The Czechs of Gulf Coast Alabama

When we think of Czech immigration to the United States, the first places that come to mind are in the Midwest and Texas. Lesser known, but no less important, is the settlement of Gulf Coast Alabama by Czech immigrants in the early part of the 20th century.

In 1905, Robertsdale, Alabama was founded by the Southern Plantation Land Corporation. Robertsdale included land and facilities such as the railroad station that had previously been part of Silverhill. The Svea Land Company promoted land sales in Silverhill, while the Southern Plantation Land Corporation did the same in Robertsdale by advertising in Northern newspapers read by immigrants. These companies also distributed promotional flyers and pamphlets among Swedish immigrants and others living in the Midwest.

Front cover of an 8 page marketing brochure used in 1900-1902 to attract settlers. - Click to Enlarge.

Back cover of an 8 page marketing brochure used in 1900-1902 to attract settlers. - Click to Enlarge.

The promotional literature paints a beautiful picture of farm life in Baldwin County. For example, in an 8-page brochure published by the Silverhill (Svea) Land Company between 1900 and 1902, the text beckons settlers with the words:

Education, music, and socializing were important to the Czechs of Baldwin County. In the 1920s they founded a number of organizations for their education, entertainment, and welfare, including:

The Little Bohemian Hall was in service continuously from its founding until March 9, 2011. From 1928 to 1972 it was used as a community center for meetings, dances, and social activities for the entire town of Silverhill, and as the site of Czech language classes and church services. In 1972, the Hall hosted martial arts classes as well. In 1978, the building was moved to the campus of the Silverhill School, where it was used as a band room and assembly hall for the children.

Sometime in the 1980s it was time to move the Little Bohemian Hall again, to make way for a new gym on the Silverhill School campus. The Baldwin County Board of Education and the Town of Silverhill funded the move to Silverhill's baseball park.

On March 9, 2011, a tornado badly damaged the building, moving it off its foundations. Some in Silverhill recommended that the Hall be demolished. Others decided to preserve the historic building. Former mayor of Silverhill Frankie Kučera has led dedicated Silverhill residents, most of whom are the descendants of the early Czech settlers, in raising money and donating their time, energy and expertise to bring the Hall back to life.

The Poučny'A Zábavni Kroužek (PZK), "Educational and Recreational Circle," was founded in 1924 by Baldwin County's Czech immigrants. The social club built its facility, the PZK Hall, on land that originally was part of the Silverhill settlement, but now is in Robertsdale. Through the years the PZK Hall was the busy site of meetings, parties, and especially weekly dances, to which all members of the Czech community were invited. In the early days of the PZK, the women would bring washtubs full of kolačky and other treats and cluster in groups to talk and watch the children, while the men went into the back room to play cards and drink beer.

Members of Baldwin County Polka Band, 1977.Czech dancers in front of the PZK Hall, around 1925. Photo courtesy of Frankie Kucera. Click to Enlarge.

Eli Krehling, whose father was one of the first members of the Baldwin County Polka Band (see the article on the band in this issue of the CGSI quarterly) notes that the PZK Hall had the slickest, best dance floor in the county. Frankie Kučera recalls how the children would push each other around on folding chairs on the highly polished wood floor during the band's intermission.

The descendants of the local Czechs used the PZK Hall regularly for dances and meetings until 1992, when, their active membership dwindling, they donated the building to the City of Robertsdale. Today, the PZK Hall is available for rent by all members of the community and continues to be a popular venue for dances, parties, and wedding receptions. Some say it still has the best dance floor in Baldwin County.

The facts about the Czech migration provide a framework for understanding the history of the Czech settlement of Baldwin County. Perhaps even more fascinating are the personal stories of the people who came south, the routes they took to reach Alabama, the lives they made for themselves after they arrived, and the significant impact they had on the entire county. The descendants of the early Czech settlers have been generous in sharing their families' memories, photos, and life experience.

The marriage of Ben ("Bedrich") Kučera and Georgia Snášel at the Baldwin County courthouse in Bay Minette, Alabama, on August 20, 1927, marks the founding of a branch of the Kučera family that has played a leading role in the life of the Czech Community in Baldwin County for more than eighty years.

Both the Kučeras and the Snášels can trace their lineage back to the 1600s, in Čechy and Moravia, respectively.

František and Marie Kučera, both born in Vejprnice, Plzeň region, Bohemia and their son Frank Thomas Kučera, who was born on October 3, 1885, also in Vejprnice, came to the U.S., settling in Ohio in the early 1900s. The male members of the family struggled to make a living in the coal mines in and around Dillonvale, Ohio.

Ben and Georgia Kučera farmed from the time of their marriage in 1927 until 1929, when Ben was asked to take the position of Deputy Sheriff of South Baldwin County, which he held until becoming the Chief Deputy Sheriff of Baldwin County in 1942. Also in 1942, Ben, having passed the requisite exams, was commissioned a member of the Alabama Beverage Control Board. In 1945 he was asked by the mayor of Robertsdale to become Robertsdale's Chief of Police, a post he held until 1960.

Joseph Vorel was born on January 21, 1888 in what is now the Czech Republic. He often told his family about how he and other men walked and worked their way through Russia and across the frozen Bering Sea to Alaska. Eventually Joseph made his way to New York, settling in Niagara Falls, where he married. Joseph worked in a carborundum factory, while his wife Amelia Schier worked in a shredded wheat factory. Amelia would bring home shredded wheat scraps to fatten the family geese.

Working with carborundum damaged Joseph's lungs, so he took the family south, intending to work in the orange groves in Florida. They didn't make it quite that far, though, and settled in Silverhill instead, where Joseph farmed and tended oranges. Eventually they moved to Robertsdale, where they worked a big garden by hand. They also had chickens and sheep and grew many varieties of beautiful camellias. Joseph and Amelia began a family tradition, sharing the fruits of their garden with friends.

The Vorels had two children, Frank and Evelyn. Frank became a photographer and notary public, and in retirement he and his wife, Bernice Mabel Ekman, a descendant of Swedish settlers, continued to farm Ekman family land in Silverhill. They also shared the produce they grew, making deliveries to friends and those in need. This tradition continues; Frank and Bernice's daughter Roberta Vorel farms this family land today and also shares the bounty of the land with others.

Joseph Kulička.
Click to Enlarge.

Joseph Kulička (born 1888¹⁶) and his brother Anton (born 1890¹⁷) came to America in 1891, when their parents Joseph and Victoria moved from Moravia to America, processing through the port of Galveston, Texas in 1891¹⁸. They lived in Hallettsville, Texas, where Joseph Jr. married Agnes Drozd in 1906. In 1909, Joseph and Agnes moved to Silverhill, along with Joseph's mother Victoria and Joseph's siblings Anton, Celestina, and Klotilda (Lajesek).¹⁹ They were one of the first families to come to Baldwin County in response to Karel Hanak's efforts to establish a Czech colony.

Joseph and Agnes had 8 children, and all of them lived to adulthood, except for their son Frank, who died at age 9, having contracted rabies from a dog bite.²⁰

Joseph Kulička owned and operated the Silverhill Creamery and Ice Company, from the 1930s on. He also designed both the PZK Hall and the Little Bohemian Hall. Joseph's brother Anton donated the land for the Little Bohemian Hall.²¹

John Heidelberg was born in 1886. His wife, Natalia Marie Hlobril, was born in 1894 in Kroměříž, Bělidla, in what is now the Czech Republic. Few details are known about their courtship, marriage, and immigration to the U.S. It is known, however, that John was 39 when he died of tuberculosis in Silverhill.²²

John Heidelburg (born 1886; died 1926), his children, and the gun he reputedly had his eye on when he was courting his wife Natalia Marie Hlobril. Photo courtesy of Sarah Dittmann. Click to Enlarge.

Laddie (Sonnie) Kostelecky, a descendant of John and Natalia Heidelberg, tells the family story of what happened next. Natalia, suddenly a widow with four small children, farming more than a hundred acres in southern Alabama, was an enterprising woman. She placed ads in two Czech newspapers that circulated throughout the Czech immigrant community, Pravda and Hospodař, seeking a husband to help her raise the children and farm the land. Joseph Chupek, living in Brooklyn, New York at the time, responded. Presumably he was from the old country, though the family has not found those records. He came down to Silverhill, and he and Natalia were married two days later.²³ The children Natalia bore John Heidelberg became known as "Chupeks" upon Natalia's marriage to Joseph Chupek, although Joseph did not formally adopt the Heidelberg children. Joseph and Natalia later had a daughter, Millie, together.²⁴

One of Joseph and Agnes' children, Mary (Marie) Kulička, married Joseph Heidelberg, Jr., the son of the senior Joseph Heidelberg. Joseph Heidelberg Sr. owned and operated the Heidelberg Sawmill & Planer, an important part of the community and its growth, providing the means to turn trees into construction materials for homes, barns, and many other buildings in the Czech community and beyond.²⁵ Joseph Heidelberg, Sr. was John Heidelberg's brother.²⁶

František Havel came to America from Bohemia in 1875. He settled in Browerville, Minnesota, where he and his wife had ten children. He was a farmer, as were all of his sons. When he developed severe arthritis around 1920, he decided to move to Silverhill, for the health benefits of a warmer climate. Eight of the ten children moved, too, settling on farms south of Silverhill. František Havel died in 1931 and is buried in Silverhill Cemetery.²⁷

One of František's sons, Edward Havel, lived in Silverhill on property given to him by his father. He was the only one of František's sons who lived in town. Edward and his wife had five children. Mrs. Edward Havel raised chickens and sold the eggs to the feed store in Silverhill. If the family or their neighbors needed supplies that they couldn't grow or produce themselves, they went to Mobile by boat to get them, departing from Daphne or Marlow to cross Mobile Bay.²⁸

Edward Havel was known as "Grandpa," to the young boys who worked on the Havel farm in Silverhill. At various times he also drove the school bus, served as a member of Silverhill's town council, and served on the board of directors for the State Bank of Silverhill. In 1933, when the Great Depression struck the bank, it took all of Grandpa Havel's savings with it.²⁹

In 1947 Edward Havel donated the land for the Silverhill ball field with the proviso that it be used for children's recreation in perpetuity.³⁰

According to notes provided by current Silverhill resident Millie Krob Evans, her grandfather Joseph Krob was born in the village of Zehrovice, near Kladno, in Bohemia, in 1878. He traveled to the U.S. in May 1903 on the SS Chemnitz and arrived in New York. Joseph made his way to Ohio, where he married Katerina (Katherine) Dolak in 1905, in Belmont County. They had two sons, Joe and Andy.³¹

In 1931, in Baldwin County, Alabama, Joe Krob, Jr. married Blanche Krejcirik, the daughter of Czech immigrants.

Members of Baldwin County Polka Band, 1977.Brothers Joe (left) and Andy Krob standing beside their mother, Katherine Krob, with Joe's 5 year old daughter Millie Krob at Silverhill Park, 1938, the year Katherine's husband, Joseph Krob, died. Photo courtesy of Millie Krob Evans. Click to Enlarge.

How Blanche came to be in Baldwin County, Alabama is an interesting story. Blanche's mother, Mary Bosek, and her family, had a hard time. Mary Bosek was born in 1883 in Luby in Klatovy, in what is now Plzeňský Kraj, Czech Republic. Mary's first husband, a barber by trade, was a handsome officer in the army and also a first-class womanizer. After much family drama, Mary's father paid for second-class passage to America for both Mary and her husband. They settled in St. Louis, where Mary worked briefly as an ironer in a laundry, then in a city hospital. Her husband continued to run around, and she divorced him in 1907.³²

Then Mary met Joe Krejcirik, who was born in Prušánky, Moravia, in December 1893 and immigrated to the U.S. in May 1907 through the Port of Baltimore.³³ Joe was an appealing marriage prospect to Mary, because he had the reputation of being a hard worker who did not drink. They married in 1908 and had five children together. One of them, Blanche, was born in 1909. The Krejcirik family's search for prosperity and their place in America took them from St. Louis to Nebraska to Klamath Falls, Oregon, to northern California, where they lived for 8 years on a 160-acre homestead. Their nearest neighbor was two miles away, if you don't count the howling coyotes, the deer, and the bears. They moved back to Oregon, then again to California. Finally, in 1920, after Joe lost his leg below the knee in an accident while cutting hay, he and his family moved to Fairhope, Alabama, a town near Silverhill.³⁴ The move was prompted by a job opportunity that they learned about in an ad that a farmer placed in a Czech-language newspaper, seeking a family to help him with his farm.³⁵

Marie Kratka [meaning "short" in Czech] Vasko was 29 years old when she came to America in 1907. The family jokes that at 5 feet tall Marie really was "short."³⁶

Marie's husband was Josef Vasko.³⁷ He drove a dray wagon and worked in the coal mines in Bohemia and Germany before coming to America in 1906, along with several other men from his hometown. Josef sent for his wife and their sons Joe and John, and after they arrived in the U.S. in 1907, the family lived in the Porter area near Birmingham. Josef worked in the coal mines that fueled Birmingham's iron foundries and steel mills. Several more children were born. Then in a tragic mishap, the Vaskos' seventeen-year-old son Joe was killed by a lightning strike while he stood on a porch eating an ice cream cone.³⁸

In 1913 the Vasko family moved to Phillips, Wisconsin, where they bought a farm. Two years after they arrived in Phillips, they sold the farm and returned to Birmingham and the coal mines.³⁹

Josef Vasko, on his farm near Silverhill, Alabama, 1932. Note the corn cob pipe, which he smoked constantly. Photo courtesy of Sarah Dittmann. Click to Enlarge.

In 1920 or 1921, the Vaskos returned to the old country and stayed for about a year. Marie told her husband she wanted to stay put and keep their daughter Marie with her. Josef wouldn't hear of it; he said he would take all the children back to the U.S. where they could have a much better life. Apparently he also told Marie that she could stay behind, if she wanted to. In October, 1922 the entire family, Marie included, went back to America, and shortly after arriving in Alabama, they purchased the farm near Silverhill that would be their permanent home.⁴⁰

Josef and Marie (far right, toward back) Vasko, with Josef's prized horses, on the farm near Silverhill, Alabama, 1938. Photo courtesy of Sarah Dittmann. Click to Enlarge.

In the early part of the 20th century, Baldwin County was a true "melting pot." In 1939, according to an issue of The Baldwin Times published that year, Baldwin County had the highest percentage of foreign-born citizens of all 67 Alabama counties.⁴¹ Baldwin's citizens had come from Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece, England, Scotland, Spain, France, Africa, and many other places. In a community of immigrants, the people from Bohemia and Moravia left a particularly impressive legacy of hard work and accomplishment. As the president and secretary of the Baldwin County Historical Society wrote, in 1928: "The local Bohemian colony has perhaps the most remarkable record of any in the county. Comparing the period of twenty years from its birth in 1908 to the present time, and considering the excellent progress made in agriculture and in social life, every impartial observer must give credit to those Bohemian toilers whose tools not only yielded a blessing to their families but contributed considerably to the wealth of this county, and indeed to that of the State of Alabama."⁴²

Amen to that.

This article was originally published in the Dec 2014, Vol. 26 No. 4 issue of Naše rodina, the quarterly publication of the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International (CGSI), headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. To learn more about CSGI and the many online resources and conferences they offer, visit www.cgsi.org

© Melda H. Boyd and Gary M. Boyd

About the Authors:

Melda Boyd moved with her parents and siblings to the old family place in Baldwin County, Alabama in the early 1970s. She graduated from the University of South Alabama with a double major in International Studies and Russian.

Gary Boyd is the chief researcher in the Boyd family. He partners with his wife Melda in learning and writing about the Czechs of Gulf Coast Alabama. Gary and Melda have a longstanding interest in the history and cultures of other countries and a deep respect for the Czech people and their heritage.

Endnotes