Josefa Kepka, secretary. There was another organization but it went out of existence for lack of patronage.
Reverend Father Nóvacek’s administration was a long and successful one for the parish, but for causes unknown to the writer his time had come in the succession of pastors and Father Olesh took his place for a very short time, until Father Weber, the present pastor of the parish, came. As the congregation was of several nationalities it was desirable that its pastor be able to speak the different tongues of his parishioners. Rev. Father Josef Hesoun, of St. Louis, Mo., the latter-day apostle to the Bohemians of the United States, has great credit for the prosperity of not only this parish but all of the Bohemian parishes in the Middle West. Yes, even throughout the whole United States. In his honor, on the event of the celebration of his jubilee of twenty-five years of service in one parish (St. Louis, 1865-1890), there was published a great historical book to commemorate the event. This book, a large octavo volume of 552 pages, is filled with the highest commendations from every nook and corner of our new country, wherever even a few faithful live.
The Catholics of Wilson have built three church buildings on the same lots, within twenty-nine years, each one grander than it predecessor. They have also built a large hall about five miles east and one mile south of Wilson, on the farm of Anton Soukup, where they hold their social gatherings, dances, fairs, basket suppers, or bazaars for church benefits.
At this time (1914) our settlement has spread far and wide from that very small nucleus made in 1874 by a single family. It reaches to Ellsworth, Kanopolis, Geneseo, Luray, Lorain, Holyrood, Dorrance, Lucas, and Sylvan Grove. Of course neither these towns nor the country intervening is composed of Bohemians or their descendants exclusively; other nationalities are mixed with them more or less. In Holyrood, Valley township, there are Bohemians, Irish and Germans. In a population of 380 there are 130 Cechs who are represented in business, Joe Dolecek, Joe Vesely, Jan and Adolf Dolecek; Louis Soucek, Jos. M. Vañásek, F. E. Horejsi, Dr. G. F. Zerzan, A. J. Pokorny, J. V. Junger, A. Strela, F. A. Vesely, F. Hromadnik, W. F. Jenicek. Jos. Rezac is a retired farmer living in Holyrood, also Jos. Lank and Anton Matous. The latter served for many years as township trustee of Palacky township; he is a bookworm and owns the best library in that part of the country. In 1888, when I taught their school, I frequently visited him, and he then had a good-sized bookcase full of good works.
About all the government land in Palacky township was settled in 1878. And the settlers, mostly Bohemians, some of whom had come in 1876, are here listed. Tobias Doubrava, our present county commissioner, gives me a brief sketch of his father, which is inserted here.
Francis Doubrava, born July 21, 1834, in the village Sloupnice, near Litomisle, department Chrudimsky, Bohemia, immigrated to the United States April 25, 1873. He came directly to Vining, Tama county, Iowa; from there, in 1878, he moved his family to Ellsworth county, Kansas, where a Bohemian settlement had been started, and settled on the northeast quarter of section 10 in Palacky township. Here he lived and farmed, pushing he Great American Desert farther west until December 4, 1894, when he was summoned to pay his last debt to nature, leaving six sons and two daughters to console their widowed mother, who is still living on the old homestead.
