The Swanda Family: An Immigration Story

Family stories recall the Swanda Family Inn in Bohemia. The inn was not an overnight hostel, but rather a gathering place for the community.  It was common practice among the Czechs to finish their work in the late afternoon and gather for social time and drink before heading home for the evening meal.  The Swanda family made whiskey and prepared food for this daily ritual.  My mother-in-law, Aline Garrett, remembers her mother and aunts speaking of the Inn being in or near the town of Lidice which is about fifteen miles west of Prague.  She has always understood that the Swanda family came from around Lidice.  During her 1996 trip to the Czech Republic Aline visited Lidice, which is remembered for a tragic massacre that occurred there in 1942 under the hand of Hitler. Since that visit Aline has relocated the naturalization paper of her grandfather, James Svanda, which states that his last foreign residence was Blela, Bohemia.  We have located the likely town of Bela that is in the same general area where the Soper family lived.  It is just north of the town of Pilsen and a considerable distance east and south of Prague.  There is another town of Bela, northeast of Prague. We continue to question exactly where the Swanda Inn was located.   

John Swanda and Antoniette Cihlar* Swanda

John Svanda (Swanda) and his wife Antoniette “Nettie” Cihlar* were the owners of the Swanda Family Inn.  They had been married in Bohemia about 1863 and became the parents of eight children between 1864-1880:  Joe, Jim, Frank, Antoinette, John, Anton, Charlie and Pete Swanda.  When their first born son, Joe, reached the age of sixteen they were concerned that he would be drafted into the Austrian army so they decided to send him, along with his next younger brother, Jim, to America with their uncle, Joseph Swanda.  They sailed on the SS Neckar from the port of Bremen 26 September 1880 and arrived in New York about three weeks later.  They moved on to Omaha, Nebraska and spent the next three years working in a smelting plant.  They were able to send back enough money to their family in Bohemia to help them make the trip to America about 1883-84. 

Aline Garrett recalls several stories about their trip to America that were told by her family.  John Swanda decided to lease his inn rather than sell it, as he was not certain he would like America.  Later he had someone sell the inn for him and he received a poor price for it.  John and Nettie Swanda and their six younger children sailed on the SS Uener (Vender) from the port of Bremen.  The family always said that Nettie was a “Princess”.  No one really knows just what that meant, but apparently she wore fine silk dresses on the boat to America.  Her fancy dresses probably didn’t serve her too well as the family set up housekeeping on a forty-acre farm near Sioux City, Iowa.  Their first home in America boasted a dirt floor.  They were not long there before the home, and all of their possessions, were blown away in a cyclone.  John Swanda made several moves after that, living in Omaha, Nebraska and White Lake, South Dakota.  But, in 1889 he heard about the land opening up in the new territory of Oklahoma and he decided to make the Oklahoma Land Run.  He joined the ranks of the Sooners, who came illegally into the area and staked their claim before the run on 22 April 1889.  He had to hide out for a time, but managed to keep his claim. This original Swanda farm was located 2 ½ miles south of present day Yukon, Oklahoma.

In the 1990’s Aline Garrett and her cousin Eleanor registered their grandparents, James “ Jim” Swanda and Mary Soper Swanda, on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island.

For more details on John Swanda, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.  There you will find a slightly longer version of The Swanda Family: An Immigration Story, and further information on John Swanda, Nettie Cihlar, and their descendants. 

*Additional:  It is of interest that the work of researcher and descendant Thomas Carlile records Nettie's maiden name as Kotoneva.  My mother-in-law's family records her maiden name as Cihlar.  I have not had the opportunity to study this significant discrepancy.  See more at Nettie Cihlar Swanda’s memorial page at FindAGrave website.

Last Journey to America: The Sopr (Soper) Family

Thirty-five years after my husband’s first Svejkovsky ancestors set sail for America, Joseph Soper, his wife Anna Housner and eight of their children made the journey in 1893. They had been married in 1870 in Bohemia and had ten children by 1893:  Joseph, Mary, Anna, Matt, Frances, James, Frank, Christie, Rose and Anton.  Records for this family give a variety of birthplaces for the children, but when carefully studied, it seems clear that the family lived around the towns of Kralovice and Kocin, which are just north of Pilsen in Bohemia. The town of Pilsen is noted for the famous Pilsner Beer.  When my mother-in-law, Aline Garrett, made her trip to the Czech Republic in 1996 she visited the town of Kralovice and took pictures of the old church and town streets.

Aline recalls some of the stories her grandmother, Mary Soper Swanda, told her about life in Bohemia as a young girl.  The Czech people lived mostly in small villages and often their houses and barns were combined under one roof.  Families would go out each day to work their small farms.  They had plots that were worked with spade and hoe by the whole family and primarily supplied the family needs.  Their livestock was usually driven out to a common grazing area and watched over each day.  Mary confessed that she preferred her job of herding geese to the schoolroom. In later years she regretted her choice.  The goose feathers were used for huge feather beds and warm comforters for cold nights.  The villages had large ovens that could bake sixteen loaves of rye bread at one time.  Czech hospitality meant brown bread and wine for guests.    

The Soper family embarked from Hamburg, Germany and arrived in New York City in March 1893.  They lived briefly in Chicago and then moved to Kingfisher in Oklahoma Territory where they lived with the Jindra family.  Shortly thereafter, Joseph Soper made the Cherokee Strip Land Run and established his residence in Garber, Garfield county, Oklahoma Territory.  The family built their first, dugout home around a tree and in those first years they met with very hard times.  The older children set out for Enid Oklahoma to find jobs.  Joe and Matt joined a cattle drive to Dodge City, Kansas and Anna and Mary did housework for families in Enid.  Mary Soper went to work for Joe and Frank Swanda and that is where she met her future husband, Jim Swanda, who she married in 1898.

According to descendant, Emma Irvin, “The hard times for the Sopers didn’t last forever and by 1900 they had built a comfortable home which included 14 windows and 5 doors.  The 160 fenced acres boasted a barn, corncrib, granary, hen house, well with pump and 150 fruit trees.”  Joseph Soper and Anna Housner Soper lived out their lives in Garber, Oklahoma.  Joseph died in 1920 and Anna in 1923.

For more details on Joseph Soper, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Czechoslovakia: A Brief History Lesson

No one is completely clear on the origins of the Czech people, but they were a tribal group that settled in central Europe about 500 ad.  They had an association with the Boii tribe, after which the area of Bohemia takes its name, and they were closely related to the Slavic people who settled in the same area about the same time.  They were associated with the Great Moravian Empire of the 800’s and then with the Bohemian Empire that followed in the 900’s.  Bohemia grew to be quite large and was a self-governing state of the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.  Prague was the empire’s leading city.  Many German craftspeople and merchants moved into the Bohemian towns. 

In the 1500’s the Austrian Hapsburgs took control of Bohemia and Hungary.  Bohemia remained semi-independent and many of the nobles embraced the new Protestant Christian religion.  In the 1600’s a group of Czech Protestant nobles revolted against the Catholic Hapsburg rule by electing a Protestant king. The Czech revolt touched off the Thirty Years War. The Czech nobles were defeated by the Hapsburgs and lost self-rule.  Their empire was divided into three provinces: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia.  The Habsburgs forced the Czechs to adopt the German language and culture, and Catholicism became the state religion. 

In the 1700’s, under Austrian-German influence, Bohemia and Moravia began industrial development and many Czech peasants moved from their farms to the urban areas.  A differentiated society of industrial workers, middle class and intellectuals formed.  About the same time, many Czechs began to promote a rebirth of the Czech language and culture.  The growth of Czech national feeling led to significant cultural and political gains during the late 1800’s.  But, life in Bohemia and Moravia remained hard for the common man.  Most had small plots of land for subsistence farming.  News of possibilities in the “New World” was enticing.  My husband’s family migrated from Bohemia and Moravia to America during the 1865 – 1890 period.  We don’t know exactly what induced them to set out for America, but researchers have concluded that the primary motive for Czech immigration was economic improvement. 

It was many years after the ancestor’s flight to America that the nation of Czechoslovakia came into existence.  Following WWI in 1918, the Czechs and Slovaks were politically united as Czechoslovakia but the nation was quickly swept up by Hitler’s Germany.  Following WWII in 1948, Czechoslovakia was firmly placed in the Soviet orbit and experienced decades of communist control.  With the collapse of Soviet authority in 1989, Czechoslovakia regained its freedom and in 1993 the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  In our lifetime, freedom from communism has allowed American Czech descendants to return to the “homeland” to learn more of their heritage.

Czech Ancestors enter Database

Over the past twenty years my mother-in-law, Aline Jewel Svejkovsky Garrett, has been gathering and compiling the stories of her ancestors who came from Central Europe to America during the mid-nineteenth century.  Her work will be a blessed legacy to future generations of her family.  To date she has put together significant notebooks on her Svejkovsky and Swanda families and she is currently updating the work of cousin Berniece Lebeda Brown on the Soper family.  These are very large families today and Aline’s notebooks are full of stories and photographs that she has gathered from her extended family members.  She retains the original notebooks and has made copies for each of her three sons. 

In 2003 I compiled a simplified version of her work in a small booklet to share with “the grandchildren”.   Now I am expanding on her work, adding it to my database website, Family Stories pamgarrett.com.  The four primary families that are followed are Svejkovsky, Swanda, Soper and Fridrich.  All of these families are Czechs who came to America from the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.   Generally speaking, they followed a typical Czech migration route in America – beginning near Cedar Rapids Iowa, moving on to South Dakota and Nebraska, and finally participating in the Oklahoma Land Run and settlement. 

The stories that Aline has gathered have come from many relatives who have been willing to share the fruits of their labors in exploring family history.  I appreciate the opportunity to draw on the work of others who have researched and written down stories.  Thanks to Aline Svejkovsky Garrett, William “Bill” Svejkovsky, Robert H Svejkovsky, Allie Swanda Svejkovsky, Anna Fridrich Stransky, Larry Nespor Swanda, Berniece Lebeda Brown, Olga Swanda Svejkovsky, and many others.

Over the next few months on this Blog, I plan to post a little “Czech” history, and tell the family sagas of “coming to America”.  There are also some great stories to share about, female homesteading, early day saloon-keeping, the first Oklahoma City police force, and life in a “Soddy”. 

Photo: The Moravians by Vaclav Maly (1874 - 1935); in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.