Before I (George now) pick up the narrative of the years in Brazil, I will post my Dad's description of the Tichys' history starting as far back as possible. There will be three parts for this matter.
Alexandre Tichy, on the family's past history:
“I actually don’t know much about our ancestors, because there were not many people who could tell me the story. The city where our family lived was Ostrava, in the former Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic. My grandpa worked for an important, rich person who lived in a castle; he had an interesting job, brewing beer.
My father, Gustav, had a very difficult childhood. When he was two years old, his mother died and his father remarried. My Dad and his brother (uncle Jenik) had a hard time with their step-mother, because she didn’t like them. And they didn’t like her either. My mother had some information on that family situation and she told me that when the family went to visit someone my Dad and his brother were not allowed to accept anything to eat or drink from the people they were visiting. When they did accept something they were spanked when they returned to their home because they supposedly were, suggesting to others that they didn’t have enough food at home.’
Then my Grandpa died, and soon my step-grandma remarried. So then my father was actually an orphan, becoming poorly treated by the step grandparents. When my father turned 14 he was literally banned from home and had to take care of himself in all ways. He was offered a job by a person who used to manufacture firearms, so he learned much of it when he was still very young. When he learned quite a bit of that profession, he went to Austria because there was more work there at that time. He was still young, though, so he also ended up serving in the military in Austria. In those days, as soon as the kids became grown up enough to be able to work, they used to go to Austria to make some money since the wages were higher. My mother did the same, and it was during those times that they met each other and married.
At that time, Ostrava was only a small village, maybe with a population of only 500 people. But a big reserve of coal was discovered in that area, and soon people from everywhere came looking for work. It didn’t take much time for the population to reach 20,000 people. My parents came back from Austria looking for new opportunities as well. He started a small business, manufacturing especially hunting guns, and my mother was sewing women’s clothing. Both made pretty good money with their business since the population was growing so rapidly.
My father, Gustav, and his brother had inherited a big sum of money from their father, and each should receive ca. 20,000 golden crowns; However, it was stated in the will that their stepmother should receive the interest on that money while she lived, so they couldn’t actually get the money. However, she died only after World War I and that money lost its value completely. They had inherited a beer factory in Ukraine, too, but the person in charge of that business was embezzling all the money and the business went broke.
Despite the hard circumstances, my father was a happy person who worked hard and was a very good gunsmith. He spent some time in Prague where he passed through the famous Frantisek Faukner's shop as a journeyman. He didn’t like the managerial aspect of his business, but loved to work making shotguns himself. He could always recognize a shotgun that he had built, even many years later. Same thing with any small part he made for a rifle. Once he and I went to Brno to an exposition of firearms; while visiting another gunsmith’s booth, he noticed several of his rifles. Suddenly my father said, ‘Do you see that rifle? It was stolen from my store by an employee 15 years ago.’ My father became very angry and asked to talk to the owner. He actually did talk to him, explained the situation, and that person gave him the rifle back for free!
Although my father was an expert, the business was not doing so well. We always had enough for our daily living, but there was no big abundance. of goods. Since I was a small child I always had serious health problems, especially with my tonsils. Any change of temperature was enough to make me seriously ill. Because of that, during vacations my parents always sent me to some nice places to recover my energies. I went twice to Yugoslavia and very often to the mountains not far from our town. One of my father’s clients lived up on the mountains and he always had me there for a month or two.
On one occasion when I was in Yugoslavia my mother was supposed to come from Moravia to spend a few days with me. I was waiting for her at the train station, and the train was not arriving. Suddenly we got the message that that train had suffered a terrible accident on the mountains, caused by a huge rock that fell down and hit the train hard, with many wagons ending up in a river - the report said that there were many casualties. My feelings were the worst possible, and we were preparing ourselves for the worst. However, to our surprise, she arrived the next day. She missed the train in Vienna the day before, and so her life was spared.
I was a very good student during my first five years in school, but then I started to practice sports. My both parents were working at their store and didn’t pay much attention to what I was doing, and because of a shift in interest I neglected my studying, getting just the minimum scores to pass. I was supposed to study to be an engineer, but the business was growing and new branches were opened in other cities, which needed proper supervision. I worked hard in our business, but had little experience in management. My brother Gustav was a good person, but didn’t like to work that much. My father sent him to another city in Germany to learn more about the business, but in a couple of months he came back saying that the Germans were prejudiced and were mistreating him because he was Czech. Mere excuses for laziness! Other attempts were made to send him to other places to learn more, but all ended up being a failure. He would always come back home again, and would do basically nothing other than riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle during most of the day, but especially at night.
My parents were not too tough on my brother because he had had a bad experience when he was a small child. He was born cross-eyed. There was a physician in Prague who became famous for correcting that problem with surgery. So my mother took Gustav and me and we went to see that doctor, who performed the operation on him within a few days. The tragedy happened when the doctor took out the bandages from Gustav’s face, to show the results of the operation; but what a disappointment and frustration it was to learn that the doctor mistakenly operated on the wrong eye and now both eyes had a problem. This had impaired Gustav's sight for the rest of his life. However, that didn’t prevent him from running crazily on his motorcycle. He loved his bike, which became part of his life and personality. The bike also became responsible for a great deal of his frequent problems.
On a certain occasion, there were some motorcycle races in Ostrava, and Gustav invited one of the competitors to spend the night at our house, to get a good night of sleep. At some time at dawn, the friend needed to go to the restroom; since he didn’t know where it was, he woke up Gustav asking him where the restroom was, and got the information. He went there but missed the right door and ended up outside the home; but the worst was that the door locked itself after him and he was now literally on the street and still in his pajamas. He could not return and stayed in the cold outside, always having to hide himself when people came on walking on the street. Later on he started knocking on the door, wishing that the housemaid would come to open the door for him. The problem was that she was not aware that there was a guest spending the night in the house! Gustav and his friend went to a party the night before and came home very late, so obviously she would not let him in and closed the door leaving him outside. He knocked again, but she would not let him in either. Being afraid of having a stranger doing that, the housemaid woke up Gustav explaining what was happening, but being still sleepy and having forgotten that he brought a friend with him the night before, he told her to just ignore the guy. And the poor guy had to stay outside, suffering the cold weather for one more hour until Gustav finally realized that his friend was not in the room… I will tell a couple more stories about him in the next segment."
Legit GUSTAV TICHY piece of art
And now, five more pictures of a shotgun currently owned by Dr. Aaron Wallace (George's son in law, married to Lais Tichy Wallace). Aaron's children, David and Alex, are excited holding the gun as well. (Pictures taken on Jan 12th, 2022).
(All rights reserved according to the Law)
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