where they were the first settlers, and where they started a Bohemian colony of thirty-five families. Here young Rudolf helped his father and mother with farm work and attended school.
In 1887 the family moved to Arkansas, settling in Washington county. Young Smischny worked on the farm until 1891, when, being then twenty years of age, he struck out for himself. Having an uncle in a Bohemian settlement in Ellsworth county, Kansas, he came to visit him. Finding work he remained, and in July, 1892, he rented a two-hundred-acre farm. That year all farmers raised bumper crops of wheat, and this encouraged Smischny so much that he decided to get married. Consequently in the spring of 1893 he married Miss Clara Mogg, daughter of John Mogg of Black Wolf creek. Hard times came and a young family added to the cares of the couple, but by grit and pluck they have won out. Starting as a farm laborer, Mr. Smischny now owns a farm of five hundred and sixty acres of good land besides considerable personal property. In 1894 he was elected road overseer of his district. After holding that office five years he was elected township trustee. There he served eleven years, and in 1912 was elected representative for Ellsworth county. In 1911 he organized the Black Wolf Grain and Supply Company, and is president of the company. In 1913 he organized a local Farmers’ Union of which he is secretary and treasurer.
Mr. and Mrs. Smischny have ten children—six sons and four daughters. A son and a daughter married a daughter and a son of Frank Zajic one of the early Bohemian settlers from Minnesota.—F. J. S.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF VIT HANZLICEK.
I was born in Bohemia June 15, 1863, in a little village called Lomicka, belonging to Dolno Belle in the vicinity of Pilsen. In that little village my father owned forty acres of land which was divided into eleven pieces.
When I was eighteen months old my mother died. Twelve and one-half years after my mother's death my father took a notion to go to America. He had received a letter from his brother in America, who wrote that he owned a half section of land at Plymouth, Iowa, and that he would sell my father one quarter section if he would come to the United States. I did not want to go to America, because my mother's parents were pretty well off, and I thought I would stay with them.
After my father found out how everything was, he wrote to his brother in Plymouth, Iowa, and told him all about it. Shortly after this I myself received a letter from my uncle. He wrote me to come with my parents to America and that he would do all he could for me. I told my grandfather and grandmother what my uncle wrote me, and they said they would not try to stop me from going, and if it should happen that I would not like it they would send me enough money to return to Europe. After my father found out that I was willing to go with him he sold all his property, and on the 16th of May, 1878, we left our little village of Lomicka to make our future home in the United States.
On leaving our little village we drove a one-horse lumber wagon to Pilsen, which was about fifteen miles away, and was the nearest railway station. At Pilsen we took the train for a seaport; thence we sailed to New York, which took us eleven days. From New York we traveled by train to Plym-
