Dugout - Lastovica Family Info

Before Katie Juhl moved away from Nebraska to begin creating her own new frontiers, she decided to take a look back at how her family ancestors had blazed trails of their own right here. What Katie unearthed was more than a little surprising.

Katie's great, great grandfather Frank Lastovica came to America from Czechoslavakia as a professional linen maker. Unfortunately, the United States didn't really have a need for more linen makers, so Frank journeyed around the Midwest looking for a new way to subsist. After a few false starts, Frank moved to some land near Blue Hill, Nebraska, and literally carved out a new beginning for him and his family. Frank carved a dugout home out of the side of a Nebraska hill. They lived in the dugout for 3 or 4 years before financial reasons forced Frank and the Lastovica clan to pull up roots and move to Omaha.

As Katie's Great Uncle Milty Lastovica explains, life for Frank was not always easy during the days in the dugout home, or afterward in Omaha, "After he (Frank Lastovica) was foreclosed, he came back to Omaha and they moved down to First Street which was on the east side of the railroad tracks next to the (Missouri) river. When the water come up in the spring, the house flooded. And they moved to 2318 South 16th Street in Omaha and they bought that house. He went to work for the American Smelders, and he worked there most of his life and he got lead poisoning and he couldn't work any more because his hands were swollen. He got a job for the U.P. railroad as a crossing guard. They used to have little shacks next to the railroad tracks and when a train would come, they'd come out there with a lantern and stand out there, and stand in the middle of the street trying to avoid the traffic swinging the lantern. He did that until he couldn't do it anymore because it got cold in the winter and hot in the summer. And then he worked for the Burlington Railroad as a janitor at the Burlington station down on 10th and Pacific. And then after that, that's when he died. He died the 1st of June 1922. Now, that's three first of June's. They (Frank and his wife Frances) were married on the first of June, my dad (Frank's son) was born on the first of June, and my grandfather (Frank) died on the first of June. So I think I'll avoid the first of June."

Frank Lastovica's son Leo (Katie's great grandfather) took a job at the Union Pacific railroad when he was 12 and worked there his entire life. Leo's son Robert became a carpenter and moved his family to the Florence area in Omaha. Robert's daughter Cathy (Katie's mom) still lives in Omaha and spends much of her time doing decorative art. Katie will soon be leaving Nebraska to pursue a career in journalism at Syracuse University in New York. She may never encounter the same struggles as her great-great grandfather Frank, but now that she has a better understanding of where she comes from, the final exams at Syracuse might not seem quite as overwhelming as life in a dugout home.