This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/lRC.2ACE/3487 Message Board Post: WALSH HERITAGE: VOL 2 1881-1981 PAGE 996 - 997 FRANK VEJTASA Frank and his wife, Frances, were both born in Moravia which is now included in Czechoslovakia. Frank was born 18 Oct 1855. He came to Omaha, Nebraska in 1880. He drove a one-horse street car there for two years. during this time, his greatest ambition was to get to North Dakota and to homestead. after two years in Omaha, he saved enough money to build himself a covered wagon, buy a team of horses and he and a friend: Henry Schneckloth, started for North Dakota. In the summer of 1882, they arrived in Grafton and found settlements and the land all taken up, but were told that if they kept going west they would find free land. Upon arriving about 3.5 miles east of where Fairdale now stands, he started a homestead and a tree claim there. Frank's closest neighbors were an Indian camp about a half a mile west of his homestead. There was lots of buffalo and good prairie grass, so Frank built a sod house, dug a well and settled down. In 1884, Frank married a young nurse, Frances Svoboda. She was born 11 Nov 1870 and was 10 years old when she came to America. Her parents settled in Fairdale. Two of her sisters were: Mrs Frank Hosna of Adams and a Mrs Zeman fra Lankin. Both Frank and Frances spoke the Bohemian and German language very well. No one knows how many years the buffalo had roamed the prairies as one of the first jobs was to clear the fields and hay sloughs by picking up their bones. One summer Frank and Frances picked 11 loads of buffalo bones and hauled them 50 miles round trip to Park River and got one dollar a load, the wagon box full. Most of them were picked up in one slough. It remains a mystery why so many buffalo had died in this one slough. In the photograph of Frank and Frances, he is wearing a coat that was made out of the first buffalo that Frank killed on the North dakota prairie, the mittens were also made fra the same buffalo hide. There were many hardships those early years. Frances has told that when she was home alone, plowing with a walking plow and a baby strapped to her back, a group of Indians came and begged her for some treats. So she tied up the horses, went into the house and made them each a sandwich of sorts and they left in a happy mood. The settlers got the land free but as they had to have equipment to farm, they had to borrow money fra the banks and to do so had tomortgage their land. So many of their crops used to freeze up in those days and when the farmers couldn't pay up, they would lose their land. Nearly all of the homesteaders were using oxen for power but Frank had a team of horses that he brought fra Nebraska. But after two straight years of frozen crops in order to save his land, he had to sell the horses and go back to oxen for a couple of years. Horses were worth lots of money in those years. The Indians had spotted ponies, too small for farm work. Pretty soon there were sod houses springing up in the prairies and new neighbors were coming in and settling about two miles apart. Slowly but surely, the Indians and buffalo startedmoving out. Cowboys used to come and pick up cattle fra the homesteaders, run them about 20 miles west, graze them all summer, and bring them back in the fall for $5.00 a head. The settlers had to plow fire breaks around their homes. If not, they took a chance they could lose all that they had. Among the settlers there would always be some good musicians and singers. They would gather at farmsteads for weekend parties and would really have a good time. There were many peddlers, gypsies and beggars around. Vlast remembers when he was still a very little boy he gave a beggar all the money he had in the world - one dime. The country doctors were so very faithful. They would travel in blizzards and all sorts of bad weather to take care of the sick. By 1918 the Vejtasa farm was considered one of the outstanding farms in Walsh County. Vlast being in the 4-H remembers the many 4-H shows being held there. The showing consisted of beautiful Percheron horses, Shorthorn cattle, Chester White hogs and Hampshire sheep. Already in those years, Frank had an orchard, so when the family picked all the apples, plums and cherries that the family could use up through the winter, then the people fra surrounding towns would come out and get all they wanted. Son Frank had a musuem on the place and also there were many large pens of fur-bearing animals. He was also a taxidermist and stuffed alot of animals and birds in the community. Much of his artwork is on display at the state capitol in Bismarck and has arranged many of the specimans in their natural environment. The whole family was trained to work very hard and as the first World War broke out, two of the boys left for the Army. This placed a labor shortage on the farms and Vlast, being only 12, had to take a full man's place all around the farm and with the threshing crew. Then the war was over and the boys came home and decided to work and manage the farm. About that time everything was booming, land was selling for $75 an acre and everyone was trying to expand. People were mortgaging their property to buy more. Then came the most talked of thirties, this $75 an acre land dropped to $10 and $15 an acre. With it came seven years of drought, the market dropped out of everything. The cattle could not be wintered because there was no feed. The government took them off our hands for $20 for top cows and down to $5 a head. Hogs were $3.50 each. In 1934 the grasshoppers took the whole crop. One year we got three bushels per acre, wheat sold for 23 cents a bushel, barley for 13 cents and oats for eight cents. Top wages for harvesting and threshing were 20 cents an hour. Our beautiful farm of five quarters of land and many nice buildings were mortgaged for allit was worth. Frank's 54 years of hard labor was gone. Their Mother was gone by then, but this was very difficult for their Dad to take after accomplishing so much and all at once he had nothing, through no fault of his own. Frank and Frances Vejtasa spent 37 years together on this homestead. Eleven children were raised on this homestead, seven boys and four girls: John Vejtasa married Inga Rinnhaugen: they had seven children Frank Vejtasa married Ethel Haug: they had four children Cyril Vejtasa married Annie Lofgren: they had five children France Vejtasa remained single Anton Vejtasa remained single Marie Vejtasa married Hans Gronlie: they had ten children Antonia Vejtasa married Clarence Hendrickson they had five children Vlast Vejtasa married Rose Landsem they had two children Emelia Vejtasa remained single Bohomil Vejtasa remained single Stanley Vejtasa married Alice Anderson: they had three children Frank and Frances had 12 children. Their first born: Frank, died at the age of 3 months. In spite of all the hardships, they raised a healthy family. Vlast credits this to the good healthy soil as most of the food products had to be raised on the farm in those days. Frank and his wife resided on this homestead until the time of their deaths. Frances died 7 March 1921 and Frank died 5 Apr 1937. This farm site is still in the Vejtasa family, being owned by his grandsons: Don and Armand, sons of the late Frank Vejtasa Jr. The Vejtasa farm was noted for being a Red Fox Farm as well as a grain farm. Quite a harvest was reaped fra the pelts of the animals they raised. PHOTOGRAPH: Frank and Frances PHOTOGRAPH: Frank, Frances, Antonia, Francis, Mary and Emelia in automobile. NOTE: if you would like more information, please contact me. I own these 4 volumes on the Walsh Heritage, ND books. I will be posting the other surnames as time permits. ~~Volunteer Posting~~