Here’s a published story from the past of our family tree.

We have a member of our family on my mother’s Czech side who has been doing genealogy for about the past 10 or more years on that branch of the family.  She’s done an amazing job of collecting stories, pictures, documents, all the way back, and including meeting, our current greatly-removed modern-day relatives in Czechoslovakia.  This story comes from one of the clan after they moved to Nebraska from their homeland:

“My father-in-law John Chrastil sat one evening at supper with his family in his little shanty, when they heard shots in the distance. Mrs. Chrastil cried out: “Heaven help us, the Indians are coming!” Chrastil owned a large, fierce dog, but the animal, upon hearing the shooting, began to howl and scratch on the door, trying to get inside. That only intensified the excitement, for Chrastils thought the savages were in sight.

Chrastil opened the door a bit, meaning to set the dog upon the Indians, but he ran into the house and crept under the bed. Chrastil pulled him out, the dog howled and resisted, the shooting re-commenced louder than before. Mrs. Chrastil knelt down with the children, to pray for mercy, and Chrastil wept to think they had come to America only to be killed by Indians.

Chaos reigned broken at last by the sounds of an accordion. So Chrastil gathered courage and stepped out, for he had never heard that Indians could play the accordion. He found that the pandemonium had been caused by his German neighbors, who had thus been celebrating the New Year, going from farm to farm to wish each neighbor a Happy New Year!”