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.  The imperial domain of Franz Josef was surrounded by the lands of Russia, Rumania, Servia, Italy, Switzerland and the German Empire. 
     Reschen was located in the Austrian part of the empire, and the village was not far from the city of Römerstadt which was north of Olmütz, now called Olomouc.  A letter from the Czechoslovak Travel Bureau in 1970, said that "Reschen is now Resov near Horni Mesto, District of Bruntal in North Moravia."  The picture of the sign, to the left, was taken that year.
     Dad was named Josef Alois Riedel

the same as his father.  He was baptised in the little Catholic Church in the village here pictured↓. 
     He was the third in the family of six children. Arthur and Mike were his older brothers, his sisters Marie and Ida were younger, and Fritz was the youngest child.   Their home was on the edge of  the village but they farmed some distance away, growing grain and flax for linen on a piece of land that had

      They sliced sugar beets for their cows and fed them a moistened grain called "meng." 
      For their sustenance they raised pears, plums, peaches, grapes, and sweetwood.  They also had several kinds of berries including gooseberries. They made sauerkraut in big jars.  Reminiscent of tramping grapes in a vat, one person packed it barefoot while others attended to other tasks, such as taking leaves off the cabbage.  When they butchered a hog they saved everything except the squeal.  They smoked their meat.  The chimney had a steel door and grates, and the meat was hung inside.  Grossmutter would cook the meal with hickory wood and the smoke would cure the meat. (A detail of a map just below zeroes in on the area of Reschen.)
      The roofs were made of slate, called Shievenstein.  Each piece had two holes to drive nails through. In their yard they had crushed rock which the children had to rake each Saturday.  
      In 1906, when he was eight, his parents ― who we knew as Grossvater and Grossmutter ― immigrated with their six children to this country, embarking at the German port of Bremen, on the ship Oldenberg.
      In not many years the clouds of war would gather and the thunder of guns would be heard, sparked by the assassination in 1914 of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo in another part of Austria Hungary, and the map of Europe would change, but their destiny lay in the land to the west, America.
      They encountered storms on the Atlantic and during the crossing their ship almost went down.  It would've sunk except that they tightened the bolts that held the sections together.  The roughness of the seas overturned cauldrons of soup, scalding cooks.  Dad was hit in the mouth by a swinging door, causing him to lose a tooth. 
       They went lower class, having one mattress for the eight of them to sleep on, and drank from tin cups.  Fourteen hundred or more people were aboard, including a lot of Russians.  One person died and was cast overboard.
      On March 4th, after 16 days at sea, they landed at Baltimore where I was told Grossvater had to hop on his toes to prove he was physically able to support his family; otherwise he would've been sent back to the old country.
      He put his exchange money in his sock and they traveled by train to to Chicago and then on to Fulda, Minnesota, where his wife Amalia had a brother Franz who had immigrated to America before them.  They stayed with them until they got a place for themselves.  To help support themselves Grossvater did farm work for Franz and his neighbors.  They had no wood and would twist tall slough grass to burn for cooking and heating.  After two years, they moved to Mankato, where the children could be tutored in German.  To heat their home they would pick up coal along the railroad tracks that had fallen from tenders. 
      In Mankato Grossvater secured a job at Hubbard Mill for12 cents an hour, 12 hours a day.  They made Mother Hubbard Flour. Dad also worked at the mill as a sweeper.   And one day, while they were unloading wheat, Grossvater went into a pit to repair an auger.  Someone turned it on, and a belt caught his pant leg, dragging him toward a pulley.  A laborer saw what was happening and was able to rescue him, but not before the accident mangled his legs.  He was out of work for 11 months.  He received seven dollars and some cents insurance, and at the above rate, around five day's worth of pay. 
    Grossvater was a tall, strong man. Once when he was crossing some railroad tracks, a fellow tried to rob him, but he hit the guy over the head with a dinner bucket. 
     He was a janitor at Sts. Peter and Paul's church for 25 years.  It's where Dad attended school until about the Fifth Grade, when he went to work as a delivery boy for the F. M. Otto grocery store.  After they closed, he worked for the Northern States Power Co.  He bought his mother a washing machine and helped make life better for his folks.
     He met my mother by mistake.  She had come up to Mankato from Iowa to attend commercial college, and her way to school was past my father's home.  One morning Dad said hello to the girl across the street, and my mother, who happened to be passing by, thought he'd spoken to her and replied.  In this way they met; the following year they married.
     After my oldest sister Marie was born, they went to California where Dad worked as a street car conductor for the Market Street Railway in San Francisco.  In 1934, he returned to the Midwest, to work the farm in Iowa where my mother had grown up.  It's where we children would grow up as well, although the three oldest (Marie, Francie and Bob) spent part of their childhood years in Frisco.  There would be 16 of us who survived infancy, and nine or ten of us were born on the farm.
      The first years Dad (pictured here, perhaps at a celebration) farmed with horses. He paid a hundred apiece for two horses called Queen and Lady, but Queen didn't do well.  Another horse named Beauty was the best horse he had, and yet another was blind.  That  was Dolly.  In 1937, he got a John Deere B tractor with rubber front tires and back wheels with lugs.  He was the first in the area to pull a horse-drawn John Deere corn planter with a tractor.  A hitch was made to fit the tractor.  The tongue of the planter was cut off and irons were made to replace it.   It was partly their idea to convert and the horses were slow.  The animals were bothered by horse flies, and it was humorously commented that they didn't bother the tractor.
      The farm had a stream like the old country, the Indian Creek.  The barn wasn't attached to the house like in Reschen, but sat by the road under the dominion of a big, shady cottonwood tree which stood in front of it.  Grain wasn't reaped by scythe, but by machine, and instead of bundles being bound by stems twisted together, they were tied with twine. The grain wasn't threshed in the winter by beating, but in the summer with a  threshing machine.
      There would be dry years and wet years and better years.  Dad would know the dependence of man upon the weather.  He would look to the sky for rain, and often it would not come.
      There would be work, a lot of it.  The toil of man with the animals and the crops and the soil.  He would go out early in the morning and many a time work till long after the sun had set, without much rest between.  He would repeat what his father had said: Immer, immer arbeit: always, always work.
      Dad did more than farm.  He used to take care of the local telephone line called the Kruser Line which ran out north of the nearby town of Lake View to Quinlan's corner, then along the road south of the farm, and turn north again to come past our place.  It was a party line and each farm had its own call signal.  Ours was three longs.  The phone hung on the wall by the front door and a crank on the side would connect us to town.  If someone listened in on another's conversation they were referred to as rubbernecks.  You could hear them click on.   Dad also served as President of the school board and hired teachers for our country school, called Wall Lake No. 4.
      He never forgot his parents, and although Mankato was some distance away, he would go see them, taking them things from the farm.  One time he was going there in a Model T when a cold wind arose, and he ran into ice and snow.  The canvas-topped car had no windows nor izing glass curtains.  I was a young child and sat sheltered on the floor boards, while Dad, shivering, drove with one hand and sat on the other to warm it.
      Poverty touched his life, and when he had no overshoes, he cut strips of gunny sack to wrap his shoes against the snow.  But perhaps poverty touched his heart, enriching it.  His life was  marked by giving to others.  He didn't just share with relatives, but he shared with other people who came to the farm, giving them things like eggs, potatoes, and even meat.  Some came for the purpose of obtaining food.   I have a recollection of a person in our yard, who may've come off the road, and a tramp comes to mind.  Tramps used to camp in an area of town near the railroad tracks, more than two miles away.  They made their way to the farm as well as gypsies did.
      In a sense life is like a lot of roads, taking us in some direction with an end in mind, be it of this world or of the next.  Dad never forsook the faith of his father, the faith in which he was baptized Josef in the small church of Reschen.  He would add an Our Father and a Hail Mary to grace before meals.  And his Father of prayer helped him in raising his family. 
      He would talk about St. Joseph driving a hot stake into the ground on his feast day of March 19th.  Then it was supposed to warm up, something of importance for those who worked the land.  Not only was his, the name of this saint, but it was his father's name as well.  It would also be a name he'd pass on to two of his sons, Francis Joseph (I call him as Francie, but others know him as Joe) and Joseph James (Joey).  He had an aunt named Josefa and it was his maternal grandmother's name, Josefa Koenig, who was Lady in Waiting for Lady von Hangenstein.
      At 80 years of age he still worked.  He'd get down on his knees and pull weeds in the potato patch.
      While he was still alive, I wrote a story about him, which was published in the Peoria Journal Star on June 18, 1978.  Much of what was printed at that time is written here.  I ended his story then: "Some day, as will be true for all of us, he will immigrate to another world, but he will not pass through this one without having done for others, and without having left the print of his knee upon the earth."    He died at the age of 84 on December 7th, 1982.  He was en route to help another person, when the car in which he was riding, slid on ice and went off the road.  He set off on foot to summon help.  He never reached the nearby farm place he was heading toward.  The one who never walked till he was three, fell by the side of the road, never to revive. His steps that day had taken him beyond the borders of this world

       Below is a larger area map of the old country.  Locate Römerstadt, and to its left, Hangenstein and Bergstadt.  Reschen is below Bergstadt.  Above Romerstadt is Neudorf. 

       Whatever their derivations, here is how some of these words pull apart: Römer is German for "Roman," and stadt, means "city or town."  I have not  seen it said, but I wonder if the Romans once had a settlement here.  The word hangen means "to hang," and stein, stone, so perhaps the place was noted for a hanging rock formation.  Neu means new or recent, and dorf is a village.  Berg means hill or mountain.  Gross means, great or big.    Eule is "owl" and Eulen is the plural "owls."  It seems the name Eulenberg could mean "mountain or hill of the owls."   The town of Gross-stohl was once part of the property of the Count of Eulenberg. 

       To the right of  Römerstadt is Großstohl (Gross-stohl).   In 1781 Gottfried Schwab became legal owner of Property no. 5 in Großstohl which included a house and 24 hectares of land (about 65 acres).  Gottfried married a lady named Viktoria, and they had a son named Franz who was born in House No. 5 in Großstohl on March 4th, 1801.  In 1822 Franz married another Viktoria, Viktoria Riedel of Nieder Wildgrub, and in 1829 they had a son named Alois Schwab.  On July 9th, 1849, Alois married Josefa Koenig of Hangenstein, who was Lady in Waiting  for Lady von Hangenstein.   On Oct. 16, 1853, they had a son named Franz Josef who was also born in House No. 5 of Großstohl.  The youngest child of Alois and Josefa Schwab was my grandmother, Amalia, whom we called Grossmutter.  This is our lineage on the Schwab side going back into the 1700's: Gottfried to Franz, Franz to Alois, and Alois to Amalia, where the Riedel line for us begins. 

 Gottfried Schwab married Viktoria
                                ↓
                   Franz Schwab married Viktoria Riedel of Nieder Wildgrub (1822)
                                            ↓
                                Alois Schwab married Josefa Koenig of Hangenstein (1849)
                                                        ↓
                                               Amalia Schwab married Josef Riedel (1894?)
                                                                                              ↓ (Here the Riedel or Riedell line begins)
                                                                     Josef Riedel (Joseph Riedell) married Flotilla Frisbie (1926)
                                                                                                                       ↓
                                                                                                          John Riedell, and my brothers and sisters

       As you can see there was even an earlier marriage of a Riedel into the Schwab line, the fraulein from Nieder Wildgrub, which may be  the place name that we see below Freudenthal: Nd. Wildgrub.  Nieder means "down or low" and ober would be "upper or above" (I 'd guess that Nd. and Ob. are their abbreviations).

       Also east of Römerstadt is Irmsdorf.  Aunt Ida mentioned that she was in Irmsdorf by her mother's sister, Karoline.  She said Aunt Karoline had her "stay with her a lot."  She wanted a girl but had none of her own.  Besides two brothers, Grossmutter had two other sisters named Josefa and Marie (Marie lived in Freudenthal).  Grossvater had three sisters named Marie, Anna and Aloisia.  His only brother died as a baby.  His mother's name was Bertha Lichtblau who was apparently from Friedland.  Friede means "peace."

      Alois's father-in-law and Josefa Koenig's father, Josef Koenig, was a hunter  The story is told that two Austrian officers saw him bring down a running deer at a distance, barely within musket range.  They encouraged him to join the Austrian army.  He  participated in Napoleon's invasion of Russia where at the campfire at night they roasted in front and froze in back.  He was wounded several times and once a ball hit him in the hip but it was too painful to extract.  Later in life he had a sore foot, and they found the shot had worked its way down to the bottom of his limb.
 

    Josef Alois Riedel (my grandfather) married Amalia Schwab.  Josef and Amalia lived in Neudorf, located north of Römerstadt, which in turn, was north of Olmütz (now Olomouc), where Grossmutter went for an operation.   Olmütz is also where the Marquis de La Fayette was imprisoned, and where Mozart once stayed and composed his Symphony No. 6 in F Major.
    
     After lightning struck and set fire to their home, they moved to the village of Reschen.    Amalia’s mother was from Hangenstein, a place on the road from Romerstadt to Reschen. This may’ve had something to do with their decision to move there.  Apart from Dad's brother Arthur, who was born in Neudorf, Dad and the rest of his siblings were born in Reschen. 

    Another map of the Reschen area including Neudorf at the top and Irmsdorf to the right side.   The number 50 in the upper right hand corner may be a line of latitude, 50 North.  Compare that with the first set of figures for latitude below.

I received the following information about locations and names of towns on April 7, 1970, from the Cartographic Division of the the National Geographic Society.  Their letter said it was given by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names gazatteer (spelling given) on Czechoslovakia.
Here are the coordinates of         latitude  &  longitude:
Reschen now Resov                     49º53'N          17º 13'E
Romerstadt now Rýmařov         49º56'N          17º16'E
Neudorf now Nová Ves              49º55'N          17º16'E
Irmsdorf now Jamartice              49º56'N          17º20'E
Freudenthal now Bruntál           49º59'N          17º28'E
Olmütz now Olomouc                 49º35'N          17º15'E
             ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Map showing parts of  Poland and  Czechoslovakia (The border area of Poland is shaded in green.)  Resov isn't on this map but it's about where the red 23 is south of  Hor. Mesto.  You'll note on the map here to the side,  there's something of a triangulation and a taper in the area above the 23 going down on the left.   Compare that to the grayish map above.   To the left of Reschen, note the word wasserfall (waterfall), follow the stream down to where it comes together with the waters from the Oslava, coming down to the right of Reschen.  See how it ends a rough, elongated point.  It seems that Reschen may be built on a ridge of land, that tapers down.
    In 1970 when I went into Czechoslovakia briefly, to see my father's birthplace, I took a train from Vienna, Austria, and crossed the border at night  into Czechoslovakia at Břeclav.   I was headed north and east.  I remember seeing sparks flying in the night so I'm guessing the engine was burning coal.  I don't know whether I was on the wrong train or being routed wrong, but it seems that strangers travelling with me on that train, and who became acquainted with my destination, may've said something to the conductor.  
     At Přerov I was taken off the train, trusting I was being helped.  It could've been around three in the morning.  I was led across the rail yard to another train headed for Olomouc.  The trainman knocked on the side of a car and the door was opened to let me aboard.  I had to stand with others in a side aisle.
    At Olomouc I had a little trouble.  I went to what may've been the lobby of an inn where I showed some people my dad's birth certificate (a copy appears on this page). 
    They seemed to devour it.  I communicated in my limited German and it seems a fellow there was inquiring into my background or something.  He grabbed my arm and called me a name in English.  About that time a cab showed up to take me to dad's hometown.  If  I remember right this same fellow yelled something to the cabbie, but I don't think the cab driver paid him much mind.  I can imagine what he might've said.
     The driver took to me the village of Resov but he didn't have much time to wait.  He had to go to another place, maybe it was Ostrava near the Polish border.  We were in the village maybe about  twenty minutes while I looked around a little and shot some 8mm movie film. 
     He took me back to the  station where I got a train out to Prague (I don't remember going inside the station) so the driver could've taken me directly to what he knew was the right train.
     Still it seems I asked someone something like: Dieser Zug nach Prag? Is this the train to Prague?  I enjoyed seeing the country but  I remember telling myself to blend in.   I had a concern about being identified as a editorial cartoonist with its political connotation (I even thought of getting rid of my cartoonist card at the railway station in Vienna).
     At Prague I got a train without much delay to West Germany, crossing the frontier at Cheb.  For changed plans, my connections seemed to go quite smoothly.   I wish I could've seen more and spent more time, but that's how things worked out.  I did, however, have to get off the train and spend my Czech money before I left the country.  I don't remember seeing any food to buy, so I bought cigarettes and liquor which I gave away. 
     A soldier packing a pistol walked through the train but didn't want to see my papers.  As we left Czechoslovakia, we could see the border fence on both sides and then run along the track.   It was a sense of relief to cross into Germany.   I gave a German border guard I think a bottle of what I bought with my money...should I say, with my Czechs.
     After having written the above, I came across a 1970 letter from Čedok , the Czechoslovak Travel Bureau, which  gave me some train connections from Vienna to Prague, back east to Olomouc, then to Rymarov via Valsov, and finally to Horni Mesto.  At some point someone must've have advised or directed me differently.  And then came the change of trains not on the itinerary―JR

            -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     This is a copy of Dad's birth certificate which reflects the change in Europe from the time his village was part of Austria-Hungary to it becoming part of Czechoslovakia. It reflects history.

At the  top Ceskslovenska Socialisticka Republika - Ministerstvo Vnitra  means Czechoslovak Socialist Republic - Ministry of Internal Affairs
The file number is typed to the left: Cj. NV-61/10191/4-66
 
Rodnŷ List means Birth Certificate
     
V knize narozeni (rodné matrice) matričniho obvodu means In the book of births (same) register district

Horní Město, okr. Bruntál  means Horní Město, district Bruntál.   jest zapsáno means It is written, or there is the following entry.  (Horni means upper; Mesto, town.)

First box:
Den, měsik a rok narozeni  means Day, month & year of birth.   4.4.1898 - čtvrtého dubna tisíc osmset devadesát osm  means 4 April, 1898 - Date written out in words (osm, for example, means eight).
Misto narozeni means Birthplace.    Horní Město, os. Rešov means Horní Město, osada Rešov
Jméno a přijmeni ditate means First & last name of child.     Josef Riedel
Pahlavi means sex or gender.  mužské means male

Second box:
Otec means Father.   Jméno a přijmeni means First & last name.      Josef Riedel
                                       Den, měsik, rok a misto narozeni  means Day, month, year & place of birth.  
                                       1.7.1868 -  místo neuvedeno   means 1 July, 1868 - place not specified
Matka means Mother.   Jméno a přijmeni means First & last name.   Amalia roz. Schwabová means Amalia,
                                             maiden name Schwabova.  (The -ova is a feminine ending.)
                                             Den, měsik, rok a misto narozeni  means Day, month, year & place of birth.
                                             28.1.1868 - místo neuvedeno means 28 January, 1868 - place not specified
Poznámky  means Remarks.   Pořktěn dne 11.4.1898 v Rešově obřadem církve řím.kat. means Baptised on 11April, 1898,
                                                         in Resov in the rite of the Roman Catholic Church. (obradem [rite];  cirkve [church];  řím.
                                                         abbrev. for Roman; kat. abbrev. for Catholic
Last line:  V Praze dne  means In Prague    20.6.1966  is 20 June, 1966
Signed by verdouci addělent meaning office manager
Round stamp of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (national seal inside)
                           ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Compare the above to this document in German for Dad's sister Marie, dated 1921.   A Taufshein is a certificate of baptism and a Geburtsschein is a birth certificate.   Zeugnis is a certificate or official document.   Some other words here translated: buch - book;  getauft - baptised;  Pfarramt -rectory;  Pfarr - parish;  Pfarrer - Pastor, Father;  Paten - godparents; Hebamme - midwife;  Zuname - last or surname;  Vorname - forename, first or first given name;  Ecclesia church or congregation Ecclesiae pl.;  Sigillum a seal;  Dekanat - Deanery or church district;  Diözesen - diocese;   Bezirk region, district;  Vater - Father;  Mutter - mother;   Kirche - church;   zahr - figure, number;  Römer - Roman;  stadt - city, town; ort - place, locality;  eins - one;   tausend - thousand;  neun - nine;  hundert - one hundred;

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