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Note: John and his first wife had three children, Mary, Anna and John. His first wife then died in childbirth, giving birth to twins at the age of 27. When the cemetary was started in Pilsen, the graves, which were by the homestead near Lincolnville, were moved to the cemetary. There were three children buried there. No one knows when the other child was born. All the bones were in one grave and all that was found was tiny bones and a decayed rosary.
After his first wife died, John was unable to take care of his three small children, living on the untamed prairie, so he wrote to Spilville, Ohio, where Franciska Bednrs was living. She was 32 years old and unmarried and from his village in the Czech Republic. He wanted her to come out and be a housekeeper and take care of the children. She refused to come out without the benefit of marriage, as people would talk, so they got married. apparently it was a marriage of convenience and not love, as they never got along. She also had some trouble with her step children and resentment or inability on her part to learn to love them.
The first year John Stika lived in America, they were so ppor they couldn't buy gunpowder to load their mussle loaders, to they build traps for prairie chickens and lived on prairie chickens for meat.
John was a heavy drinker
John purchased prairie form the State of Kansas in 1887. 80 acres for $464.00
Marion County Vital Statistics, Book C, Page 73, Deaths: John Stika, Marion, Ks. Cause of death: Brights disease of kidneys, 8 months duration. Farmer, Bohemian nationality. Place of death: Marion Co. Ks. Died: Dec. 27, 1909
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