History of john and Mary Machart
John frank Machart was born to Vaclav Machart and Mary Josephine Riha Machart on December 13, 1895 at Praha, Fayette County, Texas. He was the third child of a family of 12 children. They were Jim who resided around Shiner, Milly Fikac of Shiner, John, Martin, who died at approximately 2 years of age, Frank of Shiner, Mary Siegel of Shiner, Stanley of Hallettsville, August of Charlottenburg, Raymond of Elcampo, Bohmil of Sublime, Rosalie Nemec Gayle of Corpus Christi and Bill of Hilje. They were not necessarily born in that order. John lived and went to school and Wied, Texas (Lavaca county). The farm where he worked his young life was in the fork of Ponton Creek and Rocky Creek. They farmed cotton, cork, sugar cane for molasses and grandpa also grew his own tobacco. The creeks furnished fish and the wood had game of squirrel skins and the forest had pecans which they gathered to sell. Life was hard but they had a lot of fun also. At the age of about 20 World War 1 broke out and john volunteered into the Navy. He served on a mine later and was trained at san Diego California, he served at Puerto Rico and laid mines in the English channel. He stated that they had to lay the mines in the dark of the night. There vessel was loaded with so many mines that they could hardly walk through them. The possibility of a German submarine firing a torpedo at them was extremely great. If one would have hit them they would have been blown to smithereens. In a large German vessel. They were converting the vessel to U.S.A use and when they were breaking up a concrete swimming pool he was carrying a slab of concrete on his back and was injured. After his discharge he came back to wied to the farm. Not to far from their farm was a farm owned by Frank Vesely. John hand his brothers used to go there to play cards with Mr. Vesely. They played for money such as pennies and Nichols. When john was broke Mr. vesley wanted to play so badly that he loaned the boys money to play and they would beat Mr. vesely out of enough money to pay him back and have some of their own. Mr. Vesely also had two sons, Jacob and Frank and a daughter, Mary Josephine. John and Mary fell in love and were married in 1919. Then 1 year later on august 16, 1921 august Alphonse was born to them. They then moved to a farm near Vaclav Machart where Hedwig Marie was born to them on September 28 1923. After a year or two they moved to a “miller’s farm” across the road from Frank Vesely near Wied near highway 90A at Ponton creek. From there they moved to another farm near Wied. They were Catholics and were members of the Weid Catholic Church. (st. ludmilla). From Wied they then moved to a farm near charlorttenburg near the Lutheran cemetery across smothers creek. Edith ann came into being on September 28, 1925. From there we moved to Janaks farm about 1 mile west of Wied. August started school at Wied, and Bennie (Benjamin Franklin) was born on the night of Ausust 16, 1928. John worked the farm and on Saturdays he operated a barber shop in wied cutting hair for a dime a hair cur. Wied at that time consisted of a school, morris’s store and st. ludmila’s catholic church which was not in use any more. A little north of these places of business past the catholic cemetery was A.J Kallus’s store and the wied dance hall. We all used to gather there Saturdays for dancing. The hall was later moved across highway 90A. and Janaks nursery was started about the time of WWII. Church was also attended at St. Mary’s near Hallettsville, Texas. From Janaks’ Farm john and mary moved to Boska’s farm near St. Mary’s. Farming cotton and corn and milking several Holstein Cows the milk was separated and carried to Hallettsville where it was sold to the creamery. 100 baby chicks were purchased but when they grew up someone stole them all while john was in the San Antonio hospital. –PART TWO-- it was known who did it but charges were not filed because Mary thought it would hurt the families of the two men involved. The chickens were not that important to her. Bill (johns brother came to do the plowing) august and Hedwig attended the St. Mary’s catholic school. Also bill attended while he lived with john. After a couple of years john and mary moved to Komensky area on the busek’s farm. August and Hedwig attended Komensky school. Jerry Joseph was born there match 21, 1930. That year john planted about ½ to one acre of garlic, which was delivered by wagon to moulton and sold for extra money. John received a pension for his service in the US navy about this time and he purchased a 1927 model T. the farm was on the bank of the La Lavaca river at an intersection of a creek . it rained very heavy in Moulton and the house was flooded. The family was rescued by neighbors who waded to the house and carried Edith, Ben, and Jerry to Busek’s house till the waters subsided. Jerry became very ill one summer and a doctor was called to the house. He came by model T. he gave Jerry some medication and jerry got over his illness but the fever that he suffered left him weak. About this time Mary had an appendix attack and had to go to the hospital to have it removed. That made her and john both without their appendix. John suffered his attack at an earlier age. His had ruptured before surgery and the doctors gabe up on him. He had it removed and was left to die. A nurse stayed with him all night and stuffed towels and cotton inside him through the incision and soaked up all the poison inside him and he survived. At the time the doctor came to administer to jerry he noticed a big boil on Bennie under his left eye. He said he had to open it or it would affect his eye. The doctor did not have his surgical tools with him so he sharpened a pocket knife (john sharpened it) and punctured it. Boy, did the puss spew all over the porch and everyone near that was in the way. When jerry was born it was bad weather and the doctor had to come to the house to deliver him. By the time the doctor arrived jerry was born being delivered by john and aunt Annie vesely. The doctor said they did a good job and left. A wagon was hitched up to mules and the doctor was delivered to his car which was left on the main road because the farm road was too muddy for the car. From Komensky the family moved to Fikacs farm near Charlottenburg near the vicinity of the Lutheran church and cemetery mentioned earlier. There frank Vaclav was born on December 5, 1931. He was a very healthy baby as you can see. The school was at charlottenburg and a snow storm his and gus and Hedwig walked from school barefoot stopping at neighbors who warmed their feet and sent them on. From charlottenburg the family moved to the vicinity of sweet home, Texas to the stansny farm. They attended school at south mustang school. Mildred Marie was born here on December 23 or 24, 1930, you pick the day you want. After the depression which broke everyone john did not have any choice but to join in the civilian conservation corp. he earned $30.o00 a month of which he kept $5.00 and balance was mailed to Mary. However, he would bring most of the $5.0 to mary on weekends keeping enough money for tobacco and toilet articles. It was at this time that august was enrolled in the CCC camp at Austwell, Texas under the same rules and pay. The family survived on the $60.00 a month. They moved from the stansy farm to a little shack on the ressler farm. They helped on the farm for some money also before moving to sweet home, Texas where they resided until early 1942. At that time WWII had broken out. The CCC’s were disbanded and the boys and eligible men were drafted or volunteered to fight the Nazi’s and japs. John went to corpus Christi, Texas where he secured a job at the naval air station as a guard. After he got the job and found a house the family moved to corpus. Gus came home from the CCC camp just in time to move to corpus where he went to work at Steve’s sash and door for about a month before being drafted into the army.
This was an excerpt from a journal of pictures that my mother owns. This is where I got the majority of my family's pictures.
