo, Jr., losing his mother while still an infant, has lived in Prague since, or rather until he followed his father here this week.
Since his mother died Steven, Jr., has lived with relatives in Prague. Two weeks ago he left for the “new country,” untrained in American ways and with no knowledge of the English language. It would be adventure, and a new home and a father he had never seen.
People were kind to Steven on the way and he made the trip without mishap. At every big stop officers were there to meet him, and guide him to the next train. In Fort Dodge he found his father waiting, and a stepmother and step-brothers and sisters.
He went with them to their home at 34 Cooper township, near the United States Gypsum company’s mills, where Steven, Sr., works.
The young man was admitted to the United States without argument, for his father is a naturalized citizen.