The Vokouns of Chicagoland

This is a story of legends, visions, saints, kingdoms and hazel nuts. Premyslid Coat of Arms, the Flaming Black Eagle The history of Bohemia continues. I promise that there will a point to the history as it relates to Bohemian and our family's immigration to America. After fall of Rome, the Celts intermixed with Slavish tribes of Eastern Europe and Europe fell into the Dark Ages. Czech national identity and Czech statehood arose during the emergence from the Dark Ages. Just like the King Arthur and the rise of British identity began with Dark Age legend, so too it does with the Czechs. The beginning of the Czech people begins with the legend of Přemysl and Princess Libuše.  The Chronica Boëmorum , written in Latin by Cosmas, a priest from Prague, in the 12th century, gives us the story. It describes the first inhabitants of Bohemia as a people who lived very simply and did not know alcohol, marriages, private property or weapons. However, as time passed, they came to embrace injust...

 I'll bet you don't know what a cordwainer is. Neither do I, actually. I had to look it up. A cordwainer is someone who makes new shoes using new leather. A cobbler, on the other hand, is someone who repairs shoes. You can thank the British for codifying the difference. Until I wrote this, I had never before considered the possibility of making my own shoes. Alas, the practice is still alive. If inclined you can make yourself a pair through The Cordwainer Shop . Jan Vokoun the family patriarch didn't inherit the family land. So as was apparently the custom in Bohemia, he learned a trade and became a mistr obuvnický, i.e. a master shoemaker. Rudolph was the son who learned his father's trade. Rudolph Vokoun was born  April 17, 1860 to Jan Vokoun and Anne Bechyne. He was the couple's third child after Vaclav and Frantisek (Frank) and the second to survive to adulthood. After the family immigrated he was the oldest child living at the tenement on Forquer Street in 1880...