Bio: Pakiz, Vladimir “Mirko” & Olga

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Pakiz, Arko, Tiran, Kuznacic, Boeckman, Zallar, Craig

----Source: Family Scrapbook

Vladimir ('Mirko') Pakiz was born June 22, 1890 in Ribnica na Dolenjskem. As was the custom there his birth¬day was always celebrated on his saint's name day which was July 15th. He was one of the ten children of Mathew and Angelca (Arko) Pakiz.

When he was very young his father passed away, leaving the burden of raising the large family and taking charge of their 'gostilna' on his mother's shoulders. The difficulty of the situation resulted in young Mirko being sent to a boarding school. Along with his studies he played the organ for the church services. He recalled the nuns being very severe in their discipline and was very homesick. A stream ran behind their house and he learned to swim at an early age. He loved swimming all his life and in later years taught his sons and grandsons to swim also.

At the age of seventeen he left for America, arriving in New York City in 1908. He worked there for a time; then left for Chicago where he was employed in the round house for the Pullman Company. He was a welder and remembered working on the building of the first all-steel Pullman car.

In 1915 he came to Willard and bought a 120 acre farm one-half mile west of the village from R. J. Thomas. The large two-story house that was on the farm still stands there in good repair. It is now owned by Raul and Lynn Ayala. He formed a partnership with his sister, Ernestina, who worked in New York during the winter months but spent the summers on the farm. A brother, Fred was also with them for a short time.

On September 17, 1918 he was married to Olga Tiran in Neillsville. He had become acquainted with her while in New York. She had been a friend of his sister there. She often recalled that after they came home from their wedding ceremony her new husband spent the rest of the day walking a sick cow around the yard.

Olga Tiran was born in Ljubljana on July 20, 1890, the daughter of Anton and Maria Tiran. Her father worked for the railroad and was away from home much of the time. Her mother was ill and Olga, even at her young age, had to help take care of her. She died when Olga was twelve years old. She remembered with sadness that she had to give up piano lessons and take care of her two younger brothers. She worked as a dressmaker after she graduated from school. In 1908 she came to New York City. She worked in a millinery shop there. She made several trips back to Ljubljana to visit her father.

Farming in Willard was a new experience for her but she learned to milk cows and help care for the hundreds of laying hens they kept. They also raised and dressed out broilers and capons which they shipped to New York and Chicago, along with weekly shipments of eggs. Poultry and eggs were also sold locally.

Times were hard and Olga often told how they were depending on a check from their poultry shipments to buy Christmas presents for the children. It didn't arrive until after Christmas. The disappointment was remembered through the years.

Mirko was a lover of music and among other instruments played the zither, tambouritza and gave piano lessons. He also directed a Slovenian men's choral group and a tambouritza group which met at his home. He directed plays and musicals which were performed at the Slovenian National Home (East Side Hall) at Willard. Under his direction the choral group often sang at funeral wakes in the homes of the deceased.

In 1918 influenza caught many of his neighbors with chores they were unable to do. He recalled being fortunate that he was able to help them out.

On May 20, 1920 their first son, Gilbert was born. The following year on July 2, 1921 Frank was born. Ten years later, on March 25, 1931 they were overjoyed when a daughter, Marie was born. Gilbert resides in Baltimore, Maryland; Frank at Greenwood and Marie (Kuznacic) in Sheboygan.

In the early spring of 1927 Hankie became very ill with what Dr. Boeckman called 'wet pleurisy'. After making many calls to the home he ordered Frankie taken to the Marshfield Hospital because he could not satisfactorily clear the accumulation in the lungs. Snow made the roads closed to travel by car. His father and Mr. Zallar carried him the half mile from his home to the train depot at Willard. They traveled by Foster's train to Greenwood, then took the Soo Line from there to Marshfield. During his three week stay at the hospital the snow thawed and he remembers being brought back home by car.

During the terrible drought of the thirties all pastures dried up. The boys were sent out to cut down trees so the cows could eat the leaves to survive. A grove of pine trees had been set out. In one afternoon the hot, dry wind turned every tree brown except one which still survives because it was in the shade of the north side of the house.

Mirko and Olga farmed until 1962 when illness forced him to retire. They sold the last of the hens and moved to a mobile home on the farm of his son Frank in Greenwood during March 1963. He died on August 7, 1961. Olga continued to make her home there, being active in raising a garden and flowers, crocheting, baking 'potica', 'strudel' and 'flancate' into her eighties. In 1964 she made a timely trip back to Ljubljana to visit her two brothers, Ernest and Anton. They both died several years after her visit.

She suffered a stroke in October of 1975. She passed away on April 5, 1976. Final resting place of Olga and Vladimir Pakiz is the Greenwood Cemetery. The farm land is now in the possession of Thurman Craig.

Submitted by Frank Pakiz