‘HER CHILDREN ARISE AND CALL HER BLESSED’

By Daniel Flyger

Antonia Konechne Klima Hirsch Pesicka was such a woman.

Antonia was born Feb. 4, 1851, in Moravia. She married Ignatz “Nick” Klima. Both families were descended from a long line of “Hussites”, the spiritual followers of Jan Hus, the great Czech reformer who lived a full hundred years before Martin Luther. These evangelical believers called themselves “Unitas Fraterum” which is Latin for Unity of the Brethren.

This pre-Reformation sect had survived persecution in their homeland; many having come to Pennsylvania in the 18th century. Nick and Antonia’s ancestors were among pockets of the group which had secluded themselves to remote villages in what is today the Czech Republic.

Having heard of the opportunity for “free” farmland and freedom to openly practice their faith in America, the young family saved enough to book passage to the U.S. with all their possessions in one small trunk.

Among the items in the trunk was a Czech Bible printed in 1845. This Bible and her strong Christian faith sustained Antonia through life’s tragedies.

The young couple and their five small children booked passage to America in 1885. Their destination was Dakota Territory where distant relatives had already settled between Tabor and Tyndall. With his young family safe aboard the ship, Ignatz left the ship to secure some food for their passage. They were traveling in steerage and he discovered they had to supply their own food for the trip. It was during this time Ignatz was mugged and severely beaten. Shortly after his attack, some men brought him to the ship so he could sail with his family to the Land of Opportunity. Ignatz died aboard the ship due to his injuries and was buried at sea. Antonia was left with five small children – the youngest but a baby –and no husband, no home, and no money.

Unable to speak English, the family arrived in New York with hope in the Lord as their only asset. How was Antonia to provide for her children and make it halfway across the North American continent?

God provided through the generosity of the other passengers, even though they were very poor themselves. Knowing of the young widow’s desperate circumstances, the passengers collected enough money to purchase train tickets for

Antonia and her children to travel to Yankton, Dakota Territory. Upon arrival in Yankton, she was able to find someone who spoke Czech who helped her find a cousin living near Tabor.

News of her plight spread. Joseph Hirsch from near Tyndall had lost his wife and he had five motherless children. Antonia and Joseph married out of convenience and, in 1887, had a son they named Adolph.

But tragedy struck again. On January 10, 1888, Joseph and Antonia butchered a hog. They borrowed a wash tub from a neighbor to use in making sausage. The morning of the next day, Joseph set off on foot to return the tub to the neighbors. By afternoon, the infamous blizzard of 1888 struck. Joseph’s frozen body was found on the prairie some days later. Now Antonia was left with six children of her own plus five stepchildren.

An older couple by the name of Reich had heard of her situation. The Reichs showed up at her door and offered to take one of the children to raise as their own. They had but three requirements: the child needed to be a young girl, she must have blue eyes, and she must not have red hair. Little Frances fit the bill. There were many tears at the parting. Frances only spoke Czech. The Reichs spoke German. Antonia tried to console the girl in Czech and they parted.

Two years later, Antonia was to visit the girl whom the Reichs renamed Emma. This time there were tears again for mother and daughter because Antonia spoke Czech, but the child had forgotten the Czech language and could only speak German.

News of her situation again spread and another Czech man, Michael Pesicka, who had homesteaded near Lakeport, S.D., in Yankton County had lost his wife and had seven children. He and Antonia married, and she became stepmother to this family and also had her own children from her two previous marriages.

It was reported by one of the Pesicka stepchildren that “Antonia was a kindhearted, hard-working, deeply devout Christian who was a mother to this large brood.”

Michael and Antonia had two daughters together: Rose and

Antonie. Michael died in 1900. The farm was heavily mortgaged and so Antonia had to vacate their home. She took the children who were not married and moved to her stepdaughter’s home. The youngest of Michael Pesicka’s daughters by his first wife had married and moved to Charles Mix County where many Czechs had taken advantage of homesteads made available on what had been the Yankton Indian Reservation.

Antonia and the family who was still with her and her sons from her first marriage found land to rent near Lake Andes. While there, death again knocked at their door, and 14-year-old daughter Rose Pesicka died.

With her faith in God and pioneering determination, Antonia and her children took advantage of homestead land available west of the Missouri River, where they settled near Belvidere.

Antonia lived a difficult life there in western South Dakota, turning the sod and pioneering in a barren land so different from the lush hills of her home in Moravia. She did all the things a pioneer farm woman did in those days – kept a big garden, canned, raised poultry, milked cows, butchered, sewed clothes, cooked meals on a wood stove and lived without the modern comforts of electricity and running water. She raised not only her own children from three marriages, but also the half-orphaned children of two other families, instilling in them her values and faith. As Proverbs says, “She looks well to the way of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

Antonia remained at Belvidere until graduating to heaven in 1929 at the age of 78. Many of her descendants live in the Belvidere area until this day. Other descendants of her own children and the children she helped raise are scattered across South Dakota and other states.

The worn and soiled pages of her old Czech Bible still speak to us of her faith. It is evident she loved and read the Psalms a lot. In addition, the Bible naturally falls open to the 14th chapter of Job. No doubt she could identify with the first verse which says, “Man is a few days and full of trouble.” Her life was one of trouble yet she experienced that God doesn’t always remove us from our trials and tribulations but He brings us through them.

Antonia no doubt found words of hope and comfort in the rest of Job 14 that says “Though we die, yet by faith, we will live again.”

The impact of her Christian faith is still felt by the descendants today – not only of her own children but also the descendants of the children she helped raise.

As Proverbs 31 Verse 28 says of a virtuous woman: “Her children arise and call her blessed.”