COUSIN JÁN

Ján Miklo, Jr., 1946

Here is another photo sent by Steve’s cousin Ján in 1946.  In exchange Steve wrote back with news about his new life in America and sent photos of his family.  But eventually Steve lost contact with his relatives in Slovakia. I would attribute this to several reasons.  During World War II, Slovakia was taken over by Nazi Germany and there was no mail exchanged with America.  Then just three years after the war, the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia (1948) and discouraged correspondence with Americans. The photos from Ján posted here had come in 1946 and 1947, between the war and the Communist regime.

In addition to international politics discouraging correspondence, Steve had little free time to write given all of the work to do on the farm and taking care of several children.  I recall that Steve said at one time a cousin had asked him to send a wristwatch and then money to buy a tractor.  Steve and Betty had no money to spare and were not able to send anything to his cousin.  Sometime in the 1950s the letters stopped in both directions.

I have a long story about how photos that Steve had sent back to his home country resurfaced about 50 years later.  In 1996 as Steve’s health was deteriorating, I decided to travel to Slovakia to see if I could find his home village and establish contact with any Miklo family that might still be there.  By then Steve did not know if his cousins were still living.  He did not even have a postal address for them.

I wrote a letter to the mayor of Drahovce, Steve's home village. The letter explained my mission and asked the mayor to send the letter on to any Miklos living in the village.  I included the phone number of the hotel where we would be staying in Prague. I had the letter translated into Czech and sent it about a month before Matt and I flew to Prague for a two-week-long trip.  

We arrived in Prague on a Wednesday in late March 1996 and enjoyed exploring the beautiful city.   That Saturday morning the phone woke us in the hotel room.  On the other end of the line was a man who spoke English with a heavy accent. His name was Paulo Juris. He said his family had received the letter from the mayor and that his mother was a Miklo and was Steve’s cousin.  He agreed to meet us at the train station in Bratislava and he would take us from there to Drahovce, about a 45-mile drive from the capital city.

As the train approached Bratislava I felt nervous butterflies in my gut. Was this guy we were going to meet really a cousin? Could we trust him?  I had read stories about the Russian mafia operating in Eastern Europe and tourists being robbed of their passports and money in various sorts of con games.

We arrived in Bratislava and met Paulo in the plaza in front of the train station.  Paulo appeared to be in his late 30’s.  He was dressed casually, not wearing anything remarkable, but he did have two obvious gold earrings in his left year in the style of George Michael (at the time George Michael was an international pop music star). Paulo took us to the restaurant in the historic center part of the city where he worked as a waiter. He offered us a snack and a shot of slivovice (a traditional Czechoslovak plum brandy).  We drank the shot. It was strong stuff.  He offered us another.

I still did not know if we could trust this guy, who spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent. Matt was along for the ride and did not seem to be concerned,  but I was worried about drinking the shots of strong alcohol. Then Paulo pulled out an envelope that contained a few photos. Among them was the picture of Betty shown below
that was taken in 1937 before she had married Steve. Steve had sent a picture of his bride-to-be to his uncle and his family back home. There were also pictures of Pauline and Helen when they were young girls and a picture of Grandpa Miklo.  Paulo explained that he would see these photos around his mother’s house, and when he asked her who they were she would say, “Those are your cousins in America.”  At this point I felt at ease because it was clear that Paulo really was family.

Betty (Jondle) Miklo 1937

Here is a link to the details about slivovice, which we drank a lot of during visits to the many Miklo houses in Slovakia. Each family wanted us to drink their homemade variety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slivovitz\