Šmartno, Gonjače, St. Florian/Steverjan and Nova Gorica

After our hearty meal, we traveled around the Brda area, which is a wine growing region on the Italian border. The countryside is hilly, lush and green. No land is wasted - something productive occupies every plot. Dense stands of trees border the fields and terraced vineyards grow on hillsides. Flowers line the roads and spill out of window boxes. Why would anyone leave this paradise?

Petra's commentary answered those questions. Small roads, built by the Italians to move munitions during World War I, were everywhere - if you didn't know your way around, you could get lost. In each village were vacant spaces where a church, school or a home had been - shelled and never rebuilt. There were also plaques, signs, statues and memorials to those lost in both World Wars. Many of these communities have rebuilt after centuries of conflicts. Šmartno is one such town.

Šmartno is an the architectural jewel built on Roman foundations, and a former medieval military fortress on the Italian border. The walled village with five towers sits on a panoramic hill, perfect for observing any approaching armies. Today Šmartno is a renovated village and one of the most beautiful cultural monuments in Slovenia.

 Fortress in the city of Smartno

The town of Gonjače is at the top of another hill. Here is the bronze monument dedicated to the 315 citizens of Brda who gave their lives in WWII. The tower at Gonjače has 144 stairs which bring you to the breathtaking view of  the Julian and Carnian Alps, the Friulian plain to the West, the Trieste Gulf to the South, and the Vipava Valley to the east.

 

Lookout tower and World War II
memorial at Gonjače

The village of St. Florian is now in Italy (although only Slovenes live there) and is known as Števerjan. The church of St. Floriano was badly damaged by shells during World War I and painstakingly rebuilt. The region also suffered greatly during World War II. A monument adjacent to the church was dedicated in 1946 and honors those who died at home, in Italy, in concentration camps, or in partisan divisions.

 

Church of St. Floriano in Steverjan

Monument to the brave citizens of World War II in Steverjan
Both photos by Dejan Valentincic

The town of Nova Gorica is a microcosm of an area that has been shaped by conflict. Before World War II, farmers from the surrounding villages took their produce to sell in the "big" market in Gorica. The town of Gorica was given to Italy after the war and spelled Gorizia. In 1947, Communists constructed Nova "New" Gorica in Slovenia. The train station says it all: on one side of the station is Gorizia, Italy, and on the other side is Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

 

Train station in Nova Gorica and Gorizia

 

Finding Andrej Jakin

Everyone in Globeville called my grandpa “Andy Jackson.” He and my grandma lived in a small house on Sherman Street in the shadow of I-70, with its constant traffic, noise, vibration, and dirt. Nearby meatpacking plants provided both jobs and a stench that would keep residents indoors, even during the summer. 
But their tiny back yard was a bulwark against its gritty, industrial surroundings. There were cherry, pear and peach trees, and grape vines that wound along a fence. Raspberry bushes and strawberry plants were arranged in tidy sections, and beans, peas, cucumbers, and tomatoes climbed a hand-made trellis. There were phlox, dahlias, roses, daisies, pansies, violets, geraniums and the exotic oleander that grandpa carefully coaxed in Colorado’s arid climate. Chickens aggressively ate the feed grandma scattered from her apron and dutifully provided handsome brown eggs. Grandpa said it was just like his home in “the old country,” a magical place with vineyards, orchards and olive groves. I loved listening to his stories, but was too young to ask him more meaningful questions about his growing up or his family. When he died in 1961, it was the end of that world. My grandma died in 1967 and all the stories evaporated.
But there were photos in the piano bench, some labeled, some mislabeled and many with no identification. There were postcards from family in Goriza, Cerovo and St. Florian from 1902 to 1906 to Johan Korsic and Andrej Jakin, who shared the same address on Watervliet Street in Globeville. Copies of receipts show that money was sent to family back home, and there were a few surviving letters from relatives in Slovenia.

Andrej and Ida Jakin are best man and maid of honor
in the 1906 wedding of Leopold and Teresa Korsic.

 

1906 postcard to Johan Korsic and Andrejo Jakin in Globeville 

 Money sent to relatives in Cerovo, Slovenia 1902

My husband Russ and I attend Holy Rosary Church and that is where we met sisters Julie and Teresa, whose maiden name is Korsic. This led to many discussions about our families. Leopold Korsic and Andrej Jakin were close friends who arrived the same year (1902) from the same town (Gornje Cerovo) in what was then Austria Hungary. Both settled and worked in Globeville, raised their families in the neighborhood and attended Holy Rosary Church. Korsics were able to maintain contact with their family in “the old country,” whereas the Jakin family lost touch after the Germans burned their home during World War II. 
For several years we joked about going to Slovenia and finding out more about our background. The more we talked, the more real the idea seemed. Julie and Teresa renewed their contacts with the Korsics in Slovenia and plans were made to visit in July 2019. More to come...

Immigrants and American Flags

How many American flags are in each of these photos? They seem almost as prominent as the people in the photos and they are just as significant. 

The first photo was taken of the ten-year-old Western Slavonic Association, a fraternal insurance organization that provided sick and death benefits for its members. The delegates to this convention in Leadville in 1919 are proud that their society survived and had been growing for a decade. In addition, members of the Western Slavonic wanted to make a strong statement about their loyalty to their new country.

After World War I, Americans sought to distance themselves from the rest of the world and turned inward. The Great War had cost American lives, but had failed to make the world safe for Democracy. The violence and anarchy of the Bolshevik Revolution was the last straw.

While the United States had welcomed and even recruited immigrants from the 1880s to World War I, it seemed time to be much more selective, and Globeville's immigrants received increased scrutiny.

Who were these people anyway? Slovenes? Croats? Their passports said Austria. And German Russians - were they German or Russian? Carpatho-Russians? Are they Bolsheviks?

These groups had large families, were Papists (Catholic) or Orthodox, clannish, and came from regions of the world rife with revolutions and assassinations. They might be anarchists! And they didn't speak English.

Even though many of their sons had served in the U. S. military during World War I, ethnic groups in Globeville were suspect. Aware of the distrust leveled at them, people prominently displayed American flags at church and lodge gatherings. A strong statement to emphasize their loyalty. 

 1919 convention of the Western Slavonic Association

Gathering of Serboban Lodge

Polish National Alliance, May Day parade on Washington Street

Red Scare 1920s

They were misunderstood from the beginning. The newcomers had large families, were Catholic or Orthodox, had come from regions in eastern Europe and Russia that were riddled with anarchists, and didn't speak English. Were the Volga Deutsche German? Or Russian? Why was Holy Transfiguration Church topped with a gold onion dome? Who are the Carpatho-Rusyns? 


Immigrants in Globeville had been recruited by smelters, railroads and the beet industry during the economic boom of the 1880s to supply cheap, abundant labor. After the economic downturn in 1893, they were not welcome and retreated to their enclaves, worshiping in old-world churches, socializing with people from the same region of Europe, and congregating in their ethnic saloons, which increased suspicion and misunderstanding.

The devastation of World War I and Spanish Influenza caused Americans and Coloradans to pull back from foreign entanglements. The war had not made the world "safe for democracy" - Europe was still in turmoil - and the Bolshevik's revolt in Russia resulted in civil war, famine and Communist rule. Anything and anyone associated with Bolsheviks, anarchists, foreign agitators, or radical labor unions were considered dangerous.

In the mind of the public, unions were linked with violence, anarchy and Communism. People remembered that smelter workers in Globeville, members of the Mill and Smeltermen, (a subsidiary of the Western Federation of Miners) had participated in the violent strikes in 1903. Labor unrest after World War I, supposedly incited by Bolsheviks spurred the Colorado legislature to pass a law in 1919 forbidding the display of the “red flag” in public. The headquarters of the International Workers of the World in Pueblo were raided and suspected radicals rounded up; and in Denver an ordinance was passed forbidding any person from speaking in a manner that could incite “rebellion.” The most dramatic example of the “red scare” occurred in the summer of 1920, when unionized employees of the Denver Tramway Company went on strike to protest wage cuts. When the company imported strikebreakers, violence erupted, cars were overturned and burned in downtown Denver. In the public's opinion, unions were violent and dangerous.
 
Residents of Globeville took notice of public opinion. Fraternal organizations displayed large American flags during their gatherings, and many business hung American flags in their windows. Some people left Transfiguration Russian Orthodox Church, while others
“Americanized” their names - Staresinich was shortened to “Star,” Snidersich changed to “Snyder,” Yakin became “Jackson.” 

Gradually the “red scare” subsided, but the negative attitudes toward immigrants remained. Bowing to the growing fear that people from eastern Europe threatened the nation's very existence, Congress passed a law in 1924* that effectively ended immigration from eastern Europe.

* The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. 

 

1921 Convention WSA, Pueblo

Photo used with written permission from Joseph Skrabec

 

Sjedinjenih "One for All" Orthodox Lodge

used with written permission from Steve Machuga

Polish Constitution Day Parade, 1940

used with written permission from Jan Gisewski Garland

Globeville and The Great War

“Globeville Smiles Despite War That Rages in Europe” proclaimed the August 2, 1914 headline in the Denver Post. The Post continued, “There are 600 foreigners working side by side at the Globe Smelter. Austrians, Servians, Prussians, Bohemians, Greeks, Italians, Germans, Montenegrans, almost every nation of Europe is represented. Officials at the Globe Smelter felt no little anxiety when hostilities broke out between Austria and Servia[sic]." There was an expectation that old national loyalties would lead to confrontations and violence in the community.
But Globeville's immigrants felt no loyalty to Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia, the empires that had annexed and suppressed their native countries. Many had come to America to avoid the constant wars of Europe, and to avoid mandatory service in the army of their oppressors. The Post elaborated, “John Domitsky, an intelligent Austrian, declared, ‘The foreigners in this community came here to stay . . . these fellows are much more interested in earning their bread and butter here in Globeville than they are in fighting over the murder of a crown prince and a princess in Austria or Servia’.” 1
There were unavoidable repercussions of the war, however, as travel and communication between the Old Country stopped. In February, 1914, five year old John Werner, his sisters and his mother arrived from Sussanental, Russia and joined his father in Longmont with the hope that their grandparents and uncles would join them in September. They never saw rest of the family again.
As the war continued, there were other consequences. Reports of German atrocities were circulated and anti-German feeling reached a fever pitch in the nation. People of German heritage were suspected of being disloyal or subversive and many people were harassed. “English only” legislation was enacted in Denver, German books were burned, and classes in the German language were no longer taught in the Denver public schools. By the time the United States entered the war in April 1917, the suspicion of all things German had reached Globeville.
The fact that worship services in the three Volga-German churches in the community were conducted in the German language had never been an issue before, but war hysteria called attention to the situation. When the patriotism of the congregation was questioned, minister John Strohecker and Matthew Eagleton, the principal of Garden Place School, invited Mayor Speer of Denver and other city officials to attend a Sunday service at the First German Congregational Church. Two hours of preaching and singing must have convinced the dignitaries that there was no disloyalty in Globeville. Perhaps Matthew Eagleton pointed out that George Lauck, Henry Kilthau Jr., and John Reisbeck had enlisted in the armed forces of their adopted country, or called attention to other contributions to the war effort by the citizens of Globeville. Services continued to be held in German. 2.
The abdication of Russia's Czar Nicholas II March 2, 1917, took Russia out of the conflict and aided the Axis powers. and cut support for Globeville's Transfiguration Orthodox Church, which was funded by Czar Nicholas himself (the bells in the cathedral were a personal gift of the Czar). As the Bolsheviks gained power, Globeville's Carpatho-Russians also came under suspicion and many changed their names to sound more American. Photos of church or lodge events included large American flags as a backdrop.

Two men, Martin Clements and John Wysowatcky, would sacrifice their lives for their country as Globeville and the rest of the nation would be forever changed by the Great War.
1. “Globeville Smiles Despite War That Rages in Europe,” Denver Post, August 2, 1914

2. First German Congregational Church, Diamond Jubilee. 1894-1969. by Chester G. Krieger, Schwartz Printing Company, Denver, Colorado pg 26 

Western Slavonic members proudly display their American flag

Lest we forget

The veterans memorial in Argo Park is dedicated to those servicemen from Globeville who lost their lives in service to their country. Two of those men, Martin Clements and John Wysowatcky, were killed in the last weeks of World War I. Martha Kulik Birch remembered, “We all came down in the hallway at Garden Place School and Smitty [John] Wysowatcky and Albert Metzger were standing in their uniforms with their big hats, and we gave them a concert before they left for war. We sang, ‘Tenting tonight, tenting tonight, tenting on the old camp ground.’ Before it ended, Smitty was killed with only two more weeks until the armistice. His mother said she knew something was wrong, even before they got the official notice, because a bird came in the house and flew all around the upper part of the ceiling and went out. John used to light the chandelier in the church before services. It was an omen.”

Martin John Clements was born in 1893, enlisted in the army in May, 1917 and attained the rank of sergeant with the Medical Corps of Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary Forces. He died August 23, 1918 as a result of wounds received in action near Chateau Terra.

John Wysowatcky was also born in 1893 and enlisted in the army in April, 1917. Serving in the infantry with the American Expeditionary Forces, he was killed in action in Argonne Forest, October 23, 1918 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

Photo, top, Veterans Memorial, Mary Lou Egan

Middle photo, Martin John Clements, from Globeville Veterans Club booklet

Bottom photo, John Wysowatcky from Globeville Veterans Club booklet