June 22 - Church in Karlovac, Final Day in Croatia

This morning we headed for Karlovac to attend the branch there.  Jen had emailed the missionaries a few months ago (they got her in touch with Lidija the genealogist) and they gave us an address where they wanted to meet us to be able to take us to church.  They had given us a general idea of where the church is held, but since it isn't held in an actual church building, they offered to take us so we didn't get lost.  We plugged in the address into google maps, but the street name they gave us was unrecognized by google maps.  Google recognized a similar one, so we decided to give that one a chance.  The destination called for building #18, but when we got there, we saw no #18.  We stopped and asked a lady if she knew where to go, but she wasn't really sure.  So we weren't sure what to do next.  I looked straight ahead and luckily recognized the sign for the church building on the wall of the building in front of us.  It was mixed in with a number of other signs, so I feel that we were a bit lucky to have seen it.  I think we will call it a blessing. 

Very lucky that we saw this sign.

The branch had about 24 people in it, including 6 missionaries-  one senior couple, one pair of sisters and one pair of elders.  Brother Russell who was the senior missionary grabbed me before the meeting and explained that the branch president has been a member for only 3 years, and has been branch president for 18 of those months.  As we headed into sacrament meeting, he also mentioned that the mission they serve in covers 5 countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, and one other I can’t recall.  He said that in the entire mission there are about enough members to form one single ward.  So it consists of very small branches spread out very far.  That would explain why the closest branch we could find in Split was 2 hours away.  Brother Russell explained that the church has faced significant opposition from the Catholic Church in this area of the world – that the missionaries are frequently beat up and that the members make significant sacrifices to join and be active in the church.  He said that while that means they have few members, it also means that the ones that they do have are deeply committed to the gospel.

The branch met on the second floor of a building, with a gym below it.  This reminded me a lot of Chile, where I served in Los Lirios, which was a branch that also worshiped in a rented out community hall type of building.  The sacrament meeting was very nice.  Everyone spoke pretty good English and one sister latched onto Jen and translated for us during the sacrament meeting (except for when it was her turn to give a talk – then one of the elders came over and helped us out).

The final speaker was an older man with a number of tattoos.  I’m not sure what he spoke on, but he seemed like a really awesome man. He sat in front of us and had an amazing singing voice.  After the service, Brother Russell told us that he was a guitar player in a rock n’ roll band and had given up that lifestyle when he joined the church.  He was the Elders’ Quorum President and brother Russell mentioned that they cannot convince him to wear a white shirt to church.  He said that in the winter time, this brother loves to wear his red Scooby Doo sweatshirt.  That made me wish it was winter.

Brother Russell mentioned that there are a lot of contaminated wells in the region and the church had set a goal of cleaning 1,000 of them this year.  So far, they have cleaned up 600 of them.  The sister who was translating for us also spoke with him about their goal to set up a homeless shelter in the area as the humanitarian project for this year.  It sounds like they are doing some amazing work!  And with so few members, you know that they must be extremely committed to the gospel and the work.   He also mentioned how strong and intelligent the young missionaries have to be to serve here.  Not only is it violent and dangerous for the missionaries, but the language is very difficult to learn, so he said that it takes very special missionaries to serve in the area.  He said that missionaries have been followed and attacked, that some missionaries have had their jaws broken, etc.  So yeah, I'd say they have to have some very dedicated and special missionaries serving in this area.  That would be cool if Gracie, Braden, Tanner or McKinley got to be one of those special missionaries.

After the sacrament meeting, we headed back to the hotel to grab some lunch and get packed up and ready for our early departure tomorrow morning.  We had a 3:30 appointment to go see the records at the priest’s house, and we expected to spend a late final night back in Ertic and Sopcic Vrh.

By the way, this was the view from our hotel.  Not a bad sight to wake up to at all.

Back to the church in Lipnik.  Priest's house is the building in the back.

We picked up Marina and headed to the church for our last chance at some of the records.  The priest spoke limited English, so it was helpful to have Marina with us.  We also found out that a community member had died, and the priest would have to leave around 5 to head out for some of the funeral preparations/duties.  So that meant we had an hour to get as much info as we could.  Since Marina was with us and was able to communicate with the Priest, he brought us the 3 books and let us just go through them.  This was an extremely nice gesture by the priest and very trusting of us - to allow us to thumb through books from the mid 1800s.  So we each grabbed a book and started looking for names and taking pictures of as much of the relevant pages as we could.  The priest left us in his kitchen and went to the adjoining room to watch a soccer game.  He was only a few steps away and would come check on us every now and then and help answer questions or try to help us read some of the writing.  At one point, he asked Jen, "are you happy?".  Rhetorical question, but I think he was happy to be able to help us, and was very pleased to see Jen so excited.

The church records are valuable because they show family groups by house number.  Each person living in the house has a recorded birth/baptism date, and sometimes a spouse (with origin if not from the village) with marriage date, and death date.  They also contain notes if a person moved to the States or elsewhere, including the city, date, and sometimes information on what they are leaving behind.  It was exciting (and some times funny) to read through the notes.  Having photos of the pages in these books allows Jen to see everyone in the family with their corresponding dates making it much easier to find their official records in the other books.  Before we met with the priest, Jen would scroll through pages and pages of records online looking for what felt like a needle in a haystack.  The records on familysearch.org only go to 1857, so Janko's siblings and Ana's birth records are not even available online. 

Because we were in such a rush, I'm not sure that I can tell you all that we found at this point.  I do think that we found some of Ana Sopcic's family (the Stajcer side). And the rest, we will have to wait and see after we've had enough time to comb through all of the photos that we took.  The nice thing about having established some relationships with folks here in the area is that if we see something on one of the photos and need more information, we have the priest's facebook account and some great friends who would probably go back and take some more pictures, if needed.  So I'm sure that Jen is very excited to have some time to start diving into all of the records we took pics of and start to construct the family tree.

Next to the priest's house was the volunteer firefighters station.  Here's the fire truck.

Here's the station.  Not sure that the rooms behind the glass doors were very large - probably just some equipment storage.

After the priest's house, we made one final trip to the adjacent cemetery to look again for some of the names we had found.  Josip had remembered the location of a Sopcic headstone, and so we wanted to make sure we found it and got a picture of it for later.  We also got to see the graves where Marina's father and grandfather are buried.  Just remembered that we also found Marina's family in the record books while we were looking through them.  She was not in them (probably in a newer book), but her mother, father and Baka K were in there.  It was fun to see names in the book of people that we now knew.  Names from the same book that has record of families dating back to the mid 1800's.

After the church, we headed back to Sopcic Vrh to hang out with Marina and her family and to say goodbye to them and the Brinc family (Josip Sr. and Josip Jr.).  I don't recall any highlights of what we chatted about while at the Rozgaj house.  What was more memorable was the anxiety knowing that the day was drawing to a close and we would soon be having to say goodbye to some dear friends. It felt like none of us could quite get comfortable, and we'd keep doing little things - like taking a trip to go see the river, or to go take a picture at the sign, in order to keep our minds off of the inevitable. It felt like there was a unanimous desire for time to slow down and for the evening to never arrive.

But unfortunately, it did.  We were treated to some more cheese, but this time it was accompanied by some homeade smoked ham (like prosciutto, only smoked), some smoked sausage, and more homemade bread. It was heavenly!  

Our trip to Sopcic Vrh started with a pic in front of this sign, so it only seemed fitting to end with the same pic - only this time with a friend.

We left Marina with some gifts from home and some letters that we wrote expressing our deep appreciation and love for her.  And we dropped by Josip's house to say goodbye and leave some maple syrup so he could try that on his pancakes.

I don't know what to say about saying goodbye.  It is hard to describe how sad it was to leave.  Why is it so hard and so sad to say goodbye to people that we have only known for 3 or 4 days?  Jen mentioned many times how these wonderful people for some reason feel like family, even though they may not be directly related. But it is impossible to explain how such a strong bond was formed in such a short time.  But it feels real.  Baca K had mentioned to Marina that she and I understood each other, even though we didn't understand each other's language.  And that is what makes it all the more difficult to understand or explain.  I cannot understand a single word Baca K says, and yet I think the world of her.   It is just a very surreal experience that I hope everybody gets to experience at least once in their lives.

Speaking of Baca K,  I told her that I wanted to send her some hot pink converse, which will highlight her swagger.  I hope to get a picture of her someday in those converse - and she had better be smiling her biggest smile!

Back to saying goodbye.  For me, it brought back a flood of memories from my mission in Chile, where every two or three months when I was transferred to a new area, I would have to say goodbye to dear friends, knowing that I would not likely ever see them again.  It is not a fun experience.  There is a slight feeling of despair because what little time is left is slipping away, and you have no control over the situation and cannot extend the time, no matter how much you wish you could.  For Jen, it obviously brought tears.  Tears all the way back to the hotel, and from the hotel to the airport the next morning.  You will have to ask her to share with you someday what she felt that night.  I doubt it will be something she ever forgets.

To add just a little more excitement to the night, when we got to the hotel, all of the lights were off and the doors were locked.  Apparently, they close up shop at 11 pm and we didn't know that.  And they didn't open until 7 am.  We needed to be in Zagreb at the airport at 7 am, which was an hour from where we were staying.  My heart was pumping!  Had Marina's wish that we miss our flight and get to spend another day her jinx us?  There was only one car in the parking lot, so only one other occupant in the hotel that night.  My mind started thinking about how I might be able to get their attention on the second or third floor (we could honk the horn on the car a bunch of times and probably wake them up - maybe we could get them to let us in....).  Either that, or just sleep in our car until the morning and then sprint to the airport and hope that we don't miss our flight.  After a few fairly frantic minutes, we found an unlocked door in the back.  I don't know if that door is usually locked with the other doors, or if it is left open for guests, but we were quite happy to find it open for us tonight.

And so ended our two weeks in Croatia.  I watched the US/Portugal game until 2 am, and then at 5 am we got up and headed for the airport to drop off the car and get checked in at the airport.  We'd fly to Frankfurt and have a 5 hour layover, and then a 10 hour flight to Seattle.  We arrived exhausted - which means it was a great vacation, right?  Being awake for 24 hours straight probably helped contribute to that as well.  It was so great to see our kiddos again.  We look forward to sharing with them the stories of our adventures in Croatia.  Hopefully, this blog will serve as a record to help us share those adventures with you as well.

June 21 - Sopcic Vr and Ertic

This morning we set out to Ertic to see what else we might be able to find.  Being that it is Saturday, we were hopeful that lots of people would be out and about.  We saw Drago (if I recall correctly) who had helped us two days ago, out on his tractor cutting hay/grass, which he later turned into light green marshmallows.  When we see the rolls of hay wrapped in plastic, we point out to the kids that it's a marshmallow farm.  This is one of Lee's stories that has stuck with our family.  Here the plastic is light green.  Wonder what those types of marshmallows taste like?  Pesto, Spinach or Lime?

We stopped at the Ivan Sopcic house to take a few more pictures and an older lady came out from the house next door to ask what we were doing.  Turns out they were in town from Zagreb and their son spoke English.  We sat down and chatted for a bit with them.  His mother remembered quite a bit about the area and confirmed a lot of what we had heard earlier with Irena about house 12.  Then we saw someone pull up to work on Ivan Sopcic's house and it turns out the man was married to a Sopcic who grew up in the house.  His name was Nikolai and he remembered Barbara Klemencic, who was a name we found related to Janko.  In fact, he had just recently thrown out some papers of hers that he had found in the house.  As we were speaking with Nikolai he turned to the barn and pointed to a old chest hidden behind some wood up in the attic of the barn.  He told us that this was the chest that Ivan had taken with him to the States.  He offered to get it down so we could look at it.  It was in pretty bad shape, but still very cool.  There were a number of papers in the chest that we looked through - mostly receipts, so nothing that would be family-history related, but still very cool to see.

Entering Ertic - Irena's house on the right.

Drago cutting the grass/hay.

Ivan Sopcic house.  We asked about the VRM in between the 19 and 34, and it turns out that was the builder of the house.

Nikolai and Sinisa.  You might be able to see the chest just above Nickolai's head.  This was after we had taken it down from the top of the rafters.

Nikolai also knew where Janko's house #20 had been located.  We had learned from Irena's family that there are currently only 16 or 17 houses in Ertic.  Janko's records have him at house #20.  So we didn't think that we'd be able to find where #20 was, since it apparently existed in the 1800's, but not in the 1900's.  So where we were told #20 used to stand was now just part of the field.   It was next to a nice tree, which probably helped provide some shade for the house.

House #20 was somewhere past this tree.

Maybe this was the view from house #20 when Janko was born.

About 100 yards from Ertic is a river that separates Slovenia and Croatia.  We had learned yesterday in the archive that some of Janko's family were most likely from Slovenia.  Janko's mother and father-in-law were married in Slovena.  So we weren't able to get any records for that part of the family, but we have met someone here who can.  It's fun to have some leads to start investigating, after not having any for so long.  It will be fun to try to put the family tree together and learn more about who the elder Sopcic's were and where they came from.

Sopci Vrh is at the top of the hill.

Sopcic Vrh

We left Ertic and headed to Marina's house for lunch.  She had invited us to come have some traditional Croatian food.  Her family makes everything that they eat, so of course it is so much better than anything you can get at the store.  They had bread and soup for starters.  The broth was made from a variety of vegetables from the garden and had homemade angel hair noodles.  Then we some roasted chicken with mlinci, which is a tortilla type of bread that is baked and stored and then boiled and mixed with the drippings of the roasted chicken.  It was delish.  Her mom served us some homemade cheese strudel for dessert.  Marica (Marina's mom) had lived in Germany for a number of years.  We found out that the cheese in the struedel was, you guessed it, homemade.  So was the juice that we drank with the meal - made from elderberries.  So awesome to see how resourceful they are with everything around them.  Makes me want to be better about maximizing what we do with our garden harvest.  To thank the Rozgaj's for the great meal, Jen baked them some chocolate chip cookies so that we could share a taste of home with them.  Their oven is a wood-burning oven, which made us appreciate how easy it is for us to just turn on an oven at a set temperature, instead of continually watching the oven, heading out back for some more wood, etc. while the oven heats the entire kitchen up.

Mlinci in the middle.  And look at that tasty chicken.

Here's the oven.  Wood goes in the top left, ashes fall into the drawer below that.  Top and bottom oven on the right.  Top of the oven is also a cooking surface.

Grandma Katarina would not come in to eat with us.  Marina thought that perhaps her grandmother was shy. Shy doesn't seem like a trait that a grandma who has lived for 90 years on a rural farm.  So when Marina headed out to invite her to come eat with us, I followed her out.  I think I surprised Baka Katarina when I passed right by Marina and pulled her arm through my elbow to try to escort her in.  She wouldn't budge out of her chair.  I put my arm around her and tried to help her out of her chair, but she still wouldn't move.  Not wanting to offend her, I headed back inside.  We were sad that she didn't come join us and we didn't want to be displacing anyone or making them feel uncomfortable in their own house.  Fortunately she came in a few minutes later.  She is a cool grandma.  She wears the traditional garb (dark shirt, dark skirt and a head scarf), but she also wears some black converse shoes.  She's pretty much deaf, so when she speaks or is being spoken to, it is pretty loud.  At times, it makes me chuckle to watch her and Marina go at it when they speak.  If you didn't know they were family, you'd think with all the yelling that they were fighting with each other.

I don't think anyone would want to mess with this lady.  She just has so much swagger!

Now what do you think Baka K did after lunch?  Head upstairs for a siesta?  Go outside and sit in the shade and watch the animals poke around in the grass?  Turn on the TV and watch a show?  NOPE.  She heads outside and sharpens up her sickle so that she can manually cut the grass!  Here's the proof:

After lunch, Marina took us to the home of Nick Bert.  He and his wife has lived in Kansas for 20 or so years and he had also worked at the local Ribnik city hall before that, so he had a good chance of having a really deep knowledge about the people and homes in the area.  They were a nice couple.  Nick had lost his foot to diabetes, which gave Jen a connection to share with him (the diabetes, not the losing the foot part).  Nick and Mary were a cute little couple.  Nick kept telling stories over and over again, and he was so cute when he told a joke or laughed - just a great jovial smile and chuckle in that man.  He also shared with us a few facts that will help in our search, and he also told us to go back to the priest and ask him some specific things, which would help the priest find more information for us.

 I must say that I really love the smiles of the people here in Croatia.  Perhaps what's so mesmerizing is the pure laughter and beautiful smiles contrasted with the rough, calloused hands, dark leathery skin from years of labor under the sun and lean but strong muscles, all in very humble circumstances.  I even love the imperfect and/or missing teeth (no braces in this neck of the woods kids).  It just makes their faces and smiles have so much character. It reminds me so much of the people in Chile. Also, whenever we take pictures of them, none of them smile or show their teeth.  I have to work hard to get them to smile big.  I know they are probably self-conscious about their smiles, but I think it is one of their most endearing characteristics.  You can see above that the Bert's were having none of my 'smile' requests.  There were three or four photos before this too.  Marina finally gave in though - she must be hanging out with us too much.  Here's another good example:  I took a picture of the three generations of Rozgaj women.  I just kept taking pics, hoping I could get one of them all smiling.

First pic

One down, two to go...

And another bites the dust.... grandma looks close to breaking....

OH NO!!!.. they regained their composure.  They are trying so hard not to smile.  I won't be denied though.

Baka K starts talking.  I don't understand a thing she is saying, but I imagine it has to do with me taking a lot of pictures and/or telling them to smile.  

She even starts to swing her cane at me.  I imagine her saying she's going to beat me with her cane if I take more pics of her.  Marina seems to get a pretty big kick out that thought!  Who wouldn't, right?

Almost there.  Grandma looks like she is going to break....

BAM!  Best picture of the day.

Baka K still wants to hit me, I think.  Good thing I can outrun her. I decided I should stop taking pictures at this point. :)

We spent some more time at Marina's house and then headed over to Josip's house to visit some more. Josip's wife died about 10 years ago.  He appears to really like flowers, because he has tons of beautiful hanging baskets leading up to his front door, and it looked like he was just finishing up with a flower bed bordering part of his property.  Not what you'd expect for a 'bachelor pad'.  He showed us his motorcycle and the fantastic view from his property of the Ribnik castle and chapel.  Then we spent a few hours in his kitchen talking about the people that we had found so far.  He has such an incredible memory about some of these things - who lived where 50 years ago.  I can barely remember where I live most of the time.  He even told us where a sopcic was buried in the cemetery.  His neighbor came over as well (also a Sopcic).  We are so grateful to have Marina with us - willing to come with us on this adventure and help translate for us.  Without her, we would have been unable to communicate with so many people.  We are just so lucky to have been able to meet her and develop such a great friendship so fast.

And do you remember the motocross diploma that I mentioned when we first met Josip?  Turns out diploma really means 'Certificate".  This diploma on his wall from I think it was 1975 was actually the certificate that acknowledged him placing 8th in the Country in a motorcross race.  Pretty cool.

Here's the view of the church in Lipnik from the road.  This is where the priest and the family records live.  I love how it is tucked up in the trees.

Here's the castle and small chapel that is up the road in Ribnik.  The chapel is used on the big holidays - christmas, easter, etc.  But the chapel in Lipnik is the main church in the area.

View of Ribnik from Josip's house.

We also swung by the memorial that was just completed in Velika Paka to look for names other than Sopcic.

Do you recognize any more names that I've mentioned in previous posts?  Look for Stjacer (Stajcar in yesterday's post), Mihelic, Sopcic, Grguric.  These men killed during WWII could all be our relatives.  

Remember that between these two villages, we are probably talking a total of 30-40 homes.  That is a lot of lives lost for such small villages.

June 20 - Zagreb and Archive

Lots going on today, but not many pictures.  I guess this is because we are working today on names, instead of seeing things as tourists.

This morning we went to Zagreb to visit the National Archive and try to find more information.  It was a bit of an experience navigating the one way roads, and figuring out the parking, etc.  Pretty easy overall though when you think this is the country's capital.  It didn't even feel as big as Seattle, so except for navigating in a new area, it wasn't bad at all.

Here's how you get to park in Zagreb!  Glad our little rental car (not pictured) cleared the curb.

Jen spent the day in the National Archive, while I felt like I spent the day moving the car around every two hours because there were no parking garages nearby.  I didn't mind though.  This was one of the reasons for coming on this trip, so it was fun to help Jen out.  The genealogy specialist that Jen hired a few months ago, and who found the first of our information about Janko's family, came by in the afternoon and she and Jen were able to get a lot of work done.  Turns out Lydia is a convert to the church and is a genealogy specialist/expert in Croatia.  She mentioned that she visits Salt Lake City every two years or so to attend the church's genealogy conferences there. She said there are genealogy conferences in Croatia that she goes to, but they are very basic compared to the ones in Salt Lake City.  Then she mentioned with a laugh that she is in charge of the conferences in Croatia.  Lydia was pretty hilarious and was just so excited about helping people do this work.  It's a great service that she can provide in helping those of us who are far from Croatia to find our ancestors.  By the way, after this trip, I'll bet I know where Jen will want to be going in the near future -- Salt Lake City genealogy conference the next time Lydia comes:)

Can't figure out how to rotate the pic, but this was from a microfiche in the archive.  Looks like a baptismal record.  You can see the town of Ertic (spelled Ertich here) on the left and Stanislaus as the first name mentioned in the record.  At times, the names were recorded in Latin.   

As you can see above, this is a record of Ana's father (Stanko Sopcic).  Ana was Janko's wife.  Not only are we dealing with family who changed their names when they immigrated, but we also have to be on the lookout for latin variations of their names, and sometimes even phonetic spellings of the name.  Look at the record above.... Stanko's father is listed as Sopchich.

We also found out from Lydia that because there were so many Sopcic's in one area, the families would take on a 'household name' to distinguish themselves from other Sopcic's.   Stanko Sopcic is a good example of this.  Do you see in the record that his mother's last name is Stajcar?  That was the household name that Stanko's family took on in Ertic.  So we found some of them listed in other records as Stajcar (sometimes spelled Stajcer, too).  Make sense so far?

Now you can see how complicated and challenging it can be to find these family members.  Remember Ana above?  In the states, she listed herself on the census as Annie Soptich.  Family recollection here in the states was that her name was Joana Peresko.  Lydia thought that perhaps Peresko is another of these 'household names' which is why Jen hasn't been able to find any info on Joana Peresko, but we haven't been able to confirm that yet.  Quite the tangled web!  Who knew it would be so hard to find our ancestors!

Lydia also gave us a lot of information and tips/tricks about the records that we were looking at in the church with the priest.  We have found a few other family names -  Stjacar mentioned above, Grgoric, Mihelic and Bahor.  Bahor comes from Slovenia, and Lydia thinks she can help us find info on that part of the family.  She also recommended that we go back to the priest and basically take pictures of every Sopcic we see in the books, especially in the Ertic area.  We had already set up a return appointment for tomorrow (Sunday), so we are looking forward to returning and trying to find some of the above names in the books.

After the archive closed and kicked us out, we spent about an hour seeing of few of the sites of Zagreb.  One of the most popular is St. Mark's Church because of the Croatian coats of arms/symbols in the roof.  Check them out.  Pretty cool, right?

Mom really wanted to go to a museum nearby called the Museum of Broken Relationships.  Her guidebook had great things to say about it.  I guess the nice part of that is that it would be a different museum from those that we've seen, which are typically art-related.  I didn't want her getting any ideas though.  Maybe next time Jen.

It was a good thing we didn't go to the museum though because we had some last minute souvenir shopping to do.  My favorite thing!  But right as we were finishing up, a heavy rain storm rolled in with some pretty close lightning.  So that had everyone scrambling for cover and us ending our time in Zagreb a little early.  So we headed home for dinner, a chance to sit down and organize the information that we have so far, take a breather and catch up on this blog while watching some world cup soccer, do some work on the school budget (yay!) and get a game plan for the last two days here in Croatia.

June 19 - Sopcic Vrh, Ertic and Lipnik

Last night was Croatia’s second game (started at midnight) and today was a holiday in Croatia, so we didn’t want to head out too early today.  But we also felt like being a holiday might help us catch people at home that might otherwise be at work.  So we headed back out to Sopcic Vrh mid-morning.  At one time, this was where all the Sopcics lived.  But now there are not any people with the surname Sopcic in the village.  The economy for these rural villages has been tough for a number of decades, so many of the people have moved closer to the bigger cities, looking for work, etc.  That means a lot of the homes we were seeing were abandoned.  

This stork or crane was chasing something in the field as we approached Sopcic Vrh.

When we arrived in Sopcic Vrh, we saw some people outside of a house and decided to stop and try to speak with them.  Talk about missionary flashbacks!  The older man turned out to be the father of a man that Jen met via a Ribnik Facebook group that she found.  What a coincidence!  The very first person we talk to ends up being someone we already know something about.  That definitely made it easy to start up a conversation. They tracked down a neighbor who spoke English (Marina) and invited us into their home to chat (surprise #1).  The older man, Josip Brinc was just the coolest guy.  He pointed out a diploma on his wall that indicated he was a motorcross driver.   He showed us some pictures on his phone (surprise #2 -  he had a cell phone, which we weren't expecting in such a rural area) that showed him getting some air on a motorcycle, as well as some pictures from maybe 30 years ago where it looked like he was being crowned the winner of some motorcross events.  He told us that he had broken his right arm recently while riding motorcross (surprise #3 – yep, still riding motorcross).  Looks pretty painful and not sure that the cast that they put on him is enough.  Looks like it just barely stabilizes the area.

Josip’s son was also there.  He was pretty quiet, but one of the first  things he asked was if Jen had any single sisters.  Smart dude, right?  So we showed him a picture of Nellie :).

For the next hour or so we sat in Josip’s kitchen and asked as many questions as we could think of.  Marina did such an amazing job at trying to translate for all of us.  Her English was very good, and I can appreciate how difficult it is to translate and speak a non-native language, especially when there is no one to regularly practice with.  She studied English in school and the university where she attended, but learning from books is always easier than speaking live and trying to remember everything you have learned and put it together.   I felt the same way in Chile.  Speaking was totally different than the Spanish I learned before I got there.  

Josip Sr, Jr and Marina

Josip's motorcross diploma from the 70s I believe.

Josip offered us some cherry juice, which we accepted, so they disappeared and came back with a homemade bottle of canned cherries.  This immediately made me think of Jen’s dad Lee, who grew up in Kansas on a farm, and tells stories of taking bottles of cherries in his lunch for school.  Hope I remembered that story right, but we do know that he now hates cherries because he ate them so much as a kid.  The juice was delicious, and Marina was the one who had canned it.  It was a great first experience in the area.  Highly successful.  We exchanged email and facebook info and Marina said she’d speak with her mother and grandmother to see if they remember anything about the Sopcic’s we were looking for.  As we left, Jen shed tears of joy.  I also noticed Josip wiping his eyes.  It was very heart-warming to see this strong old man get emotional about what we were trying to do.  More special feelings that I could only inadequately try to explain.

Cherry Compote

We left Sopcic Vrh and headed for the area church in Ribnik, where we were hoping to meet with the priest and see the church records.  He wasn’t there, so we walked through the cemetery looking for Sopcic headstones.  Found a number of them, but most were from the early 1900’s or sooner.  Since Jen’s great great grandfather emigrated in 1889, any of the names we were seeing could be cousins or nieces and nephews.  But without enough information about the brothers and/or sisters of Janko Sopcic, we weren’t sure what we were looking for.

We find out later in the day when we visit Ertic about a Ljubica, Marica, Dragica who were sisters that lived in the same house as Ana.  Perhaps they are the same ones listed here...

Mihelic is the surname of Janko's mother, Jela.

Gracie, Braden and Tanner should recognize the title of the headstone - Obitelj Sopcic.  Obitelj (o- bee-tell-yea) means family.

So we headed for Ertic, which is the village where Jen’s great great grandfather Janko was born and where her great great grandmother, Ana (or Jana) was listed as living when she married Janko.  We think she was born there as well, but still need to find that record to verify.  Marina had told us to ask for Irena, a friend in the village who knew English.  She was at home when we stopped by and her and her mother offered to walk us into the village to look for the houses where Janko and Ana were living when they married (house 20 and 12).  They walked us to where house 12 was/is.  We learned that during WWII, there was a fire that burned all of the homes down.  So the homes we were seeing were built after the fires.  Irena’s mother and an older neighbor were able to give us names of people who grew up in the same house (House 12) but now live in Canada.  That might be a good lead for Jen if she can track those folks down – they may have a history of the families that lived in the house.  Or even better, they may be related to Ana.

This is the oven.  The fireplace was on the other side of the wall, heating that room.  I assume the oven would heat this room.  Ingenious.

The entrance to house #12.

Jen and Irena, the neighbors, and Irena's mother.

You'll have to click on the pic to see the whole thing.  House #12 on the left, with the barns to the right (behind the house).

This evening, we were able to contact the priest and meet him at his house.  There he produced a number of old record books and we began to search for more records.  We think we found records and information that confirm Janko ‘s parents (Josip and Jela) and grandparents Joannis Sopcic and Barbara Klemencic.  

We have also found Janko’s siblings:  Bara, Ivan, Dora, Rosa and Jana. 

In addition, we found Anna’s parents – Stanko or Stanislaus and Meta (Margaretta) Bahor.  We knew the names from Janko and Anna’s marriage records, but the names were hard to decipher.  So what we found in the parish records helped to confirm the names and dates.

Priest Mario and Jen, at his kitchen table with the record books that go back to the mid 1800s.  Pretty cool that we got to hold them and turn the pages.

After looking through the records, the priest walked us over to the Parish and let us in to see inside.  It is a beautiful church.  Perhaps it is because of the meaning the building has (it's 300 years old, and was the place where everyone got married), but I felt like it was more beautiful than the lavish cathedrals we've seen in other cities on our trip.

Mario explaining that the cathedral was built in 1780 and painted in 1914.

Did you notice that the main painting changed from the picture above?  Mario dropped this down in front of the painting of Christ and explained that it is the prophet Elijah, who is the patron saint of the church.  Mario spoke Croatian, German, and a little English, so I hope that I understood him correctly.

You can see that the building could use some repair, but is still so beautiful.  Marina later explained to us that because people were buried under the church, the officials in Zagreb will not allow the church to be restored/repaired.  A tough spot to be in for the local community - sad to think that they might lose the building someday.

Beautiful flooring

Parish, with Mario's house in the background and the entrance to the cemetery in the foreground.

After the parish, we decided to head back to Ertic and nearby Velika Paka (two villages separated by a field).  On Mother's Day this year, the villages dedicated a memorial for the village men/boys who were killed during World War II.  If Ertic only had 17 homes and Velika Paka appears to be a similar size, this list seems pretty long.  A few Sopcics on the list.  A very nice memorial.

On our way back to the hotel, we dropped by Marina's house to thank her for all her help earlier in the day.  She invited us in again, and we got to visit with Marina, her mother and her grandmother (who's 89).  We learned more about Marina and her family.  Marina also invited us back on Saturday the 21st to have lunch.  She is going to fix us a traditional meal.  We are looking forward to that.  Jen adds that even though Marina, Josip Sr, Josip Jr, Mario Brinc, and Irena might not be related, she feels connected to them like family.

Long post to reflect a long day filled with so many memories we want to remember and share with family back home.