Met with a couple today to cut a house and about eight acres off of most of a half section. Really nice people. Probably in their mid-60's. Eventually I got around to asking the husband the ethnic origin of his surname. Salava isn't like Jones or Murphy. He first said it was Bohemian and then clarified by saying his family had left an area approximately in what we might think of as Czechoslavia shortly before Hitler's forces moved into the area in the 1930's.
What he told me next was what I found to be the most interesting. Despite arriving in the US sometime in the 1930's, the family spoke only their native tongue at home. Assuming he was born in the late 1940's, it surprised me when he said he knew no English until he was enrolled in First Grade and had to learn it in the classroom and on the playground. Apparently, the family did not associate much with anyone but those of their own ethnic background. Meanwhile, the county where he was raised was a vast mix of European-based ethnic groups, plus a few others.
The widow that lived next door was a WWII bride from Germany.
Her husband's family immigrated from there many years before.
English was never a well spoken language for her and I always had to communicate with her thru her daughter, who, BTW, is a mirrored image with Sandra Bullock.
😉
> .....an area approximately in what we might think of as Czechoslavia
Well, we might have thought of it as Czechoslovakia 20 years ago. 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia
In other breaking news...the Ottoman Empire has dissolved.
My dad used to tell stories about the immigrant children who came into his hometown, Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio.
The Yonson brothers (or whoever) would enter 1st grade at age 14, but finish the year at 7th grade. It was never a shame to be older than your classmates. My favorite story was the immigrant who sent his two boys to school the day he arrived in this country. It was the last day of school, but he didn't want them to miss any schooling.
While that is true, at the time prior to Hitler's entry it was known as Czechoslovakia.............per my sentence. Later, it was downsized. Even later, it split. Prior to WW I it was merely part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This reminds me of a close friend who always thought of her ancestors as being German. Well, that was sort of true. But, today their home area is in Poland. So does that make her of Polish descent or German descent?
A good answer would be "what language did they speak?".
All my wife's folks and family left Poland before WWII, just in the nick of time. They wound up in Milwaukee. Chicago, ninety miles south, still has the largest Polish-American population in the CONUS, I believe.
They all still speak Polish.
A lot of folks might not be able to tell you what a Polish accent sounds like. It's easy. Remember Charles Buchinsky? He went by the stage name of Charles Bronson. While technically his accent was Lithuanian-Prussian, it's close enough.
"Datz watta Polski hack-cent sownslike, dawncha know?"
My Grandfather was from Bohemia. His "birth language" was Czech. Once he arrived here and became an American, he no longer allowed Czech to be spoken in his home. He was a "By God" American and English was now his language.
Arrived at Ellis Island with $25 in his pocket and a giant pair of Tailor's shears (which I have now), worked as a tailor, got married, bought a 2 story house in St. Paul, Minnesota, put 2 kids through college. Did pretty good.
Harry Ried would say that all is a lie.:-O
Poland was split three times...I think she is polish 🙂