Francis Joseph Swehla

“ So we got our prairie schooner ready and sometime in the early part of September we proceeded to move into the new land of promise. Meandering southwest, we entered Kansas at the corner of Washington and Republic counties, going through Republic, Jewell, Mitchell, and Lincoln counties into Wilson township, Ellsworth county. But what a pitiful sight was presented to our astonished view every day. Trees nearly all bare of leaves, grass eaten short everywhere, in some places dead and burned off. ”

“ Quite early in life I had made it a strict rule to always live within my income, and above all never to venture into any hazardous undertakings, and I suppose that is why we weathered all the storms that beset us. ’Tis true that our living was rather plain in the early years, but we always had enough, and there never was a time when we or our children went hungry. And so we went along, step by step, slow but sure, always getting a little farther ahead each year, raising a numerous family in the meantime. ”

“ Practically all the rest of the land in Palacky township is owned by Germans or their descendants.'
Expansion has been the motto in this settlement. Our people are prolific as well as industrious. And as the large families grew to adult age more new homes were started on raw land bought from the railroad company or some neighbor willing to sell. At first it was the American who was willing to sell his land, but after years of growing and crowding, even Bohemians sold out to some fellow countryman who wanted a particular location worse than the owner did. ”

“ After a while it struck me that by watching for chances to get free transportation on railways I would be enabled to reach other states and sections of the country, which would help me to find a choice location for my farm, as land was altogether too high priced near Milwaukee. Accordingly I hunted up jobs of railway construction and bridge building, whereby I was enabled to view and study the lay of the land and the character of the soil, besides other features pertaining to farming, in the states of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. ”

“ While teaching my first public school in my log cabin on my claim Nebraska, I was reading in my newspapers of our people organizing companies in the large cities to move out and settle on land, to go to farming, because there was a financial panic in this country. Wages were low and many thousands were out of work in every city. One such company of Bohemians in New York City was organized and had secured reduced rates to go west to settle on land; another in Chicago, Ill.; and each club or colony voted to send committee to explore some western state. ”

“ People must first become familiar with a new idea and be educated up to it before they embrace it.
The object of the organization of Bohemian Dames is culture gained by progressive ideas, and by noble endeavor for humanity’s welfare. They urge that children be taught to speak and to respect the mother tongue. They support schools. Aid is given to members of their society in sickness and distress; sick benefits and $600 death benefit are paid. A local lodge of the order is in Holyrood and is said to be stronger than the lodge at Wilson. ”

“ After my father came he wanted me to buy a farm of my own, and he told me that he would lend me his money, also the money of his youngest son who was only thirteen years old, and that by giving my brother a mortgage on the farm for nine years I could keep his money until he was of age. So under these circumstances I bought a farm. Right across the road from me was a tract of land for sale. It contained one hundred and sixty acres, with one hundred and five acres in wheat, and I figured that this, with the one hundred acres in wheat on my leased land, ought to give me an average crop. ”

“ As settlers came, the available free homestead land in the vicinity of Wilson grew scarce, so I had to take the newcomers farther into the domain of the cowboys and their long-horned Texas cattle herds. And here was a conflict of interests. But the law was on the side of the settlers, and the free rangers had to go farther west into the wilderness, as the pioneer turned the buffalo grass under in preparation for the golden harvest.
“Plum Creek Flats” is a level expanse of country, but between it and the Smoky Hill river the land is rough. ”

“ To-day we have over one hundred farmers as stockholders, have added large coal sheds and a feed warehouse, are entirely out of debt, have accumulated a working capital of $4000, and besides, have each year paid a liberal dividend to the stockholders. We have raised the price of wheat three cents a bushel and give absolutely honest weight to our patrons, whether they are stockholders or not. As a consequence our business has rapidly increased year by year. ”

“ My brother-in-law always wanted to go on a farm, and on hearing that our other uncle was in Kansas, we quit our jobs in Omaha and went to Kansas. I did not go on any business, but just to see what it looked like. We arrived at Wilson, March 3, 1882. My brother-in-law bought a quarter section of land about five miles north of Wilson, known to all as “Hell creek.”
I did not like the land here in Kansas very much and could get no work that would pay over twelve dollars a month, so I left, and on April 1, 1882, was again in Omaha. ”

“ In the spring of 1884 I again got a job on a farm for seven months at eighteen dollars a month. By that fall I had enough money to buy me a team of horses and a wagon, with which I drove to eastern Kansas and Nebraska to shuck and shell corn. After I finished all the work I could find in Nebraska and eastern Kansas, I returned to Wilson, and stayed with my sister until the spring of 1885.
I then rented me a farm four miles south of town and started to “bach.” I planted some corn that spring, and in the fall I put in my first wheat crop. ”

“ Anton Slechta, from Chicago, Ill., was the first Bohemian shoemaker in Wilson, but was soon followed by Frank Kucesa from Allegheny, Pa., who ran a shoe shop after Slechta turned to farming in Noble township on the northeast quarter of section 17. Both are now gone, which shows how shops are driven out of business by factories. In the track of the victorious march of industrial development we find the ruins of former handicrafts and trades. The only one I think of now that has not been ruined is the barber. ”

“ Athletic club “Vysehrad,” twenty-two members, and the dramatic club here demonstrate their activity and skill. It is also the meeting place of lodge Z. C. B. J., with forty members of both sexes.
Gymnastics to the young Cechs are as baseball and football to young Americans—almost a national mania. As the French gymnasts and the German turnverein, so the Bohemian “Sokol” pursues the training with an ardor almost approaching worship. Physical training is as old as the human race. The system has been developed as gradually as evolution has pushed the march of civilization. ”

“ The main things were, temperate climate; good soil; free land from Uncle Sam, or cheap relinquishments of improvements by previous settlers; railroad land at from $2.50 to $5.00 per acre; good and plenty of water from never-failing springs and wells at from thirty to sixty feet; plenty of building stone of fine quality, and an accessible railroad station. A paradise for poultry, cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, etc. I kept my pen going, publishing my reports in Bohemian-American papers until I drew the attention of the farm clubs formed in the cities and of all that reading public. ”

“ But if any person is interested he can get a copy free for the asking—in either the Bohemian or the English language, or he can see a copy in the library of the Kansas State Historical Society.
Do not think that Bohemians are a very clanish people. Not at all we are on the whole pretty good mixers. I’ll point to one instance which can be proved by records. There are a half dozen or more American societies, lodges, clubs, companies, churches, corporations, etc., in Wilson, and you will find Bohemians in nearly all of them. ”

“ There were over two hundred and fifty human beings, herded together like cattle, in the steerage of their little vessel, and no cabin accommodations except for the ships crew, consequently living conditions were frightful, and the food served out to the emigrants was so coarse and unpalatable that young children could not digest it and cried with hunger. ”

“ The years 1893 to 1896 were made up of days that tried man's ingenuity in making both ends meet. There was crop failure after crop failure, and the result was not seen at once but had its influence for a long time after. Mortgage foreclosures were frequent occurrences, and public sale posters were seen on every corner. We all suffered, the big farmer as well as the small one. I lost my farm and all my live stock, and began again under sore affliction and a heavy load of debt. ”

“ Most of our people settled on the raw prairie and made farm homes of it. Very few had ever farmed before. They were in most cases of some mechanical craft, and had to take their first lessons in agriculture under the tutorship of Experience. The most needed trades here in the beginning were blacksmiths, masons and carpenters; to these may be added shoemakers, well diggers and tinners. Anton Somer, a member of our colony, ran the first blacksmith shop in Wilson. In 1878 Vaclav Zavodnik came from Iowa, and started a blacksmith and wagon shop, which he is still running. ”

“ As it was too late for each family to dig itself a habitation in the hillside as the Norwegian settlers had done, several families combined to build a house out of slabs bought from a rude and primitive sawmill on Turkey river. Uncle had bought a yoke of oxen and an old wagon to haul the slabs and get the baggage left at the river's landing. He built a stable of split rails and old dead grass for hay, but winter was too severe for that kind of quarters, and the oxen froze, or half froze and half starved. ”

“ Vaclav Aksamit, formerly of Noble township, Ellsworth county, retired from farming, lives in his comfortable residence in Lucas with his better half, enjoying a well-deserved rest in the evening of their long and varied life.
About all of the settlers joined the Farmers’ Union, and have in town, besides the grain elevator and coal shed, their own creamery. South of town three and a half miles they have built a “National Hall,” which they make their social center. ”

“ After my father found out that I was willing to go with him he sold all his property, and on the 16th of May, 1878, we left our little village of Lomicka to make our future home in the United States.
On leaving our little village we drove a one-horse lumber wagon to Pilsen, which was about fifteen miles away, and was the nearest railway station. At Pilsen we took the train for a seaport; thence we sailed to New York, which took us eleven days. From New York we traveled by train to Plymouth, Iowa, where we arrived June 6. ”