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.