(Ed's Note:  this sketch details the Paha family departure from Bohemia  and arrival in New York on October 28th, 1890, their travels  from New York  to Chicago,  and the first forty four years as they establish  their American roots.  The Paha family is the last of my direct ancestors to arrive in America, following Michael and Anna Utz by a few months.  Josef and Mary Gill  are my Great Grandparents, and John is my Grandfather on my father's side.  John passed away before my birth, but I met Aunt Anna many times, as she lived with my dad's brother Joseph and his family for awhile and eventually with my mom and dad before she passed in 1977 at age 93.  We nicknamed her 'Auntie M' from the movie The Wizard of Oz.  She was a very happy person and for the most part, my cousins and I always enjoyed her company.)

Josef and Mary (Gill) Paha
Bound for Chicago's Southside

Josef & Mary (Gill) Paha, their daughter Anna and son John steamed across the Atlantic in this ship
below - line entries from the ship's manifest for Josef and family
This is a copy of the original ship's manifest detailing Josef and his family.  This was a very difficult fact to locate for a number of reasons, but primarily because Ancestry.com does not have this image page as part of the database for this particular voyage.  I stumbled upon Josef and his family doing a wildcard search which generated another lead to a volume called Czech Immigration Passenger Lists, Volume VII.  I tracked down this volume in the Milwaukee Library and there they were, and the ship was also detailed to my surprise.  Then back to Ancestry.com and a search of the manifest for this particular voyage, and upon coming to the page in the database I discovered it was missing.  Then back to the Church of Latter Day Saints in southwest Milwaukee to look at the film for this voyage and the manifest.  And above is that extract from the film.  A side note for this manifest concerns Barbara Gill, aged 23, detailed as from Bohemia, single, destination Illinois.  This woman may be Mary's younger sister.  Further research details her as marrying George Maier in Cook County in 1894.  Their residence in the 1900 census is just a couple on blocks east of Josef and Mary's residence.

    The SS Eider steamed from Bremen, Germany to South Hampton, UK, and then onto New York City arriving October 28th, 1890.  Aboard were Josef (35) and his wife, Mary (37), their children, Anna (7) and John (9 months).  They came over booking third class passage, more commonly known as steerage.  The ship held 121 first class passengers, 150 second class passengers and 978 steerage passengers on that crossing.  Josef and his family, according to the manifest, quartered in compartment #3 and with luggage consisting of 2 bags.  Their country of origin was Bohemia, they are bound for Illinois.  Josef is detailed as a laborer.

Czech Republic today, Bohemia prior to WWI

          Josef, Mary, Anna and John came from Bohemia, today known as the Czech Republic, last century - post World War I, 1918 to 1968- as Czechoslovakia and prior to World War I as Bohemia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. John Paha's draft registration for World War I details the city of Sirb (Sirb = Srby), in the province of Bischofteinitz just to the southwest of Pilsen and Prague (Praha), as his place of birth, and is the best information we have concerning the family's departure point from Europe.  Anna was born in late 1883 in the small town of Sadl, which is a couple of miles to the west of Sirb.  Sadl is also the birthplace of Josef and the location of his farm.  Further research into this particular locale in Bohemia reveals a predominance of German-Bohemians residing in this area with a simple conclusion that's Josef's ancestry is Germanic, more specifically, German-Bohemian.  I will be discuss this more in detail later.  Of particular interest concerning this point is the review of Bohemian history and the fact that at different earlier times, many Germans from Bavaria and Austria migrated eastwards into these areas.

Photograph of New York's Barge Office, Immigrant Processing Center, 1900.

The Barge Office - precursor to Ellis Island - Josef, Mary, Anna and John passed here in October, 1890

    

...All Roads to America Pass through Germany

...A ticket from Prague to Omaha via Chicago cost fifty-six dollars in 1881. The German ports of Bremen and Hamburg were the main train terminals and embarkation points for Czechs and Moravians making the voyage to America. The Kareš and Stocký firm representing the North-German Lloyd in Bremen, with agents in Bohemia outdistanced the British company operating from Liverpool in attracting passengers from the Czech lands... (Excerpt from the book written by  Štepáka Korztová-Magstadt)

    They would have traveled by rail from New York to Chicago's Southside, in particular, to the German populated area around 39th and Wentworth.  There, the German Catholic Parish of Saint George existed.  Details of the family's address from 1890 to 1900 is hit and miss using the Chicago Directories.  Early listings I found under the spelling of Baha including the 1900 census which details them living at 3945 Fifth Avenue (Wells Avenue) in a multifamily unit.  This census also details Josef as a baker who worked the entire year.  He and Mary had been married for 18 years, so they would have been married in 1882.  Mary had five children, Anna and John were surviving.  Josef was born in June, 1857, and Mary in June, 1854.  They spoke German. They rented their housing, the other units also housed German and Irish families.  The census details a neighborhood of both heritages.

    After 1900, all my source data details the legal spelling of the name as Paha.  One might think that the listings in the Chicago Directories and the 1900 census were in error, possibly due to transcription of a heavy Germanic accent.  But in researching their Bohemian locale for surnames, both Paha and Baha are common to the area.  In fact, searching the US census also details Baha as an entry of Bohemian immigrants.  I think the strongest fact leading towards a Paha spelling would be the data I received from Alfred Piwonka which detailed the Paha spelling.

Current map of area just west of Bischofteinitz with the German (red) and Czech names for the Paha and Gill towns detailed in the family tree page.

The farming village of Sadl taken from an old Bohemian map dated around 1850.  

    Mary Gill was born in 1855 in the village Mirschikau (Mirschikau = Mirkov), Bohemia, within a few miles northeast of Josef's birthplace in the village Sadl (Sadl = Sedlec).  Josef was born two years later.  They married February 14th, 1882 in Mary's village, but lived in Sadl where Josef's family had farmed for over a century.  His family's residence can be traced back to the latter half of the 18th century to Sadl and the same can be said of Mary's family and the village of Mirschikau.  Source documentation for both families details occupations as farmers as would be expected for these small villages.  (The red lettered town names are the German versions, the map details current town names.)

Pilsner Kreis around 1769.  The area of interest is a few miles centering around the town of Teiniz (Bischofteinitz)  

    These villages are within the county of Bischofteinitz which also happens to be the name of the major city in the county and located just a few miles to the east of the villages in our discussion.  The county is bounded on the west by mountains with special names of significance to local people, all in the range of 2500 feet.  The principal river is the Radbusa which flows generally from the northwest towards the east through the city of Bischofteinitz and eastward into the Bohemian heartland.  The river has over 25 tributaries, which over the centuries has been used by the people to power various mills in production efforts.

    In general, Bischofteinitz County was agricultural in nature.  Farms were small and produced cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens.  Field crops included oats, wheat, barley and flax, a commodity needed throughout the centuries to keep the cottage industry of spinning wheels humming.  The climate is relatively mild, though like anywhere, they infrequently experienced  weather anomalies in both winter and summer which were disastrous to the farming lifestyle.

    For many centuries, the area grouped itself politically with the city of Pilsen, just to the northeast of Bischofteinitz.  However, commercially, the area had tied itself through the Cham valley into Bavaria and the major commercial center of Regensburg.

    With four generations of our family tree displayed above, some details become apparent.  For one point, in all of the marriages, the husband and wife do not reside in the same city.  Josef Paha is born and farms in Sadl, Mary Gill resides in Mirschikau where her family farms.   In fact, the Paha and Gill ancestors appear to farm in these two villages for over 100 years.  Another are the ages of Josef and Mary; 24 and 27 respectively.  I thought I'd explore some possible reasons for this fact and here is a discussion from an German Bohemian immigration specialist concerning "arranged marriages":

    'The German Bohemians tended to be pretty practical about such things.
 
Arranged marriages were the custom in some German areas of Hungary like Siebenburgen (Transylvania).   But there was also the "Siebenburgen divorce"  system that made it pretty easy for those couples who just could not get along to separate again.   There are even narratives from fathers who told their daughters that they should just "try"  for a year and then get a divorce if it doesn't' work.
 
I think the German Bohemians were a little more committed than that and the parents and children probably worked together "arranging"  marriages.   There was a contract that was worked out between the two sets of parents.   It outlined exactly what kind of wealth bride and groom would bring into the new household and what future support they might have from their parents.
 
The sources I recall say that most men did not marry before age 26 because hey could not support a wife before then.   They had to have a marriage license for a legal marriage and that required certain economic potential -- could be denied if the couples combined earning was not the minimum to keep them independent of welfare.
 
Bozena Nemcova (famous Czech author early 1800s) mentions a young couple who were sweating the next draft lottery because they wanted to marry.   That book (The Grandmother) was written in the 1860s and probably expressed the practice at that time (and later).  
 
There are cases where a woman was the sole heir of a farmer father.    She would pretty much have a choice of husband because she owned a farm, no matter how small it might be or how much older than a suitor she might be.  She might choose a younger man because she liked him best, because he appeared the most motivated to run a farm, because he was the strongest, because he had a good profitable secondary trade or because he was kind and considerate -- any number of reasons.
 
I do not know what the property laws said about who might end up owning a farm that was inherited by a woman who then married.
 
There are also cases where a man who wanted to emigrate married the first woman who was also willing to emigrate because he wanted a wife to help him in the USA.  In some cases these men would not qualify for a marriage license and would have a church wedding and then leave for the US.    But there may be no record of the marriage because it was not "legal"  if the couple did not have a license.     I don't know what their passports might say -- if they left legally.'

    Of their ages, one might have thought that back in the old days, that couples married at a young age.  Not so here.  But after reviewing the above discussion, another fact comes into play, namely mandatory military duty.  Josef more than likely completed his 2 or 3 year commitment in the army.  This would delay any early opportunity for marriage.

Immigration

    Why did Josef and Mary leave their homeland and come to America?  Economic reasons always come to the forefront in these discussions and were probably the primary reason Josef and Mary left for America.  As sons inherited land from their fathers, farms became smaller and smaller, making it progressively difficult for the following generation to make ends meet.  The Paha family had been farming land around Sadl since the late 1700s, and this may have been a foremost reason for Josef and Mary deciding to leave their homeland.  Another point to realize is one concerning nationalistic movements in Bohemia, particularly amongst the Czech population.  This increase in political unrest in Bohemia towards Czech nationalism, though not local to Sadl, may have played some point in Josef's decision to leave.  There was little or no religious bias in the country's government.

    On a similar note, Bohemian emigration had been well under way by 1890, initially starting after the 1848 revolutions prevalent throughout middle Europe.  The 1910 census details over 540,000 foreign born and second generation Czechs in America.  Ranked by state, the highest number lived in Illinois followed by Nebraska, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Texas and Minnesota.  Just viewing the SS Eider's manifests for the year 1890 details well over 200 Bohemians coming to America, the ship could make the roundtrip via South Hampton in under 28 days.  So deciding to come to America was a major decision for them, but made easier by the large numbers leaving the area to 'Come to America'.

Late 1800 map of 39th and Fifth Avenue.

3928 South Fifth (Wells) Ave  Charles Rash marries Margaret Kestel in January, 1890.  This may have been their first residence.  They lived here until about 1893.  Ida and Mary, (twins), are born here.

3922 South Fifth (Wells) Ave  Charles Rash and his family lived here from 1901 to 1903.  Josef Paha and his family lived here in 1911.
Mary Gill - in Bohemia 1878.  This is a painting from a photograph.
Age in painting -24

Born June 1st, 1855, Mirschikau, Bohemia.
Married February 14th, 1882
Arrive in America 1890 with her family in New York
Died October 10th, 1919 in Chicago.

        The 1910 census still has the Paha family intact.  But not for long.  Josef is working as a laborer in a bakery and John is an electrician, possibly working in the stockyards.  They rent an apartment at 3924 Fifth Avenue which is the fifth address detailed for them on that block between 1900 and 1911.  Anna is 25 and John is 20.  They list their birthplace as Austria (Poland), just some more confusion into their roots.  

        In July of 1910, Anna marries Frank Livingston.  Three years later, John marries Ida Rash in June.  Ida is the daughter of Charles and Maggie (Kestel) Rash.  (For reference, Charles is the son of David and Margaret (Crummy) Rash of Mount Sterling and Maggie is the daughter of George and Barbara (Vetter) Kestel of Will County).  In 1913, they live in Saint Augustine Parish at 5245 Justine.  But in the early 1900s, they lived on the same block as Josef and Mary and probably new each other.  It's possible that the Rash and Paha children went to Saint George school together for a few years. Also, Maggie had run a boarding house, address unknown, but probably in Saint George's Parish, quite possibly, in the 3900 block of Fifth Avenue.  This may have been where they first met.

    As for children, Frank and Anna have none.  This is possibly because Anna contracts TB.  For John and Ida, Maria is born in April of 1914, Joseph follows in April of 1916.  Before Maria's birth, Joseph and Ida moved north into Saint Augustine Parish and reside on the 5300 block of Laflin.  Tragically, Maria dies in January of 1918.  The following year, Mary dies of stomach cancer.  Joseph and her resided at 3958 South Princeton that year.  

Larry Paha, mother Ida and daughter Rosemary

John Paha was a very good bowler

      

Joseph and Rosemary as flower girl and ring bearer at a Freudinger Rash wedding

 

  

More Concerning the SS Eider

    The steamship SS Eider was a 4722 gross ton iron built vessel, built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow in 1883 for Norddeutscher Lloyd [North German Lloyd (the first of two vessels of this name owned by the company)].  Her dimensions were length 429.8ft x beam 47ft, straight stem, two funnels, four masts, single screw and a speed of 16 knots. There was accommodation for 120-1st class, 130-2nd class and 1,000-3rd (steerage) class passengers. She was launched on 12/15/1883 and left Bremen for Southampton and New York on her maiden voyage on 3/19/1884.  In the year 1890, when Josef and Mary crossed the Atlantic to their new home, the SS Eider was a very busy vessel making 12 round trip voyages between Bremen and New York averaging the one way trip in under 14 days.  She left Bremen on her last voyage on 1/31/1892 and stranded on Atherfield Ledge, Isle of Wight, was refloated and scrapped.  

The SS Eider's Last Voyage

    The largest shipwreck of the 19th Century on the Island was the wreck of SS Eider, the most spectacular shipwreck of the Victorian era. SS Eider was a giant 4,179-ton German luxury passenger liner. She was a four-masted, two-funneled steamer over 430ft long, with a crew of 167, and 227 passengers. She also carried over 500 sacks of mail, as well as just under 10 tons of gold and silver.

    On 31 January, 1892, the liner, sailing from New York to Bremen, entered the English Channel and encountered a dense fog bank. The captain ordered the crew to take regular soundings, but the voyage continued, with the ship's orchestra giving a concert for the First Class passengers in the Saloon. At 10pm everyone on board felt a bump. The ship had run aground, but the captain was sure that the liner would ride off with the tide. Some of the cargo was jettisoned. The new Atherfield lifeboat approached, but the captain refused her offer of help, asking instead for tugs. The lifeboat left, but the coastguard kept watch on Eider as she became more deeply embedded in the rock below her.

    At 7am the lifeboat again approached Eider to warn that a gale looked likely. The captain, however, felt sure that the tugs would arrive in time, and asked the lifeboat to carry some of the mail bags ashore instead of the passengers. The lifeboat men regretfully complied.

    Although the tugs did approach Eider, when they did so the gale made it impossible for them to get close for fear of striking the rocks themselves. At 10am the Captain decided to evacuate the passengers, but it was now too rough for the small Atherfield lifeboat to be launched. The larger lifeboats at Brook and Brighstone were launched, but they were much farther away. The Brighstone lifeboat arrived first, and carried a dozen women and children to safety. The Brook lifeboat eventually reached Eider five hours after launching, and rescued more women and children.

    The Atherfield lifeboat was finally launched, and by 3pm the wind had died down sufficiently to allow the three lifeboats to begin evacuating the ship successfully. By nightfall the three lifeboats had made 18 trips, with the Atherfield boat having rescued 55 people, the Brook boat 90 people, and the Brighstone boat 88. After a good night's sleep the lifeboat men returned to the wreck, only for the storm to increase. Despite this, in 11 trips the three lifeboats managed to bring ashore the remaining 146 crew and all the mailbags. Over the next two days they brought all the silver and gold to safety as well.

    The passengers were sent to Southampton, where they were able to continue on another Norddeutscher ship, SS Aller, to Bremen. On a side note, the SS Aller is the ship that brought Michael and Anna Utz to America in July, 1890.  The lifeboat men, though, received letters of thanks and congratulations for their bravery from Queen Victoria. They were congratulated in person by the Prince of Wales and Prince George, and the coxswains of the lifeboats each received a gold watch from the German Emperor Wilhelm II inscribed with his congratulations. They also received many honors and awards from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

    Eider was eventually hauled off Atherfield Ledge on 29 March and taken to Southampton, where she was declared by her owners to be a total loss.

[Edwin Drechsel, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857-1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Cordillera Pub. Co., c1994), pp. 23-25 (photographs) and 89 (photograph); Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 2 (1978), p. 552]. Also pictured in Michael J. Anuta, Ships of Our Ancestors (Menominee, MI: Ships of Our Ancestors, 1983), p. 89, courtesy of Mystic Seaport Museum, 50 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, CT 06355-0990. - [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 2 November 1998]