Bohemian Grandmas

Wood Carvings from Krakow, Poland

Some Bohemian grandmas are looking down with gratitude.

Heritage Associates helped them share their good advice.

Archival Birth Register, Colmar, France

The Mika grandmas lived in different regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in days of economic upheaval and political intrigue. Their individual histories came together in Vienna just before World War I, and their grandchildren lived under Nazi and Communist rule before coming to the United States.

Old letters and scrapbooks supplied enough information to raise a hundred questions. Heritage Associates found answers in France, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Interviews with distant relatives in Austria filled in the details, and their photos filled in the blanks.

Heimat: The Story of a Family by W. Dee Halverson

Diane Setterfield wrote:

"People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some, there is an exception to this annihilation. For in books they continue to exist. We can rediscover them...

"As one tends the graves of the dead, so I read the books ... I allow the voices of the forgotten dead to resonate inside my head. Do they sense it? Does a pinprick of light appear ... is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading about them? I do hope so."

---from The Thirteenth Tale

Generations of grandparents stretch back, back, back through the ages, with experience descendants would find priceless. Heritage Associates will help you discover and compile their stories in the context of the time and place. After all, your Bohemian grandmas might have some good advice!