ADOLF HAVELKA

Adolf Havelka.

Born 9. 5. 1864 in Humpolec, died 16. 5. 1952 in Humpolec, grave in Humpolec (grave desecrated & destroyed in about 2016). I enquired if restoration could be permissible. Alas, the site has been leased to some other person, as indicated in this email: 

Kateřina Kocmanová 17:29 (1 hour ago) to me Dobrý den pane Hatvani, Hrob, o kterém píšete tady B-IV-11 byl paní Mičianovou v roce 2015 zrušen dopisem a urna převezena do Prahy k uložení do rodinného hrobu. Hrob byl následně pronajat dalšímu nájemci. S pozdravem Logo města Humpolec Kateřina Kocmanová Oddělení správy majetku, Odbor investic a správy majetku + 420 565 518 192 katerina.kocmanova@mesto-humpolec.cz Link http://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/DA?lang=cs&menu=3&id=3938 (Snimek 98). 

This is him at the age of 75 (approx..)

 

 

This is extract from his birth records:

Born & baptised 9. 5. 1964, out-of-wedlock son of František Havelka, who was son of František Havelka and Rosalie née Chrastová, both from Bystřice na Moravě. 

Wife Anna, née Vašáková. Children Josef (my grandfather), Marie, Emilie and Albína. His father was František Havelka from Bystřice na Moravě (see above extract), mother Josefa née Kryštůfková, from Humpolec (they married about two years after Adolf's birth). In 1921 he left the Church to become an agnostic.

He had a brother by the name of Emanuel Havelka, born in Humpolec on 18. 12. 1855, registered in https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/3937/173/2400/1080/38/0 on page 173. Of this Emanuel I have never heard anything, until prompted in 2022 by an amateur archivist who claimed that she is my distant relative. My reply to her remained unanswered.

This is him and myself at our house in Bratislava, Račianska 794, during his last visit in 1951:

He was accompanied during the visit by his grandson Jaroslav Nechanický, see picture below:

With Jaroslav’s son Robert, a medical practitioner in Semily, I have been in frequent contact since he found me on the internet some 10 years ago.

The next 'photo in front of his house at Lužická ulice, Humpolec:

 

 

Adolf was my great grandfather from the mother's side. He was a man of medium height, slim, with a somewhat prominent aquiline nose, and a raspy smoker's voice. My earliest memories of him reach to when I was about 4 or 5: of him sitting in his one room part of a house he shared with a married couple called Vacek in Lnářská ulice, Humpolec: He used to smoke a long pipe, of which he had several models displayed in a wooden stand hanging on the wall. The room, about 5 x 5 metres, with a fairly low ceiling, contained a stove, large bed in the corner, a table, a few chairs and a sitting chair by the window, and it always smelled - not unpleasantly - of stale tobacco smoke. When I was about fifteen and working during school holidays in a grain harvest in Humpolec I was sent to fetch beer. I went to his favourite pub (Na Kocourku = By the little tomcat), long since demolished, and, sure enough, he was there and I was introduced by him to the people around his table: By the way, the above pub’s name is a fine comparison of the Czech and English languages - two words against four...

Most of his working life he was employed as a cloth/fabric maker. In the early 20th century he was working as a travelling salesman. He was also involved with the publication of Právo lidu, a Czech newspaper (I heard a daily, contrary to what is written at the bottom); the extent of his involvement I am still researching. During the late 19 forties he was still working as a window blinds installer (the roll down canvass type, with vertical stripes, popular at the time). He was involved in the local labour movement, and I saw a newspaper article with his name on the wall in the Humpolec museum, next to the main church. He had a position in the local Fabric Assistants' Association and in the amateur theatre group as both organiser and an actor. His son Josef in the typewritten book "Moje pamĕti" mentions his parents as 'sitting in the house on their little farm': it was in the part of Humpolec called Luka, around the so-called Trnkova vila, as described in the local internet magazine:

 

Re: Soukenictví v Humpolci a různé povídky i příběhy VI (Hodnocení: 1) Od: pierre (pierrezacek@centrum.cz) - Sobota, 04.10. 2008 - 10:44:10 (O uživateli | Poslat soukromou zprávu) V Lukách se říká oblasti směrem od Kuchařova na Světlici. Prochází tudy ulice s dnešním jménem Lužická a před koncem této části Humpolce leží i jedna se soukenických továren s vilou (Adolf Trnka) dnes www.aso.cz , naproti přes ulici v dnešním Domově důchodců byla kdysi soukenická ubytovna a internát. V okolí v některém z rodiných domů zřejmě bydlel praděda.

 

The email above informs that the area is centred around Lužická ulice in Humpolec. His wife died a few years before I was born and I do not recall anything related to her, except I heard somewhere that she was a bit of a martinet. My aunt Ružen recalls that he used to say that since he is not allowed to do anything at home, and because of her obsession with cleanliness, he prefers spending his free time with his comrades in the trade association; they had a special room set aside for them in the above-mentioned pub. Her daughter-in-law, Julie Havelková, could not stand her, and used to call her (behind her back, of course) a "biskura", an obscure derogatory term. According to her son-in-law Josef Nechanický, she was "a noblewoman in a small house". He, Josef, in turn, was not exceedingly fond of Adolf...

 

Adolf's son Josef is described in a separate article; his daughters, except Emily, I have no recollection of. They are mentioned in the typewritten book Moje pamĕti written by Josef (Albina married a man called Vanĕk and living in Krušovice, Marie married a man called Vanĕček; Albina lived in Praha-Karlín, Emily marrried a man called Josef Nechanický and lived in Humpolec, died in Jilemnice, her husband’s birthplace). I do not recall anything bad said about my great-grandfather by anybody, and I have only good memories of him: the smell of tobacco, his mocking of my imperfect Czech (at the time I used to live in the Slovakian speaking Bratislava, spending only four to eight weeks each year in the Czech speaking Humpolec); him and his son Josef launching a kite for me on a paddock near the Cihelna fish pond, a bus trip with the two from Humpolec to the nearby town and castle called Ledeč nad Sázavou, having a lunch there in a restaurant and haggling with the waiter over food coupons (which were part of the food rationing system in Czechoslovakia after the 2nd WW war). In 2014, typewritten memoirs of one of his sons-in-law (Emily's husband Josef Nechanický) came to my attention. In one passage in those memoirs Adolf is mentioned as "a man of larger format, with not much regard for his closest family, and with irregular times for regular meals." Also, "he always preferred to have some meat on his plate". During a visit of my sister in Prague in 2007 I chanced upon some of his handwriting, some 50 pages all-up. He was writing about history of fabric manufacture in Humpolec from the perspective of weaver’s assistant, which must have been one of his jobs. Also, there are photographs of him taking part in the local theatre performances. The "History of fabric making" is written in the Czech language of the period, fluently, with a few grammatical and spelling errors, suggestive of only basic (primary school ?) education.

 

This is Havelka’s family in Humpolec:

 The group photo was taken about 1928, probably near Humpolec.

FRONT ROW, L to R: Otka Havelková, ??, Gustav Havelka, Otka Škrábová, Marie Havelková (my future mother)

TOP ROW, L to R: ??, Julie Havelková, Adolf Havelka, Emilie Nechanická, Anna Havelková, Josef Nechanický, Josef Havelka, Gustav Škrába, Anežka Škrábová.

This is a sample of his handwriting. The text contains his reminiscences of the fabric making trade:

The style is a little on the lofty side, as indicated in the translation of the first 3 lines: "The town of Humpolec is for more than 400 years known in the whole world for its Loden type fabrics, for Loden type fabrics made in Humpolec are known world-wide."

In mid-2008 the type-written version of the above text has been offered to the Citizen's Association of fabric Makers in Humpolec. The offer has been eagerly accepted, and the text has been published as a serial in the local newspaper called Humpolák, in 2008 editions.

And below is him (marked by an arrow) taking part in the local drama production called Ten minutes' long alibi:

 In my possession is his handwritten list of theatre productions staged in Humpolec during (about) 1900-1910; some of the titles on the list sound fairly ambitious (a Hamlet, for instance).

Remark.

In 2014, independently of each other, I was contacted by two descendants of his: my distant niece Kateřina Kalinová from České Budĕjovice region, and Robert Nechanický from Semily, son of Jaroslav and later by Kateřina's father Karel (Krasava's son, died 2018). Both of them were seeking information about their parents, grandparents, etc., and I supplied whatever was on my hand, together with personal reminiscences. From verbal recollections of one of my relatives I learned that Adolf had his fingers in the publication of Právo lidu (People's rights), a popular two-weekly in the early 1900, for about 2 years while it was temporarily being published in Humpolec (the publication extinguished by the communist government after WW2). While (4 years long) military service was compulsory in Austria during his days I was unable to find any mention of him being in the army. Curiously, I discovered a remark of him being in Korneũburg during his travels (my grandfather Karol Hatvani spent 4 years of his military service in the same town, around the year 1900).