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Note: H2
Note: John Kocerha was born in Abranovce, Slovakia (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time). Slovakia was combined with Bohemia in 1918 following World War I. As a result of compacts signed the combined countries became the one country of Czechoslovakia. In January, 1993 these two countries separated becoming the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic.
Because John did not want to be forced to join the Army, and because he was disappointed with the Lutheran Church, he immigrated to the United States. He immigrated in 1889, as a stowaway, to Pennsylvania. He came to the United States with his friend Leo Gawresh. He first stayed with his mother's brother, George Gibber in Pennsylvania. Sometime before 1897 he traveled to Colorado. On July 12, 1897, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at Kiowa, CO. The number of the Final Certificate of Naturalization was No. 2055. Witnesses for naturalization: George Gibber, Paul Harbay. The naturalization information came from a copy of John's Naturalization Certificate.
During the 1900 Census, he was living in Starkville, Colorado just south of Trinidad, CO..... He was working there as a coal miner. The information regarding date of immigration and coal mining in Starkville is from 1900 - Colorado Census information.
By 1903 he was living in Colorado Springs, CO. He married Mary Lemesany in Janurary, 1903, and after marriage they eventually homesteaded 11 miles northwest of Calhan, CO. Mary Lemesany was told by her mother and father that she would marry John, because he would make a good provider.
Memories of Bob Kocerha -- As a child around 5 to 6 years old, I remember going to the homestead farm and seeing Grandfather John Kocerha (Zedo in Slovak language) using an axe to chop out soap weeds in the farm yard north of the house. I also remember the orchard with cherry, plum and apple trees. The orchard area also contained a large vegetable garden. Water for the farm house was supplied by a spring on the hill about 1/8 mile to the west. What delicious water we drank from a tin measuring cup. Water for the livestock was supplied by a well, pumped by the windmill in the farm yard east of the farm house. The watering trough was a hollowed out tree log about 20 feet long. The top of the hill west of the farm house was eastern edge of the ponderosa pine forest. Many family reunion picnics were held in these pine woods.
I remember in 1938, when Zedo was sick in Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs. Our family visited him there, and he held my sister Shirley and I on his knee. He died in June, 1938.
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