On Saturday, June 7, 1997, over 130 members and guests braved the rainy weather to attend our regular meeting held this month at the Beacon Hill Retirement Complex in Lombard, Illinois. Our speaker, Dr. James Krokar, an Associate Professor at DePaul University spoke on "The Decision to Come to America: Immigration from Europe, Austria Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Lands."
With the aid of several map handouts, Dr. Krokar traced the internal migrations of slavic peoples within the Austrian Hungarian empire over two hundred years, and how the various slavic peoples within were affected by the changing political boundaries.
He gave a very thorough analysis of the many reasons people were influenced to move and concentrated on how the Czechs and Slovaks, particularly after the 1848 political upheaval in the Austro Hungarian lands, were motivated to move to America.
Dr. Krokar was kept busy answering questions even into the social hour after the formal program where a beautiful dessert table was again set by Hospitality chairperson, Louise Rokos, and member Catherine Hartzel with the delicious pastries donated by several members.