A transcription of pages 195-469,
Family Histories from the Verdigre Centennial Book
Thanks to the Verdigre Library and its volunteers for making this available.
 
The index below only includes the husband and wife for each family.
The maiden name for the wife is used if listed.
For other names, use the search on the Home Page.

Index's A-I, J-P, & Q-Z

ALVIN AND JANET [VONASEK] PAVELKA

Alvin Pavelka and Janet Vonasek were married June 26, 1956, at the St. Wenceslaus Church in Verdigre. Rev. Charles Oborny officiated. They have six children: David Charles, born living; Emy Jean, living; James Alvin, living; Kay Marie, living; John Thomas, J\living; and Patrick Alan, living.

Alvin, son of Charles and Emma Pavelka, attended country school at District 51 and graduated from Verdigre High School in 1941. He remembers the “thirties” very well as his family worked together and sacrificed to keep their farm. As a young lad, he got his spending money by selling grown chickens that were hatched from his setting hens’ eggs. At about 13, he bought his own axe, and from then on he chopped wood in his spare time (even in weather that was 20 degrees below zero) and sold it.

The fall of 1941 Alvin picked corn (by hand) northeast of Creighton for Magnus Kronberg. On January 6 of 1942, his brother Clarence went to the service so Alvin went to live on the farm that Clarence had been renting. More hard work followed during the war years and sickness affecting his father and younger brother, Elmer, made more work for the rest of the family.

In 1945 Alvin bought Jim Brown’s farm and lived for two years in the log house located there. Then he moved another house onto his farm and is presently living in that house with his wife and sons, James, John, and Pat, in the Sparta area.

In 1949 he bought 160 acres from his uncles, the Pavelka Brothers, for $50 an acre. Then in 1956 he married Janet Vonasek, daughter of Ben and Wilma (Prokop) Vonasek, who lived 14 miles west of Verdigre. She had taught rural school in Holt County for two years after graduating from Verdigre High School.

In 1965 Alvin and Janet bought part of the former Ed Tichy farm and in 1967, they paid $110 an acre for 80 acres of the Dufek farm. In 1972 Janet’s father suddenly passed away and they bought her mother and sisters’ share of the estate and took over the management of that farm also. With the children’s help, they added four pivot irrigation systems to that farm. At the present time, David, the oldest owns part of that farm where he has been living since he was a junior in high school. He has been married since July 21, 1979, to Terri L. Stubben of Creighton and they have two children, Robyn Ann and Adam David.

Emy graduated from Wayne State College and taught school for two years at Redbird rural school in Holt County and another two years at Creighton Public School. She worked one year with computers in a bank in Arlington, Texas, and is presently teaching in Dallas, Texas.

James owns the remainder of his grandfather Ben Vonasek’s farm and is planning to set up his farmstead there this year.

Kay attended Wayne State College for nearly two years and then worked for Knox County Attorneys Scholer and Birmingham for two years before her marriage to Roger Rudloff on February 16, 1985. Roger is in the Air Force and they presently live in Rapid City, South Dakota, where Roger is stationed.

John is attending Wayne State College as a junior after attending the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for one year. He is majoring in math and computer science.

Patrick is attending Wayne State College this year and is presently favoring the math field, but his major is undecided.

Pages 352, 353