Elizabeth Pesek

Pesek Elizabeth G. nee Kallus was my mother who also bore two younger children Victor and Katherine. She was the oldest of four children born to Elizabeth (Wiesner) Kallus and her 1890 immigrant husband Frank J. Kallus on August 23, 1896 at Ellinger, Texas and died on March 10, 1983 at Jourdanton.

Losing her mother at five an older cousin Mary Knezek immigrated from Europe to help rear her. A graduate of La Grange High School she graduated from Southwest Texas State Normal in San Marcos in 1917 with practice teaching in Plum and La Grange. In college she was a member and officer in the Komensky Klub, Newman Club, German Club and the Pierian Society and on the Pedagogue (yearbook) staff. After teaching in Sweet Home she married John T. Pesek a World War I veteran on October 25, 1920 and joined him in farming first among relatives near Hallettsville. With three-year-old me and a six-week baby the family moved to a rattlesnake prickly pear and mesquite infested farming frontier in the La Parita Community near Jourdanton in 1924. Mother taught me to read before entering school made me appreciate hard, physical and intellectual work, instilled my faith in God and others and was a strong partner in farming.

She always helped dad compose the school board minutes from his notes and memory while he was the secretary was active in the Parents' and Teachers' Association and in her church and other organizations. Her resourcefulness is described well in action when confronted by a hawk molesting her chickens. For the first time in her life she picked up a .22 caliber rifle fired once and shot it dead--never to fire a gun again. Supremely confident that the situation would improve my family bought a farm "close to town" during the midst of the Great Depression in 1934 so I and the other children could go to high school while remaining at home.

She urged me to attend college and was a faithful weekly correspondent for over four decades. Her advice admonition and gentle guidance was invaluable especially in college the armed services and graduate school. Mother always was optimistic and looked for the good side of ordinary but trying circumstances. In times when weeds had to be addressed directly she would say "when it rains enough for weeds it also rains on a good crop" and "I never object to paying income taxes because that means we had an income." An early beneficiary of Carrie Chapman Catt's efforts she always voted and I think she would have liked her.

12/22/94