Jakub

This would be a good experience for me. Get your diaspera interview questions prepared. December 26 and 27 would not be good me. But maybe we could do this after those days. I do Zoom a fair bit, but there might be better software for a podcast.

I would like to make a little plug for my TDG book.

My grandfather's brother was first in his family to come to Canada in 1928. He became a working cowboy in the Foothills. He wrote to his family that he was making lots of money. He lied. And my grandfather followed 8 years later.

I know Grandpa was in contact with the Slovak National Congress in Canada. I don't know much about this group, but it seemed to have nationalistic tendencies. It was backed by a rich Canadian Slovak by the name of Stefan Roman.

Slovak family names in the Tilley area: Gazdarica, Benci, Onda, Toth, Dunay, Prochasca, Dovichak, Gegulka, Suchy, Sickel, Buday, Volek, Koza, Juhas, and probably a few more I might recall later. There was also a Hollinda family, but these were Hungarian speakers. My grandparents were good friends with this family, but Hungarian was the lingua franca between them.

No Ferencikovi though. I know there were a few other Slovak farm communities in Alberta, but I can't recall where. The railroads set up their farming communities such the immigrants were were composed of one or two ethnic groups such that they would not feel too isolated. Nearby Duchess was German and Mennonite. The Jenner area was Polish. The area of Rosemary found Mormons and Japanese farmers. Many Ukrainian communities in Alberta--and the rest of the prairies.

Let me know.