The Family Treehouse: Episode 002

By: Sadie Nelson

It’s safe to say that every genealogist’s dream is to return to the place where it all began. The hometown of our ancestors can draw us like no other location.  My maternal grandmother’s parents originated from a small town in Austria-Hungary.  Traveling to Moravská Třebová (now in the Czech Republic) had been on my heart for years, but with a baby at home and hopes of buying a house some day, I figured it would be decades before I could consider the trip.  Thanks to a wonderful cousin and a little bit of luck, however, my dream became a reality in August 2018.

 

I had done quite a bit of research online when I eventually connected with a distant cousin who lived a few states away from me.  His grandfather was my great-grandmother’s uncle.  He was an avid traveler and generously offered to take me to our shared ancestral village.  After lots of anxiety (and even more hours in the air and on the road) we left for the village from Prague, not really knowing what to expect.  As we neared the town, green hills erupted around us.  The landscape was picturesque, and I couldn’t help but think of my great-grandma Marie leaving for America in 1908.  Did she look at those hills with sadness, hoping wherever she ended up would be as beautiful?  

 

The town was dead quiet when we arrived in the square a little after noon on Sunday.  There were maybe four people walking around, shops were closed, and hardly any restaurants were open.  But I finally made it.  One hundred and ten years after great-grandma Marie left her home, I had returned.  Since it was Sunday, I thought the main church, where our family had attended, would be open.  This was not the case.  We circled the large building and tried the (huge) front door.  Locked.  I was determined to return the next morning, but a chance encounter between one of my relatives and some young workers at a small information building nearby turned out to be the best part of our entire trip.

One of the young workers, a teenage boy, had the church keys (original, iron, and hefty) and was willing to give us a tour.  He led us to the church’s side door.  His English was great- so far, the only English speaker we had met.  I would have been happy with a peek inside the door and a guide who only spoke Czech, but our young guide was full of surprises:  He let us step inside the small wooden door into the sanctuary. My jaw dropped.

 

I stepped inside to a vast, ornately decorated space- complete with a towering pipe organ. It was so easy to imagine my ancestors here, seeking a bit of refuge from chaos or singing hymns during mass.  Our guide sat down at the organ and played us a beautiful processional.  The same organ my ancestors heard on Sunday mornings was filling my ears.  I even got to pluck out a little poorly-memorized Bach on the heavy keys. 

 

I returned home that summer with a new sense of where my ancestors came from.  When records and papers sometimes fail to paint a full picture of my ancestors, I think back to that beautiful church, and the organ music filling my ears.

*This is an abridged version of Sadie’s story. Read the complete version HERE.