A SUMMARY OF THE KOUCKY FAMILY

FROM THE SEBEKS THROUGH RUDOLPH KOUCKY

I am writing this in conjunction with my wife Dene and my sister in law Abie, for the benefit of my family and grandchildren. I am the last of the original Koucky family who knows fairly intimately the older generations. The sequence follows the genealogic pattern given on page one. I am sending this to other members of the family in case they wish to complete the summary for their children.

MARY AND ANTON SEBEK

Mary and Anton ere the first of the Koucky-Sebek family to come to the US,, They were both born, and raised in the agricultural area of Czechoslovakia. Because of the oppressive conditions in the imperial, aristocratic regimes then existing in Central Europe, they moved to the U. S. in 1880. They and their children then born, came to the U. S. in steerage in the hold of a steamer. They were unable to speak English, but they came to Chicago through the immigration agencies which were then common, which were sponsored by groups such as governmental, ship companies, and railroads. In Chicago they lived the railroad area around Ashland Boulevard. The trains were a constant hazard to the children, and they moved to the coal mining area of northern Illinois, to the village of Coal City. Anton worked in the mines. In this era mining was a highly dangerous occupation, and when a part of the Sisseton Indian Reservation (Roberts County, South Dakota) was opened to settlers they and about twenty other families went there, each family in a boxcar with whatever household and farming equipment they had. All of these families settled on "claims" of 320 acres ( ½ x 1 mile, a half section), All children of age could also "claim" or "claimed " as they grew older, They obtained more land by tree claims on which they had to plant trees. The prairie had no trees. Anton died from an infection of his arm, Mary lived to be 96 years old, In her last years she was unable to talk or walk due to a stroke and she was cared for by her two bachelor sons, Rudolph and John.

RUDOLPH SEBEK

Rudolph, the oldest of the Sebek boys, was like all of his brothers, a farmer. He remained a bachelor and lived his entire life on the farm north of the present village of Clare City, South Dakota, Like all of his brothers he had a keen sense of humor and loved fun and pranks. He learned to play the base fiddle in the "Sebek Band", made up of the brothers. They organized a baseball league and they loved to fish and hunt. Rudolph died about 1940 of a stroke and senility. This vascular degenerative trait was to be manifest throughout the male members of the Sebek and Koucky families.

ELIZABETH SEBEK

As was customary in that era, Elizabeth (Liz or in Czech, Leesa) married early in life to Jim Molley in Coal City. They had two children: Jim and a daughter whose name I have forgotten. Jim Jr married, but he abandoned his family. The law wanted him for this but his whereabouts remains unknown, The daughter went to California where she married, but I do not know any of the details. Lis and Jim Sr moved to the reservation with the rest of the family. They did not stay long because Jim could not tolerate the hardships of the frontier, especially the cold snowy winters. They sold out and went back to Coal City where Liz supported the family with her chickens,, vegetable and fruit, while her husband fished, hunted, and did as little work as Liz permitted. I don’t know where or when they died.

CLEM SEBEK

Clem was one of the drinking uncles. However , his drinking was moderate, but in his middle tears quite constant. In his earlier years he was a farmer. In addition to his original claim he purchased land near Thief River Falls in northwest Minnesota, where he met and married Anna Tackek (spelling unknown). They lived first on a farm near Clare City and later in Clare City where Clem owned and operated a combined pool hall and beer parlor. Anna had to do most of the work because Clem was very gregarious and was away with his friends fishing and hunting most of the time. Clem had prostatic problems in his later years and finally developed cancer of the prostate: however, he died suddenly of a heart attack. He died about 1960. Anna lived several years after Clem and died between 1965 and 1970. Clem and Anna had a large family, about ten or twelve children. Most of them went to the West Coast. One, whose nickname was Governor, stayed in Clare City and runs the beer parlor. Evelyn married Clint Hanson and lives in Minneapolis.

EDWARD SEBEK

Edward was a farmer in the same area as his brothers. He had a mechanical trend and went away to a school (in Minneapolis) for training in tractors and other machines. He arranged for one of the first tractors and thrashing machines in the Clare City area. He and his brothers worked the farms of the area with this equipment. Ed married an immigrant Czech girl named Rose (last name unknown). Together they maintained the farm and raised a family of four or five children whom I barely know. One or two of the boys live on farms in the Clare City area; one of the girls is a school teacher (in California); and one of the boys was an aviator and died in a plane accident. Edward died of senility about 1950. Rose still lives in a rest home in Sissaton.

John was another of the drinking uncles (farmers have the highest incidence of all professions). He was almost a solitary drinker. I never saw him visibly drunk and I think he drank moderately but constantly. He also was a farmer and never married. He developed senility in his late years, but much earlier than his brothers, He visited us in Minneapolis several times and Barbara remembers him because he was "queer" (senile)--he urinated in our ally in public. He developed a senile mania and was confined to the Yankton Insane Hospital where he died in 1940.

JOHANNA AND JOSEPH KOUCKY

Joseph Koucky (1) left Czechoslovakia in his early years. The story goes that he sang in the church choir where the rumor was that the priests castrated the boys so their voices would not change.. He became a sailor and when his ship docked in Chicago, he jumped ship and made his way to Coal City. There he married Johanna (Jennie) Sebek in 1888, and worked in the mines until the exodus to the reservation in 1892. By this time they had Sophia and the baby Edward. They took up their claim near the Sebeks, about 2 miles away. As a child I walked many times from the farm to Grandma Sebek’s. Joseph and Jennie left the Catholic Church because the priest demanded that they sell one of the two horses to support the church the priest proposed to build. It is impossible to farm with only one horse. Other families received similar demands and also left the church. The priest was recalled but the bitterness that was generated lasted for a lifetime, although many of the descendants became Catholics, often to the dismay of the older generation. In 1908 Joseph and Jennie purchased the Maxwell Farm, which adjoined on the south the city of Lidgerwood, North Dakota. The Maxwell Farm in its heyday was one of the huge farming projects (called Bonanza Farms by historians) which were quite common in eastern North Dakota from 1870 to 1900. The land had been divided and sold in half-section lots by the time that Joseph and Jennie purchased the farm. The buildings and home half-section remained. The house had eight bedrooms, a fireplace, a furnace, a bathroom with running water (these two no longer worked in my time) and other innovations uncommon in the 1870-1900 period. The move to the big place was without a doubt at the insistence of Jennie. It was close to the high school. All of the children except Sophia and Edward graduated from this h school. Joseph (1) was a hard-working, ambitious man. He saw to it that all the children were the same. He probably consented to the move to the Maxwell Farm because the land was fine and because of the huge conspicuous house and barn. Later Joseph purchased two other farms. He and Jennie retired early in life (see Jennies summary ) in 1922. They moved to Cicero, almost exclusively a Czech suburb of Chicago. Joseph became a real-estate speculator, a co-founder and board member of a local bank, and a political figure. He was named "Man of the Year" by the Deni Hlasatel (Daily Herald), a nation wide Bohemian newspaper. He developed a massive cancer of the kidney which was removed at the Mayo Clinic in 1927. He died suddenly, probably of his cancer, in the spring of 1929,

Johanna. Known to her contemporaries as Jennie and to her children only as Ma, was a highly intelligent, competent individual who directed the destiny of Joseph (1) and all her children. Sophia, because she married early in her life and Edward, because of the necessities of the farm, did not go to high school or the university, Joseph (II) and all the other children went to the University of North Dakota and then on to graduate work. Jennie did an unbelievable amount of work on the farm. On the Maxwell Farm we had a fairly large dairy in addition to the grain farm. Jennie took care of all of the milk and cream to be sold, and the equipment; and she did all the housework, alone. She also took care of the chickens, pigs in addition to the sewing, knitting, and taking care of the children. In about 1912 she developed "Tuberculosis" and was ill in the hospital in Minneapolis and at home for about two years. She recovered completely. She may have had what is known as brucellosis or undulant fever, from one cow we now know had the disease. I am sure that she planned the relative early retirement of Joseph (1). After Joseph’s death she continued to live in the same house until her final years. Then she lived in single room apartments visited often by her children. Perhaps she was considered to be an old, garrulous women by some of the younger people who did not know the powerful influence she made in her younger days. In the end, she fell and fractured her hip, from which she subsequently died. There seems to be no consensus about her age. She probably was 94 at the time of her death, The children from Joseph (II) on, owe their position in life to Jennie.

SOPHIA MICKA

Sophia is the oldest of the children. She was born in Coal City and moved with her parents yo the claim on the reservation. She married Tom Micka (pronounced in Czech., Mischka), at an early age (17). Tom Sr. Was short and burly and had fantastic strength. He could lift the front a end of a car or kill a pig with a fist. He was a butcher. First he was the helper in the market in Lidgerwood. Then he owned a market in Cayuga, twelve miles west of Lidgerwood. Later he and Sophie ( the "a" in her name is not pronounced) moved to Baker, Montana in the southeastern part of the state. Tom died of a heart attack in 1932. Sophie is living in

Cheyenne, Wyoming and is in her eighties. She is surprisingly spry in sprite of cataracts, one of which has been removed.

Tom Micka (II) graduated from the University of Montana in engineering, He worked with the Montana Power and Light Co, then ran a mink farm and finally went into teaching. His wife, Helen, Is widely known in the Montana area for her chairperson work, her lectures, and her writing. They have one daughter who is a doctor and is with the Texas State Dept. Of Public Health.

Albina died in the flood water of the Wild Rice River near Cauyuga while she was just a child,

Agnes, now living in Cheyenne, Wyoming has spent all of her life in government work, principally in the Indian department. She is single.

Edward finished at Annapolis Naval Academy and at Pensacola Naval Air School. Very soon after graduation from the letter he was in World War II and was shot down at Casablanca. He left a wife and one child (Barbara).

Joseph graduated from the University of Minnesota in aeronautical engineering. At this time he lived in our house. For years he had a high position with the Boeing Aircraft Co, in Seattle, Washington. Anticipating the depression of the aircraft industry in the 50's, he left; he is now a car salesman in Seattle. His wife is Marie and they have three children, who are now grown.

Bennie was a career military man, a communications officer. He served in the war in Alaska and Europe. He was a born story teller and his descriptions of the war were a treat to hear, He died in the Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington, D. C. of a vascular disease.

Violet is a housewife, married to Jack Katana. Both Violet and Jack work in the post office in Cheyenne. They have one son who is an engineer with Bell Telephone and one daughter who is a forest ranger married to a man who is also a ranger.

EDWARD KOUCKY

Edward helped his father on the reservation and on the Maxwell Farm. Because he was needed on the farm, he could not go to school beyond the country school on the reservation. He remained a bachelor. He was, as all the brothers were, an avid fisherman and hunter. Ed managed the farm after our father died. Joseph (II), Dene and I spent many happy vacations with him hunting. He became senile in his final years. Apparently he realized his condition and did not want to continue living. He shot himself through the head with a shotgun.

Ed was burning the grass along the road of the farm. Two cars hit head on in the cloud of smoke from the fire. Ed was sued for a large amount of money for this and won the disfavor of Jenny.

Ed came to Chicago for the 1933 Worlds Fair and several times at Christmas. Each year he would send skinny "Dakota" turkeys for Christmas gifts. The brothers each year returned to the farm for pheasant and goose hunting.

JOSEPH KOUCKY ( II)

Joe, from his early years, was an "advocate". Most of the older generation could not speak English and could not carry on transactions. Joe was their interpreter and adviser, even in his childhood years. When he finished high school, the Superintendent and our mother insisted that he go to the university. This was an innovation of which my father did not approve. He wanted the boys to be farmers. As usual, my mother had her way and Joe was decked out in home made clothes and hand-knitted gloves and socks and went to the university. After graduation he taught school for two years in northern Minnesota in the mining village of Tower, to earn enough money to go to law school. He graduated in law from the University of Chicago. At one time he was offered a judgeship, which he declined. He had a very large practice in Chicago, Joe and Helen Borneman were married in 1928. Helen had been Joe’s office girl. She was efficient, orderly individual. After marriage she often substituted in the office, supervising the bookkeeping, took care of the income tax, and provided a very orderly home for the family (this makes sense when you realize the Rud’s house was never too orderly with hunting dogs loose all over the place). Helen died suddenly in 1972 if a heart attack, she had finally moved from the office apartment in Cicero to a "real " house in Riverside, Illinois. Joe was completely lost without her.

Joe and Helen had three children. Robert W. was first, he was a engineer with Pratt-Whitney Co. And is currently a development engineer at Combustion Engineering Inc.,in Connecticut. His project is new utilization of coal. Robert married Jane Andrews and they had three girls and one boy. Robert and Jane are now divorced. Marilyn (Meyer) plays the viola with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is divorced and has one daughter, Margaret Ann. Joseph P. (III) (known as Jack) married Margaret McMann. She was a nun for nine years and finally left her order. They are only recently married and have no children . Jack took over his father’s practice and specializes in industrial law. Joe (II) even into his elderly years, was a very avid fisherman and hunter. He belongs to a gun club on the lower Illinois River which to this day is one of the foremost duck hunting areas in the world. He organized with his friends, a fishing lodge on an island in Lake of the Woods in the heyday of the famous lake. In one memorial week he and John caught six Muskie, each of them catching a 48-pounder. Even into his eighties, Joe went fishing with his two sons. Joe was extremely generous to me. When I was a medical student and also when I was an intern he took me on many trips. Twice we went to the Illinois River for duck hunting, and three times for fishing on Lake of the Woos; he went in addition to operas, shows and eating places in Chicago. When Dene and I were married at the peak of the depression--and it was also a depression for Joe— he sent us five hundred dollars for a wedding present. In later years I tried to repay him by organizing fishing trips, with him to northern Canada. In his eighties, he still wants to go on another of these trips. Joe now lives in a very fine rest home in Chicago.

JOHN KOUCKY

John was always the largest of the brothers. He was a serious, industrious boy and man, highly devoted to his work. John early showed a leaning toward biology. He and I as his helper, dissected many gopher, rabbits, and even skunks ( to see what made them stink). My interest in medicine came from these episodes. John went to medical school at the University of North Dakota, which until very recently offered only the first two years of medicine. He played guard on the University of North Dakota football team. He graduated from Rush Medical School in Chicago. He then went to the Mayo Clinic on a surgery fellowship, finishing in 1924. Two years after starting practice (Oct., 1926) he went back to North Dakota and married Margaret Welch, his classmate at the University of North Dakota Medical School. I was the best man at the wedding. Margaret’s father was a pioneer in Bismark,; a hardware dealer who was active in North Dakota politics . Margaret had kidney disease which forced her to leave medical school. Because of the nephritis, she and John had no children, because Margaret could not carry a pregnancy to term. They adopted a girl, Joanie, who is now an adult, married to Rowe Zehas now living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They have four children. Margaret died of nephrititis in the late 30's shortly after they moved from Oak Park into their large French Provincial Farm House they had built in River Forest (1106 Keystone). John served in both World Wars. In the first he was assigned to making house calls during the flu epidemic in Chicago. In the second war he was assigned to the Army Medical Corps, a senior surgeon in a large base hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He entered as a major and was later promoted to colonel. After the war he returned to his practice in Chicago and became widely known throughout northern Illinois. John and Margaret Abletrope ( always known as "Abie") were married after the war. Abie is an Iowa girl who had to work her way through nursing school at Deaconess Hospital. She was a surgical nurse in the Italian campaign during the war. In her off time and against all rules, she sometimes accompanied the flyers when they flew missions over the enemy territory. After the war she returned to Chicago and became the surgical supervisor at, Deaconess Hospital, which was John’s major hospital. Like John, Abie is quite retiring, very pleasant, and very capable. They made an excellent couple. John and Abie traveled extensively. Abie was never allowed to go on the fishing and hunting trips with the brothers, which irked her. John was an avid gardener. The flower garden was huge and very well done, a showplace for visiting garden clubs. Abie did much of the work. When she comes to visit us in Idaho she spends a good deal of her time cleaning our garden and tying up plants. John like all of the brothers was a hunter and fisherman. He went on almost all of the trips. Sometimes all four brothers went together, John had two strokes, which he survived with minimal residue,; a replacement of the lower aorta; he died suddenly of a rupture of the upper aorta. Two or three days before he died, he and I were planning another trip to Slave Lake. He was in his late sixties. John and Abie had no children. After John’s death Abie moved into an apartment and she continued the traveling that she and John had always done. There is almost no where, except the two poles, that she hasn’t been.

(John and Margaret took a trip to Russia shortly before WWII.)

( John had a large scar on his cheek that looked like a German dueling scar, This was caused by a fall on broken milk bottles on the Maxwell Farm.)

FRANK KOUCKY

Frank was always socially inclined. As a youngster, he would sneak off after school to the pool hall to "see the boys", which to the parents was a mortal sin. He did not care much for the farm work, but our father saw to it that he did his share. At the University of North Dakota Frank took up electrical engineering. After graduation he was selected by Westinghouse to go to their Pittsburgh branch for further training.

About two years after graduation (June, 1926) he and Ella Harshman of Gilby were married. Ella was a classmate at the University. Frank was transferred in 1925 to the Chicago branch where he remained until retirement. He must have done a fine job. I met the president of the company on a goose=hunting trip at Hudson Bay. This man, president of one of the largest companies in the US, looked me up in my tent and he was exceedingly fluent in his praise of Frank. Frank was given the Sioux Award by the University of North Dakota in 1970. This is one of the highest awards the University gives to its living alumni. John, probably, would have been given this award also but it is not given posthumously. Frank never became the head of the Chicago office, only because there was no opening. He died of a stroke while driving his car a few years after his retirement. When one finally opened Frank was too close to retirement. Ella came from Gilby, North Dakota in the northeastern part of the state. He family is large and very well known in that part of the state. Ella is very quiet and she plans far ahead. She is devoted mother and it was a pleasure to see her carefully and patiently teach her boys. She was always a joiner and now delights in her many clubs and activities. It was a custom of the brothers to rotate the family dinners and gatherings on each of the family holidays. Frank and Ella always had the family, with mother as the guest, on her birthday. (John had Christmas and Joe had Thanksgiving). Ella still lives in the big family home in Elmhurst. Frank was less fanatic about hunting and fishing than the rest of the brothers. He did go on several trips with us. However he had many elite trips which Westinghouse sponsored for its officers. Frank Louis Jr. is head of the Geology Department at the College of Wooster. Currently he spends his summers working with archaeologists, digging a ruins in the eastern Mediterranean. He and his wife Virginia had five children, one of which died young. Charles Joseph is a prominent surgeon in Saginaw, Michigan. He and his wife Patricia have four children. John Richard is a metallurgical engineer with Wagner Casting Co. At Decatur, Illinois. He and his wife Beverly have two children.

LYDIA KOUCKY

Lydia, or Lyd as she was known, moved with her parents from Lidgerwood to Cicero, Illinois in 1922 (when she was 14). She finished high school at Morton High School and then spent a year at the University of North Dakota, She then went to college in Chicago, majoring in home economics. She married Charles Prazak, who was always one of our mother’s favorites. Charles and Lyd taught school in the Four Corners Region at Durango, Utah during the uranium boom. He then taught for many years at Morton High School in Cicero, Illinois. In addition he was singer much in demand by churches and for weddings. He was the leader of the high school chess club. No one ever came to Lyd and Charles’ home without getting his fill of Czech. goodies or a big dinner accompanied by plenty of drinks, Lyd took care of our mother a great deal of the time. Lyd and Charles , who has now retired spend their winters in the south and their summers at a lake in northern Illinois. They have two sons, Charles John and his wife Bess have one child. They live in Elmhurst. Charles Jr. is the manager of production engineering at Rollins Corp. (Zenith) in Melrose Park, Illinois. The second son, Richard Allen is not married and is a physician in internal medicine in Milwaukee. His nickname is Rickie.

RUDOLPH AND LADENE KOUCKY

I was born April 5, 1904, on the farm on the reservation. I remember several incidents which happened on that farm: father coming home in the sleigh half frozen in a blizzard; cleaning up ducks in the slough for Joe and John; Ed sneaking up on a flock of geese (he didn’t get any that day); saving and straightening nails in preparation for our move to Lidgerwood; the prairie fires with Ma and John plowing a firebreak around the house; Sophie and Tom before they were married going for a walk (I had to go along); Indians camping beside the road. When I was four years old we moved to the Maxwell Farm at Lidgerwood; when I was five years old I started first grade. I knew only the rough vulgar English spoken around the farm and I spoke this in school to my subsequent embarrassment. I had never seen an indoor toilet ( the one on the farm had never worked and my brothers told me it was a spring). School was easy. I finished high school in 1920, in three years and was salutatorian of the class. I worked very hard on the farm because all of the brothers except Ed were away at college. I worked in the fields and had my assigned chores at home. The peak of this work came in 1918 during the flu epidemic. all of the brothers were away in the army and my father and mother were both in bed with the flu and pneumonia from October to December, As a fourteen-year old boy took care of the farm work and the dairy. Lydia nursed our parents and cooked. I pitched sixty to eighty pound bundles of corn into the wagon and hauled them to the barn and stacked them for winter feed for the cows, and it seemed that there were "millions" of loads. The corn became full of mice and I remember them running up my pants leg, I took care of ten horses, milked all of the cows--we supplied the cream and milk for the entire town of Lidgerwood--bottled it for delivery, hauled the milk to town and delivered it to the homes. I did not deliver it to the door but went inside to see if people needed help. In one house there were three men in bed with the flu. They all did, one after the other. I arranged to have them, and others too, moved to the funeral home. There were barns to clean, the stock to feed, the milk equipment to clean, the food to cook, my mother and father to feed and take care of---the work never stopped. But I lived through it. In 1920 I finished high school and went to the university, a skinny, scared, snot-nosed kid of sixteen. I finished at the University in 1924 with an A average. I was awarded both Alpha Kappa Kappa (honorary academic society) and Sigma Xi (an honorary scientific society). I got no financial help from home. I worked two and sometimes three jobs simultaneously to stay in school. I took my third year medicine at Northwestern University. I was only 21 year old, and I decided to stay out of school until I was more mature. I went back to the University of North Dakota to teach anatomy (John Moe was one of my students) and for two years I went to the University of Buffalo, New York, to teach anatomy for another two years. I finished my fourth year of medical school at Buffalo while teaching half time. In the summer between the North Dakota and Buffalo jobs, I spent is southeastern Alaska camping, traveling, fishing, staying out of the way of the Kodiak bear and generally having a good time. We ate so much deer meat that summer that I have never cared for deer since. I grew up in those four years. I finished medical school in 1929 , then interned at the University of Illinois in Chicago, together with John Moe. I was appointed to a surgical fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, but because of the depression starting in 1929, I was canceled out. John, while at the Mayo Clinic had a junior fellow, Dr. Owen Wagenstyeen, who had become head of the surgery department at the University of Minnesota. John arranged for me to go to Minneapolis as a surgical fellow. I spent two and a half years training as a surgeon. I didn’t like it. As part of my fellowship I took six months of pathology . I stayed in pathology and never went back to surgery. I remained in pathology at University Hospital for six years, first as a fellow in training and then as an instructor, In my final years at the university I was the pathologist for St. Mary’s Hospital. There was a poverty of pathologists at the time and I also became the pathologist for Abbot, Eitel and St. Andrew’s Hospitals. I also became pathologist for a number of communities throughout Minnesota and North Dakota. I worked for thirty-two hospitals at one time or another, most of the simultaneous. The out-of-town hospitals sent their material to me in Minneapolis and periodically I visited these hospitals to talk to the medical staff and to supervise their laboratories. This required extensive travel. During the war I was declare "essential" because of the wide service to the area. During the war I became a civilian working for the army collecting diagnostic Rh serum. This required an additional amount of traveling. The meetings were held at night, and after the meeting I would drive back to Minneapolis, often in severe weather. I nearly died in a blizzard on one of these trips. Sixty-two people froze to death that night. The head of the Rh project was located in Boston, told me later that I had sent him the largest amount of the serum of any laboratory in the US. At the same time, with the help of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, I was organizing a community blood bank.

At first, we were located in a house on LaSalle Ave., near Franklin. Later we built the present bank on Park Avenue. The bank was highly successful and today is Minneapolis War Memorial Blood Bank. I was the medical director for about eighteen years. I was given the Sioux Award at the University of North Dakota at the same ceremony as Frank. Travel during the war years was very restricted except for special projects such as mine. I must admit that I arranged my trips in the country so that I could be in the Lidgerwood area during hunting season. Finally after pathologists returned from the war, I restricted my practice to Fairview Hospital and the out-of-town hospitals. I remained at Fairview Hospital until I retired in 1969 (at 65).

Dorothy Ladene Hodges, always known as Dene, and I were married June 27, 1932. Dene was an interne and I was a fellow in surgery. When we were courting, we often walked downtown (three miles) to save the carfare. For supper we usually had a sandwich and then we walked back to the university hospital. Sometimes we went to a show--once we saw Bing Crosby on the vaudeville stage. We were married in the old courthouse in Anoka.

Dene’s family and the Frazee family cannot be given in full because they date back so far. The families that lived in the US are described. Some of the data was given by Josephine Frazee and Dene also knows most of the family history. The Frazee family goes back to 1552 to the Huguenots in Limoges, France. When the Huguenot were persecuted, the families moved to London. The first of the family to come to the US to Virginia, in the period between 1790 and 1800. In 1814 the Hubbard-Frazee group came in covered wagon to Indiana. The genealogy of the Frazee family as given by Josephine Frazee is as follows:

Charles Hubbard + Unknown girl

Daughter (unknown) + Charles Henry Frazee (I)

Charles Henry Frazee (II) + Emily Aderton

Charles Henry Frazee (III) + Josephine Sare

Josephine did not tell Dene about the siblings in the family. Charles Hubbard was one of the founders of Earlham College in Indiana. It is still a very active Quaker college. Charles Henry Frazee(II) was in 1824 cofounder of the Indiana Yearly Meeting, a Quaker institution. His wife Emily Adgerton came from English nobility and they are dated by Josephine into the 17^th Century. The cherry dresser made without nails or screws; the glass candlesticks; the clock; the marble-top coffee table and nine silver spoons (made from melted coins) came from the original Hubbard family And were brought from Virginia over the eastern mountains by covered wagon in 1814. The spoons, engraved with M.M. , belonged to Mrs. Hubbard; the ones engraved E.A. belonged to Emily Aderton. The bite marks were made by Charles (III) when he was cutting teeth. We have all these items here in Idaho. The what-not, love seat and three chairs which Barb has, all came from the Hubbard or Frazee house. Various other pieces of Josephine’s furniture, which came from the Frazee home in Indiana, are now owned by members of our family. A cherry highboy Maggie has, came in 1814 with the Hubbards. The other pieces were not identified by Josephine. The Hodges side of the family is as follows:

Betsy Moore + William Robinson

Margaret Ann + Drury Hodges — Elizabeth — Barbara — Mary Jane + Tom Sare

William + Leila James Josephine + Charles Frazee

Suzette Dorothy Ladene------(by adoption)----- Dorothy Ladene

William Robinson was born in County Antrim, Ireland (Scotoch,Irish, Northen Ireland) and came to Harrisburg, Pennsylvanian, in 1812. He moved to Bloomington, Indiana in 1814. He was cofounder of the Coventer Church in Bloomington. This was a very severe rigid Scotch Presbyterian church. Sunday meals had to be cooked on Saturday; psalms were sung without musical instruments; there was no card playing; voting was not permitted; and there were other severe church restrictions. In 1865 William broke away from this church and was cofounder of the United Presbyterian church which was much more liberal. He was a Lincoln supporter and was one of the underground that smuggled slaves into Indiana. He died in 1884. Betsy Moore was born in Antrim, Ireland, and came to the US in 1812. Josephine failed to say when the family came to Indiana or when Betsy and William were married. In this rigid church family it is almost certain that Betsy did not have any ERA leanings. The cup, saucer, and plate which Barb has were brought by the Moore family from Ireland in 1812. The embroidered sampler which barb has on her wall was made by Betsy. It is dated June 28, 1831. One daughter of Betsy and William is Margaret Ann, who is the Grandma Hodges of whom Dene speaks so much. Our Margaret was named for Grandma Hodges. Grandma’s sister Barbara Allen lived with Grandma Hodges. This is the Aunt Barb of whom Dene speaks frequently and for whom our Barb was named. William Hodges, son of Grandma Hodges married Leila James when they were both very young. Leila had a "touch" of Indian blood in her from her mother’s side of the family. William and Leila were circus people who were on the move continuously. Another daughter of Betsy Moore and William Robinson was Marty Jane, who married Jim Sare. She was Josephine’s mother. This Josephine, married to Charles Frazee of Duluth, is the one whom several of you know.

Dene was born in Pueblo, Colorado on Sept. 6, 1908. Because her parents, William and Leila, had to be on the move all the time, Dene was taken by Grandma Hodges when she was six months old and lived with Grandma and Aunt Barb through childhood and early adult life. She was raised in a strict church atmosphere which Grandma had acquired from her father, William Robinson. The rigid church culture seems to have washed off Dene somewhere along the line. Dene and Suzette were financed throughout their entire education by Josephine and Charles Frazee. Charles was a professor of biology at Duluth State Teachers College, wich is now the Duluth Branch of the University of Minnesota. Charles and Josephine were not affluent, but they managed to find money for Dene’s and Suzette’s education. Suzette became a medical librarian. She is very eccentric, and ultimately chose to loose herself somewhere in California. Dene and Josephine have not heard from her in many years. Dene visits the Frazees often and lived with then during summer vacations. Dene went to medical school at the University of Indiana and graduated in June, 1931. In July, 1931 she came to the University of Minnesota Hospital for her internship at the same time I was a fellow in surgery.

The year, 1932, when Dene and I were married, was the peak of the great depression of 1925-35. Dene, after her internship, worked as a house doctor at the Abbot Hospital where she did everything from assisting in surgery to delivering babies and taking care of the children’s ward. It is hard to believe the poverty existing during the depression. Dene made $25.00 per month at the Abbot and I made $65.00 a month at the University. We could, however, purchase as many pork chops as we could eat for ten cents. Chickens were three for a dollar. Dene could cook well for two of us, but she was not experienced in cooking for a crowd. One time Joe, John and Frank visited on the way to Tom Micka’s funeral. Dene prepared one duckling for the group. Frank said "That’s fine for an appetizer, now were is the supper?". We lived in the slum-prostitute-bootleg (prohibition was in at this time) area between the Auditorium and Abbot Hospital because it was cheap and was close to the Abbot, Barb worked at the Abbot for almost two years--nearly up to the time that Barbara was born. We purchased a second hand car for $90.00. Dene saved pennies and nickels in a glass jar and we use this treasure and fancy car to go on fishing and hunting trips. First we went to Buffalo, Minnesota and then on our first big trip, to Sauk Center where we fished (we caught a nine pound walleye). And had the luxury of staying in a hotel and eating in a restaurant. We fished early in the morning and then came in for brunch, usually pork chops on toast. Even today we often have pork chops for Sunday breakfast. From Sauk Center we went to Bensen, Minnesota where we joined John and Henry Moe for our first pheasant hunting. In 1935 we purchased the house on Parkway for $5,000 (on mortgage, of course). Later Grace Kennedy, then Lucille Gillette (until she went into the convent--she is now Sister Ann Noel) and finally Rose Gillette lived with us while they went to school. They lived with us primarily so that we could get away on trips. Joe Micka also lived with us while he went to the University. Beginning about 1936 or 1937 there were a long series of trips for Dene and me. The first year we camped at Lake of the Woods in a little tent. Then we built for us (together with John Moe) a small cabin at Split Rock on Lake of the Woods. Soon after we had a different cabin built on Dryberry Lake, again with John Moe. We went to Dryberry many times, until the war started. Muskie and Lake trout fishing was good in those days. Dene caught her first Muskie there and she almost had apoplexy catching that fish. It almost jumped into the boat with her. Years later she became so sophisticate about fishing that jumping tarpon of 90 to 100 pounds didn’t bother her. In the years before the war my brothers, Joe and John, came almost every year to Minnesota, and we went pheasant hunting around Marshal. When the hunting began to fail in Minnesota, the group of us went to Dakota around Ed’s farm for both pheasants and ducks. During the war years the trips stopped for Joe and John, but Dene and I managed to get to Lidgerwood many times each year. The number of geese and ducks in the years 1942 through 1946 was unbelievable. The possession limit of ducks for the two of us was 60, and for a time there was no limit on pheasants. Ed and Joe said, even in the reservation days, were there so many birds. The pheasants died out abruptly in 1946-47, almost certainly due to epidemic, and they never recovered in North Dakota. The number of ducks gradually declined as the wet years passed. After this we went pheasant hunting around Huron, South Dakota, and we changed from duck hunting to goose hunting, Dene and I and our Joe sometimes went fishing on the Winnipeg River for smallmouth bass and northern pike. After the war the brothers all became well established in their professions and this started a new chapter in outdoor activities. The brothers, one or sometimes all four, often with friends, made an unusual number of trips to far frontiers for fishing or hunting. We went in the new camps when they opened, or at least in their first few years. These trips to new frontiers were often difficult because of the hazardous flying. There were a number of hairy experiences due to the problems of bush flying. John insisted that the wives not go along; Helen and Ella were not particulary inclined to do so, but Abie and Dene wanted to go but were not taken along. We went to God’s River (speckled trout), Reindeer Lake (lake trout and northerns), Albany River (speckled trout), Lake Athabasca (lake trout), Slave Lake (lake trout), Great Bear Lake (lake trout), Tree River (Arctic char), Aleutian Peninsula (rainbow trout and geese), Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia (steelheads and coho salmon), Baja, California (marlin), Hudson’s Bay (geese), Kisplox River, British Columbia (steelheads and coho salmon), Panuco River, Mexico (tarpon), Panama (marlin), Saskatchewan wheat fields (geese), Columbia, South America (tarpon), Argentina ( dorado), British Honduras (tarpon), Acapulco, Mexico (sailfish), and Costa Rica (tarpon). In the ten years, from 1962-1973, the trips became less rugged because the flying was in large commercial planes and Dene went along. Dene and I had a very pleasant trip to New Orleans and then on to Camen, Mexico, for tarpon. Dene, Joe, John Moe and I made many trips together; to Panama for marlin, Cost Rica for fantastic tarpon fishing, Slave Lake for lake trout (Dene and I spent our 35 anniversary on Slave Lake), and Queen Victoria Island in the Arctic Ocean fishing for arctic char. Dene and I went to Alberta for geese when Dene had trouble seeing because of cataracts. The last trip in 1973, when Joe was about 80 and I was beginning to have heart problems, was to Costa Rica for tarpon.

I retired , by choice, in April 1969, at the age of 65. We moved to a house in the country, about two miles from Sandpoint, Idaho. The move came after much research into all parts of the US and Canada. The new house has almost everything we wanted rural area away from a dense population a one-story house at a moderate cost, nearly good stores, an available airport (80 miles), a temperate climate, lack of vandalism, a flat yard for gardening, scenic surroundings and places to fish and hunt. The house was originally L-shaped, We converted the house to U shaped by having a workshed and a 18 x 24 foot greenhouse built. In the center of the U we built a 12 x 18 foot heated, glassed-in patio. This patio is filled with house plants. With a TV, tables chairs, and a davenport this is a wonderful place to sit, read, watch the birds or just to look at the garden and the scenery. We have developed into serious birdwatchers. The greenhouse has been a great success. In the Fall it is filled with about 40 large greenhouse type chrysanthemums. In the winter there are orchids, various bulbous plants, geraniums, fuchsias, gloxinia, cineraria, cyclamen and many flowers brought in from the garden. In the spring we grow about 1000seedlings in the greenhouse. Often the living room of the house looks like a mortuary. Outdoors we have a very large flower garden. Some plants grow unusually well in this climate: delphinium, all the bell flowers, foxglove, phlox, peonies, Canterbury bells, primroses and above all tuberous begonias. We think we have the best in Idaho. Other plants are terrible and not worth growing; zinnias, asters, marigolds ands all of the sun-loving plants (we have too much shade for these). I have now given up hunting, but we go fishing at least every other week in May and June and again in October and November. We charter a large boat with a "captain" who knows all of the tricks of fishing here. The large boat is almost a necessity because the lake is large, six by forty miles and sudden storms do occur. We have given up going out in our small boat. Rainbow trout m even in Alaska, are usually up to five to six pounds. Here they are huge: the logical record is 37 pounds. Dene has caught one of eighteen pounds and I got one of twenty-five pounds.

There has been much concern about my health. All my life I have been plagued by one or another type of heart irregularity. In childhood and up to 30 years of age, I had bouts of very rapid heartbeat, often over 200. This is known as paroxysmal tachycardia, and almost always disappears in later life. All my adult life, including now, I have had "skipped" heartbeats. When the "skipping occurs close together, it becomes quite uncomfortable, but otherwise it is not significant. In the past four or five years I have progressively more pain in the heart, and I developed attacks of fainting once on the side of a mountain. It was the logical conclusion by the doctors who saw me, and by myself, I had a coronary and carotid disease similar to the vascular disease which has occurred throughout the Sebek-Koucky family. In December, 1976, I went to Fairview Hospital fully expecting to have surgery on coronary and carotid arteries. I was given extensive X-ray studies of these vessels and in addition, the brain and aorta. To everyone’s surprise, the blood vessels all seem normal--far younger than expected for my age. The final conclusion was that I had numerous weak heartbeats which failed to move the blood to the heart wall and the brain, which caused my heart pain and fainting. I was given a drug (pronestyl) which regulates the heart rhythm and prevents the weak contractions (known as Premature ventricular contractions). In addition I was told to stop all alcohol intake because alcohol increases the irritability of the heart, In addition, I lost weight, so that I am now 170 instead of 205 pounds. Now I feel better than at any time in the past four or five years. Dene in the past years has been amazingly free of health problems. In 1968 she had her bilateral cataracts removed with great success; and in 1969, after only a month of symptoms, she had her uterus removed with a very small cancer. Now we walk three miles every day, weather and roads permitting and up and down several hills. There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get all our "chores" done.

We hope that this long dissertation may be of interest to you and perhaps of help if any of you wish to complete the genealogy of your individual families.