Czech Ghost Town: Mishak, Oklahoma

I was on a quest to find the Czech village of origin for one of my ancestors (Mariana Žídek who married František Genzer. Spoiler alert, though he was from Frenštát, she was from Brušperk).

On the way I discovered something that is definitely worth writing about: a small ghost town named Mishak, Oklahoma.

What!?

Yeah, I was surprised, too.

It wasn't actually very difficult to find her village of origin, since this family has a huge family tree in MUDr. Josef Šimíček's The Pilgrims for Hope Volum II: The emigration to America during 1856-1914 from Frenštát and Trojanovice (which you can buy here). See? Here is her birth in Brušperk.

Part of me wonders if the origin of the surname Žídek has anything to do with Jewish ancestry, or if it has to do with žízeň (thirst) - which seems unlikely - but in any case, this family was Roman Catholic, so my etymological musings are not very relevant.

Šimíček's published genealogy leaves her this way: "She died in Nov 1901 in Mishak, Ok."

So of course I plugged that place into google maps, and surprisingly, it wasn't there. I was intrigued! Where was this place?

I did a google search. The first link was to a 1988 article from the newspaper called The Oklahoman with this gloriously quaint headline: Town of Mishak Had School, Store. Something about that headline makes me smile.

I thought that maybe this town would be mentioned in Dějiny Čechův v Americe. You can read this book online for free in Czech here, or you can get an English translation from the CGSI store here.

Surprisingly, there was very little about this settlement in History of Czechs in America!

What does exist mentions "Oklahoma City", but no settlement named "Mishak", even though the book was published during this settlement's prime in 1904. I suppose that this signals either 1) that for whatever reason, there weren't as many or as strong of contacts with the Oklahoma Czechs and Habenicht, 2) the length of time between research and publishing this book was significant, or 3) Mishak was teeny tiny!

I started to do a bit more sleuthing and came across an article about Czechs in Oklahoma by the Oklahoma Historical Society.

I found it personally interesting that there was a Texas connection worthy of mention. After all, this Genzer family actually went to Texas first - to Ammannsville. Something or other (perhaps the weather?) pulled them to Oklahoma, which wasn't too frequent of a migration route, to say the least.

When doing genealogy research in a new locality, the first thing I usually do is find the familysearch wiki page about that place. It is a good general collection of all kinds of information, and has links to online genealogy records. 

Then I started looking in the 1900 census for a place called "Mishak." I didn't find it. 

I read a little more about the town and discovered on the Oklahoma Cemeteries Website that it was founded, apparently, by someone named Frank Mishak. So I just searched for him in the 1900 census and soon discovered that in 1900, it was grouped with the town of Boone.

 

See? Boone Township.

Mishak is apparently an air base today.

The Clear Springs "Mashak" Cemetery does not have my Czech relatives (nor very many people with Czech surnames at all). 

Mine were buried instead at St. Martin's Cemetery. This makes perfect sense; they would have wanted a Catholic burial, and there was apparently no Catholic church in Mishak/Boone.

By the way, my something-eth cousin Angelina Kretzchmar is confused about the very same thing that confuses me, apparently. One of the Genzer children's information seems very wrong. Was this Mary Genzer Cisak even related? The first Mary born to Mary Žídek and František Genzer was born in 1859, not 1856. Also, the couple wasn't even married until 1857 (which... doesn't necessarily mean... but you know. It would not follow the pattern). According to Šimíček, Mary Genzer born in 1859 marred Jan Zrubek (but maybe remarried Cisak?) and died in 1922 in Mishak, Oklahoma. So... is this a typo on her grave, where a 6 was confused with a 9? I am not really sure.

This is why I decided that I would make a quick index of the Czech inhabitants for the "Boone Township" in 1900, which apparently included Mishak. Here it is:

Czechs in Mishak, Oklahoma in 1900

Surname	Given Name	Relation to Head	Birth Year	Age	Children Born	Children Living	Birthplace	Immigration Year
Genzer	Ferdinand	Head	1870	29			Bohemia	1881
	Rosie	Wife	1873	26	mother of 3	3 children living	Bohemia	1881
	Ladislaf	Son	1895	4			Texas
	Jerome	Son	1897	2			Texas
	Leo	Son	1899	7/12			Texas
	Mary	Mother	1820	79			Bohemia	1881
Dvorak	John	Head	1865	35			Bohemia	1866
	Mary	Wife	1872	27	mother of 3	3 children living	Bohemia	1887
	Katie	Daughter	1891	8			Nebraska
	John	Son	1894	6			Nebraska
	Mary	Daughter	1896	4			Oklahoma
Sekova	John	Servant	1860	40			Bohemia	unknown
Kolodefcak	John	Head	1876	24			Texas
	Mary	Wife	1877	23	mother of 2	2 children living	Bohemia	unknown
	Maggie	Daughter	1896	3			Texas
	Stanley	Son	1899	8/12			Texas
Genzer	Martin	Head	1870	29			Bohemia	1881
	Mary	Wife	1875	24	mother of 4	3 children living	Bohemia	unknown
	Bozena	Daughter	1894	6			Texas
	Emil	Son	1896	4			Texas
	Martha	Daughter	1898	2			Texas
Harushe	Charles	Head	1878	21			Wisconsin
	John	Brother	1849	50			Bohemia	1853
	Mat	Brother	1881	18			Wisconsin
Hradecny	John	Head	1870	29			Bohemia	1883
	Annie	Wife	1870	29	mother of 3	3 children living	Texas
	Julius	Son	1893	6			Texas
	Helen	Daughter	1896	4			Texas
	Oldeck	Son	1898	2			Texas
Dorek	Joe	Father in law	1840	60			Bohemia	unknown
Hradecny	Francis	Mother	1843	57	mother of 7	7 children living	Bohemia	unknown
Kruta	James	Head	1860	40			Bohemia	1880
	Johanna	Wife	1866	34	mother of 9	6 children living	Bohemia	1880
	Frank	Son	1883	16			Nebraska
	Annie	Daughter	1888	12			Nebraska
	Joseph	Son	1889	10			Nebraska
	Gussie	Son	1890	9			Nebraska
	Mary	Daughter	1892	7			Oklahoma
	Helen	Daughter	1896	3			Oklahoma
	Josephine	Adopted	1892	7			Nebraska
	Frank	Adopted	1894	5			Nebraska
Brown	Joseph	Head	1833	67			Bohemia	1880
	Tracy	Wife	1842	57	mother of 4	3 children living	Bohemia	1880
Mleynek	Wesley	Head	1860	40		Farmer	Bohemia	1863
	Annie	Wife	1877	22	mother of 3	3 children living	Nebraska
	Hellen	Daughter	1893				Oklahoma
	Agnes	Daughter	1894				Oklahoma
	Frank	Son	1897				Oklahoma

Please note that I did not include the German families in this list, which was perhaps a mistake. 

In any case, you can really see that there were Czechs that came first to Nebraska, Texas, and even Wisconsin before settling in this little tiny settlement in Oklahoma.

To my great joy and amazement, I discovered that newspapers.com has heritage newspapers, including the gem "Český Oklahoman". For whatever reason, it is sort of OCRed but the search results are not included when you do a main search. This makes me wonder about if they might have other heritage newspapers that I don't know about.

Here are some ads from ~1909. They made me smile.

Are YOU interested in Texas? 

It makes me wonder why the Genzers left to go to Oklahoma. I suppose the grass is always greener. But that's... not necessarily... true of Oklahoma...

In any case, I'm so glad to have found out more about this place, and now I have another interesting mystery to solve: who is this Mary Genzer Zrubek/Cilak?

Also, I think that I very likely have some interesting emigration paperwork for this family. I will need to look into that sometime.