Pt 2: More than a "Mrs."
The Story of Anna Cecelia (Bouska) Petrasek
In part 1, we learned very little about Anna’s life. It wasn’t until she married Frank Petrasek that genealogical details emerge and while there were no doubt happy times, a lot of fear and grief punctuates Anna’s life after marriage.
Both Anna and Frank were devout Catholics so it’s not surprising they had a large family that began right after they were married when between the years 1884-1885, Anna delivered her first two children.
All indications were that Frank and Anna were a fertile couple, delivering healthy children without issue. On paper, things seemed to be going well for the Petrasek’s. They had a home, Frank had a good job, they were living near their church and their family was growing with healthy children. That all changed when Scarlet Fever took the lives of Annastazie (only 3 years old) and baby Frank (17 months old) on the same day - 9 January 1887. At the time, Scarlet Fever accounted for only 1% of deaths in Minnesota, yet sadly the two Petrasek children had succumbed.
Whether they were trying for another baby already, or if in the early days of grief, they found comfort in each other’s arms, it wasn’t long before Anna became pregnant with their third child. Wensel (who also went by Vaclav, a common nickname for Wensel) was born 10 September 1887. There is indication that the labor and delivery was difficult for Anna, because only nine months later, little Wensel died of Convulsions. “Convulsions” was a term that most likely described epilepsy, for which a potential cause could have been oxygen starvation during a difficult birth. Upon Wensel’s death about a year and half after baby Frank and Annastazie, Anna and her husband had no more living children. This series of deaths must have been incredibly traumatizing for Anna in particular.
Only ten months later their fourth child was born on 14 May 1889. As a way of managing her grief at the loss of her first three children, little John was quickly baptized and likely cherished and loved without the preciousness of tiny lives being taken for granted. He remained their only child for two and half years until the birth of his sister Ludmila on 4 November 1891 (Ludmila’s story can be read here.) Three more children came into the family about 18-24 months apart. At the time of the 1900 census, John, Ludmila and Stephen were attending school while Joseph and Albert (three and one years old respectively) were at home with Anna.
All was going well for the family. Frank had moved to the larger St. Paul Foundry Company, which probably offered better pay. They owned the home they were living in without a mortgage. The family was strong and growing and legitimate U.S. citizens! (On 23 October 1896, Frank filed his Declaration of Intent papers, which would have automatically naturalized Anna.)
The family lived close to St. Stanislaus church — a dedicated Bohemian/Czech Catholic Church — which had a school attached. All of the children were baptized at the church and probably some of them, if not all, attended school there. An interesting footnote is that all but two of the Petrasek children had “patron fuerunt” (latin for “sponsors”) that were Bouska’s. These godparents most likely lived nearby and were a relation to Anna in some way.
By mid 1900, Anna was pregnant with her ninth child, but suddenly in November of 1900, eleven year old John became ill and died of Diphtheria, no doubt devastating Anna and leaving her fearful for the lives of her other children including her unborn child. At the time, not much was known about how the disease was transmitted but it was assumed that it could be spread through close contact. It’s unimaginable to think of the types of precautions Anna may have been trying to take to ensure that the other children were not afflicted.
Unlike the deaths of the three previous children, John’s death on 2 November 1900 was recorded in the paper along with several other young children. In fact, in 1900 Diphtheria was a leading cause of death. It’s actually incredible that the other children survived.
The business of taking care of the surviving four children and preparing for the birth of the next baby no doubt kept Anna’s mind occupied and on 5 March 1901, baby Marie Mae (also known as Mary) was born. Two more children followed, about 24-30 months apart from each other (Rose and Stanley), making the total eleven children, seven of whom were still living.
By the 1900’s, the average number of children born to a mother was three and a half. Not only that, but the average American woman gave birth to her last child at age 33. In July of 1908, Anna was 44 years old and pregnant for the twelfth time. Evidently, Anna had not grown weary of the unending cycle of pregnancy, birth, nursing, and new pregnancy.
On 19 July 1908 at forty-four years, two months and fourteen days, Anna Cecelia Bouska died of postpartum hemorrhage delivering her twelfth child. She and Frank had celebrated their silver wedding anniversary just a few months prior. Amidst the shock of the unexpected loss, the baby’s birth was recorded with an incorrect spelling of the last name and no first name at all. (The baby was later named Alois Frank Petrasek and he had a frightfully short life as well.)
As the unnamed baby’s mother, the birth certificate recorded Anna’s name as simply “Mrs.” and her own death certificate records her name as “Mrs. Frank Petrasek” but we know she was much more than that. Petite in stature, but strong in resolve having endured so much fear and grief in her short lifetime. Her life — especially the beginning — is nearly invisible to her descendants all these years later, yet we can easily imagine that she was a smart, dedicated and brave woman worth knowing - and worth having her own name: Anna Cecelia.
In the next post, Anna and her family find themselves amidst a gruesome murderer.
I’m confused, you will have to fill me in !
You did a wonderful job documenting and explaining what life was like for women and the grief they carried and likely had no or little time to process. So important to think about these things in our family history.