Charles Vincent Svoboda

  General Notes:

A short passage about Charles Vincent Svoboda indicating that he was from Jaromerice, Moravia as follows:

from Nebraska: the Land and the People: Volume 2

Hon. Charles Vincent Svoboda. One of the leading men of Howard County, a man whose sense of civic responsibility is deep and true, Hon. Charles V. Svoboda has made his name a well known one over Nebraska, and one that is synonymous with honorable dealing and efficient capability. He was born in Jaromerice, Moravia, part of the former kingdom of Bohemia, a province of the late Empire of Austria (but the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia since the World war, January 19, 1859, a son of John F. and Mary (Dobes) Svoboda, and a member of a family the members of which can trace their ancestry back over two centuries.

IGI record says he was born in Jaromerici, Maehren Kroenlande, Austria

Obituary for C.V. Svoboda
Obituary: Death ended the earthly career of one of Howard County's most outstanding sitizens when it summoned C.V. Svoboda, 94 at Memorial Hospital Sunday afternoon following a gradual decline in health the past two months.
Obituary: Charles Vincent Svoboda was born in Jaromerice, Moravia on Jan. 1859 to John and Mary Svoboda, and expired late Sun. afternoon, June 7 after an illness of 2 months. He was 94 years, 4 months and 18 days old (1953)
Obituary: He came to American with his parents in 1874, first settling in Schuyler and then in Howard County, in 1875 where they moved to a farm near Farwell. On Nov. 22, 1887, he married June Sevick at St. Wenceslaus church, which he helped build. The family moved to St. Paul in 1893. Mr. Svoboda became a naturalized citizen in 1880 and has always taken an interest in community, state and national affairs. He served his community as an assessor, road overseer, and was a member of the St. Paul Board of Education and County Clerk from 1891 to 1897 He helped organize the Farmer's Grain and Supply Co. and served as its secretary for many years. He was a member of the Nebr. Constitutional Convention in 1919-1920 and in 1923 was elected to the Nebr. Legislature. He helped organize the farmers union and Farm Bureau of which he was secretary for 15 years. Among other organizations, he served was the Farmers Alliance, Pres. of the Czech Historical Society of Nebraska, Sec. of the Z.C.P.J. Lodge and was Demo. Chairman (county) for a number of years. Mr. Svoboda was a gifted writer and devoted much time to writing "Who's Who in Nebr. He also contributed articles to newspapers and magazines. He traveled extensively over the U.S., Europe, Canada and Mexico.
Obituary: He was a lifelong member of the Catholic Church. His greatest interest was in the St. Wenceslaus Church and cemetery. He was preceded in death by his wife, who died May 18, 1950, a daughter, Anna and a son, Stephen who died in infancy, his parents and three sisters.
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The following sketch, written by Charles Vincent Svoboda of St. Paul, who has supplied the information about Howard County for this history, is an example of what the first Czech settlers in this county experienced:
"We came to Schuyler August 22, 1874. My father, heeding the advice of several of his compatriots, built a home and store building, where he established a meat market. Having difficulty in doing business without the knowledge of English, he became a member of the Bohemian Colonization Club Slovania and in March 1875 moved to Howard County, where he bought land three miles northwest of where the town of Farwell now stands.
About June first we set out from Schuyler in a wagon drawn by a yoke of partly broken oxen, a spring wagon drawn by a span of ponies, and one cow, arriving at Martin Vacek's place on June 5th. The following day father hired a man to get a load of lumber from Grand Island, twenty-four miles away. When it was brought, we moved on our land in Sec. 24, T. 15, R 12, and began to construct a house 14x18. I was sixteen, the youngest of the family and the only boy I had never done any manual labor before, having spent all my time in schools in Bohemia. However, I had watched carpenters at work in Schuyler and felt confident I could build a house. My father helped me, but it took us several months to finish it. In the meantime we had nothing but the covered wagon for shelter against rain, wind and scorching sun. After completing the framework, we made several thousand dry brick, with which father bricked the spaces between the studding and finished by plastering the walls. While there was not much style or architecture to it, the house proved warm and comfortable the following winter and I surely thought more of it than of any I have had since. Most of the other settlers had sod houses or dugouts, that is, an abode partly dug out in a bank and finished with sod. Those who were able to make roofs of boards succeeded in having a practically waterproof covering, but some used only willow brush, grass or yellow clay, and in rainy weather the water trickled down, necessitating the use of an umbrella and other protection.
After erecting some kind of a dwelling, the next problem for the settlers to solve was that of getting water. There is plenty of good water in Howard County at a uniform depth, but in some localities getting it was not an easy task. Practically all of the first wells were dug by hand, varying in depth from 30 feet on creek or river bottoms to 250 feet on the north tableland. I dug four such wells myself, at various times and places on the farm. John Pokorny and Jacob Blaha bought a well auger and drilled many deep wells, taking pay in anything of value, in trade, especially sorghum syrup. Many farmers planted sorghum, which did well in the newly-broken ground, and they had it made into syrup at the Warsaw postoffice, where a mill was operated.


The next important problem was fuel. Sunflowers growing in the ravines, dry buffalo chips and dry grass were used, which later led to the introduction of hay stoves.
Timber grew along the Loup rivers and some of the creeks, but the majority of such lands were already taken. We had to go eighteen miles to Davis Creek, or twenty-four miles to Rock Creek, for wood. That meant a drive of forty-eight miles, beside cutting and loading the wood, all during a short winter day.
Deer were scarce, but there was plenty of white-tail jackrabbits, prairie chicken, quail and thousands of wild geese and ducks in the fall and spring. A peculiar feature of the country were the prairie-dog towns. These animals, the largest of the gopher family, live in deep burrows in the ground, eight to twelve in one family, in compact colonies, covering thousands of acres in some localities. The largest dogtown in Howard County used to be above Elba, in the North Loup valley, extending nearly four miles up the river. Others were on Turkey Creek, Oak Creek and Middle Loup bottoms. Their cheery "yip-yip-yip" used to greet the passer-by as, sitting on the mounds in family groups around the entrance to their abode, they would flip, flip, flip their little tails and disappear when anyone approached. Here and there an owl or a rattlesnake would follow, sometimes into the same hole.
Rattlesnakes used to be quite numerous in these dog-towns and were a menace to early settlers. Horses, dogs and people were bitten by them. Frank Nesyba's wife, on Turkey Creek, was one of their victims, but fortunately was saved by the use of whiskey, the only remedy known. John Safarik's little boy did not escape as easily and died from the bite of a snake. During the first summer I killed a dozen of them, of various sizes. In August of that year (1875) I went with Mat. Suchanek on a hunting and reconnoitering expedition to the North Loup river. We walked along the old military trail on John M. Parker's farm, near the present Cotesfield townsite, each carrying an old-country muzzle loader, ready to shoot. Suchanek followed the left trail and I the right. Suddenly a rattling sound drew our attention to a big snake coiled near the road, about three feet from Suchanek's knee. He was right in the act of coiling backward and ready to strike. Suchanek, scared stiff, stood like a "pillar of salt," unable to move. I stepped back, dropped the gun and shot the snake just in time to prevent his deadly stroke. Upon examination we found that my shot had cut off the head and what looked like half the rattles, still leaving twenty-nine of them. Upon measuring the reptile, we found he was seven feet and two inches long, the biggest rattler I ever saw. Gradually they were exterminated.
When the land became more valuable, efforts were made to kill off the prairie dogs, with only partial success, until a few years ago, when the Department of Agriculture found an effective method after a series of experiments. There are still a few prairie dogs in places, but their towns are a thing of the past in Howard County.
I saw plenty prairie fires and fought a great many, but must say that most of the stories we read about them are exaggerated. At times they caused considerable damage, but no one needed to fear loss of life if common sense was used. As to blizzards and snow storms, I was in all the snow storms and in many of the old-fashioned Nebraska blizzards since 1875 without getting even a chilblain. Most of the suffering caused by such storms in the early years was because of lack of experience, judgment and fore-thought. The biggest snowfall occurred in the winter of 1880-1881, accompanied by a severe cold. A Czech pioneer named Novotny froze to death that winter, while walking from St. Paul to his farm, three miles away. I was starting for home at dusk, a distance of fourteen miles, with a load, and saw him walking with some groceries. It was snowing and apparently he took a short cut across a field after he got out of town. He lost his way and walked in a circle around a strawstack and was found dead the next morning. The snowdrifts were so high that his funeral had to be postponed for several weeks, the roads being impassable. That winter many farmers, not being able to get flour after their supplies gave out, ground wheat in coffee-mills.
The worst affliction were the migrating locusts, usually called grasshoppers. In 1875 they damaged the crops, but we had a little wheat left for the few chickens, for the manufacture of cereal coffee (an invention of pioneer women, the Postum of the present time) and for some flour to be ground in the Dannebrog and Oak Creek grist mills. In 1876 we broke about thirty acres of prairie. Mother and I planted all of it with corn. There was plenty of rain and the corn grew rapidly, reaching a height of 6-7 feet by the latter part of July. It tasselled out and began forming large ears, when one hot, sunny day the wind suddenly changed and myriads of grasshoppers began to come down. They stayed a few days, waiting for a favorable wind to help them resume their journey, and of course in the meantime eating everything in sight. Our field of big corn was reduced to stubs of stalks about a foot high. Vegetation of any kind disappeared and consequently absolutely nothing was raised that year. People actually suffered. Some aid was brought from the east, but the Czech settlers never got any of it. The following year a very good crop of wheat was raised, but much of it was lost on account of a dearth of harvesting machinery.

Frank Kelly bought a new header and undertook to harvest about 400 acres for a number of farmers. He agreed to cut mine and I was to work with the header. We labored night and day for over two weeks, cutting a good share of the wheat after it was half shattered. It was heavy and the work was hard. Nobody had sufficient experience in handling headed grain. Stacks were not built right and got wet. After the wheat was threshed, we had to spread it on the ground to dry. When we had a load dried, I made my first trip to market, a trip I shall never forget. I loaded fifteen sacks of wheat on my spring wagon and set out for our nearest grain market, Grand Island, thirty-two miles away. I took some food along, stopped a while at noon to eat and feed the horses. While I lay under the wagon and napped, the horses ate the rest of my lunch. The roads through the sandhills were bad and I arrived in Grand Island after four o'clock. Charles Wasmer, one of the two grain buyers, looked at my wheat and offered me forty cents per bushel, saying it was not dry enough. The other grain buyer would not even look at it. I drove to Jake Sasse's livery barn, put the team in, fed the horses some of the wheat and crept up in the hay-loft, where a number of farmers were lodging for the night. In the morning I paid twenty-five cents for the team, all the money I had and, hungry, started for home with my wheat. I arrived in the evening and never shall forget the expression on my mother's face, when she realized that I had brought home neither money nor the provisions, so badly needed.
Other settlers made the same trips with their ox-teams. They generally left home in the evening, travelled all night, and reached Grand Island the next day in time to sell their grain before evening. The trip home required the following day and night. Some raised a few hogs. Having no other market, they butchered them and took them to Grand Island, where they were offered one and a half cents per pound. I sold eggs at 5 cents per dozen and good butter at 5 cents per pound.
Our county and the farmers therein were obliged to endure another crisis in later years, that of drouth. The year 1893 was quite dry, crops were light, but the year following was memorable. There was not enough moisture even in the spring and no crops at all were raised. The farmers had to sell stock, for they had nothing to feed it, and many became impoverished. This drouth affected the whole state. Contributions were gathered in other states and a quantity of provisions and clothing sent and distributed. I was county clerk at the time and most of these supplies were sent to me and upon my responsibility. It was very difficult to distribute supplies among the right people. I never knew, until then, how low some people can sink, just to get something of which they were not nearly as needy as others. I spent many a sleepless night and got a great many more gray hairs while engaged in that office, from which I would have liked to have resigned, had it not appeared like cowardice. The only alleviating feature for me was the fact that Czechs behaved honorably in that trying time. Everyone who in any way participated in the distribution was subjected to suspicion, gossip and enmity and so I was very much surprised when the following campaign (my third candidacy for county clerk, when I was the only candidate on my ticket), resulted in my election by a nice majority.
Conditions have changed greatly. Groves were planted by the farmers and good buildings erected. Howard County looks much different today. However, these improvements represent but a small fraction of the wealth dug out of the soil by the diligent hand of the pioneer and the largest portion of it has been sent across the Missouri River for the enrichment of the industrial east.
My father used to entertain very optimistic ideas about the United States. That and his desire to escape the oppressive Austrian rule and its militarism prompted him to emigrate. But the hardships of pioneer life, to which he brought us from a comparatively comfortable home, broke his heart and he took no interest in anything after the first two years.
There are less than half a dozen of the old Czech pioneers left in Howard County. I was the youngest of the first settlers and am a sort of connecting link between them and the younger generation. Some left Howard County, but much the larger number have found rest there, that rest of which they had so little during their lifetime. They sleep in the several cemeteries, whose somewhat neglected appearance makes one wonder whether those of the younger generation realize or appreciate the work of the pioneer men and women, whose suffering and sacrifices made possible the advantages and comforts their descendants enjoy today.''

  Noted events in his life were:

• Emigration, Mar 1875, Howard County, Nebraska.

• Census Record, 1880, Kelso Precinct, Howard County, Nebraska.

• Naturalization, 1880.

Charles married Johanna F. Sevcik on 22 Nov 1887 in Warsaw, Howard County, Nebraska. (Johanna F. Sevcik was born on 20 Aug 1868 in Minnesota,¹⁵⁹ died on 18 May 1950 in St. Paul, Howard County, Nebraska and was buried in St. Wenceslaus Cem., Warsaw, Howard Co., Nebraska.)