ANTON AND ANNA [HOLAN] TICHY
Anton Tichy, son of Frantisek Tichy and Marie Novak, was born at
Jankov u Votice, Bohemia, on April 18, 1858. He attended school a
little in Bohemia, probably also in Chicago from 1867 to 1870, but
certainly in Sparta Township, District No. 6, where he was listed as
a pupil in 1876, despite his age. According to the custom of the
day, school terms were very short and credits toward the eighth
grade were accumulated slowly. Despite this schooling, he always
insisted he could not read English.
As soon as he obtained his majority in 1879, Anton Tichy filed for a
homestead further up Bingham Creek, on the Southeast Quarter of
Section 2 in Sparta Township. The next year, on August 20, 1880, he
married a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents had homesteaded on
an adjoining farm in 1879. Anna Holan was a daughter of Matej Holan,
Sr.
Several children were born to the couple in the first 18 years of
their marriage, but the only survivors were the first born, Bessie,
later Mrs. Louis Skokan, Sr. (August 15, 1881-November 13, 1933) and
Amalia, or Molly, later Mrs. Frank Skokan, Jr. (September 3,
1889-June 14, 1926). Later three more daughters (and probably a son)
were born. The first of these, Milada, born March 4, 1899, died
after being scalded by hot coffee on January 31, 1901, five days
before her oldest sister was married. She is buried in the ZCBJ, now
Hillcrest,
Cemetery, along with probably, the boy. Rose, Mrs. Charles Liska
(October 2, 1901-September 9, 1982), and Elsie, Mrs. Edward Dobry
(August 6, 1906-February 8, 1964) were born in the twentieth
century.
[pg 423 photo Mr. and Mrs. Anton Tichy]
Anton Tichy received a patent on the Southwest Quarter of Section 2
in Sparta Township. It was not the only land he owned in the course
of his life. He was constantly buying and selling pieces of
property, so that it is difficult to say just how much land he owned
at any one time. Though the late eighties and the early nineties
were a time of depression and drought, he seems to have survived.
Towards the end of the 1890s, Anton Tichy contemplated retirement,
not an unusual prospect for those times when the life expectancy was
not what it is today. About 1898 the Tichys lived for a brief time
in Omaha. In the first decade of the twentieth century he began to
purchase land in the village of Niobrara.
Early in 1907, Anton Tichy, his wife and two small daughters moved
into Niobrara.
In the middle teens, Mrs. Tichy developed a sore which would not
heal and about the beginning of 1918 she was diagnosed as suffering
from a metastasized cancer which took her life on October 16, 1918.
Before she died, Anna :Holan Tichy executed a will in which she left
her real and personal property (cash) to her daughters in proportion
to their age. The youngest was to receive a sum which she thought
might be satisfied by a property she owned, the other behests were
to be paid in cash. But the will was devised almost a year before
she died and the amount in her bank account was not adequate to
cover the behests. The town property was appraised at less than the
amount of the behest to the youngest daughter. When it was put up
for sale, Anton Tichy bid it in at the amount of the behest (though
he might have had it for less). He also paid the cash behests to the
other daughters, in whole or in part, as well as court costs. For
various reasons, a guardian was appointed to represent the minor
girls. This was their brother-in-law, Frank Skokan, Jr., and he so
faithfully executed his trust that when the younger girls were of
age their money had grown considerably.
The girls remained in the home until they married. On December 12,
1931, not much more than a year after his youngest daughter was
married, Anton Tichy died. He had prepared for the moment by deeding
over his remaining city properties to a daughter and giving her the
legal authority to handle his affairs. On a day in winter he was
laid to rest beside his wife in L’Eau Qui Court Cemetery in
Niobrara.
Pages
423, 424
