By Katie Patrick
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Keira and I spent a rare day with just the two of us. My brother, Father Caleb Hile, was about to be installed as the new pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Bruno and Ss. Peter and Paul in Abie. We had gone to visit him with my parents, and each of us was given tasks to help prepare the rectory and church for his installation, and for the 125th anniversary of St. Anthony Parish in Bruno.
Adding to the wonderful work of many parishioners who also led the preparations for the event, my mom helped in the church,
I cleaned ceiling fans at the rectory, my dad trimmed the bushes, and Keira washed the dishes.
Keira is happiest when she’s helping others. She loves to take care of her dolls—and her baby sister, Nora. Keira often looks after the younger children at daycare, especially if they are sad or lonely, and she always loves to help in the kitchen—pouring, mixing, washing, and rinsing.
As time went on that afternoon, we were running out of things for her to wash. Admittedly, I started to give her items she had already cleaned, because watching her stand so happily up on the chair at the kitchen sink looking out the window was too perfect a moment to end.
As I watched her, I noticed a small home just across the way. It was dilapidated, like many you see in small towns, but what I didn’t know until my mom walked into the kitchen was that my great-great-grandparents, Thomas and Pauline Rerucha, lived in that very house in the 1930s.
That moment at the sink with Keira prompted me to reflect on how far back our family roots go in Butler County. Many decades ago, my great-great-great-grandmother homesteaded in Butler County. Two months before their planned departure from Moravia in 1872, her husband John died. She continued on to America with seven of her 10 children. Her son Thomas, my great-great-grandpa, was 13 years old upon arrival. At the time, he was too young for a homestead of his own, but he worked hard as a young man and eventually secured himself a farm.
In 1886, he married Pauline Schultz at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Church in Plasi. They had 11 children, one of whom was my great-grandpa, Thomas Jr. Thomas Jr. married Sophie Rech in 1923. Their six sons—Tony, Albin, Ed, Richard, Ben (my grandpa), and Joe—helped farm.
After my grandpa returned from the Korean War, he married my grandma at St. Anthony Church in 1957. Even though the couple moved to Lincoln to start a family, their children—my mom and her sisters and brother—spent their weekends with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Bruno, David City, and elsewhere across the Bohemian Alps of Butler County. My uncle, Mike Rerucha, continues to farm family land today.
With Keira washing dishes as the sun poured in that afternoon and looking out at the home where my great-great-grandma Pauline stood, caring for her children and grandchildren, I was reminded of the many women who came before us—not only of their presence in this land, but of their determined and joyful spirit.
Knowing that my brother’s assignment means my family will, in small ways, get the chance to reconnect with our roots and with family and friends still living in the area brings me a deep sense of joy.
I would invite you to now pause and reflect on your own roots—the men and women who came before you. What trials did they face emigrating to the U.S.? From where did they come—and what were they obligated to leave behind? Perhaps it was a loved one, or land that had been in the family for generations, or maybe your family was forced to leave their home.
Today, technology distracts the mind, but I imagine back then, it was manual labor that distracted our loved ones. And yet, they experienced uncertainty, suffering and loss, and they rejoiced in the fruits of their labor, just as we do today. Their feelings and emotions, I also imagine, were quite similar to ours. Yet they seem so removed because it was long ago and we claim things were different back then. But as human persons, do we all not grieve and laugh and wonder? Are we all not part of a greater story—a chapter in time? Just as our ancestors must have looked back on those who came before them, so too, should we reflect and appreciate those who came before us and most notably what they gave us—our faith, our family, and the opportunity to be part of history.
