THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
INTERVIEW WITH: Mary Popp
INTERVIEWER: Esther MacMillan
DATE: August 7, 1987- F.F.
PLACE: O.H. Office, ITC
M: This is an interview with Mary Popp, Czechoslovakian
booth, Folklife Festival.
I would like first to start with ... (would you please)
about the beginning of the Czechoslovakian people coming
over here to the United States. When did they first .•• not
just Texas ••• but when did they first come to this
country?
P: I would imagine they were coming along but it would be
just individuals from that first Hermann Augustine.
M: That sounds like a German word.
P: Well, but when you prounounce it, it has the "mann" and
the "r." And so many of the names were Germanized under the
Austrian rule; (when they) took over. So a lot of them
Germanized their names to get a little better treatment.
M: Ah. That's good. Were they an independent entity
before the Germans took them over?
P: They had rulers which were kings and that type of thing.
But they were held in suppression. They had to give a day's POPP 2
P: work to the lord or whoever owned the land in the area where they were. And that's where the word robot came from because the word was robota that they had to perform for their lord; the owners of the land. And that is where the word originated.
M: For goodness sake ! Is it r-o-b-o-t-a?
P: Uh huh.
M: It's like the feudal system, isn't it?
P: Tht's what it was.
M: And even in the early days of this country ••. I' m
doing a project on small towns in Texas and time and again
it tells that the men in the early days had to give one day
a month, maybe a year, for the roads. And if the roads were
in bad shape you had to give more. But that was part o f
your responsibility as a citizen. It's just about the same
thing, isn't it?
Is oppression, they were oppressed. Do you suppose
that's one reason they started emigrating?
P: Yes. And I imagine that they were hearing about the
United States at the time. But I think in about 1850, that
time, I think that's when the biggest emigration from that
country started.
M: In the 1850s. In the research I did, from the 5t h
century on, it was called Bohemia.
P: That's right. It was Bohemia 'til the end o f World War
I. And then it was called Czechoslovakia because Slovaks
were united with the Czechs . They were always known as POPP 3
P: Czechs but the country was always called Bohemia. I imagine that was a Germanized word or Gaelic word. I have that information in a book there and I could give it to you. M: Was it ever called Moravia or was Moravia next to them?
P: Moravia is part of Bohemia. There are actually three different •.. you have the Bohemia; you have the Moravia; and you have the Slovakia. And it used to be Silesia also
in the northern sector. And that was sort of the part
between Germany and Czechoslovakia and Poland; the area
there.
M: So those three •.• do they all speak the same language,
I wonder?
P: No. There is a difference. But all the newspapers and
the publications and everything are printed in the Czech
language.
M: Not Moravian, not Slovakian, but Czech ..
P: Yes.
M: What is the Czech religion? Is that Catholic?
P: A lot of Catholic but they were The Brethern, Moravian
Brethern. In fact in 1620 they had the big war, the White
Mountain. Actually that was a religious uprising. Jan Huth
really was the one that protested being forced into the
Catholic religion. The feudals lord there, if they were
Catholic, they insisted that all their people become
Catholic. The people wanted to keep their own religion.
And Jan Huth wa s burned at the stake because of it . POPP 4
P: Then Martin Luther came along a hundred years later with the same thing and of course they didn't do anything to him in Germany. It was the same principle.
M: Is Jan Huth J-a-n H-u-s-s?
P: Just Hus; one s. M: That name is familiar to me. In many cases, in looking
into the history of those middle European countries, the draft, the forced military service, drove a lot of people
toward the United States. Did that happen in this area?
P: Yes .
M: To get away from that forced military service.
P: That and they were not allowed to marry until after
they had their service behind them.
M: Really?
P: And I believe that's why they had so many illigitimate
children there.
M: Could be. That's a bad deal. That's a real bad deal!
You said something about the 50s. I forget what my source
was but it said that in 1852, the first organized group came
to Galveston. Galveston, at that time, was one of the ports
for Texas and the other was Indianola, which got some of the
people, too. Then if they came in to Galveston , that first
group in the middle of the 19th century, how would you think
they finally got to San Antonio and this area?
P : Well , they really stayed in the eastern part of the
state, in Austin county. In that area there; they settled
there. And then they moved more northward where the black POPP 5
P: land was. Up toward Taylor, and Granger. Well, there's Holstein, there's Amrnonsville , there's Praha. That way and then they just kept going north into Taylor, into
Granger, into Temple, west, and all the way up ••. that's where all the black land was and most of them farmed. The first one carne, I believe, from the Bohemia sector but it was close to the Moravian border, very close, and most of them were farmers in that area.
M: And they wanted the black land; good rich soil.
P: That's right.
M: Isn't Praha near San Antonio?
P: Praha is about 100 miles east of here.
M: East?
P: Yes. It between Schulenberg and Flatonia.
M: That's full of Czechs, isn't it, Schulenberg and
Flatonia?
P: Yes. That's Fayette County and then you have Lavaca
County where there is Halletsville, Shiner, Yoakum. There
are a lot of them over there, too.
M: Are there? Have they kept their customs fairly much
and their religion and •.. ?
P: Yes .
M: Their beliefs?
P: Yes.
M: Have they? That's interesting.
P: It is. In fact in Shiner, you can still find young
people ..• I don't want to say chilren •.. but they're not. POPP 6
M: Adults? P: They are still in the in-between stage, I guess, that
speak Czech. M: Really! That's good, isn't it? We did some work with
Nederland, which is Dutch, and in that interview the person
said, they were so anxious to become Amercans, that the
parents wouldn't allow them to learn Dutch . That's the
first time I'd heard that.
P: That's true. I think all your ethnic groups at that
time they knew they were going to stay and they wanted to
learn the customs and the language of the country they were
going to stay with. Most of them, when they settled
anywhere, if they had a fair sized settlement, they built
schools. That was the first thing they did so their
children could attend school. Then they built churches so
they would have a place to worship. They wanted their
children to get education. After the first group even, that
were educated, they went on the higher schools so that they
would, could become teachers and go back and teach. That's
what many of them did.
M: How much influence did the Germans have on the Czechs,
do you think? The Germans were so education minded.
P: Well, I believe the Czechs wanted that but they
couldn't have it. Probably because they did settle among
the Germans. And one reason for that is that when they were
under Austria, and the men had to go into the service there,
all their orders were given to them in Austrian language,
German. POPP 7
P: So almost all the men spoke German. So when they came here they would naturally go somewhere they could tal k to the people. Where they would understand each other . Then they helped each other that way.
M: This is pretty typical of a group, isn't it? Did the g roup pretty much hang together at first; stick together?
The whole villages of Czechs? Do you know?
P: No. When they first came, I think they went into the areas where the German people were. And if they learned
about different land, they kept moving. Of course, when
they would write home, they would write about the good land
and all that. Well, then when the other started coming in,
they wouuld come in and they would settle where the Czechs
were already.
That's like Dubina. Now that is not the first town that
the Czechs settled in but that's the first town that they
did settle in and name and that was completely Czech.
That's out of, around Sealey, between Sealey and Columbus,
in that area.
M: Over that far east? I didn't realize that. I thought
we had them close to us here.
P: We did a research for Mr. B~ha, who is in Houston, and he started all this Czech genealogy. They worked on the
passenger list and took out the Czech names; the s h ips they
arrived on; the dates they arrived; what port and all that.
So he was interested in knowing how many Czech people were
here in San Antonio since it was a large city back there at
that time. POPP 8
P: And so we went to the library and went t hrough the microfilms and we were surprised, really, how many Czech names we found. But it was surprising , too, how many had come up from Mexico; they gave their port of entry as
Mexico. When Mexico was at war that time. They brought in
soldiers from Europe and there were a lot of them that carne
from Czechoslovakia. And I guess some of them stayed
there. M: I didn•t know that. That•s interesting.
P: I always feel that the polka music that the Mexicans
play, the Czechs brought it with them because the polka
originated in Czechoslovakia.
M: Did it really?
P: Yes , it originated there. So I always feel like they
picked that polka music up. Maybe the soldiers brought
their accordions and things. And they have like a Czech
name, Bacha, it•s v ery well known where there are people
from Mexico that are named Bacha.
M:! How do you spell it?
P: B-a-c-a. You do a ch on the c.
M: The Italians do that sometimes.
P: Right. That•s the language. Like when we pronounce
sh, it's an s with a hook on it. And then your as and your
es , your lo ng~ and your long es have a line. Otherwise,
there are no other .•• I forget what they call it now but
they don't have anything over the letter. POPP 9
M: Isn't that interesting. Some figure I found when I was looking into this said that by 1900, there were 15,000
Czechs in Texas. P: I believe that would be right.
M: Pretty high.
P: They did come in. I have , like on those passenger
lists, it really is amazing.
M: Do you know ••. I've worked with this kind of material
so much, and I try to put myself in ••• what if you were a
young woman with a baby and you're on one of those slow,
pokey sailing vessels and certainly no pleasant
accomodations •.. think how uncomfortable ••.
P: It must have been miserable. Some of the people even
died. I imagine it's because of the diet and of course the
sailing ships, it would take maybe two months before you got
here.
M: Sure. The food supplies
P: Right. And they had bad food on the ship. And they
even ran out. They expected the people would have furnished
some of their own food they had brought with them. Some of
the women gave birth to children .••
M: On the ship! Can you believe how uncomfortable that
was?
P: They say the first group that came here, that they lost
so many of their people because of that. And then when they
landed, a l ot of it ••. I guess some of them could go by
oxen but the majority of them walked . POPP 10
P: They lost a lot of people that way, too. I guess they were buried somewhere, nobody knows where. And I'm sure if anybody digs anywhere and they find skeletons, it's p robably something from that.
M: I did an interview not long ago about early times •••
I've forgotten what it was ... but a child died and the
question was .• there was no such thing as a cemetery
they were moving across the country in covered wagons
and they buried the child under a tree, no marker, nothing,
because the Indians dug up the newly-made graves to get the
scalps.
P: I didn't know that.
M: That's something we take for granted. I had never
thought about. People are buried in cemeteries . There ~
no cemeteries in those early days. And you put yourself in
their shoes •.• we are so spoiled, we want to be comfortable;
we fuss about this hot weather!
P: Have you gone to Europe?
M: Yes.
P: I think everybody should go and they should go int o the
Eastern countries and see how the people live over there.
And I know they'd come back here and appreciate what they
have here a lot more.
M: We are a pretty lucky bunch of p eople. We 've got a lot
of problems but we sure are lucky.
P: Yeah.
M: Fayettville. Now Holstein is near LaGrange, isn't it? POPP 11
P: Yes.
M: We've done the whole town of LaGrange, which isn't in yet but we found a lot of Czechs over around LaGrange. Is that right?
P: Yes ••• Holstein, and Ammonsville and Dubi ~ is not far from that area, too.
M: I've got Ennis written here.
P: Ennis is north; it's close to Dallas; it's about 45 miles south of Dallas.
M: I know where that is. They have wonderful peaches up there. Have you ever been there? We bought the most wonderful peaches in Ennis one time.
P: We've been there a couple of times. They have a polka
festival the first weekend in May. And they draw people
from all over. They have four fraternal halls there.
M: Four!
P: And they have continual dancing from noon 'til midnight
Saturday and Sunday and Friday night, they have sort of a
get together for the ones that come from a long distance.
And they have something for them.
M: Why do you suppose the polka started in Czechoslovakia?
P: I don't know.
M: Isn't that fascinating? I never knew about that. It's
been adopted by everybody under the sun. Certainly the
Americans have used it. POPP 12
M: One of the things I read in looking up the history of this country, the wedding feast was very important. A lot of fuss was made about the wedding. This is true of the
Polish: I know about Polish weddings. Is this similar?
Several days celebration, lots of food, dancing .•• ? Much like the Polish?
P: Yes. In the Czech , Moravia, all those countries. To their weddings they wore elaborate costumes, both the bride and bridegroom. And in fact , when a girl was born, a mother would start making a costume for that child, guessing at the size of the child , like let's say when she would be 16 years old. They would work on it, it would take that long. Of course, they didn't work on it steadily . But they had such elaborate embroidery work, it took a lot of time. Even the
lace was hand made and everything.
M: What? Hand made lace! It was an important occasion ,
after all.
P: At the turn of t he century in the old country, a young man asked parental permission for a girl ' s hand in marriage.
Held in church, the wedding preceded a traditional feast at
the brides's parent's home. The feast featured duck or
goose, dumplings, sauerkraut , kolaches and strudel. Wine,
beer and coffee were abundant.
Soon after the wedding , the bride went a l one to her new
in-law's home. There she expressed her gratitude t o their
son, her husband. The bride then returned to her home to
collect her belongings, including a hope chest or low boy,
filled with the items she had sewn, crocheted or knitted. POPP 13
P: Her parents donated furniture. Particularly the fezzina (perina), the feather bed. A must in every Czech family. This tradition has contiued to some extent in the
United States.
M: How does that r get to be a sh?
P: It has that hook on t here and the Czech r is a zzzzzz.
We were trying to teach our son the abcs and we were trying
to teach him that r and we had more trouble with that.
M: I can see how. Have you ever studied French and you
have to get that r back in your throat? We English speaking
people have a hard time with rs. Look at Spanish, we have
to roll it. You've got a different pronounciation, the
French ...
P : You know the Spanish and our language, as far as
pronounciation, I don't think we have any problems , either
one. I think they could pronounce our words much easier
than you can some of the other languages . Like German is
.•• I guess they call it gutteral ••• it's not always easy
to pronounce, either. I have read somewhere that German is
not a romantic language because they said t he way you
pronounce your words, they just don't have a soft sound to
them; not a romantic sound.
M: Tell me what's the name of that book . Let ' s have a
source .
P: CZECH FOLKLORE . It was compiled by Vladirner and
Dolores Kucera. POPP 14
M: The date? Somebody might want to ...
P: I don't know if you can get them
M: You think they're out o f print?
P: Yes. 1982.
M: It's fairly new then.
P: I guess they sold out and I don't know if they made any reprintings or not.
M: It might be available in a library.
P: Lincoln, Nebraska. He's a professor at the University
o f Nebraska. I know that they have it there.
M: You have to think about these interviews . People will
be using them in years to come and they may be puzzled; they
may want some more informtion on the Czechs and it's a good
thing for them to know that in Lincoln, t he University
Printing press may have it.
P: I was trying to find ••. see here it says this book may
be ordered from the University of Nebraska ••• $12.95. It
really is a good book; it covers everything. All the
different holidays. And most of the holidays that they
observed over there were saints' feast days. They had
different traditions.
M: Like all the Catholic countries.
While we're on the subject , would you tell me what
you've got on?
P: Well, this is not a skirt that's made to go with the
top, I'm sorry to say . I wore my other one yesterday and I
have to let it air o ut. But they usually have the red POPP 15
P: skirt or a blue skirt and then they have the lace or
the little decorated trim that you find on them.
M: Like braid; little decorative braid?
P: Braid. Or like ribbon, but they have different little
patterns.
M: Now what you have on is just a plain red pleated skirt.
Is the authetic one gathered into a belt?
P: Yes. They are gathered and they are usually red and
they may have a white flower in the skirt.
M: Do you always have an apron?
P: It is traditional, yes.
M: Yours is an eyelet; a white cotton eyelet. Is that
typical?
P: Yes. It doesn't have to be all eyelet but they usually
have cut-out work at least along the border of the apron.
M: And this has a little, not really lace, but •••
P: It's a little ruffle with a kind of picot edge .
M: That's a beautiful blouse you ' ve got on. It looks
authentic.
P: No. But this does come from Czechoslavakia; the lace
comes from Czechoslovakia. When they made the blouse, they
put that on there. We had several of them. We were in a
singing group. My sister-in-law, we were in Europe, she was
able to find enough that we could all put it on our
costumes. We didn't have enough for the sleeves but we have
the same trim on the aprons.
MP: I don't know what they call it now but we used to call POPP 16
M: it a Bertha collar. Anyway , it's a ruffle all the way around the neck, gathered. But the sleeves ••• are
fascinating. They are very big puffs and yet they are
gathered in about half way down. P: There 's elastic in it. They're straight and then when
they're gathered, that's what they do.
M: It's just beautiful. And what do you call that?
P: It's a little vest.
M: You call it a vest. And it' s black with braid.
P : You'll find that a lot of them have embroidery . I
embroidered that on there. Most of the vests that you see ,
that are from Czechoslovakia, are covered with embroidery .
M: You've trimmed it with gold braid. And the lacing is
authentic, isn't it? P: I just made that up! (laughter)
M: O.K. We've talked about clothes. I want to know about
what kind of food you're serving. What's authentic? They
were making ••• do you say kolach or kolakes?
P: Kolaches . We put the hook o n the c which made it a
kolache.
M: What does the hook l ook like?
P: Drawing : (looks like a check mark) and then on a long e •. •
M: It slants a little? You put that check over the c and
that makes it ch?
P: Yes.
M: And then that mark over thee ••• POPP 17
P: the long e is eeee.
M: Elongated, sort of drawing it out?
P: Yes. Not necessarily drag it out but you pronounce ••• it has a little broader pronounciation; the other you just sort of slide over. M: I come from the north; from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We are very familiar with kolaches. I have made kolaches; I have a wonderful recipe for kolaches. Is that Polish, also?
We have Scandinavians where I come from. Minnesota is
pretty solid Scandinavian. So they make 'em, too?
P: I think so. And I'll tell you why. Many years ago,
where we lived, there was a lady from Italy that lived down
the street. She brought a ••• it's not a kolache ••. it's
like an open cake but you use the s ame dough. Raised dough.
And you put your fresh fruit filling in there, sweetened and
all that. They do that too because in Czechoslovakia you
have the prune plum ••• they call it ? they make it into
dumplings.
M: That's the one in Minnesota for instance, the prune
one, that we know.
P: That is the Czech. That and the apricot. You see
apricots grow in cold climate so the prunes and the apricots
they're very seasonal •.• Years ago, when you couldn't
eat meat on Friday, this is what we would have on Fridays
when they were in season were the dumplings; prune dumpl ings POPP 18
P: and the apricot dumplings. And we loved them.
M: How does a dumpling differ from a kolache?
P: Dumpling you boil; a kolache you bake. It's your raised dough where the ••• you can have raised dough for the dumplings, too, but you always boiled them.
M: In stock? P: No, just water.
M: Do you serve them with a sauce, butter, or what?
P: Butter and you sweeten; you put your sugar on it.
M: Dumpling? It's a dessert?
P: No. It was your main course on meatless Fridays; that
was our main course.
M: Really.
P: You buttered them and you sweetened them. Where you
could get that real dry cottage cheese, you could sprinkle
that over them, too. Some of them would have the ground
poppy seed, sweetened; you could sprinkle that over it.
My mother used to take bread crumbs and she would toast
them in butter and I loved that.
M: And you put it over the dumpling?
P: Yes. We had sugar on them, they were already sweet and
that just gave them a little extra.
M: A little crunch, too. A nice little contrast.
You've got that and what else are you serving down there?
P: The kolaches and then the klobasniky which is a kolache
but it has the sausage in it. If you tried to pronounce it, POPP 19
P: get two or three letters together: klo-bas-niky. M: That's not bad at all. You said it so fast, it sounded complicated. Is that a raised doughi a yeast dough?
P: It's like for the kolaches.
M: And you put in sausage. P: And you put the sausage in there. And of course the kolaches have the cheese and the prunes, the poppy seed. I don't know what else they have.
And then they're making the sisky, which is like a dumpling.
M: But you said sh.
P: On both ss, you put check.
M: Both of them have a check.
And that's like what? (sisky)
P: Well, you take a .•• it has to be dry cottage cheese and you have flour and you have egg and you have sugar and you have cracker crumbs. You work this all together and you
roll it out, about the size of a fat cigar and you boil
that, it stays together. You boil it about 15 minutes and
then you put butter on it and then sugar and cinnamon.
M: Is that what that woman had out there? I wondered what
it was because I didn't think it looked like kolaches. Are
they cooking right there; an oven right there?
P: Yes.
M: You do the whole thing.
P: Last year we didn't sell any kolaches; it was our first year,really, as a group there. They wanted us to demonstrate POPP 20
P: some kind of food so we did. Sun Harvest Farms
furnished the material for it but we didn't sell it; we just
gave out samples. And so this year they asked if we would go
ahead and do that again and sell them; don't hand out
samples.
M: Why not? People are going to love them.
P: Yes. Yesterday they were real busy all day long.
M: Were they really?
P: Yes.
M: I don't come on Thursday. I stay away from here on
Thursday because everybody is getting ready, getting
accustomed to being where they are, and what not. I figure
nobody wants to bother with me. So I don't know anything
about Thursday. Was it busy last night?
P: Yes. I understand they had a larger crowd here
yesterday then they did last year on the first day.
M: That's great. Is there anything •.• we are getting
near the end of this tape ... is there anything you want to
add, we haven't got on there? I have a note here from my
study that said, 11 In 1910, the Czechs moved west and got as
far as Lubbock."
Did you know about that?
P: Yes, they're t here and Runnells county which is is
that near San Angelo?
M: It says, San Angelo, Littlefield and something Falls.
P: They're very active there, too.
M: Are they? POPP 21
P: Yes. And they have at Lubbock, that's Texas Tech, they were teaching Czech there at the University.
M: That's what it said: Slavic languages. Enough people to have classes; interested in the language. Isn't that interesting.
P: Temple Junior (College) teaches Czech; University of
Houston has Czech classes; I think it's Alvin, small town near Houston, college, too ••• they teach Czech classes there. The different fraternals; the VFBFJ in Houston;; one of the lodges in Dallas, they have Czech classes. We have started Czech classes here but we don't have a professional teacher for it but we have gotten together and a lady that is from Czechoslovakia and knows the language real well, she teaches us.
M: What kind of people are wanting to learn Czech?
Adults? You said young people.
P: Yes. Students.
M: How are they going to use it or is it just an enhancement of their ...
P: Yes, their ethnic background. Not only that, they have,
Charles University in Prague, has a course every summer and
they have so many students from the United States of Czech ethnic background attend school there. Now they have to pay
their own transportation but once they get there, they
supply them with everything. They even take them on field
trips in different sections of the country. They learn
Czech and when they come back here, they teach it. POPP 22
M: It occurs to me , too, that a lot of young people are going into the Diplomatic Service and the more languages you have the better off you are.
P: I think if you learn one Slavic language fairly well, you have less trouble with the rest of them because you can
always understand enough to know what the person is speaking
about.
M: What about the Czechs here in San Antonio? Have you
got a fairly cohesive group? Do you meet and do things
together? P: Yes. We're the Czech Cultural and Education Foundation.
This was started by Dan Pavliska about four years ago, I
think. He started this group and he said that there were
25,000 people in San Antonio that had some Czech ethnic
background. I don't know how he found them but he contacted
many , many of 'em. The first get together that we had , we
had over at St. Margaret Mary's and we had a Czech mass. We
had dinner and program. He brought in the dancers from we s t
TExas •.• they dance here every year. We had displays
there, too, on the different •.• similar to what we have
down here. We had a wonderful turnout.
But the next year , he had cancer already then , but he
passed away just at the time that we would have had our get
together. So we didn't have anything that year. A few of
us have tried to get it going. We have this down here. And
there are fraternals that are here. They do have just their
meetings and since we don't have our own buildings or POPP 23
P : anything, it' s sort of hard for anybody to contact anybody. It's very interesting you know, participating.
M: You mentioned a fraternal organization by its initials. P: SPJST. Their headquarters are in Temple, Texas.
M: A Czech organization?
P: Yes. Slavonic Benevolent
M: Only men? P: Both. They have a youth program, too. Very good.
Like Hermann Sons. Then they progress into the adult sector. They have very good youth programs.
M: Isn't it interesting how people are cherishing their backgrounds instead of being ashamed of them. A lot of people didn't want to say they were Polish or Czech. Now there's great pride in this and you can be a Czech and still be just as proud as you can be of being an American citizen.
P: You're American first but that doesn't mean that you have to forget what you were before.
M: It makes Texas colorful. We're not dull.
P: It makes us very interesting because every nationality
has different things and I like to see all of them proud of what they had. You know like our country is under Russia
and the way things are over there . Some people say I don't
want to say I'm Czech. Well, those people can't help it.
Russia comes in. They can't help it. And you reach back
long before Russia got so controversial. POPP 24
M: I think it is a very healthy thing. There was a movement some time back, some of the intellectuals saying oh we call this a melting pot, shouldn't do that and blah,
blah, but we are a melting pot. I think it's wonderful; I
like that. Is there anything else you want on this tape?
How do you feel about Folklife Festival?
P: I love it. It's wonderful I think to bring all the
different groups together like that and let then show their
food , customs and everything; I think it's wonderful. There
was a young boy that came over there yesterday, there were
three of them, and one said, "What do you want to look at
that stuff for?" One said, "Oh, I'm Czech." He says, "You
are?" and kind of looked at him. He said , " Yeah ". I asked
him, "Are you really?" He's from Caldwell which is a small
town in the area of Dime Box, I guess, toward Bryan and that
area. He said, "We've got German and Czech both in the
family. " Said his parents speak Czech . We got to talking
about different things and I asked him what his name was and
he told it to me but I guess it was Anglicized and the way
he pronounced it I couldn't figure out what it was and I
said , " Spell it for me." So he did and I said and he
looked at me
M: He didn ' t know how to say it.
P: Well, they say it in English . He was a young boy; he
was not ashamed of his
M: Good for him !
P: And he is going to West Point. POPP 25
M: For goodness sake , good for him. P: And he talked about their family reunions, Czech people; and what they do. It just makes you feel good,
somebody like that. M: He's a cut above some of them too; he's got some
intellectual curiosity. But you have now down in your booth, you have things on display. You have literature on
display, china, the dolls. Are they in native costume? Is
there anything special about the dolls? Are they given to
the children for birthdays, Christmas? P: I don't think children play with them. They're more of
a collectors • • Probably at one time, they may have but I
don ' t think they had the elaborate costumes because these
are made for special occasions. They had a costume that was more of an every day costume, not that elaborate.
M: Pretty. You have a lot of them for people to look at. M: Now you're selling kolaches and the finger sausage and
the siska. You're serving those two things, but the thing
with the sausage in ••• ? P: It is like a kolache dough but it has sausage instead of the sweet filling.
M: And is that baked?
P: Baked.
M: I'm so grateful to you for taking time to do this. You 're my number one for 1987 Folklife Festival . I do thank you. POPP 26
P: I was born in Czechoslovakia, carne to the u.s. when I was three. We emigrated to Chicago. Chicago had a very large Czech area there. At the time when we migrated in
1920, they had a quarter of a million people of Czech background. They had three daily Czech newspapers.
M: How long did you live in Chicago?
P: I grew up there. I finished my schooling there.
M: Have you been to Chicago lately? That's one of my favorite places.
P: When my sister lived there and my parents were still living, we went there after World War II; went there twice. But after that
M: I haven't been there for ages and I probably wouldn't know it.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MI NUTES.