Volume 101 Number 34
ˇ ´ VESTNIK S P J S T Benevolence
H E R A L D
★ Humanity
ISSN —07458800
★ Brotherhood
September 4, 2013
From Ennis to Prague By Margaret Krajca Lodge 25, Ennis
Preserving Memories and History
2013-2014 SPJST State Queen Julia Zavodny scans in past youth club scrapbooks at the Home Office in August. The scrapbooks will be part of SPJST’s online archive. If your lodge or youth club is interested in digitizing its scrapbooks, please contact the Vestnik Editor’s office.
Welcome to SPJST! N N N N N N N N
Interest Rates.......................................3 Important Dates ...................................3 Readers Write ......................................3 District News........................................5 Lodge Section......................................6 Youth Section.....................................16
Elizabeth Kristinek, right, daughter of Jason Kristinek, and Tristan Turner, left, son of Neal and Jennifer Kristinek Turner, present Angeline Turner with her new SPJST certificate. Grandparents are Jerome and Cyndy Kristinek, all of Lodge 157, Lubbock. Angeline was named after her great-grandmother, Angeline Kristinek.
This has been an extra busy year, and I wanted to share with you another adventure that Johnnie and I had in March. We had the wonderful experience of traveling to Germany and Czech Republic! Our grandson Blake was preparing for his discharge from the military so we wanted to see him and his wife Haley before he left. We arrived at Frankfurt Germany Airport on Sunday, March 10 with Laure, Greg, and Rita, and caught a train to Bamberg where Blake was stationed. In the USA, normally spring break is warm weather. But to our surprise, European spring weather this year was the coldest they had experienced in 10 years. Despite snow storms, ice on the roads, and below freezing temperatures, we kept trucking - literally. Laure and Blake rented a 10-passenger van and drove us all over the countryside. We even went on the Autobahn. I named it the “automatic bomb” because Blake was driving, I think, at least 100 miles per hour! We toured castles, churches, and cathedrals and enjoyed eating pig knuckles, kolaches, strudels, and all their versions of liver soup. We sampled dark beer, light beer, cold beer, smoked beer, and hot beer. We drank homemade peach slivovice, sampled Jelinek’s special brew, and drank hot tea. We had lots of “nice driveways.” (You’ll have to ask Johnnie about his “nice driveway” joke). Freezing cold weather was not going to stop us from this great adventure of a lifetime. We had the pleasure of visiting many of the villages where both John-
Inside Th is Week’s Vestnik
Vestnik Project...................................17 In Memoriam ......................................22 Czech Culture ....................................25 Advertisements.............................27-29 Lodge Calendar .................................30 SPJST Cookbook Order Form..........32
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District Six youth enjoy day at Splashway
Lodge 25, Ennis Reporter Margaret Krajca, right, and daughter Rita Holland, who serves as Lodge 25 Youth Leader, are pictured at the Trojacek grave in Bechyne, Czech Republic.
nie’s and my families came from. The Krajca and Mach families came from the Lipa area. Here, we met the Mach cousins, Dennis and Michael, who spent the day taking us to the church where the Krajcas were married, to the original Krajca farm which is up on a hilltop overlooking Lipa, and to the Jelinek Distillery. I was happy to be able to find my Trojacek and Cvach family roots in Bechyne. We were able to locate my great-grandparents Trojacek’s grave at St. Michael Cemetery. Vaclav Martinek and his wife Rosemary welcomed us into their Chmelna House no. 10 which is the original Martinek
Continued on Page 9.
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Lodge 88 Houston youth attends mission camp
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Lodge 162 Iowa Colony youth enjoy summer camp