Czech Mates

This is a story about a Bohemian rhapsody. Not the anthem made famous by Queen in the 1970s, but a recent discovery in my family history that is music to my ears! I have a strong paternal line composed of two families, The Kroc’s and The Pacovsky’s, both hailing from the ancient kingdom of Bohemia. For geography buffs, Bohemia once occupied the land in what is now the western part of Czech Republic.

The name on my birth certificate is Diane Krutz, but my surname originated as Kroc back in Bohemia. I later learned that Kroc was changed to Krotz and eventually to Krutz by my ancestors once they were settled in western Pennsylvania. Between the research done by family members as well as that discovered more recently online, I can trace the Kroc line back to 1772, at the birth of my 4th great-grandfather, Jan Kroc in Přívětice, Radnice, Bohemia.

On the Pacovsky branch of my family tree, I long believed that my 2nd great-grandparents were Frantisek and Barbara Pacovsky as they were enumerated in the 1880 census. Emigrating from Bohemia around the year 1866 with their young daughter, also named Barbara and possibly a son, Joseph in tow, the census shows them living in Plum Township along with three more daughters born after they arrived in Pennsylvania; Mary (my great-grandmother), Josephine and Anastasia or “Annie” as she was known. I have yet to find a ship’s passenger list announcing their arrival in America.

Talk about butchering a last name! Pacovsky was spelled Busepkey by an 1880 census taker.

For years, my 3rd cousin, Jayne (who I have come to know through her extensive research of the Pacovsky line) and I have tried to uncover the maiden name of our 2nd great-grandmother, Barbara as well as more information about Joseph who was named in the census, but has never shown up anywhere else. Jayne’s great-grandmother was Barbara Pacovsky Wildman, the eldest daughter of Frantisek and Barbara Pacovsky. We assumed that mother Barbara and son Joseph died before May 1897 as neither was mentioned in the Last Will and Testament of our 2nd great-grandfather Frantisek. Thanks to Jayne’s recent inquiry to the Diocese of Pittsburgh, we learned this week that Barbara Pacovsky was not our 2nd great-grandmother after all! She was Frantisek’s 2nd wife!

According to marriage records obtained from the Diocese, our 2nd great-grandmother’s name was Maria Sisték, also from Bohemia. She and Frantisek are listed as parents at the marriages of daughters, Josephine Pacovsky, married to Phillip Corcoran on November 26, 1890 at St. Joseph Parish in Verona, Pennsylvania; and Mary Pacovsky (my great-grandmother) married to Frantisek Kroc (my great-grandfather) on August 18, 1891 at St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church, located on Pittsburgh’s North Side.

Records obtained from Diocese of Pittsburgh. Note the Latin spelling of names.

St. Wenceslaus’ Death Register reveals that Maria Sisték Pacovsky died on April 24, 1873 and was buried the next day at St. Mary’s cemetery, now Christ Our Redeemer Cemetery in Pittsburgh.* Only three months later, the Marriage Register confirms that Frantisek married Barbara Rĕřabek, the Barbara in the 1880 census. Furthermore, the church’s baptismal records show that Barbara Rĕřabek is the mother of the youngest Pacovsky daughter, Anastasia, born on April 9, 1874. One can naturally surmise that Frantisek, a widower with three (possibly four) young children in 1873, would want to remarry as quickly as possible. I can only imagine my great-grandmother as a bereft 5-year-old alongside her other young siblings who had just lost their mother.

Interestingly, St. Wenceslaus was the only Bohemian parish in the Pittsburgh region. Founded in 1871 by a group of Bohemian immigrants, the church was replaced in 1900, but closed its doors in 1989. Knowing this makes me wonder if the Pacovsky family attended weekly Mass at this church or did they use the church only for weddings, baptisms and funerals. The family home was approximately 15 miles from St. Wenceslaus, quite a distance to travel to and from church every Sunday in those times. Pictured below are views of St. Wenceslaus today.

Discovering new information about your family history is like listening to your favorite song all these years then one day realizing that the lyrics you’d been singing this whole time were totally wrong, but nonetheless you’re happy and relieved to now know the right ones. And on that note, I have quite a few more lyrics to figure out.

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*I’m not contesting the findings of the Diocese of Pittsburgh necessarily, but at this writing and upon further research, I have not yet connected a St. Mary’s cemetery from 1873 that was later renamed Christ Our Redeemer, as the latter appears to have been founded in 1888 as the Redemptorist Fathers and St. Philomena Parish Cemetery in Pittsburgh. As with most family mysteries, once one is solved, another one invites you to begin a new investigation.

Celebrating International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, recognizing and celebrating the achievements of women all over the world. Many of us are quick to play small and not acknowledge our own achievements believing that only those women in the news who do great things are worthy of these commendations. But I find that this particular day is the perfect time to honor the women who made it possible for me to be here today.

Stella Habucky Krutz a.k.a. my mother

My mother, pictured above, was a woman of many achievements although she'd be quick to say that she didn't do anything special. She was an excellent student, Secretary of her Senior class in high school, and Editor of the school newspaper. Her parents could not afford to send her to college so she became a secretary at Family Finance in 1949 and worked there until she gave birth to me in 1961. After I graduated from college, my mother went back to work as a co-owner with my father of our family's jewelry store. Throughout her life we often talked about us both longing to be published writers. Shortly after her death in 2020, I found an incredible short story she'd written stuffed in the back of a bedroom dresser drawer. I will publish it posthumously one day soon. The name "Stella" is derived from the Latin word for "star." She certainly was a star in my book.

My grandparents on my parents' wedding day, July 1958.

I was blessed to know both of my grandmothers (pictured above) until they died exactly two weeks apart in June 1999. Ann Suchar Krutz, on the left and Anna Beitko Habucky, on the right, brought so much love, luck (Grandma Krutz was a frequent winner at Bingo) and good Polish cooking (Grandma Habucky made the best halupki) to my life. Both women were born in the US and took charge of the household as most women did in their day. One of my biggest regrets is not asking them more questions, especially about their own upbringing. Where did their parents come from? What did they know about their grandparents?

Mary Pacovsky Krotz, my paternal great-grandmother, surrounded by her children.

Mary Murzyn Beitko, my maternal great-grandmother.

I never knew any of my great-grandparents, but I do have photos of two of my four great-grandmothers, pictured above. Mary Pacovsky Krotz was born in 1868, a few years after her family arrived here from Bohemia. She married my great-grandfather, Frantisek Kroc, in July 1891 and they raised five children together. I have a few more details about her on my Ancestry.com family tree and plan to write more about the Pacovsky line as I've recently learned more about her father, my great-great-grandfather, Frantisek (Frank) Pacovsky. With respect to my other paternal great-grandmother, Martha Muchichka Suchar, I only know her name and a few select details discovered on website searches, but she is ever on my radar.

On my maternal side, Mary Murzyn Beitko was born in 1877 in Russia Poland according to an early census record. My mother told me that her grandmother was a tiny woman who walked very fast. I don't believe she knew any English, but as children, my mom and her siblings seemed to understand what she said. She arrived in the US with two daughters in tow...I believe my great-grandfather was already here...and they had 7 more children together before her death in 1949. My other maternal great-grandmother was Mary Holody Habucky. I italicized her maiden name because I'm not 100% sure that it is correct. On my grandparents' marriage license, my grandfather's mother's birth name is written as Notody, but an extensive search has turned up nothing on that name. However, I have many DNA cousins with the last name Holody. This line is another ongoing search.

Without these amazing women and the ones who came before them, I would not be able to celebrate them here or at all. Knowing the little I have learned about my ancestors humbles me. Their lives had to be much more challenging than mine. They faced war and poverty and probably other fears that I could only imagine; however, they survived it all. They crossed an ocean, and worked hard to create a new life for themselves and their families. Today may be International Women's Day, but I honor these women everyday.

I Can No Longer Be Contained - Part II

Hi Friends…I’m on a healing journey and I don’t want to go it alone. The following post is a continuation of my story thus far. If you would like to read the last blog post, click here. I named these first 2 posts I Can No Longer Be Contained because I have been suffering in silence for quite some time, and I believe that by sharing this journey, I can connect with others who may be having a similar experience with autoimmune illness.

July 12, 2022 - Beneath a persistent headache and general feeling of blah, I am embarrassed. I find myself repeatedly trying to justify to Emergency Room personnel my choice to heal my mystery illness via a functional medicine approach. In other words, even though I don’t really have any gut-related issues, I do believe that changing my diet and lifestyle can promote healing. However, my arguments are not convincing anyone, not even myself if I’m being honest, as it appears that the one day of drinking bone broth has backfired in a big way.

In the ER, the doctor and nurses attending to my case seem to be extremely competent and knowledgeable, and they are very nice to me, but also a bit patronizing. I’m feeling quite defensive about my choice to change my diet and lifestyle as their team clearly does not agree with this alternative path I’ve chosen. I want to shake them by the shoulders and shout that functional medicine digs deep to find the root cause of illness! And your traditional approach to healing, “if you can’t name the illness, just throw a pill at the symptom to make it go away” has failed me multiple times. Can you blame me for trying another way?! I just want to feel better! But alas, I don’t have the energy to argue. I’m sick and this is not the place to have a showdown.

For the better part of 4 hours, I’m hooked up to monitors, blood work is tested and fluids are intravenously replenished. All test results are negative for anything suspicious, my heart rate has returned to normal and I’m sent on my way with a little chiding about stopping this crazy bone broth diet and I should be fine. I leave the ER with my tail between my legs. Sigh…

When we get home from the hospital, I am hungry and thirsty, but afraid to resume the bone broth for fear of having another scare like the night before. I know I need to call the functional medicine clinic and let them know what happened and ask them “what now?” but first, some ginger ale. I feel guilty for drinking it because it wasn’t on the protocol and it’s laden with sugar, but I grew up with a mother who swore by sipping on ginger ale when you’re sick so that’s what I do. We had stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up a rotisserie chicken. I eat some of the chicken, drink some ginger ale and begin to feel a little better.

Still feeling like a failure after one day of being on the protocol, I call the functional medicine doctor and sheepishly explain what happened. I worry about what they will think of me. Perhaps I did something wrong to cause me to go to the ER or maybe I am a weakling for not just sucking it up and staying the course. What they reply is not what I expected.

After being placed on a brief hold, the person who answers the phone gets back on the line and says, “Dr. F (for Functional Medicine) said that he’s sorry for what happened to you. It’s not a common occurrence, but it can happen. Instead of just eating the broth, you can now graduate to having meat and veggies in the broth (for all 3 meals for the next 10 days).” That’s it? That’s it. They do not elaborate.

By now, Bob is seething. He just wants me to quit this program. He doesn’t care about the money I've invested, but in spite of Dr. F’s lack of bedside manner, my Libra Sun wants to be fair and give this new healing approach a chance. My 9th house Stellium (Mercury, Mars and Neptune huddled together) in Scorpio is quite tenacious and wants to get to the bottom of why I’ve been feeling this way. Functional medicine digs down deep to find the root cause of illness…all the heavy Scorpio in my chart plus my natal Sun in the 8th House resonates with this. Learning astrology has really helped me to understand why I think, say and do the things I think, say and do.

My astrological birth chart

For now, I win this disagreement with Bob although I must confess, I remain conflicted. I really expected Dr. F and his team to be a little more sympathetic and caring about what happened to me. I decide to chalk it up to the act of caring for someone does not translate well over the phone nor over the internet. Again, my dander is up about “everything is online anymore!” And I begin to follow the updated protocol to now include meat and veggies in the bone broth. At least I will have a little more substance to my meals going forward.

Now before you shrug your shoulders and ask, “what’s the big deal, Diane?” As a fellow soup lover, you may be picturing me feasting on giant bowls of hearty soups and stews brimming with juicy cuts of beef and wholesome veggies like tomatoes and potatoes. Not exactly. I may have left out a tiny detail about this new dietary protocol. For the unforeseeable future, I must eliminate the following: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Sugar, Processed foods, Nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant), Nuts, Seeds, Legumes, Corn, Grains and Alcohol. Remembering these heavy restrictions, my next few meals look like this.

Soupy Meats & Veggies

Almost 24 hours later, I still don’t feel right. I experience occasional heart racing, fatigue and weakness, but not enough to warrant another trip to the hospital. I call Dr. F to explain/complain, and I am instructed to just begin the full dietary protocol implementing the aforementioned elimination diet. It feels like I may be their problem child/patient and they don’t know what to do with me. Perhaps I’m just reading into it as I have a tendency to do just that. I also message Dr. P (my Primary Care Physician) about what I’ve experienced these last few days including the visit to the ER. She is much more sympathetic to my plight and places an order for me to wear a heart monitor for a few days. When I call to set an appointment to have the holter monitor placed, I learn that I will have to wait a couple of weeks and will need to drive an hour away as this is the only time and place for the first available appointment. Still, I schedule the appointment. In a sense, I feel like I'm cheating on Dr. F by continuing to court Dr. P's views as well.

In the meantime, I start eating real whole foods at every meal, and I begin to lose weight and feel a little better. I adhere to the dietary protocol about 95% of the time and begin to notice that when I fall off the wagon, i.e. eat something with gluten in it or have a tiny glass of wine, I get a migraine. Sometimes I get lightheaded after eating bacon, fresh spinach or canned tuna. If I eat leftovers, I feel the same way. Again, I call Dr. F’s office to explain/complain, and I am told that I may be experiencing a histamine flare. Certain foods are higher in histamine than others and can cause symptoms like one gets from seasonal allergies…runny nose, stuffiness, heart racing, dizziness. They send me a list of high histamine foods to eliminate. Of course, the list comprises everything I like to eat, and my diet has become even more restrictive. Again, I'm sensing a low tolerance threshold for my daily calls or emails. I am not feeling their love.

Yet to my delight, I continue to lose weight. To my chagrin, I keep eating the same foods repeatedly (picture the movie Ground Hog Day) and I desperately need to expand my menu repertoire. Thank goodness for Pinterest! While Dr. F’s office did send me a wealth of recipes, most of them did not appeal to me. The diet I now follow is most like that of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) or Autoimmune Paleo protocol. While I wait these few weeks for my test results, I find some new recipes on Pinterest that are compliant with my diet adding some variety to everyday meals. I also feel a kinship with the bloggers who create these AIP recipes as many of them have ushered their own autoimmune diseases into remission just by changing their diet and lifestyle.

For the first time since I began this healing journey, I no longer feel alone. I feel seen. I still don’t know exactly what is wrong with me…do I have an autoimmune disease that wasn’t detected by the labs Dr. P ordered? Something like Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis or Lupus? Or is it a virus like chronic Lyme Disease? I am about to find out.

To be continued…