BTW, we think Uncle Eli (Fred wore his bow tie in the delivery room when V was born) actually went back to Serbija in 1915 and fought in WW1 with his two other brothers to help liberate Serbia/Montenegro from the Austrian/Hungarian empire. He was already a US citizen.
His brothers stayed...were awarded land in Kosovo and that's why our relatives all moved from Montenegro to Serbia in the 1920's... Serbian king Aleksandar promised to give fertile land in Vojvodina and in Kosovo to all war volunteers from passive regions who won Aleksandar star medal. . After 1921Eli's brothers Djuro and Krsto got the state reward as Serbian soldiers, I think 5 hectare each in Pestovo.
Eli returned to USA before 1918- he was a US citizen, and had a mine and at least partial ownership of the Johnsville Hotel.
Here is an account of what was going on in Serbija:
On September 13, 1918, at dawn, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in the Balkans, French General Franchet d'Espérey, ordered the final offensive for the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front. Serbian Army which led the offensive on the ground played the key role in a counter-offensive breakthrough studied even today at countless military academies throughout the world, as a shining example of a glorious victory.
At 5:30 a.m. the Serbian troops began an unstoppable surge from the Greek border back in to Serbia, to free their motherland, pushing the Austrians, Germans and Bulgarians out of their country. In 12 days they advanced 800 miles on foot, forcing the French general to telegraph his counterpart in the Serbian Army, General Stepanovic: "General, please ask the Serbian infantry to slow down, the French cavalry cannot keep up the pace!"
ANYway, here is a letter from my Cousin Sharon-my partner on the Johnsville excursion to my Uncle Bob. She's written so well, I thought you'd enjoy reading about our adventure and seeing some of our combined photos taken.
Cathleen and my excellent adventure to Plumas Co was serious good time event with many fond memories. Wow is that an interesting beautiful area. Have you been up there??? We arrived the afternoon of May 21st it was a gorgeous day. We drove into Johnsville first, went to the cemetery took lots of photos.. the sky was black with Buffalo Gnats. I am still dealing with the remains of a hundred or so bites I was unaware I was getting at the time, never felt a thing.
Old Wooden Cross Grave Marker Wrought Iron Grave Perimeter Fence Cathleen & the trees Sharon photographing grave markers
As it moved toward evening we headed to our motel located on Hwy 89 in Cromburg. We stayed in the roomiest of accommodations to be gotten at the Sierra Sky Lodge. This included a bedroom, kitchen, dinette and fireplace. The in line connected bungalows were built out of solid cedar 3"x9" sticks of lumber stacked like logs in an alternating fashion at each corner. I think there was one other guest that weekend. It was prior to the beginning of the season, we rarely saw cars on the highway, people were in easy going coming out of wintertime mode. The next morning we headed over to have breakfast with Larry and Pat Fites, they're the people that bought and renovated the Johnsville hotel. They were a delight, great people.. They really did a good thing saving that hotel. There are few of the old buildings that were saved. They had just returned from a trip to Greece upon our arrival. Astoundingly everything seemed to exist in a perfect timing scenario on that trip. They are known and respected in the community. They have two lovely small houses, one in Graeagle and one in Johnsville. Larry's grandmother fell in love with Johnsville in the '50's that is how he came to love the place and I believe their house is on lot(s) she owned.
Fites - Graeagle Home Fites - Johnsville Home Sierra Sky Lodge, our bungalow
After breakfast we returned to their home in Graeagle where Larry began making calls. That is where we climbed aboard the 'taken care of' train that carried us along the rest of the trip. He arranged for us to meet up with the head of the Johnsville Historical Society and Scott Lawson of the Plumas Co. Museum in Quincy. The Johnsville historical Society is responsible for the restoration of the Catholic Church that sits just west of the cemetery. We went over there after the calls. It is a classic little white church with a sign that says it can only hold 49 people. There was a small display near the front of the church that gave information on three families Pavlovichs had their section nearest the side wall. Cathleen gave the director a large reproduction of a portrait of Eli housed in the original gold leaf frame which he received with a great deal of graciousness and sincerity. It's probably hanging up near the display right now. While on our way to the church Pat went over to the Plumas - Eureka State Park ranger's house to arranged for us be let in the visitor center. She is a docent there and showed us around, we went up the hill to see what is left of the Plumas- Eureka Mill. Sadly when it became a state park they began work to restore the site but.. didn't finish, now the prognosis appears grim. No funds to keep the park open, much less do restoration. After the tour we went our separate ways, later that eve they took us out to dinner at a musta been five star restaurant located at one of the many golf courses around Graeagle. I don't think they play golf but they go to the restaurants. Was a treat. They definitely made us feel like VIP's.
At the Church- Cathleen Director of Historical Plumas Eureka State Park - Pat & Sharon Plumas Eureka Mill
Society Discussing Eli's portrait (on table)
The next morning we headed to Quincey to meet up with Scott at the museum. It was Monday, a day the museum is not normally open to the public so we had the place to ourselves. Scott, who currently owns a mining claim up in the area of Eli's old claim reviewed the mine prospectus Cathleen was given by the Spiachs after cousin Louise's death and put a name to the the mine in the photos we have that Eli took. That was a very cool thing, as the photos he took are so great, now we know what mine it was and so will others. He asked for copies of the mine photos which Cathleen sent him upon her return. She is in process of getting him a copy of the perspectus.. some day I suppose we should probably donate the original. His extra focus was very much appreciated. We recognized a number of Eli's photos within the Johnsville collection at the museum. We spent until early afternoon there. After a great lunch at this cute vegan'esk organic food cafe we went over to the Plumas Co. Courthouse to look for birth and death certificates. The museum, courthouse and library are literally on opposing corners of the same street. I love small towns.. love them. We got copies of Savo, Jovan and Radomir's death certificates. Nicola the brother that died in the flu epidemic was not found. He was shown as living in the neighboring Sierra County a year before his death.. he probably died there. Savo placed a beautiful marble cross bearing obelisk marker on his grave.The inscription It is written in Cyrillic symbols using the old Herzegovinan language that is now only spoken by the elders in the remote mountain villages of Montenegro and Herzegovina.
The Morningstar Mine - Eli's photo 1of 4 Scott at the Museum - in the reference room Nicola Pavlovich's Grave Marker
On the way home to our motel we did some exploring of the area using narrow twisting dirt roads that crossed the Feather River and landing us in not too remote beauty and gorgeous valleys. Each day grew less warm. There were still crusty drifts of snow on the ground. The higher elevation still covered in a strong layer of snow. Unfortunately the road to Gold Lake was still closed I look forward to seeing that area some day.
The Feather River Sloat Valley Old Cattle Loader
The next day we hit the library to see what we could find on microfilm.. not much found, the librarian was a tad bit grumpy, but accommodated us. Then we headed back over to the courthouse to investigate Deeds. We found so many it actually got to the point that we wanted to stop finding them. I think we stopped around year 1921 so there are probably more to be found. We knew we didn't have time to look at all the deeds so we focussed on G'pa Paul's. There were four associated with him, one could not be found. Two spoke to the purchase of two lots in 1917 near the building that housed the church-school-Odd Fellows Hall adjacent to the cemetery and one was the sale of those lots in 1920. It was through that deed that I discovered he was working at Davies Mill (to become the fruit box mill.) Now known as Graeagle where the Fites live. We also got a copy of the 1906 deed in which Eli purchased the first lot that the hotel (then boarding house) was built on. I recognized the name of the seller from the Pavlovich vs Pavlovich suite otherwise we wouldn't have know which one it was.
Plumas County Courthouse Davies Mill c.1917 Johnsville Hotel c.1980 after renovation
Then we went on to see if we could find naturalization papers. We were told by the people at the courthouse to return to the museum as they only had the more current records. I truly hope all this stuff is on microfilm somewhere as well. I certainly would hate to see an end to all that historical information due to a natural disaster. That day there was a bunch of 3rd graders swarming around, but the museum itself was still fairly quiet. Scott ferried the stack of boxes full of old books via a red hand truck and stacked them on the antique, ribbon grained, golden oak table in the middle of the museum. We found various documents.. Only Eli and Peter Spiach appeared to have become citizens in Plumas County. We found declarations of Intention (toward citizenship) relating to our various Pavlovichs, Tomasevichs and Spiachs. The actual documents are housed in large leather bound books all written in calligraphy typical of the period.
Sharon combing through indexes The original naturalization papers & indexes Looking out the window through the bottles
That done we meandered again into the back country. Due to Cathleen's excellent observational skills.. and eagle vision we found a wooded patch of hillside with luminescent red snow plants poking forth from beneath pine needle humus. In the evenings we would read through the different information we'd either gathered or was loaned to us. The Fites gave us their scrap books and some publications with historical stories to review. The motel provided some and so on. I would sit at the table and scan things into my computer. If I needed to access the internet I would take the laptop, traverse across the very comfy twin size mattress we had taken out of the large closet in the bedroom and placed at the front of the couch. (This was my nest situation.) I'd stand on top of the cushion of the sagging brown couch nearest the exterior wall holding my laptop while reaching toward the ceiling as if in prayer waiting with anticipation for link up. Once it had a connection I would wilt down depositing myself upon the seat cushion. For some reason it could maintain the wireless connection once there was one, though I feared disconnection it rarely happened. As a result of that experience I believe I have now learned to spell the name Spartacus. This was the motel's wireless password and the name of the owners' most gregarious pit bull cross. They had three along with three young daughters and at least one cat. The accommodations were quaint.. and could have used just a bit of renovation and maintenance.. not much, as this would affect it's character and charm. There was an old Franklin fireplace that worked great as long as you didn't actually want to see the fire, when the cast iron doors were folded back, the fire grew shy and lifeless.
Snow Plant Sharon waiting for internet connection Cathleen enjoying dying fire
It began to rain steadily the night of our last stay. The morning was cold. After packing up my truck we headed back into Johnsville. We now had good leads and a strong opinion about where the lots were that G'pa Paul bought and wanted to physically go there to get it in our current day's mind's eye. We wandered around in the freezing rain. I am not normally an umbrella person. I was trying to take photos in the wind driven rain. My hands were burning from the cold. Cathleen held the umbrella over our heads as we walked in single file formation. We were somewhat distracted by conditions and the translation of information. We had seen the lots shown on a two dimensional parcel map drawn long before what existed now, the street, parcels and buildings are different. When the gold miners arrived in this part of the world they went about cutting down all the trees on the mountains for their use in the mines. Any flat areas were cleared to build on. We saw an old photo that shows one large tree, the only tree in an area that is now filled with trees. It bordered what was once the eastern side of our grandparents property next to the Church-School-Odd Fellows Hall. We went looking for it holding it's past image in our minds eye, hopeful that it was still standing, but believing it not likely. We did find what looked like an old tree version of that double crowned tree in the same place we thought it should be standing. Is it that tree? How is it that it wasn't taken down like all it's relations had been? If that is the same tree could it have been alive and experienced that land before it was forever altered by the deluge of men declining upon it? Another mystery to ponder.
Once Paul & Petrusa Tomasevich's Property. The Old Tree Backside of the property church-school on left Church-School-Odd Fellows Hall
It began to snow while we were there. We were happy to get back in the truck, but sad to leave. It felt clearly to be the time to go. We headed to Graeagle for some warm coffee. Chatted with the locals about the weather... when would it get warm? They were more concerned with answering that question then we. We were heading toward warmth.. so we thought. Once we got on the interstate we were in wind driven snow.. the road was clear, rarely got slushy, but the snow was driving hard toward us. There were probably going to be some disappointed vacationeers and resort owners this upcoming Memorial Day weekend. We thought of the Donner Party as we headed toward San Jose feeling contented and sated by our enthusiastic and well rewarded attempts to follow the trails our ancestors had left behind. Giving thanks to all that have preserved what we have found... so far.
Snow coming down on the interstate Truck dusted in snow at the rest stop.
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