My top ten vacation destinations:

number 2

St. Louis, Missouri

A legacy revisited

Known as The Gateway to the West, 
the city of St. Louis has been my family's favorite vacation destination since the early 1950's.  I have carried on that tradition and just recently returned from a visit.

A mix of Old World charm and modern life continues to be a hallmark of this vibrant Midwestern city, in which each neighborhood has its own history and unique character. 

I remember fondly trips to the Zoo in Forest Park, eating cracker jacks at the Cardinal's baseball games, and exploring dark caves at Meramec Caverns. 

We also looked forward to a sack of White Castle hamburgers after crossing the MacArthur bridge into St. Louis at dawn. 
This was our reward after a long and tedious drive.  Back in the 1950's a hamburger only cost 10 cents.  Quite the bargain for a family on a budget!
Home to my relatives on both sides of the family, we would travel by car each Summer holiday and reunite with Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins.   

While other families toured the Grand Canyon, visited California's Disneyland or sunbathed on Florida beaches, we camped out in our relatives living rooms on old canvas army cots. 
Because our family was "super sized" we were farmed out to various relatives and sometimes never saw another sibling til it was time to go home.

6638 Pernod

Grandpa and Grandma's home in South St. Louis became the hub of our activities.
Everything was special about this home- from Uncle Lowell's hideaway attic bedroom to the vintage bar lounge in the basement.  It had everything from a player piano to an authentic juke box! The original stain glass windows in the front of the house still remain today.

St. Louis is known for its smouldering heat waves and high humidity and there was no air conditioning in either the cars or homes in those days.  The quaint old  fans with their sharp metal blades always had the potential to slice off a curious finger. They were strategically placed throughout the houses to improve the ventilation.

My father would travel at night for two main reasons: convenience and financial constraints.

We drove straight through with minimal distractions-only a quick refill of coffee or petrol.
Pricey hotels and hungry mouths made night time traveling a necessity.  Also this prevented the incessant and pestering "Are we there yet?" from whiny children who were bored from a long day of confinement.

My parents sat in the front seat with an infant snuggled in Mom's arms and a toddler or two packaged between them. 
She could juggle a baby bottle and change a diaper  while handing out bologna and butter sandwiches! (no Purell in those days~)

Most of the  kids slept throughout the entire 12 hour excursion. 

Piled up on the seats and floor boards, we jockeyed for the best positions.  Gas fumes  and the pollution from my Dad's chain smoking probably sedated us into a coma like stupor.

No freeways, no seat belts, no motels.... it was primitive at best.  
But boy, did we look forward to our vacations and road trips with unbridled enthusiasm!

The cast of characters was endless.  
Grandpa and Grandma Miller were the royal head of the clan on my Mother's side.  
Nic was in the meat packing business and we always had a freezer full of authentic "Grandpa's hot dogs".  
Grandpa Nic raised dozens of colorful roses, proudly displayed on trellises along the sides of his garage.  
Before they settled in St. Louis, my grandparents had lived in Chicago and my Grandpa worked for the original Oscar Mayer!
Interesting tidbits: Grandpa was wounded in the war, sang in a barber shop quartet and had a tattoo of a hula girl on his  arm.  He would flex his muscles and make her dance for us!!

Grandma Otillie was the kindest person on earth and was always good to me.  
I adored her more than anyone or anything!
She lost a child (Ronnie) shortly after his first birthday and never fully recovered from her grief.  
We shared a mutual love and respect for dogs.
My mother had 3 brothers and a younger sister.
Judy (my namesake) was only ten years older than me and more like a sister than an Aunt. We played together with my older brother Skipper in the backyard pool on those hot summer days.
Aunt Judy was adorable and talented.  I can remember accompanying my Grandma to her dance lessons.  They dressed her up like a little "Shirley Temple" in sparkly costumes.  
Aunt Judy was also blessed with a sweet voice that could melt butter.  

Aunt Judy married her high school sweetheart (Gerald Mueller) whose family owned hundreds of acres of land and grew a variety of vegetables .  I still remember my brothers out in the fields playing war and using warm ripe tomatoes as their weapons of choice.  

He also raised poinsettias and other beautiful flowers in his many green houses.  Uncle Gerry is gentle and soft spoken but he possesses a playful sense of humor and wit. 

They have three children: Jeff, Julie and Andy.

My Mom's older brother Warren was married to Justine.  I probably spent the most time at their home  in Manchester. Uncle Warren was the family clown, always ready with a joke.  He lived to laugh! He founded the Miller Ham company.  Aunt Justine was rather sour and prickly on the outside but a real marshmallow on the inside.  I  remember her warm and never ending hugs as the best I have ever had.  She was a fabulous cook.  Her homemade German Potato salad still makes my taste buds tingle from the mere memory! They had 4 children: Sally, Ron, Brenda and Sherry.

My Uncle Lowell was married to Marian.  He was Dr. Miller and worked for Marion Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company.  
Uncle Lowell always joked that he named his wife after his company!
He had also spent some time with the Ralston Purina Company and kept my Grandma supplied with the many rescue dogs she kept beneath her back porch.  (They were cocker spaniels with names like Gold Chief, Silver chief and Princess.  Certainly had a consistent theme going!)
Lowell was a wiz in the stock world and became a Kazillionaire :-). Marian was one of the classiest women of her Era.  She graduated from college back in the days when most women barely graduated from high school.
Uncle Lowell still has a quirky sense of humor and is a world traveler. He lost his right eye in a childhood accident when he was only four.  (The story goes he and a slightly older child were fighting over Uncle Lowell's toy rake and he got poked in his eye.  It became infected and he later had to have it removed!)  But This certainly didn't impede his ambition and success. They had two children: Lowell Jr. and Jeanette.

My Grandma (Katerina/Katherine) Kucera was the matriarch of her family. 
My grandfather (Jan/John) died before we were born. He was only 57 years old.
Grandma Kucera was rather reserved and self composed. She rarely laughed and was kinda scary from my child's perspective. (She had suffered a very hard life and probably had little to laugh about!) But her smile was sweet and always present.
I remember the wonderful aromas that hung in her kitchen while she baked her Vianocka (raisin bread).  Grandma scribbled her loving signature "XOX" at the bottom of all her cards.  She wore a hearing aid and spoke mainly Slovak. I remember her long hair that she would comb out at night and then coil up into a bun during the day.  (Whenever my dad and grandma conversed long distance, they would shout so LOUDLY you would think they were projecting their voices across the miles without a phone!)
She was born in the city of Bratislava in what was then the Austrio-Hungarian Empire in Central Europe. It would later become the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia in 1918.
Grandma made many crossings back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. My grandparents would save up their hard earned money and then sail back to their homeland to help their poor relatives. My dad was born in 1921 during one of those pilgrimages in which the town burned down and his parent's visas expired. They were stranded there for seven years! 

Another interesting story was that my grandparents and Aunt Kate were passengers on one of the ships that went to the rescue of the Titanic survivors in 1912.  I am sure they were stuck down in third class steerage  along with the other struggling emigrants. 

shortly after arriving back in USA late 1920's

Grandpa Kucera was a glassblower by trade with Anheuser Bush.   When prohibition was declared in 1920, he lost that job and later had to work in a steel foundry.  He lost the tip of his finger and sustained a serious injury to his leg in industrial accidents. There were no lawsuits or six figure settlements back in those days. I am certain his septic wound contributed to his demise. He died in his 50's  from lung cancer. Grandpa had been a heavy smoker and even rolled his own cigarettes with a little machine.  
An interesting side note:  they never drove or owned a car-  used the street cars, trolleys or had to walk everywhere they went!
Dad had 4 sisters.  
Aunt Kate was one of the most precious and dearest women ever.  She was left behind in Bratislava when she was just a toddler and didn't return to the United States until she was 16.  The explanation given  was that her grandparents had insisted she stay to assure her parents return to "the old country". Talk about emotional blackmail. 
My Aunt Marie was also kept apart from her family and forced to grow up with relatives in Europe.  This was a source of resentment for her in later years.
I will never understand parents abandoning their children but the times were hard, this was a foreign land and customs difficult to comprehend.
Aunt Kate married Paul Shebik.  

Uncle Paul and Aunt Kate

Uncle Paul was larger than life and had traveled by steamer to exotic faraway lands.  They had two daughters: Dolores and Patti.  She lived to the ripe old age of 97! 
I correspond today with cousin Patti and enjoy a cyber friendship.  She was a contemporary of Aunt Judy's and they attended Lutheran High School Central together with Uncle Gerry.  Patti's husband Herm became a Math teacher in the Lutheran high school system.  What a small world!

Dad and his sisters

Aunt Emily was very shy and lived a quiet private life. She married Blase Susnic.  He was a baker.  They made donuts out of their own home.  My aunt once suffered sever burns from stepping in a vat of hot oil on the floor.
My Uncle Blase was a pilot in his younger years and flew over the fields in a prop plane.
He had to move out to  the country when his lungs were damaged from flour.
They had a large farm  populated with every animal you could imagine.  
There were parades of geese and ducks that would shadow you around the property, horses, dogs, cats, etc.  I was in HEAVEN when I got to stay there! Altho I could have done without the little country mice that lived in the walls of their farmhouse.
I can still remember Uncle Blase calling the cows to eat.  They were like trained dogs and came a running when he entered the pasture.

With no inside plumbing, we were quickly introduced to the "outhouse" and its unforgettable stench.  
They had six kids: Blase Jr, Carol, David, Jim, Susan and Johnny!   The youngest girl "Susie" was just a few months older than me and  a childhood favorite. We even had matching cowboy hats and dresses made by our grandma Kucera.
Although they didn't have a lot of money and worked very hard, they always treated us to a day at the Meramec Caverns when we visited Sullivan, Mo.  I remember the dancing chickens and endless bins of special gem stones.

Aunt Marie was 27 years old when she married a Lutheran minister twelve years her senior (Joseph Fabry)  but he died in his early fifties and she never remarried.  They adopted a son Tim.  Aunt Marie was an energetic ball of fire!  She was always in perpetual motion and had a green thumb.  Her roses and garden were awesome and flourished under her loving care.  She also had a beautiful voice and sang in the church choir well into her senior years.  Her signature dish was a delicious chop suey prepared in a pressure cooker.

Aunt Marie and Aunt Ruth 

The baby of the family is Aunt Ruth.  Two of her older sisters were already married when she was born.  In fact, her sister Kate was pregnant at the same time as her mother!  Her father died while she was just a young teenager.  
She  married Nick Zipay (another Lutheran minister)  but they later divorced.  She has 5 children: Nick, Mark, Ruth, Rebeccah and Joel.  Cousin Joel carried on "the family business" and became a Lutheran minister.

Aunt Ruth was always a hard worker.  She raised her children and then went on to become a Lutheran school teacher!  Like her mother before her, Aunt Ruth is a wonderful cook and preserves the treasured recipes such as Haluski and Slovak pastries.  My favorite is her crescent walnut cookie called a Roszke-   little horn.
As the sole survivor, Aunt Ruth is the keeper of her family's stories and traditions. 
One such tale describes the time she traveled from Missouri to Virginia in 1946 to attend my father's installation service.  Accompanied by her mother, sister and brother in law, she patiently sat with the women in the back of my Uncle Blase's bakery truck on make shift benches.

the Susnic bakery truck

No frills, no cell phones, no hotels... they must have been so uncomfortable on those hard wooden seats!   Can you imagine traveling for days through mountains and back roads under those conditions?  Not even a working radio for entertainment. 
Little improvement from the early days of the wagon train!
Today we have cushy upholstered  seats, air conditioning and cruise control- not to mention Satellite radio, built in DVD players,  Iphones, and state of the art navigation systems!!  
We take for granted all these privileges and modern day conveniences.  
Our ancestors would be astonished to learn of these inventions and luxuries that we enjoy today.

So hats off to you, our adventuresome forefathers, for boldly preparing the way for future generations of explorers.
And a grateful and heartfelt thank you for feeding us, sheltering us, entertaining us and loving us. 
We sincerely embrace our heritage and realize how blessed we are to have been born into this special family.
Your sacrifice and generosity will long be remembered.