the last Indian raid in Kansas. After hearing of this outrage and learning the names of our countrymen, though we ourselves were needy, we sent all we had in our treasury to be divided pro rata to widows and orphans of the murdered Bohemians.
Thus we worked together until a Roman Catholic priest came to call his sheep to the fold, and separate “Ovecky od beranu,” the “faithful from the unfaithful,” or unbelievers, as the liberals or free-thinkers were called here in America. “Berani” was an appellation of reproach given to all adherents of reformed churches in Bohemia, such as the Evangelical church of Europe, but there were very few settlers here who had belonged to that church. A great majority of the “Berani” were formerly Catholics who had lost their faith in that doctrine, but had not attached themselves to any other church.
Before this first local society began to die a second one was organized in the “Bohemian Hall” built by Ján Charvat. This had a different object, a library or reading club with a dramatic and athletic branch. It was started May 2, 1880. We began collecting money for the library by charging membership fees at time of joining, and by monthly dues. Also we made donations of books. I started this by donating my “History of the Jesuits,” and others followed the example. However, we were all poor in the supply of books that could be spared.
This club was called “Stanvoy Spolkn Ctenárskeho,” the Wilson Bohemian Library, and was instituted by the Bohemian settlers of central Kansas, chiefly farmers and mechanics. It was done with cheerful enthusiasm and rare unanimity, and the library, though small in the beginning, grew to hundreds of volumes, furnishing entertainment and instruction of a far nobler kind than card playing. The rules of the club were printed by the Slavie, a Bohemian paper of Racine, Wis. Membership fee was one dollar, payable on entrance into the club; the dues were ten cents a month, payable quarterly. The club held monthly meetings the second Sunday of each month. The constitution and rules consisted of some eight articles, and contained a provision for the burial of members. Any member of the club failing to attend the funeral of a deceased member was obliged to pay a fine of fifty cents into the treasury, and the society, upon the agreement of the family and relatives, conducted the funeral of its deceased members.
This association at the start aimed to have exclusive use of its library, and one section of the original constitution forbids the loaning of books to non-members. I deemed this too narrow and selfish and persuaded the majority of members to adopt my view of it, so the library was offered to the reading public at a nominal fee of five or ten cents a volume. This privilege was very generally made use of, especially after W. F. Sekavec, one of our most earnest members, moved from his farm in Palacky township, where he ran a store and kept the post office of Palacky, to Wilson, where he built a store building with his residence attached in the rear and maintained a hall on the second floor. We elected him our librarian, putting our library into his store. That made it more convenient for all patrons, and it was also a good attraction for his store. Besides, his hall was used for meetings; there the farmers met and organized the Farmers Elevator Company.
Sekavec’s hall was rented for many years by a Bohemian lodge organized January 1, 1885, in the Odd Fellows hall. It is a local lodge of an extensive
