FRANTISEK AND MARIE [NOVAK] TICHY
According to J. V. Holecek, who knew him in Chicago, Frantisek Tichy
had once owned a small estate in the vicinity of his hometown,
Jankov u Votice, Tabor, Bohemia. He had sold that to operate a dray
line, probably hauling freight from the railroads to nearby
villages. In 1867 he sold the business and emigrated to the United
States. Presumably by then his parents and those of his wife had
died, leaving them without primary ties.
In 1867 he would have been past forty, with his birth probably
having occurred in 1825 or 1826. His wife Marie, nee Novak,
supposedly was about two years older. They may have been married
about 1846. At the time they emigrated there were six children.
Marie was undoubtedly the oldest, born as early as 1847. The next
child was also a daughter, Anna, born according to the census of
1880 about 1851, though another less reliable source places her
birth as early as 1847. The next three children were boys, Albert (Vojtech),
born May 1, 1854, Frank, Jr., born November 30, 1856; and Anton,
born April 18, 1858. The youngest was Josephine (Josepha), born
March 1, 1861. There would be no other children.
It was by no means an uncomplicated voyage. The family secured a
travel pass with visas to travel across the German states to Bremen.
Sickness forced the vessel, a sailing ship, to put into port at
London and there was a delay of weeks before the family sailed
again, this time probably on an English ship with its destination
Canada. According to an account by Frank Tichy, Jr., the ship ran
short of water on the voyage and rain water was caught in canvas.
From drinking this water Frantisek Tichy, in his son’s account,
developed typhus. The family was accordingly compelled to spend
several weeks in Canada while he recovered, before crossing over
into the United States.
The destination was apparently always Chicago, which by then was a
railroad terminal from all directions, a place of departure for
immigrants as well as a city which attracted immigrants. There was
already a sizeable Czech community. The first Czech Catholic Church,
St. Vaclav’s, or, if you will, St. Wenceslaus, had been built there
in 1864.
What sort of work Frantisek Tichy found in Chicago is not known, but
when the Czech Community Club, the Ceska Osada, began to make plans
to promote Czech settlement in the new states and territories, he
decided to take advantage of the homestead law of 1863. In March of
1870, the Tichy family set forth in the company of other families.
Marie and Anna did not accompany their parents and their siblings;
they had been married in St. Vaclav’s, one would imagine while the
family lived in Chicago. Marie married a Joseph Bouse and Anna
married a Wencil (Vaclav, James) Bauru (Baumrok, Boumruk, Bamruk).
The Tichys may or may not have been accompanied by another Albert
Tichy, older than Frantisek’s son, quite possibly Frantisek’s
brother, who was in the United States in 1868 working as an
agricultural laborer in Illinois. It is possible the older Albert
did not come to L’Eau Qui Court County until later in the year.
(Another Tichy came from Jankov in 1876, Matej or Mike, his
relationship to the other Tichys has not been determined.)
The trip would have been an exhausting one, even in the company of
other families, among them the Schreiers, the Hajeks, the Hrbeks,
the Praseks, the Brabeneces, the Tikalskys, the Vokners, the Tomeks.
One could get as far as Sioux City by rail, but then one had to
cross the Missouri and set forth on a treeless prairie without
landmarks. The new pioneers started out with wagons drawn by oxen.
There were not too many wagons; most people walked. Unfortunately
they ran into typical late March weather: a rain turned to snow,
which was no laughing matter, and the trip took two weeks.
Once there, Frantisek Tichy staked out a homestead on Bingham (or
Bigham) Creek (the first settlers counted themselves lucky to be
able to claim land on the banks of a stream and thus to have water,
in the days before wells and windmills) in the Southeast Quarter of
Section Four of Sparta Township. Frantisek’s son Albert, who was
sixteen, went to work for someone and for a year’s labor earned a
little money and a milk cow. Frantisek might have considered himself
lucky he had arrived early enough to find the lumber to build a log
cabin, which he did. He had probably recovered enough from his
sea-born illness to work hard.
On April 24, 1882, Frantisek Tichy proved upon his homestead. He had
become an American citizen on October 17, 1881. Meanwhile, nature
took its course. The Baumruks arrived from Chicago no later than
1874. The Bouses are said to have come as far as the Missouri’s
shore at Yankton and then to have turned back for Chicago. The
Baumruks acquired their homestead in the Northeast Quarter of
Section Four of Sparta Township in 1879 and promptly sold it to
Joseph Sedivy. They built a home in Niobrara the next year with the
apparent intention of residing there, but in 1881 they were back in
Chicago. The sons remained, as did the youngest daughter, Josephine.
The years passed. On June 6, 1884, Frantisek Tichy and his wife sold
their property to their son Albert, retaining the right to live
there. It is not known whether they had put up a frame house to
replace the log cabin or if they continued to live on the farmstead.
Frantisek Tichy died April 8, 1898, and Marie Novak Tichy on May 5,
1903. They were buried at St. Wenceslaus parish cemetery.
Their children lived their own lives. Marie and Anna each had
numerous children. Anna, in her forties, died about 1892 of
pneumonia in Chicago. Marie almost certainly died in the 1920s.
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