LIVING NEAR THE RAILROAD TRACKS

In this conversation Betty talks about the early days of their marriage when they lived near the railroad tracks.  The house was heated with a coal furnace.  Steve would go to the railroad track to pick up loose coal that had fallen off the coal car. They used that to heat the house.

One time when it was really cold, and they had little money, he went to the tracks but could find no coal. He climbed on to the coal car when the train was stopped and knock some down. They also burned old railroad ties.

Betty also talks about the time Helen got worms from the barn kittens and then tried to run away from home when she was forbidden to play with the cats.   There is also a story about Helen falling out of the back seat of a moving car.

Betty:  We got real desperate; there have been times when he climbed up and knocked down a few pieces.

Bob: Pieces of coal?

Betty: We were desperate.  And our fire wood was mostly those railroad ties. You know, they take the ties off and replace new ones, used to bring them home and saw them up and that produced a lot of heat.  That creosote in it, that was hard on everything.

Bob: So you lived near a railroad track?

Betty: We lived close to the railroad track, yes.  Did I tell you about Helen running away with the kittens?

Bob: No.

Betty: Oh you didn’t hear about that one?

Bob: No.

Betty: Helen was sick so I took her to the doctor. The doctor asked was she playing with any animals or anything?   Yeah, she used to play with the kittens out in the barn.  The cats had a litter of kittens; she used to play with the kittens.  So the doctor said that she had worms. He told me, take her, keep her away from those kittens and gave her a prescription to take care of the worms.

So I kept the barn door closed and I kept a close eye on her. The two girls (Pauline and Helen) would be out there playing in the yard.   And once I couldn’t find her and I called her and I went around the barn and I went around the chicken hut and I couldn’t find her.  Then I heard a car honk the horn, there she was close to the railroad tracks with a kitten under each arm running away with the kittens.  If that car hadn’t honked the horn, how far would she have gotten?  What would have happened?

And then another time I lost her in the car.  There were four of the kids there screaming and fighting, they usually did (Pauline, Helen, Johnny and Jim).  Usually there was a lot of screaming in the backseat.  There were four of them in the backseat.  We had a ’39 Plymouth.  And someway, somehow, the back door accidently came open.  The kids screamed all the harder.  I did not know why they were screaming so loud.  I looked in the rearview mirror, there was Helen running behind the car and the only thing that she got hurt, I think her thumb was a little sprained.

Bob:  How fast were you going?

Betty: I don’t know.  There was no speed limit at that time.  It was fast enough but not quite that fast because it was on gravel, it was gravel before we got to the pavement.  Some of the things that kids will do and things that happen with kids.  Those were different types of (car) locks and you just lean on it, you know, and it opened up. (end of quote)

Here is a 1939 Plymouth similar to the one that Steve and Betty owned.

FULL HOUSE

As mentioned in an earlier post, Pauline was born on April 27, 1938.  Helen followed about 17 months later on October 2, 1939.
 
John Edward Miklo (Johnny) was born on June 20, 1941, twenty-one months after Helen. By the time their brother James (Jim) was born on January 29, 1943, Steve and Betty had four children under the age of 5.  Needless to say, they had their hands full, as we will find out in the next post.

Here is a picture of the record of Johnny’s birth.  He may have been named after Steve’s Uncle Ján (the Czech and Slovak version of “John”).  His middle name, Edward, was after Betty’s father.

A SECOND NAMESAKE

I

I

In the April 27 post we learned of the birth of Pauline, Steve and Betty’s first child (April 27, 1938). She was named after Steve’s mother, Paulina. Helen, their second child was born on October 2, 1939. She

was named after Betty’s mother, Helena.

Here is a photo of Steve and Betty and Pauline that was taken in the spring of 1939 when Betty was pregnant with Helen. Notice the white horse in the background. Horses were used for farm work.

MIKLO MONUMENT

Here is a photo of Steve, Sr., and Emera Miklo's monument in Corpus Cristi Cemetery in Fort Dodge.  Anna Spal, Steve, Sr.'s, sister is buried just to the right of Steve and Emera. You can see Anna and her husband's monument in the background.

LAST OF THE BOHEMIAN HALL

While looking for the cemeteries in Elkhorn Township I drove by what is left of the site of the Bohemian Hall, which burned on August 3, 2012. See the posts on April 29 for more details.  Steve and Betty celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary at the dance hall. 

Dances were held at the Bohemian Hall on Sunday nights. Even though they would have to go to work on Monday morning, Steve and Betty would often go. In the summer and on holiday weekends, like Labor Day, when we did not have to go to school on Mondays, they would take us along. I really did not care for the polka and waltz music, but enjoyed the hot dogs, popcorn and 7-Up that we would buy with the 50 cents that mom and dad gave us to spend at the concession stand that was in the basement. We also liked running around the outside with the few other kids that were there. But by the end of night I was really bored and wanted to go home.

MANY JONDLES

Pam Warner, a cousin had told me that the Jondles were buried in the Graceland Cemetery in Elkhhorn Township south of Fort Dodge. She had said it was just down the road from the Bohemian Hall.

I thought it would be easy to spot from the road so I drove to where the Bohemian Hall had stood on the westside of County Road P151 until it  burned down in August 2012.  I kept going but saw no cemetery.  When I got to the end of the paved road I turned around and drove back north.  I stopped at a couple of farm houses to ask for directions but nobody answered the door.  At the third house the gentleman there told me the cemetery was very close.  He said there was the Elkhorn Cemetery 1/4 mile to the west of the paved road and the Graceland Cemetery 1/4 mile to the east. Apparently there was some sort of feud amongst the farmers in the area that caused for the creation of a second cemetery. He said the rich farmers were buried in the eastern cemetery.  He also showed me a 1909 plat map that showed the owners of all of the farm land.  There were many farms owned by the Jondles, including Michael, his mother Mary and his many brothers.

Here is a picture of the plat map.  Michael owned farms in sections number 6 and 8. His mother Mary owned farms in section 23 and 24. Michael later inherited the farm on the east side of section 23.  That was the farm on the west side of Highway 169 that Ed and Helen farmed until Betty was 5 years old.  The two cemeteries are marked with crosses on the south sides of section 15 and 16.  The Bohemian Hall is in the northeast corner of section 28.

MEMORIAL DAY

When we were kids, Steve and Betty would take us to visit family graves in Corpus Christi Cemetery in Fort Dodge. We would go first to Becker Florist to buy geraniums to be used to decorate the graves. Dad would also buy tomato plants to put in the garden at home. It was fun for us to wander around the greenhouses and see the exotic greenery and take in the rich smell of soil, fertilizer and plants.

At each grave we would plant one or two geraniums using a small garden trowel that Betty had brought along.  We would make the sign of the cross, bow our heads and say a brief prayer before moving on to the next grave. Our first stop would be the grave of Johnny Miklo, Steve and Betty’s first son, who died when he was only five years old in 1946. Next we would look for the grave of Peter Miklo, Steve’s younger brother.  No one could seem to remember where it was so we would spend several minutes searching for it.  Finally we would visit Steve Miklo, Sr., and Emera’s grave.  Next to that was the grave of Anna Spal, Steve Sr’s, sister, who had also come over from Dravhovce, but lived in Wisconsin.  Years later we added the grave of Ed Jondle, Betty’s father, who died in 1973. I stopped going on these annual visits when I was about 16.

We never visited the other Jondle graves located in Graceland Cemetery in Elkhorn Township south of Fort Dodge.  Albert and Mary Jondle, who immigrated to Johnson County, Iowa from Southern Bohemia in 1869 and then later moved to Webster County, are buried there.  Albert (his Czech name was Vojtech) was born in 1824 and died in 1899.  Mary was born in 1836 and died in 1915.  Several of Albert and Mary’s children are buried there, including their son Michael (1868 to 1957) and his wife Christina (1873 to 1963).  Michael and Christina’s sons William and Henry are buried near their parents. Their daughter Julia Hefley is not buried in Graceland, nor is their oldest son Edward.  We visited his grave in Corpus Christi Cemetery.

Why was Edward buried in Corpus Christi rather than in Graceland Cemetery with his parents and brothers?  It may have simply been for convenience sake.  Ed’s widow, Helen, and his son Charlie, were living in Fort Dodge so it would have made sense for him to be buried there.  But there may have been deeper reasons.  We know that Ed and Helen had had a falling out with Michael when they had to move off his farm along Highway 169 when Michael had sold or lost it.

Pam (Jondle) Warner, a cousin from the Jondle side of the family wrote, “…there is a story my Grandpa Bill would tell about his dad Mike being upset with one of his boys for not doing his own farm work and that he blew up and said he was a "dead horse," and that was that and he was out of the family.  I don't know which brother it was, though.  I do remember that when something was no good they would call it a "dead horse."

Was Ed the son Michael was referring to as a “dead horse”?  If anyone knows the details about Ed Jondle’s burial plot please let us know.

UPDATE:  Pam Warner, whose grandfather was Ed's brother Bill, wrote, "Ed was not getting his field work done and Grandpa Mike found out that his (Ed's) brothers were covering for him and going over and doing it.  He got very upset and told my Grandpa Bill he was not to be doing Ed's work for him anymore. So that is why he got called a "dead horse."

Pam also wrote that, "Julia went to live with a son in Minnesota and passed up there - so is not in the family plot."

Here is a photo of the many Jondle monuments in Graceland Cemetery. 

Here is a photo of Albert and Mary Jondle's monument in Graceland Cemetery, Elkhorn Township.  The cemetery is located about a 1/4 mile east of County Road P151 and about a mile north of where the Bohemian Hall was located before it burned in August 2012. The cemetery is only about a mile northwest of the original Jondle farm where Albert and Mary settled when they came to Webster County. Albert and Mary are the source of all Jondles -  the Jondle name was created from the Czech name Čondl when they came to America in 1869.

Here is a photo of Michael and Christina's monument in Graceland Cemetery. See the posts on May 15 and May 23 for more about them.

MIKLO DAIRY

Once when Betty and I were eating pizza at the Community Tap on 5th Avenue South in Fort Dodge, she told me that the building used to contain a grocery store where Steve had delivered milk. 

Steve’s relationship with his father improved after he married and left home. He continued to help Emera with the dairy and Betty pitched in, too. Here Betty talks about helping to bottle milk:

Now, when I married your father, that was before there was a law of pasteurization, it was raw milk. He and his stepmother had a small dairy. They had a barn back of the house. There were half a dozen houses by the gypsum mills were the gypsum workers lived. There was a barn back there and there was a pasture back there, but anyway, there was a bunch of cows.

He and his stepmother milked those cows, then they hauled the milk into the milk house. There was a big round wash tub they filled that with cold water, they had running water out there, they filled that with cold water, put the can of, you saw them milk cans before? They put the can of milk in there and then they had a regular thing they stirred it with to cool it off in a hurry. Then they bottled it in those bottles and there were good a many weekends I was up there putting those caps on top of the bottles. There was something that you capped it with. A little wooden thing you pushed it down on. I used to help him cap.

COALVILLE

Here is one more photo and a close-up of Steve and Betty’s wedding day. This was taken at the home of the Kolacia family.

The newlyweds’ first home was a rented acreage southeast of Fort Dodge, near the gypsum mills where Steve worked.  The house did not have electricity or indoor plumbing.  There was a wood-burning cook stove and a pump for well water.

I asked my sister Pauline where the house was located.  She wrote, “They lived on an acreage that is now on the Coalville blacktop. The houses are gone and it is now part of the mills. I went to a country school there till we moved to Burnside. I went to school in Burnside until 4th grade when we moved to Clare.”

A BED OF FEATHERS

Feather beds and pillows were traditional Czech and Slovak wedding gifts. The website entry about wedding traditions in Drahovce, Slovakia, concludes with the bride receiving a feather bed and pillows: http://www.iarelative.com/wedding/drahovce.htm

The tradition was brought from Europe to America. In Iowa Czech women would get together for feather stripping bees, similar to quilting bees, where they would make feather beds from goose feathers. The old Czech neighborhood in Iowa City is known as “Goosetown.” Historically it was a derogatory term for the modest neighborhood in old northeast Iowa City where the Czech immigrants would keep geese in their yards.

Here is an excerpt from an article published in THE DAILY IOWAN newspaper, January 29, 1981- GOOSETOWN: MEMORIES OF YESTERYEAR, that explains the tradition:

“Frances Conklin, a third-generation, lifetime resident of Goosetown, remembers,  "the feather-stripping bees held at her grandmother's home."
“Twelve to fifteen women would get together to strip the already plucked feathers from the down of the goose, she said. This was a necessary task, to be done before the quill - the essential part - could be used for beds and pillows.
“The "bees" gave the women a chance to combine business with a little socializing, Conklin said.  The work was plentiful, but so was the animated Bohemian dialogue. An ample lunch was served after each single session and a large dinner was provided at the conclusion of the seven- to ten- day affair, she said.
"It was a tradition that a set of feather pillows be presented to a girl when she was to be married," Conklin said, who still has the pillows that were given to her before her marriage.” (end of newspaper excerpt)

Betty’s grandmother, Christina Jondle, made a goose feather bed and gave it to Betty for a wedding gift. I don't know if Christina produced the feather bed at one of the feather stripping bees or if she made it by herself.

When we were kids, we would sleep under the feather bed during blizzards when the electricity, and therefore the furnace, went out.  Over the years the fabric became very soiled and stained.  Several years ago I asked Betty if I could have the feather bed.

I took it to the Czech Pillow Company in Cedar Rapids and they restored it.  They removed the feathers from the fabric cover, cleaned them and put them back in new fabric that matches the original (I also saved the original fabric).  Here is a link to a brief movie about the company: http://www.czechfeatherdownco.com/movie.php

The fabric cover had two layers.  An outer layer made of heavy cotton blue-and-white ticking (fabric that traditionally was used to make mattress and pillow covers).  There was also an inner liner made of a lighter pink fabric.

Cookie Vanous, the woman who restored the feather bed told me that the original pink fabric liner that Christina had used came from Bohemia.  When she restored the feather bed she used identical fabric imported from the Czech Republic (which today contains Bohemia).

The materials and labor to repair the feather bed cost about $300.   When I showed it to Betty and told her how much it cost to restore it, she said, “You could have bought two new quilts at Younkers for that kind of money.” She did not appreciate antiques.  That may be why our family has very few heirlooms.

Betty associated old things with the hard times of growing up during the Depression.  Although she was born in the 20th century, she lived in houses without electricity.  Even after they were married Steve and Betty had to rely on kerosene lanterns for light in their first two homes.  She remembered the chore of having to clean the soot off the glass globes. When the family was moving Betty threw away her kerosene lanterns. My sisters, Pauline and Helen, recognized them as having some value and rescued them from the trash.

Here is an Aladdin kerosene lamp like the ones Pauline and Helen rescued from the trash




And here is a photo of the restored feather bed along with the original fabric that Christina Jondle had used in 1937.

WHITE ROSES AND SWEET PEAS

The following article appeared on the Society Page of the June 1, 1937 edition of the Fort Dodge Messenger:

Northwest Society
Miss Betty Jondle Weds Steve Miklo At Moorland
Special to the Messenger,
  MOORLAND, June 1. A beautiful wedding was solemnized at Our Lady of Good Counsel at 8 o’clock on Monday morning when Miss Betty Jondle became the bride of Steve Miklo. The Reverend Father B. A. Hunt officiated.
  Miss Helen Kolacia and Joseph Kolacia served as attendants.
  The bride wore a white satin dress, ankle length, and a long white veil and carried an arm bouquet of white roses.
  Miss Kolacia wore a lace frock of peach and wore a white picture hat. Her bouquet was of sweet peas.
  The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Jondle.  The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Steve Miklo of Fort Dodge. He is employed at Wasem Plaster Company in Fort Dodge. They will make their home on an acreage near Fort Dodge.

Thanks to Erin (Coppinger) Rossmanith.  Erin is Pauline (Miklo) Ball’s granddaughter.  She found this article when doing genealogical research several years ago.  I have consulted her work while writing this family history.

The above photo is of Steve and Betty on their wedding day.

OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL

Based on a story that Betty told, the Jondles were not practicing Catholics. One particularly hard winter when Ed was a boy they missed mass on several Sundays due to heavy snow. After they returned to church one Sunday the priest took the Jondle boys out back and whipped them for skipping mass.  They did not go back to church after that.  Pauline told me that Christina returned to the Catholic Church before she died, but Michael did not, although he had a funeral mass at Corpus Christi Church in Fort Dodge.

Helen Jondle also was apparently not a devout Catholic.

Before Betty married Steve she took lessons in the Catholic Church in Moorland. Father Hunt was her instructor. Here Betty talks about Father Hunt, nationalities, and hair color.

Bob: So, you got married in the church in Moorland?

Betty: Yeah, Father Hunt.  He looked at your father, he says, “There’s some Scandinavian in you, by the looks of you.”  Which is possible.  You know they used to come down and run over Europe.

Bob: There were Scandinavian’s in Czechoslovakia.   They had invaded at one point.

Betty: Yeah. He said, “There’s some Scandinavian in you.”  So, whatever there is, there is.

Well, maybe there’s Scandinavian.  Sometimes I think there’s some German in us because when you go to Minnesota, you go to the polka dances there’s Polish, and Bohemian, and Germans, and whatever, but you go up there, you let your hair down and they are, it is fun.  You go to Nebraska, you go to Omaha or Lincoln (where there are more Czechs at the polka dances), they’re more formal and more reserved.  You know what I’m trying to tell you?  They’re more reserved.  My dad was for having fun.  His hair was sandy, my grandmother’s hair was red, my aunt Julia was that dark, dark red.  I kind of think there might be a little bit of German back in there.

Bob: So, your grandmother, your grandpa Mike’s wife - what was her maiden name, do you know?

Betty: I have no idea Bobby--I don’t know what her maiden name is.  I know she came from across and that’s all I know, but her hair was red and dad’s hair was sandy.  Aunt Julia, I don’t know if she’s still alive or if she’s died, dead by now.  I don’t know, but hers was dark, dark red, that real red, red.  And she married, she was deaf, she had polio and they gave her strong medicine that destroyed her eardrums and she married a deaf man.

He used to have a furniture repair shop in Fort Dodge and she worked at the glove factory.  I think the glove factory is still around.  And then she divorced him, I don’t know why, and she married a guy from up north.  It was a Hefley that she married and they met because he had a deaf child or something.  I don’t know what happened to them.  She had one boy. (end of quote)

By the way Christina Jondle’s maiden name was Vanek.  (I had earlier written that it was Blaha - that was actually the maiden name of Mary Jondle, who came to Iowa with here husband Albert in 1869.)  Christina was born in Bohemia in 1873 and came to America in the late 1880s.

Here is a picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Moorland, Iowa, where Betty took instructions in Catholicism before marrying Steve.

ROOM AND BOARD

After several months of dating Steve presented Betty with a diamond ring and asked Ed and Helen for permission to marry their daughter.  They said no because she was too young.  Betty was only 14, while Steve was 22.

Steve and Betty went out to his car. They were sitting there when Ed came out and told them that they had changed their minds and that they would allow Betty to marry Steve.  What caused them to change? As I recall, Betty told me that Helen had talked to Ed and convinced him to consent.  As we know, Helen had not learned English.  It was her plan that because Betty spoke Czech and Steve spoke Slovak, which are very similar and mutually understandable languages, if they married, their children would speak Czech (more on this later).

Steve’s father was not happy about the news.  Steve paid his father room and board. When he told him that he was getting married and moving out of the house, his father was mad because he had just bought a new Oldsmobile on credit and was counting on the rent to help make the payments. Here is how Betty told the story:

Betty:  They (Steve and his stepmother) ran the dairy together.  He was not treated right.  He had to pay a dollar a day in board.  He didn’t get anything from milking them cows and delivering the milk.  He still had to pay a dollar a day board.  And when he told them, “We’re getting married,”  oh, they had a fit.  They depended on the dollar a day board to make the payments on the new car that he bought, that the old man bought.  Well, we got married; we don’t know how they made those damn payments.  (end of quote)

Here is a 1937 Oldsmobile similar to the one Steve Miklo, Sr., bought.

CATS UNDER ALL THE BEDS

Betty tells the story of visiting Steve’s family for the first time. She had told me that the Sunday newspaper was all over the living room.  Betty’s mom, Helen Jondle, was a fastidious housekeeper, so such a mess would never have been allowed in the Jondle house.

A few years ago I asked my brother Jim if he had any memories of our grandparents.  Jim recalled visiting the Jondle’s house – they were not allowed in the living room – only the kitchen.  He thinks he may have snuck into the living room just to see what was so special in there.  He said grandma was strict and did not speak English.  He said that Grandpa had a Pontiac that he kept in perfect condition. It was in the garage and with the curtains closed to protect the paint.

My sister Pauline had a similar impression. She wrote, “We could not go in the living room because she did not want it to get dirty. She was very neat and fussy.”

Having been raised in an overly tidy house may explain Betty’s reaction to the “strange” Miklo house.  Here is the story in Betty’s words:

“ . . . that’s where they lived.  That was the USG road out there.  Daddy’s folks lived in one of those houses.  Mary, she was the older girl, she was the oldest and then there was Annie after that.  Mary was older than I am and Annie was just a little younger.

Mary was a cat lover; she would pick up all the stray cats and bring them in.

The first time your father brought me over there, I was kind of sitting there in the living room and I had never met the old man before.  Oh, God, did I think they were strange people.  He knew that Mary had the cats in the house, he stomped his feet and he yelled, loud, and the cats came running out from under all the beds.

That was my first impression of those people.  Oh, geez.  Under all the beds, the cats were running out.  He hated them damn cats and she brought them right back in.  Oh, what a strange bunch.”

HEAT WAVE

You may recall that Betty said that the Expo Dance Hall was the preferred place to go dancing when it was hot. During the summer of 1936 when Steve and Betty were dating a heat wave struck the nation. The heat started in June and continued into September. On July 15th, the average high temperature for all 113 weather stations in Iowa measured 108.7°.  It reached 110 in Webster County that day.

Here are links to a couple of articles about the devastating heat wave that year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave

http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath.cfm?ounid=ob_000051

READING AND WRITING

In this conversation I asked Betty when she had learned that Steve was from Czechoslovakia.  Based on his language skills, she had not thought about him having been an immigrant.  She speaks of his ability to write in English.  

Bob: So, did he tell you his story when you met?  Did he tell you where he came from when you first met?

Betty: I didn’t know where he came from until after a few dates. I didn’t know… He knew how to read and write good for what he did because I got the letter from him – my mother was stopping me from seeing him.

She didn’t think I should do it.  Oh, God I had a fit.  I told him I can’t go with him anymore.  I had a regular fit when she was stopping me.  Well, so, she broke down and told me it’s alright if he comes around again so I wrote him a letter he can come again because those days it was all everything by letter, everything by mail.

We had a phone but we did all (communication by mail), I don’t think we had it at that time because it cost money, we didn’t have the money for it, but then he wrote back.  He’s gonna be out, and it was perfectly spelled and everything.

The above photo of Betty was taken at the time Steve was courting her.

FIRST DATE

First Date on July 4, 1936

We have spent some time getting to know the Jondles.  Now we return to Steve’s story. We left Steve and Betty at the Expo Dance Hall in the summer of 1936. (You may want to review the “Blue Skirt Waltz” story posted on April 29.)

Here Betty tells us about their first date and Steve's penchant for used cars.

Betty: And, so the first date was in the afternoon of Fourth of July.  He had a Model A Ford.  And what did we do? I think we went to the carnival or something?  Oh, yeah, there’s that picture, it was a little tiny picture and Rose blew it up and it’s up on top of the desk.  That was taken at the carnival.  Now, that was our first date.

So, from then on it was him and me.  My folks would go (to the dances) we’d meet there.  And then he got around where he came and got me. And the next time he came over he had a brown Chevy coupe and he was so proud of it.  He got it on the road; well there was no speed limit those days.  “Let’s see what it will do.”  Well, I started crying, I was scared.

Later on, towards fall, he had a great big four-door Pontiac. And that was a bad winter, and nobody hardly got around and the schools were closed but he made it every Sunday except once. Harbochek had to… he made it as far as Harbocheks that were down the next corner and down a little ways and they pulled him out with horses. (end of quote)

On another occasion Betty commented about Steve’s penchant for buying used cars. She thought that her dad had passed on his love of polka music to her and that her sons’ love of cars came from the Miklo side.

Betty: But, my dad, he used to sit in the wintertime, he used to get that old stove going and listen to those records and that’s, that’s in me.  And the cycles and cars and stuff, that’s the Miklo side. Yeah, your father had a different car every time he came out to see me.  Oh, those car dealers – they loved him.  They seen him, they knew they had him. (end of quote)

One other time Betty talked about the picture of her first date with Steve.

Bob: So, he’s wearing a tie in this picture.
Betty: Yeah, but he would never have it up like it’s supposed to be.
Bob: It was always loose?
Betty: Yeah, it was always loose.
Bob: So, what did you do on the date?
Betty: I think we went to a carnival.  There was a carnival in town.
Bob: Did you go on some rides or . . .
Betty: God, I don’t remember.  I know we drove through Olsen Park.  Oh, well, as far as I was concerned I didn’t want anybody else but him.
Bob: So, that was 1936?
Betty: Yeah, we got married in ’37.

TOBIN'S

Betty told a funny story about being bilingual that I did not catch on tape.  As I remember it she said that her family was visiting the Kriblehobys in Fort Dodge.  They lived in the vicinity of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street, the neighborhood above the pork-packing plant that later became the Hormel packing plant that closed in the early 1980s.  Prior to being Hormel’s, the packing plant was known as Tobin’s.  Mr. Kriblehoby worked at Tobin’s down the hill from his house.  One day the Jondles and Kriblehobys were talking about the importance of speaking more than one language, knowing languages would get you places in the world.  Mr. Kriblehoby said, “Ya, I know two languages and that gets me to Tobin’s and back.”

Helen Jondle lived in America for 68 years, but never learned to speak English.  When Betty was a girl she would have to translate for her mother when she went shopping. In those days the stores were much less self-service than they are today.  Merchandise was often behind a counter and you had to ask a clerk to see it.

As you will learn in future posts, the language divide affected the family.

Above is a postcard view of the Tobin Packing Plant that was located in Fort Dodge on the east side of the Des Moines River.

HOLIDAYS

In this conversation Betty talks about the holidays when she was a girl.  She repeats the story about her parents making their own wine and beer.  She also talks about how she learned English from the Kriblehoby girls and finally how her dad always paid cash.  He never borrowed money, perhaps because of the financial trouble that he saw his father get into.  These points will be important later as the story about Steve and Betty’s relationship with her parents unfolds.

Betty’s mother never learned to speak English.  She said that Czech was such a beautiful language why learn anything else.  Ed and Helen spoke Czech at home, so that was Betty’s first language.  She said that the Kriblehoby girls learned English so she learned it from them. When it was time for her to go to school she knew enough to get by, but there were other Czech kids who did not and they got in trouble at school and were held back.  I think that Betty might have said that her younger brother Charlie had trouble when he first went to school because he did not know enough English.

Bob: Your parents, did they have a Thanksgiving meal?

Betty: I think we just had chicken because that’s all we had although maybe we had duck but they raised that stuff, they had it.  It was a regular.  They had a little potatoes, that she canned a lot, she canned lots of tomatoes and there wasn’t such a thing as pressure cookers, there was that oblong boiler that was on the big cook-stove, put the stuff in there, boil it for so, I don’t know how many hours or what.  Nobody ever got sick.

Bob: So, did you have like a special meal at Christmastime?

Betty: I think so.  I think a lot of the times we went to Kriblehodys. That was their friends in Fort Dodge, because she (Helen Jondle) could talk to them.  But their kids didn’t learn Bohemian.  They didn’t talk Bohemian with the kids and then when I watch Big Joe (Polka Show) and they have, they have some great Bohemian bands down there.  They sing it, and those guys must have been raised the way my mother wanted to, me, to raise you kids - teach you Bohemian first, you can learn English later, because the way they sing their songs, the pronunciation is there, you can tell they were raised with the language.

Bob: So, what was your, the first Christmas you remember?

Betty: I think there was a little Christmas tree and they were real candles and you had to be real careful, they were lit with a match.  It was just a small tree on a table.

Bob: Mm-hmm.

Betty: And the Kriblehodys kind of exchanged gifts.  That’s where I learned enough English to get by, because the girls didn’t learn Bohemian, talked English with them.  So, I learned enough and I just… Once a week, every Saturday, my dad would drop us off (at the Kriblehobys), he went up town.

He went to the saloon, had his beers and they made their own beer and they made their own wine.  I don’t know how they did it but there was that big 20-gallon stone jar behind the cook-stove.  I don’t know how they made the beer, they bought the ale or whatever it was and they put it in a regular bottle, they had a regular bottle they could cap it with.

They made their own wine. In the summertime they would go in some of the people’s timbers where the grapes grew wild.  They were little tiny things. They were sour.  They would pick them, mother would clean them up good, put them in the stone jar, put in the sugar and I don’t know all what she did and I know when they started working, I think they took yeast, she could skim the foam off every morning and after they quit making the foam I think they would bottle in the regular bottles.  Yeah, they made their own wine and their own beer.

Then there was those prohibition days, when I think it was outlawed, whatever, so they made their own beer, but I know dad would drop us off and go uptown.  I suppose he did that like the guys do here, at Willy’s (a bar in Clare in the 1960s), I don’t know.  I don’t know what he did.  But he was honest, as honest as could be, and he would never buy anything if he didn’t have the money in his pocket, they didn’t have checking accounts.  The eggs paid for the groceries and in the wintertime when the hens didn’t lay very many eggs, they always had cream.

He must have had quite a few cows because the separator was in the corner of the kitchen and it wasn’t electric.  It was so many reams per minute you had to turn it, and the best milk I ever drank, when it was still warm with the body heat from the cow.  God that was good milk.  Milk we get these days, they take the stuff out of it, then they put junk back into it and what the hell is part of it?  It’s all screwed up. (end of quote)

Here is a photo of Edward and Helen Jondle, their daughter Betty and son Charles, who was born on June 13, 1928.  The Miklo kids knew him as Uncle Charlie.  I estimate that this photo was taken in 1929 when Charlie was less than a year old and Betty was about seven.

CAR TROUBLE

Betty told a story about getting into trouble after playing in her dad’s car:

Betty: And I remember I got into trouble.  That was before I went to school.  I didn’t go to school until we moved out to Wesley’s place.  I was out playing and there was the car and I was investigating, you know, like little four-year-olds do but I remember I got into trouble.  I got into it and I played around and the key was in it, I turned the key on and I left.  Then, that afternoon my dad came in, “Were you out in that car?” I turned the key on and run the battery down.  I was just a kid playing. (end of quote)

Here is a picture of a Studebaker similar to the tan and light brown one that Ed Jondle had owned when Betty was a small girl.

“SON OF A BITCH”

Michael Jondle owned over 300 acres of farmland and at least one important commercial building, the Garmoe Building, located on Central Avenue adjacent to the Square, a prime location in downtown Fort Dodge.  Betty was given the impression that he was a drinker, a gambler, and lost some of his properties as a result.  He may not have actually gambled, like playing poker, but made risky real-estate investments. Betty's impression of Michael may have been colored by her parents difficult relationship with him.  If anyone knows more details, please fill us in.

At one point in the early 1930s Michael and Christina Jondle were living on a farm four miles west and one mile south of Clare.  Today the address is 1524 Baxter Avenue.  One summer Betty spent some time on her grandparent’s farm. Here is a story she told about a bad day that her grandpa had:

Betty: I remember I was eleven years old when I spent a week or so with Grandma.  That was out here (west of Clare). Grandpa never drove a car.  At that time Dale, their grandson across the street, Bill’s boy, he did all their driving for them, and I remember we went to town (to Fort Dodge) one day and we stayed at Julia’s.  Julia was the sister of Daddy, of my dad, and Grandpa got drunk.  And they had one cow and Grandpa always milked the cow and then Grandma took care of it, the milk.

Well that day Grandpa got drunk, he paced up and down the backyard and all the words he ever said was, “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  Up and down, back and forth.  “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  Grandma went out and milked the cow.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  That’s all he said and then she took the pan of water, I was barefooted, to wash my feet and put me to bed and he was still out there.  “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”

I remember that, I was eleven years old.  I remember that.  He wasn’t mean, that time he just . . . She didn’t bother him because if she did he probably would have gotten mean.  She just left him. (end of Betty’s quote)

Sometime around 2004 or 2005 I drove Betty to mass in Mason on a Saturday night.  She enjoyed going there because the priest was very funny and she appreciated that the church was handicapped accessible.  On the way back to Clare I asked her to show me where her grandparents’ farm was located.  I had remembered that she had told me that Michael and Christina Jondle farmed near Lizard Creek.

As we were driving east toward Clare, Betty told me where to turn on the gravel road and then where to turn into a driveway where there was a stand of timber on the east side of the road and open fields to the south.  We sat there for a few minutes and looked at the green fields on to the right and dense growth of trees to the left.  This was the location of the “son of a bitch” story. The house and the farm buildings are long gone (There was a corncrib that appeared to be relatively new).

Betty said that some of her cousins lived on the other side of the road.  That farm on the west side of the road is still owned by a Jondle family.

Here is a picture of what was Michael and Christina's farm in the 1930s.

CORN BREAD

Betty said that even during the worst of the Depression her family did not go hungry.  As we learned in a previous post, the Jondles were very self-sufficient, raising most of their food and burning corncobs or logs from trees that Ed harvested for fuel.  They sold eggs to raise money for groceries that they could not produce themselves. They even brewed their own beer and fermented their own wine.

But this meant they had a limited choice of food.  Betty told me that the meals were the same almost every day:  fried eggs and potatoes. Her mother also made cornbread, probably from corn meal that was made from corn that they had raised.  Betty said that the monotony of the same food every day got to her.  There was a point were she could hardly stand to eat eggs and fried potatoes. She eventually came to tolerate them. But you could never serve her cornbread, a food she ate so often that she detested.  She said that one time she came home from school to find a cake with chocolate frosting.  She cut herself a big slice looking forward to a rare treat.  When she took the first bite she spit it out.  Her mother tried to trick her by frosting cornbread.

Betty:  The only groceries that they bought was flour, sugar and coffee.  Once in awhile there’d be a can of beans because they were cheap, yeah, and dad had to have his syrup.  The corn syrup came in a tall can but he liked to put the corn syrup on his bread when he ate breakfast.  He didn’t put sugar in his coffee but he wanted the syrup on his bread.  Well, that was my dad.

We never went hungry.  When spring work started, he tried to save the meat for the field work, she would open a jar of the pork and some of the pork was put into those stone jars they had and covered with the lard, that way it kept for quite awhile.  And supper was usually fried potatoes and eggs.  For a long time I could not stand fried potatoes, I could not stand eggs.  Now I will eat eggs, I can stand them, once in awhile I eat them.

MIKLO FAMILY REUNION UPDATE

The Miklo Family Reunion is only two months away. If you haven’t already, mark your calendar and make plans to attend. If you plan to attend please click on "Events" in the upper right and click on "Join". We will need a head count next month for purposes of planning the amount of food and beverages.

We have the north shelter and two small stone cabins reserved in Dolliver State Park. We will have an indoor back-up location in case of severe weather.

The reunion will get underway at 10:30 in the morning for set-up with a picnic lunch about 12:30. So far the menu includes:

Pulled Pork

Portabello Mushrooms (for the very few Miklos who are vegetarian)

Baked Beans

Potato Salad (Does anyone have Betty’s recipe? Please post here if you do so that we can solicit volunteers to make enough to serve 50 or so people)

Watermelon

Kolache and Nut Rolls (there will be a competition with prizes for the best Kolache and the best Nut Rolls)

Birthday Cake

There will be live music from about 2:00 to 4:00.

For those who need lodging we have reserved a block of rooms at the American Inn located at the intersection of Highways 20 and 169 about 10 miles northwest of Dolliver State Park. The rooms have two queen beds and have a discount rate of $115 per night. To reserve a room call 800-634-3444 and let them know that you are attending the Miklo Family Reunion. Reservations must be made by June 12.

For those who want a more rugged experience and a thriftier night's stay we have two cabins reserved in Dolliver State Park for Friday and Saturday night. Each cabin sleeps six people - in bunk beds. The cost is $35 per night for the entire cabin. Email Bob at robertmiklo@mchsi.com if you would like to stay in one of the cabins. And for the real campers consider reserving your own camping space in the park at: http://www.iowadnr.gov/Destinations/StateParksRecAreas/IowasStateParks/ParkDetails.aspx?ParkID=610107

Here is an amateur painting of the Miklo house in Clare

STUBBORN AS A MULE

From the time she was born until she was five years old, Betty’s parents were farming one of Michael Jondle’s farms south of Fort Dodge. It is located on the west side of Highway 169 (today the address is 2573 Lainson Avenue, Otho). Michael lost the farm (due to a gambling bet or nonpayment of a mortgage). Ed, Helen and Betty had to move to a rental farm near Moorland.  Ed and Helen were angry towards Michael for this change in their fortune. Betty said that she did not see much of her grandparents because of lingering hard feelings over this situation.

Here is the story in Betty’s words, as well as her description of life on her parent’s rental farm:

Betty: Yeah, that’s where I lived until I was five years old.  Then grandpa lost the farm and a Nelson bought it.  My folks moved out where there was a timber, now that was just for one year.

Bob: You’re parents lived out where there was a timber?

Betty: Yeah, there was a timber and they were there just one year and then they moved out to Wesley’s place (near Moorland, Iowa).  Now, I think they did pretty good for awhile, but during Hoover days things were bad.  Corn was two cents a bushel.   When I mentioned that to George Hefley he said his grandparents, some of his family lived in or around Barnum, and they used to buy corn to burn instead of coal because it was cheaper.

Now the farming was different those days, the only groceries my folks needed to buy was flour, sugar and coffee.  Rest of the time folks raised their own food.  There were the cows and they used to separate the milk and sell the cream.  There were the cows, there were the chickens and I know they butchered one hog a winter and mother used to can the meat and some of it she fried and put it in those crocks and poured the lard on it and that kept good.  So, they raised, and she canned a lot.  She had a big garden like I did and she canned a lot.  So, we had our own food mostly, so we weren’t hungry.

Bob: So did your dad butcher the hog himself or did he have somebody help?

Betty: No, he always had somebody do it. He couldn’t do it himself and when you butchered the hog you had to let it hang at least a day to get all the body heat out of it. Then you could can it.

When we needed fuel there was a big grove back of the house so he took a saw and cut down a tree and burned the wood.  Usually, in the cook-stove it was the corncobs, but the corn wasn’t shelled that year because of the landlord, Wesley, told him as long as the corn stays in the crib he will wait for the cash rent.

See the grain was divided 50-50 (when the crop was sold the landlord got half of the proceeds). But there had to be pasture for the horses and the cows and that was cash rent.  And I remember it was $8 an acre, I don’t know how many acres there were, but I remember it was $8 an acre.  Old Albert Wesley told him as long as the corn stays in the crib he’ll wait for the cash rent.  And then Roosevelt got in and this is where they got this corn loan.  The farmers got their 45 cents a bushel for their corn. It stayed in the crib until it was called for and the farmers were happy.  So, I’m old enough to remember the Hoover days. I was just a kid but I remember it.  I do remember it.

I’m old enough to remember the Hoover days and the friends, the people that had money in the bank – it was gone.  Now, they had friends in Fort Dodge, Kriblehobys  (If anyone knows the correct spelling please let me know) and that’s where my folks went to town every Saturday and my dad would drop us off at Kriblehoby's and he would go uptown. (I think that Betty was going to tell me how her parent's friends, the Kriblebobys, lost their money in the banking crisis during the Great Depression, but she got sidetracked to talking about homemade wine and beer.)

I think he went uptown to have his beer.  During prohibition days they couldn’t have their beer so they made their own beer behind the cook-stove.  They took the malt and the stuff and put it over there. I know my mother had a great big 50-gallon crock or whatever.  They made their own beer and in the summertime they went out to the neighbor’s timbers and picked the wild grapes – they’re little tiny things – picked the wild grapes and they made their grape wine.

Bob: How did they know how to do that?  Did somebody teach them?

Betty: I don’t know. I think she probably learned from the people she worked for when she came to this country, but I think a lot of people knew that.  It was sweet. It was purple and it was sweet and they bottled it and to keep cold it was put down in the cave.  We didn’t have a basement under the house but we had an outdoor cave and it was nice and cool down in there.

Bob: This was the house near Moorland?

Betty: Yeah, this was the house by Moorland, yeah.  Like I say, I remember the Hoover days and I remember my shoes were run down and I found out many years later than one leg is slightly longer than the other and that’s the reason I used to run down that one shoe, run down the heel of it.

My folks didn’t have money to buy me shoes and there weren’t very many eggs.  Chickens didn’t lay very much in the wintertime, because if they would have had the right type of feed, but in the wintertime it was slow for eggs. (I think Betty was trying to say that with the right kind of feed, the chickens would have been more productive.)

I remember we had the egg cases that we cased them in.  The single case that held I think 15 gallon, I mean 15 dozen. And there were the double cases when they took them to town.  Dad bought himself a new Model A Ford, before that he had an old Studebaker. I barely remember that.  It was kind of light brown or tan; it had a top but no windows.  Then I guess he had a pretty good crop, this was on grandpa’s farm, out on the highway (the farm on Highway 169 that they had to leave), he had a pretty good crop. He sold the oats, I guess and bought a brand new Model T Ford. To be able to put the egg cases in, they used to take them to the grocery store.

Bob: In Fort Dodge?

Betty: Yep, the A & P.

Bob: Where was that?

Betty: It was off on Central Avenue, I think. Yeah, Central Avenue.  To have room to take the eggs to town you took the front seat out and then we sat in the backseat.  He was all alone in the front seat.  That was the grocery money.

Bob: So, was he proud of his new car?

Betty: Oh, yeah.  Oh, yeah, and I think that’s why grandpa - there was something that old Bill Jondle’s wife, Julia, was telling me the reason we had to move, grandpa (Michael Jondle) said he sold the farm. Then I was told he lost it because he was a drinking gambler.  So, what the truth is I don’t know but he was mad.

Bob: This was your grandpa Mike?

Betty: Yeah.  He was mad because my dad got a new car.

Bob: So, what was your grandma’s first name?

Betty: Christina.

Bob: Did you like her?

Betty: Well, I didn’t see too much of her when I was little because there were bad feelings when my folks had to move off that place. And then they went renting. The farming was all done by horses.  And one of the horses died and my folks were left wondering what they were going to do.  So, the grandparents heard about it, so they gave my folks a set of mules.  Jack and Jenny.  Jack was a big white mule and Jenny was a smaller, brown mule.  Before that my father always used to make fun of the people that had the mules because mules were stubborn, “stubborn as a mule.” But he put up with it.

And then they (Michael and Christina) gave him (Ed) down payments on the farm out there by Clare that they had. Ninety dollars.  That farm was $90 an acre.  So, they paid that off, I mean, they had that down payment. (end of Betty’s quote)

Here is a photo of the farmhouse located west of Highway 169 south of Fort Dodge. Michael Jondle inherited it from his mother, Mary.  Ed and Helen lived there and did the farming for Michael. Betty lived on this farm until she was 5 years old (around 1927).  Michael then lost or sold the farm. It was bought by the Nelsons, the family that still owns it today.  Most of the farm buildings have been replaced with new structures, but the original house is still there. It was probably built by Michael, or Albert and Mary, his parents.

DECEMBER SNOWSTORM

Garmoe Building as it appears today

During the first six years of their marriage, Ed and Helen lived on one of Michael Jondle's farms south of Fort Dodge.  There were several other Jondle families (Michael’s brothers and sisters) living on farms in the immediate vicinity. When Betty was about to be born there was a snowstorm on its way. Ed and Helen went into Fort Dodge and Betty was born in an apartment located on the upper floors of the Garmoe Building on Central Avenue.  The building was owned by Michael Jondle.  It was an important building in downtown Fort Dodge, located on a prime corner on Central Avenue next to the City Square. Betty was born on December 17, 1922.

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Here is a post card view of Central Avenue in Fort Dodge. The Garmoe Building is on the left. You can also see the clock tower of the Webster County Court House in the distance. There appears to be a trolly car line in the center of the street.

Betty had told me that she was born in the building due to a snowstorm. It is not clear to me whether her parents had gone into town where they could get help if there was trouble, or if they were already in town and stayed at the Garmoe Building because of the storm.

When I was a kid, before the mall and Wal-Mart had sucked all of the life out of downtown Fort Dodge, this was a beautiful building. It had a hardware story on the first floor. Steve and Betty bought me a bike there.

THE VILLAGE DRUNK

Betty used to tell me that her mother, Helen, said that she had come from Prague and that her entire family had died before she came to America.  Helen had said that her father was the town drunk.  Having been to Prague, I had imagined that he must have been a pretty big drunk, because Prague was a major city, even back then.

In 2002 I visited Ellis Island in New York Harbor and was able to search the electronic archive for the ship manifest that included Helen’s immigration records.  Based on the records, Helen was not from the actual city of Prague, but from Malé Čakovice, a village near the east-edge of the city. When Helen was living there, it would have been an independent village, and small enough that her father could have served the position as the town drunk.

Helen lived through World War I and experienced hard times and hunger, similar to Štefan, who was then living about 200 miles to the east in Drahovce.  She taught Betty that it was a sin to waist food, because she remembered being hungry during the war.

Here is a picture of the church in Malé Čakovice.  In 2004 we visited the village and tried to find the Ramba home. But we did not have enough information to pin point the location.

ED & HELEN

Edward (Ed) Jondle was born on March 11, 1892, probably on his father’s farm southwest of Fort Dodge. The 1910 census recorded Edward, age 18, living in Elkhorn Township with his parents and his siblings Willie, age 16, Henry, age 14 and Julia, age 3. The 1920 census lists him as 27 years of age and living with his brother Henry, who was 24. Ed was apparently a late bloomer. He did not marry until he was 29 years old.

Ed’s bride, Helena Rambova (Helen Ramba in English) arrived at Ellis Island on June 5, 1920.  She was 22 years old and her occupation was listed as a domestic or maid. Immigration records indicate that she was going to join a cousin, K. Yndle, living on Rural Route 3, Truman, Minnesota (located about 110 miles north of Fort Dodge).  The name Yndle was likely how the immigration officer recorded the name Jondle.  The manifest reported that her brother had paid for her ticket, but this may also have been a recording mistake.  Betty had thought that all of Helen’s family had died before she came to America, and elsewhere on the form where it asked for the nearest relative or friend living in the country from which the alien came: Helen reported Mr. A. Titera in the village of Malé Čakovice – she did not site a brother.

The ship manifest indicates that Helen was traveling with three others from Malé Čakovice who also listed A. Titera as their closest contact in Czechoslovakia. Ján and Kristina Titera and Marie Vackova, Helen's companions, were headed to Crete and nearby Dorchester, Nebraska.

Helen's obituary indicates that at some point after she had come to America, she lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a city with many Czechs.  I am wondering if she lived in Cedar Rapids in addition to Truman. Or maybe she did not make it to Truman at all. Or maybe her obituary was incorrect about her having lived in Cedar Rapids.  If anyone knows please fill us in.

Ed was visiting his cousins when he met Helen.  Here is a photo of Ed and Helen on their wedding day, December 3, 1921. Ed’s younger brother, Henry, and his wife Mayme stood up for them. Note Helen’s dark wedding dress.