ANTON AND ANNA [VOKNER] RYCHTARIK
Anton Rychtarik was the son of Antonin Rychtarik, a farmer from Maly
Kostomlaty, Boleslav, Bohemia. Antonin’s parents were Joseph
Rychtarik and Marie Rozena Hlavaty.
Antonin Rychtarik was born December 12, 1839. Like his father, he
was a small farmer in the village of Maly Kostomlaty. On July 9,
1861, he married Marie Zednik, a daughter of Pavel who was born
February 2, 1843, and died December 10, 1925. That same year she
converted from Catholicism to the faith of the Reformed Evangelical
Church. The couple had at least five children. Contact with the
Rychtarik family in Bohemia was evidently broken during the First
World War or after, for when Anton died in 1932 it was believed that
his mother was still alive.
Anton was born at Maly Kostomlaty on March 31, 1865, and he died
June 3, 1932. After finishing his schooling, he was apprenticed to a
harnessmaker and, though he did not become a journeyman and a master
in that trade in Bohemia, knowledge of the craft served him well in
the United States.
In 1882 he emigrated at 17, quite possibly because his mother’s
brother Vaclav and her sister Barbora (Mrs. Frantisek Fischer) had
gone to the United States earlier. His father, Antonin, was dead by
then.
For six months Anton worked in Chicago as a harnessmaker. For a
year, he plied that trade in Wahoo, Nebraska, and then he came to
Niobrara where he made harnesses and did other work. His uncle and
aunt, the Fischers, had come to Knox County before him.
In 1888, he married Anna Vokner. Anna, the daughter of Frank Vokner,
Sr., (May 13, 1838-April 30, 1903) and Marie Karban Vokner (January
9, 1841-March 3, 1941), was born September 17, 1870, in present-day
Knox County.
If Anna Vokner experienced all the rigors of a child’s life in a
pioneer family, her early married years were not easy, either. In
1890 the couple moved to the Lynch area in Boyd County where the
Fischers had gone. They took up a homestead in this newly-opened
area. That first year a prairie fire consumed all their property.
Anton spent the winter working in Stanton, returning in the spring
of 1891 to plant crops. Once that was done he went to Niobrara to
find work. Mrs. Rychtarik remained on the homestead.
The couple lived for twelve years in Boyd County. Here two children
were born, George (no dates) and Anastazie (1895-1934). Then in 1902
the Rychtariks moved to a farm in Section 5 of Jefferson Township,
Knox County. Mr. Rychtarik purchased a quarter of land in Bohemia
Township.
In 1913 Stazie, as she was always called, married Frank Dobry and
the newlyweds remained on the Rychtarik family farm. George attended
college from 1909 to 1911 and then spent decades as a traveling
salesman. In the Depression, his career foundered and towards the
end of the ‘30s he vanished.
Anton Rychtarik died in the Kucera Hospital in Verdigre on June 3,
1932. He was buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery at Jelen.
Mrs. Rychtarik remained on the farm, acting as housekeeper and
surrogate mother to her granddaughters after the death of her
daughter Stazie in 1934. In 1940 she moved into the village of
Verdigre where she continued to live until her death on July 9,
1962.`
Pages
382, 383
