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.