Volume 104 Number 5
ˇ ´ VESTNIK S P J S T Benevolence
H E R A L D
★ Humanity
★ Brotherhood
The Czech Queen of Kolache ISSN —07458800
February 3, 2016
Words by Sarah Junek • Photography by Sandy Wilson • From Edible Houston • January/February 2016 • Reprinted with Permission
dren and worked with her husband, Moody, in the cotton fields. And at an average of about 300 dozen a week, this baker’s hands were probably responsible for almost a million dozen Bez práce nejsou koláče—without homemade kolaches in the 47 years work, there are no kolaches. she’s been selling to the public. Lydia Mae Faust’s hands seem even At her home in Snook, Texas, the bigger than they now-82-year-old look when you looks at me from hear what they’ve behind coppergone through. rimmed glasses They are what I with concentranotice first as she tion in her dark rolls out her eyes as I ask her dough. I’m lookhow she first ing at hands that started at the bakused to milk cows ery. “There’s a seevery morning. cret to what you Hands that mixed do,” I say, coaxing their first cake beher to find words fore they could to her beginning reach a table. as a baker. She Hands that wreslooks up and tled with mulethinks for a modrawn hay rakes ment and says, and cotton chop“Yeah there is. It’s pers over miles of spelled l-o-v-e.” Texas land, growShe laughs then ing up on the Vajpauses, gathering dak family farm in her memories. Burleson County, “Well, we just west of Col- In her lifetime, SPJST Lodge 9, Snook can make a batch member Lydia Faust had made close of kolaches. How lege Station. Before they to a million dozen kolaches. ’bout that? I do it found their calling with my grandin dough, her hands found their kids all the time.” It’s as if the best strength from tying wire for as many way she’s found to tell her story is to as 500 bales of hay a day. They built make one more batch of the delectable chairs in a factory in Caldwell to help stuffed pastries. feed her family. They raised four chilLike many Czech families in Texas, Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Edible Houston for permission to reprint this article and photos. Lydia is a member of Lodge 9, Snook.
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Important Dates ...................................3 Interest Rates ......................................3 State Food Drive..................................3 Convention 2016 Information.............4 State Tournaments ..............................7 Lodge Section .....................................8
baking for Lydia began first in a working farm home. She was born in Rogers, just south of Temple, in 1933 before they moved to settle permanently in Snook in 1945, where her father was born. That’s when they got electricity and started getting ahead. “I went all the way through school in feed sack dresses,” she said. Each year she’d spend the first months of school
Continued on Page 19.
162 Years of SPJST Home Office Service
Dorothy Stuchly, left, is celebrating 50 years of service to the SPJST Home Office. Supreme Lodge members and Home Office staff honored her with a luncheon on January 20. Congratulating Dorothy are former supervisor Honorary Financial Secretary Jerry Mikulas and Claims Specialist Dorothy Tomasek. Brother Mikulas retired in 2010 after 50 years of service. Sister Tomasek has 62 years of service. Congratulations to Sister Stuchly . . . and to Brother Mikulas and Sister Tomasek on their dedication to SPJST. A story recognizing Sister Stuchly will appear in next week’s Vestnik.
Inside Th is Week’s Vestnik
Youth Section ....................................21 Vestnik Project ..................................22 Czech Culture ....................................26 Advertisements ............................28-29 Lodge Calendar .................................30 Insure Your Love ...............................32
chopping cotton in the fields with her brothers and sisters, until the harvest was in. She’d milk the cows before school and when she came home, she’d work the fields till sundown. Baking days for her were first a day of rest—reserved for Sundays and when it rained.
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Lodge 117 Robstown members assist with wrapping gifts
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Lodge 87 Temple hosts appreciation dinner
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Lodge 79 Corpus Christi welcomes new youth leader