JOSEPH J. AND EMMA [SUKUP] JELINEK
Joe J. Jelinek was born on December 8, 1891. Besides having the same
name, he, his father, and his grandfather all had December 8
birthdays. Joe J. Jelinek’s son, Ernest, missed it by just one day.
Joe went to school and received his education through the ninth
grade. When Joe and Julia started school they could speak only the
Czech language.
Emma Sukup, the eighth child of Andrew and Mary A. (Sedivy) Sukup,
Sr., was born July 5, 1894. Her father Andrew had come to America in
1870 when he was 17 years old. Mary was five years old when she came
with her parents, Mrs. and Mrs. John Sedivy. Andrew and Mary were
married on July 12, 1879, and settled down on his homestead. They
had fourteen children. Andrew started the first blacksmith shop in
Knox County and held the distinction of being the country’s first
blacksmith.
Joe J. Jelinek and Emma Sukup were married on June 20, 1916, at the
old St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Verdigre. They then moved to
the farm his parents had lived on southwest of Verdigre and his
parents moved to a new house in Verdigre. Joe and Emma had two sons,
Ernest and Alvin.
[pg 286 PHOTO Emma and Joe Jelinek taken at 60th Wedding
Anniversary in 1976]
They started out with crops and commercial Hereford cattle, then in
1936 began their herd of registered Herefords. They had their first
production sale in 1946. Joe and his sons, had the reserve champion
Hereford bull, Royal Beldmond XXII, at the 1957 Cornhusker Futurity
at Broken Bow. When the show was in Bassett, they showed the Grand
Champion Bull, Silver Aster, 3rd. A sale barn was built on the farm
in 1964 where they held their annual bull sale.
Joe and Emma observed their 60th Wedding Anniversary in 1976 with an
open house at the St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church basement in
Verdigre. They lived on the farm all their married lives until they
moved to Alpine Village at Verdigre in the fall of 1979.
Joe died April 8, 1980. Emma continued to make her home at Alpine
until she died on May 25, 1985. They are both buried at St.
Wenceslaus Catholic Cemetery at Verdigre.
-Submitted by Rebecca (Havlicek) Jelinek]
Pages
286, 287
