My Century And My Many Lives, by Frank Munk
Memoirs, 1993
Postscript, 1994
Frank Munk, my grandfather, wrote this autobiography to record his memories
from 1901 onwards. This history and its postscript are available on our family website in his
memory as they tell a complete story of the 20th century. These memoirs may be referenced as
long as proper attribution is made; our family retains ownership and copyright. We have one
request: if you reference this material in any way, please send us email at
feedback@theragens.com and a copy of the paper, if possible, as we would
like to know when this material is of interest and we are curious as to how it is being used.
We'd like to hear from you.
© Copyright 1993, 1994, The Munk/Ragen Families
THE
SILVER BELL
CHAPTER 1
The earliest thing
I can remember is the tinkling of a silver bell. At least I was told it was made
of silver, although I rather doubt it now. It rang at three in the morning and
at three in the afternoon and I always thought the sound was magical. I could
not help hearing it because our house stood in the shadow of Saint Jacob Church,
built around 1430, with a very tall tower. I know now that in reality it did
have something to do with silver: it marked the changing of the shifts in the
silver mines.
I was born in the
town of Kutná Hora in Bohemia [click
here for a few pictures], then a part of Austria, on May 26, 1901. It was
not an ordinary town. Silver mining started around 1300 when it was found that
the area had some of the richest deposits of the metal in Europe. It rapidly
grew rich and powerful and became the second residence of the Kings of Bohemia,
some of whom also served as Emperors of the Holy (German) Roman Empire. In the
middle of the 14th century, Kutná Hora became the location of the Royal Mint,
after the kings brought in experts from Florence to mint Bohemian Groschen. They
built for that purpose what still is called the Italian Court, later used as the
king's residential palace. Our back door abutted the palace. The city is full of
medieval churches, including the magnificent St. Barbara Cathedral begun in
1388.
The name Kutná Hora
means, very sensibly, Mining Mountain. Its glory faded in the 16th century as a
result of wars and the discovery of America, when cheaper silver from Peru and
Mexico made the mines uneconomic, although some mining continued until about
1800. It was even revived recently, because it was thought the mines could
produce some uranium and certainly some copper. At any rate the town was for a
long time a ghost town and I one of the ghosts.
One other thing I
vividly remember was the Corso. That was of course somewhat later, when I was
about 16 or 17. The jeunesse dorée of the town assembled every day
in the early evening on the sidewalk of the city square next to our store. The
boys stood mostly on the side appraising and commenting on the girls who walked
in pairs or threesomes up and down. Occasionally a boy would join a girl and
continue to walk with her. I was an early and avid devotee of girl watching. One
of the girls that I found unusually attractive was one with long brown pigtails,
brown eyes, evidently very nicely put together. Unfortunately, she did not seem
at all interested in us boys. Her name was Nadezda Prásilová, I knew her since
she was a small kid. Her father was director of the Agricultural school.
Unbelievably, she
is now my wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother of our American
family. Strange things do happen. I might just as well tell how it happened.
Some time around Christmas 1921, when I was already very active in the student
movement, I invited a group of medical students from the University of
Strasbourg, newly returned to France, to visit Kutná Hora. In order to include
some attractions besides cathedrals, my friend Karel Kriz and I decided to
invite some girls to a dinner we planned. Our choice was Nadezda and one of her
friends, because they knew some French. It was a happy choice. As I understand
it, it was not my physique or my charm that made Nadezda interested in me, but
my fluent French. Anyway life was never the same thereafter. The dinner at Cerny
Kun (Black Horse) was a great success.
I ought to add
something about the school. I spent the first four years at the training school
of the Teachers College, presumably a model institution with excellent teachers
whom I still remember. I was then sent for a fifth year to the local public
school, the reason being that my handwriting was not very good and needed
improvement. Next I started at the local high school, with the official name of
Imperial and Royal Real School. The grade schools were provincial, but high
schools were run by the Austrian government in Vienna, although in the Czech
language. Ours was of the scientific kind, with lots of math, geometry and the
physical sciences. I would have preferred a so-called "gymnasium" oriented to
humanism, where Latin and Greek were one of the main subjects, but there was no
such school in Kutná Hora, so we had to take private classes in Latin. It should
also be stated that European high schools have very little in common with their
American counterparts. American high schools are more democratic, European more
scholarly. In effect the last two years (out of seven) of our school were more
like the first two years of a typical American college, as I came to know them.
I spent the first
18 years of my life in Kutná Hora and in a way I never left it.
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