In many ways, the Czech community of Grand Crossing resembled a Czech village. The compactness of the settlement and the fact that they stayed there for nearly 70 years, compared to the westward-sprawling movement of the main Chicago Czech community, certainly aided in this long-lived stability as a village.

There were key people who filled the roles normally seen in a small village. And since the village was multi-national, some of these roles were not filled by Bohemians.

Birthing - The Midwives: Ana Han and Barbara Sedlacek/Kolar/Hlavka

Ana Han (as Ana Hana)
Ana Han was the midwife who delivered the majority of the children of the later Grand Crossing families in the Praha and Pilsen neighborhoods in the 1870's and 1880's. I have found her in the 1900 Czech address book at 1154 South Kedzie. So she was NOT the Anna Metajka Hahn who eventually moved with her husband Matej to Grand Crossing. So the midwife Anna Han apparently never lived in Grand Crossing, and her connection to Grand Crossing is from the time when the pre-Grand Crossing families were living in the Praha and Pilsen neighborhoods before they moved to Grand Crossing.

Barbora Sedlacek Kolar Hlavka (1892 probably Dlouhá Louka, Přeštice, West Bohemia - 1923)
Barbora Sedlacek was born in Bohemia in May 1862 and was brought to Chicago in 1877 by her parents. She married James Kolar in 1881, and they moved to Grand Crossing where he died in 1887. In 1888, she married Martin Hlavka, who died in 1891. Thus it is as Barbora Hlavka that she appears on most of the births of children in Grand Crossing in the 1890's and 1900's and as late as 1915. She died in 1923 and is buried in Oakwoods Cemetery.

As I am finding the births of the children of the Grand Crossing families, I am adding them to spreadsheets for both Ana Han and Barbora Hlavka, so that the scope of their careers as midwives can be known. Right now, these spreadsheets are worksheets in my overall Grand Crossing Czechs spreadsheet, but I will eventually create a web page about their careers. Since January 2013, this work as been made almost completely impossible, due to Cook County's visions of wealth that led them to require FamilySearch to remove the millions of online Chicago birth, marriage and death records. I doubt very much that Cook County is making much money off of this delusional decision. But they have caused a great deal of damage to everyone who has Chicago ancestry or is doing Chicago personal-level history.

Click here for a 1900 list, with addresses, of all Chicago Czech midwives, with identification of the south side neighborhood midwives added.

Marrying -

There was no Czech church, unlike other Chicago Czech communities. Though I have yet to analyze the marriages, a sizable number of the Grand Crossing Czechs opted out of the Catholic Church that had been the only choice in Bohemia since the anti-reformation and re-Catholization. Bohemia had been the first protestant country, and the Pope had launched crusades against Bohemia -- crusades that for the most part Bohemia withstood. However, the Catholic forces defeated the Protestants and the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, and Bohemia was foricbly both re-Catholicized and Germanized. Thus once away from Bohemia and Austrian domination and forced Catholicization, many Czech-Chicagoans either chose to be married by non-GC-resident Frantisek Zdrubek, speaker of the large Congregation of Bohemian Free-Thinkers (which founded the Bohemian National Cemetery as an alternative to Catholic cemeteries), or else to be married by the pastor of the Ingleside Avenue Methodist Church at the corner of 76th and Ingleside (pastor ???????).

For those who did choose to be married in the Catholic Church, the nearest .... have to verify this - 71st & Ingleside .... but a new parish was begun on 78th street .... However many chose to go to St. Procopius Church on 18th Street, which was a Czech Catholic church in the heart of the Pilsen neighborhood and was where they had attended while living in the Praha and Pilsen neighborhoods before moving to Grand Crossing.

Healing - The Doctors and Hospitals

The doctors are known mainly from the death records.

Hiram S. Pease at 7530 Greenwood Avenue [death 1 May 1891 of Martin Hlavka]

George H. Chapman at 7510 Greenwood Avenue [death 9 Sep 1890 of of Martin Sedlacek]

Thomas H. Kelley at 1266 East 75th Street [death 27 Feb 1909 of of Joseph Dvorak]

Burying - The Cemeteries and Undertakers

While I have not yet tallied the cemeteries, it is clear that most, by far, chose the Bohemian National Cemetery. Some also chose the nearby Oakwoods Cemetery. A few chose other cemeteries.

The earliest burials were done by Bohemian undertakers from the Praha and Pilsen neighborhoods. For example, the 25 Nov 1887 burial of Vaclav Kolar (first husband of midwife Barbara Sedlacek above) was by Mencl.

The neighborhood undertakers, who were the main ones used later, were not Bohemian, except possibly for Metz, which is a German name but whose early written name appears in Czech form as Meť.

Pierson

W. C. ?Van?

J. A. Metz at 1210 E 75th Street [in 1906] - License number 147 in 1906, 37 in 1909

Saving and Home-Buying - The Savings and Loan Association: Joseph Marek

................ became Chatham .... became Worth ....

The Stores: Grocery, Candy, ...

....................

The Tavern - Northwest Corner of 78th and Maryland [originally Storms, later Jackson]
The vinohrad was a center of the community for the adult men. I never knew the name. I vaguely recall it still being there in the 1950's but then gone as well. My grandmother could look out the bay window on the 78th street side of the house at 7800 Drexel and see who went in and out of the tavern, where her husband spent a fair amount of time.

Matthew Hahn (c 1852 Oslov, Pisek, South Bohemia - 3 Apr 1897)
Matĕj Hahn was apparently the first saloon keeper. He was there in the 1892 city directory, which means he was really there by 1891. His last child was born in 1887 at 101 18th Street, where he was also a saloon keeper. So he came to Grand Crossing sometime between 1887 and 1891. He lived at 7756 Storms/Jackson/Maryland. Matthew is buried at Bohemian National Cemetery. His widow Anna (Matejka, widow Lorsch) died in 1899.

Joseph Marek (2 Jul 1854 Vysoký Újezd, Beroun, Central Bohemia - 5 Jan 1910)
Joseph Marek became the saloon keeper after Matthew Hahn died. Matthew's oldest son Jan/John was a boiler maker. He married Frantiska/Frances/Fannie Krikava in 1900. In the 1900 census, they own the house at 7754 Jackson, and Joseph Marek is renting from them. Joseph is actually the earliest Czech that I have thus far found documented in Grand Crossing. His daughter Vlasta was born at 80 71st Street, at the time when this area was Brookline and not yet part of Chicago, so that I do not yet know which house number that 80 71st Street later became. Joseph's wife was Mary Kanak (30 May 1857 Přeštice, Plzeň, Central Bohemia - 20 Dec 1922). By 1910, John Hahn was renting from the widow Henrietta Kanak -- apparently the widow of Mary (Kanak) Marek's brother Martin -- at 7700 Jackson, and Joseph and Mary Marek had moved to 7729 Jackson, and Joseph was no longer saloon keeper but a laborer at age 55. He had actually died before the census was taken.

James Hahn (Dec 1886 Chicago - ???)
In the 1910 census, it is Matthew Hahn's second son James who is the saloon keeper, living at 7750 Jackson, with his Bohemia-born wife Bettie and their three children. I have not yet researched this family, other than to note that in the 1920 census, they are living at 7810 Ellis, and James is no longer a saloon keeper but an iron moulder.

Frank Krikava (Mar 1869 probably at Chlustina, Hořovice, Central Bohemia - ?1940's?)
In the 1920 census, Frank Krikave, living at 7756 Jackson, was the saloon keeper. In the 1930 census, he still owns 7756 Jackson but has no occupation, and I have not yet found out who the saloon keeper was at that time.

Note that by 1920, there was also an Italian saloon in the neighborhood, at 7700 Greenwood, owned by Tony Crozzie.

The Photographer - Spencer Studios

........ 7520 Ellis Avenue .............