Chart | Baptism | Marriage | Death| Census
Son of Jacob Dvorak and Mary Becnar √
Husband of Philomena Bosek √
Facts (with source information): Narrative Report
Chart
1857 Baptism
St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri
upper right corner
A nice, clear primary record. The priest recorded the maiden names of both the mother and godmother.
(film 008198618, image 34)
1885 Marriage
St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri
third entry (both right and left pages)
The diacritical marks indicate that Czech was spoken in this church. And in these records, only the fathers of brides and grooms are named. Their mothers are not mentioned. And all the witnesses of the weddings are men.
(film 007856975, image 488)
1929 Death
The informant is his son.
Census Records
The 1890 census was lost in a fire.
It is a little difficult finding the census records for this family because the spelling of their surname is incorrect in every census record for thirty years. They were from Bohemia and spoke Czech. Apparently the census-takers could not understand what they said when asked their name, or did not know how to spell that name. The name sounds like “Tworshaack” when a Czech speaker says it. Observe how that was recorded in census records!
1860 Census
The name is Wureak. And this says that John was born in Bohemia. He was born in St. Louis. This error, along with the misspelling of their name, suggests they were having trouble communicating with the census-taker.
Notice that Jacob Dvorak gives his occupation as stone mason. That’s what it says in the 1857 baptism record of his son John.
lines 1-7
1870 Census, page 1
The name is DWORAK. Jacob’s occuptation is stone mason. That appears in several records. He must have been proud of his work.
lines 39-40
1870 Census, page 2
On this page we see the children of Jacob Dvorak. John and his younger brother William were both born in Missouri, and that’s what it says in this census record.
lines 1-4
1880 Census
The name is Dvorack. The two youngest children are shown, and both of them were born in Missouri.
lines 43-46
1900 Census, page 1
Oh, dear, what a mess this census-taker made. It is the Dvorak problem. They were in St. Louis over thirty years before their name was spelled correctly in a census record. I assure you that this “Dvore” family is John Dvorak’s family. And Minna is his wife Philomena. They lived all their lives at 4419 Minnesota Avenue.
lines 95-100
1900 Census, page 2
lines 1-2
1910 Census
Their name is spelled correctly. It is Dvorak. They’ve been married 22 years, had 11 children, and one child has died.
lines 18-27
1920 Census
They still live at 4419 Minnesota Avenue. It was a very small house for such a large family. One of their granddaughters said that John Dvorak used to go to the attic to have a rest from listening to all those girls.
Philomena says she is a naturalized citizen. Because citizenship was held at lots of courts, and because there are no digitized indexes for those records, I don’t know how to find the record.
lines 86-92
