Ever wonder why nobody is ever smiling in the old time-y photographs? One explanation is this one from a Time magazine article:

“Experts say that the lack of smiles early on is that photography took guidance from pre-existing customs in painting—an art form in which many found grins uncouth and inappropriate for portraiture. Accordingly, high-end studio photographers would create an elegant setting and direct the subject how to behave, producing the staid expressions which are so familiar in 19th century photographs. The images they created were formal and befitted the expense of paying to have a portrait made, especially when that portrait might be the only image of someone.”

Now take a peek at this one. It’s from one of my family’s photo albums.

The stern-visaged characters pictured here definitely listened to their photographer and resisted the urge to say “Cheese!” They are (from left) my husband Gene’s Bohemian great-grandfather Wieniawski (Wenzel) John Kozlovsky and great-grandmother Mary Cenefels Kozlovski. Standing behind them are Gene’s great-uncle Joseph, and one of his great aunts – possibly Anna.

While putting together this blob, I found there may other reasons for their grim countenances than the photographer’s instruction. For the women, for instance, how much fun could it be squeezed into those corsets? To be serious though, there really was reason for this family to know that life certainly is not all sunshine and flowers. What you are observing in this photo are people who really were able to capture “the American Dream”, but it took hardship and tragedy to achieve it.

In cranking out the blob, I may have made errors in data and interpretation, but they are unintentional. If you can help correct me, please mercifully holler in the Comment section below.

Today’s blob will just concentrate on one of characters in this family photo: Gene’s great-grandfather. On where he came from, and what happened to him. Possibly nobody could really pronounce his first name – Wieniawski – because all the info I could find about him always referred to him as “Wenzel”, “W. John”, or often just “John”.

Before I tell you his story though – as best as I could piece it together – I may need to explain what a “Bohemian” is. A “bohemian” can be an unconventional or nonconformist artist or writer, and often unusual in habit or dress. That’s not who our relatives were. If the term has a capital B, it refers to somebody who came from Bohemia.

In case you don’t know where Bohemia is, you’re not alone. It used to be called the Kingdom of Bohemia but after World War I, along with the Austria-Hungarian Empire, it was dissolved into what is now known as the Czechoslovak Republic.

My family as well as my husband’s family – and many other Iowan families – is made up of Irish, Bohemian, and Norwegian immigrants to the U.S. The following dissertation is 36 pages long, but it is a fascinating platform on which to set the stage for great-grandpa Wenzel John Kozlovsky’s story.  It explains issues I always wondered about – like why the Catholic Irish were so hated and vilified, while the Bohemians – also strict Catholics – seemed to be more easily accepted. (The treatise suggests it was because the Irish were illiterate and destitute, while the Bohemians were literate and had enough money to tide them over till they could start earning money). I hope you’ll find time to read it. It’s at https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1748&context=honorsprojects 

To explain further, though, about 1950, Bohemians began immigrating to the U.S. with their families. According to http://gustavfristensky.com: “The possibilities offered by a young United States for acquiring free land became an attractive, nonetheless, a risky alternative to the lack of opportunities in rural Central Europe…Following the revolution, emigrating was not as easy. However, letters from early emigrants, stories, and advertisement about the free land and railroad jobs promoted in Czech newspapers was very enticing…Conditions for immigrants in the United States were harsh, and up to a quarter returned to Europe. There were no labor laws, no minimum wage, no workers compensation, and unions were just beginning. There was no social support, except for fraternal organizations and family.”

“The oldest significant Bohemian colony in the United States is in New York, which by 1854 had about 40 families. In Texas, the first Bohemian settlement was established at Catspring in 1847. In 1848 the Bohemians settled alongside Germans, Irish, and Norwegians in Wisconsin, mainly in the counties of Adams, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marathon, and Oconto. Other settlements followed in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. 

And from Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003 came this:

Even though there were a large number of Czechs who went to Wisconsin from Bohemia, there was another group of Bohemian immigrants who came at the same time and for the same reasons. They too loved to drink “pivo” but they called it “Bier”. They loved to eat sauerkraut, pork and knefliks but they called the dumplings Knoedl. They made a coffeecake with cottage cheese, prunes and apples or almonds. They did not eat kolaches but schmierkuchen. They loved to dance the polka and enjoyed a good time. They had their homes in the same area of Bohemia where in many cases they were neighbors in the same villages. Some of them even had Czech sounding names. The main difference was in their language. They spoke a dialect of German called Böhmisch. They were the German-Bohemians, the Deutschböhme. 

But now, on to our story of W. John Kozlovsky in America – at least what I’ve been able to unravel. I discovered that names and dates can be pretty slippery amongst old genealogy records so mine may be, too. 

John was born in Wolowitz, Bohemia in 1836.  He arrived in Wisconsin from Bohemia in 1846 at the age of 10. As  pioneer settlers, his family farmed there for several years. 

Like most of the Bohemian immigrants, John probably couldn’t speak English. We can be pretty sure of that because an 1875 newspaper clipping reported that his barn burned down before an “American” could communicate what was happening to local firemen. It must have been a major disaster for his farming efforts.

In 1855, a young 19 year-old girl named Mary Cenefels (may be Cenefelt) also crossed the Atlantic from Bohemia, and two years later, in 1857, she married John in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. (Mary was born 1836 in  Zahorany by Domazlice, Bohemia).

John and Mary had six children: pictured here are Anna (Wenzel Hedrick); Joseph (Magdalene Benesh); Mary (V. J. Dvorak); Catherine (Joseph Klima);  and Rosa (Frank O’Hanlon).

In 1863, John must have decided farming wasn’t his most promising activity. He moved the family to Marion, Iowa where he worked as a meat butcher. Returning to Cedar Rapids in 1869, he established what became known as “the Cedar Rapids house” and operated that hotel for the next 30 years.  That’s where the story gets a little more intense.

The hotel included a popular saloon.  John, and later, his son Joseph operated it with what appears to be an iron fist, but it was nonetheless the scene of frequent fights and crimes, some of them violent.

Iowa saloons before Prohibition, weren’t the kind of comfy places where “Everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came”. According to the Des Moines Register,

Current folklore about Prohibition ignores the absolute ugliness of saloons in the 19th century. The public house had become a male-only social and political establishment, energetic in its traditions and enthusiasms but often described as dreary, dank, dirty and dangerous places leading to male neglect and violence. The litany of sexual abuses connected with the saloon were extensive, including prostitution, venereal disease and rape. 

Here’s an example of some possibly typical skullduggery:

 

One night, son Joseph was badly hurt in a fight..

And then one day John himself got stabbed . . .

At first, it was hoped John would survive the assault, but a few days later, on January 13, 1894 . . .

Upon hearing news of his victim’s death, the culprit was interviewed:

The funeral was planned ….

 … and was well attended by the citizenry of Cedar Rapids …

Here’s a description of John’s funeral.

Sadly, shortly after his death, his reputation took a hit when it was indirectly criticized by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Here’s a response to it by John’s hometown newspaper, the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

A common denominator of all the Bohemians I’ve known personally or am related to is their dogged determination to work hard.  It must have paid off for John because according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, his estate at the time of his death was $25,000 to $35,000. In today’s dollars, that would have been nearly $700,000. Not bad for an immigrant who couldn’t even speak English when he arrived in America. And aside from getting fined for selling liquor on Sundays, I couldn’t find any other instances when he didn’t manage to stay within the law. 

John’s wife, Mary, died four years after his death, in 1898.

So that’s at least part of the story of Wenzel John Kozlovsky, who, in spite of his tragic death was able to realize the American dream..