There are moments in history that seem almost too improbable to be real.
Young men working beneath the smokestacks and stockyards of South Omaha, Czech immigrants who had crossed an ocean seeking peace and stability, boarded trains eastward toward Stamford, Connecticut, not for factory work or ordinary opportunity, but to prepare themselves for war on behalf of a country that did not yet officially exist.
At the center of that remarkable story stood the home of sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his wife Mary Borglum, whose Stamford estate became an unlikely training ground for Czech and Slovak volunteers preparing to join the Czechoslovak foreign legions during the First World War.
Among those who traveled there from South Omaha were my great-grandfather Ján Švagera, along with Václav Truneček, Alois Jaroš, and Bohuslav Krejča, ordinary working men whose lives became intertwined with one of the most extraordinary independence movements of the twentieth century.
From South Omaha to Chicago
Before reaching Stamford, the volunteers stopped in Chicago, a major center of Czech-American life. There they were met and cared for by Ján Švagera’s cousin, Karel Špaček, who helped receive the men on their journey east.
That detail matters.
Because this was not merely a military movement. It was a family movement, a neighborhood movement, a whole immigrant world gathering itself together for the sake of the old country. The road to the Czechoslovak Legion did not run only through recruiting offices and military camps. It ran through cousins, boarding houses, Czech halls, newspaper offices, Sokol networks, and kitchen tables where one Czech family took care of another.
Karel Špaček himself would also enlist as a legionnaire. In that one family connection, we see the larger story of Czech America during the First World War: one man helping another on the journey, and then stepping forward himself.
Training at the Borglum Estate
When the men finally arrived in Stamford, they entered one of the more unusual chapters of the Czech independence struggle in America. The estate of Gutzon and Mary Borglum became a gathering and training place for volunteers who hoped to fight for Czech and Slovak freedom overseas.
Today, most Americans remember Gutzon Borglum as the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. But before that mountain became his lasting monument, the Borglum household had already become connected to another dream carved not into stone, but into history: the dream of an independent Czechoslovakia.
Mary Borglum was especially supportive of the Czech cause. Accounts even connect her with the sewing of Czech flags for the independence movement. That image is deeply moving, a flag being sewn before the country itself had fully come into being.
Before there was a Czechoslovak Republic, there had to be a vision.
There first had to be hands willing to sew a flag before there was one flying over Prague Castle, .
Before there was a Czechoslovak army, there first had to be immigrant sons from places like South Omaha willing to leave everything behind.
Why Would They Go?
For many modern readers, the question is obvious: why would Czech immigrants living in America willingly go back across the ocean to fight in a European war?
The answer lies in memory.
These men had not forgotten who they were. They had not forgotten their language. or their hymns; nor had they forgotten the burden of Austrian rule, or the fear of conscription into an imperial army that many Czech families did not believe in.
For Ján Švagera, the story was especially personal. Like many young Czech men of his generation, he had known the shadow of Austrian military service. He had left the old country knowing he might never again hold Czech soil in his hands. Yet now, in America, he saw the possibility that the same war which had shattered Europe might also open the door to Czech freedom.
So he went.
And so did others.
Václav Truneček went.
Alois Jaroš went.
Bohuslav Krejča went.
Karel Špaček went.
Names that could have disappeared into old newspapers and forgotten rosters instead become witnesses to a generation that believed freedom was worth sacrifice.
South Omaha and the Dream of Czechoslovakia
South Omaha was not merely a place where Czech immigrants lived. It was a world of its own.
There were Czech newspapers, halls, plays, and businesses. America and the old country were not enemies of the heart. They lived side by side.
A man could be grateful for America and still ache for Moravia, could work in South Omaha and still dream of Prague.
These men building a new life in Nebraska still answered the call when their homeland cried out for freedom.
That is what makes the story of these volunteers so powerful. They were not fighting for conquest, or empire, they were fighting for national resurrection.
A Country Not Yet Born
The Czechoslovak Legion remains one of the most remarkable military and political movements of the First World War. These men fought for a nation that existed first in memory, language, culture, and hope before it ever existed on any official map.
Long before there was a Czechoslovak passport, there were Czech-Americans willing to risk their lives for one.
Before the world recognized Czechoslovakia, men from South Omaha were already preparing to fight for it.
And long before their descendants would search old newspapers, military databases, and family letters, these men were simply doing what they believed honor required.
I often wonder what Ján Švagera thought as he traveled east with the others. Did he think of Rokytnice? Or the Beskydy hills? Did he think of the family he had left behind, or the cousin who met him in Chicago and helped him on his way?
Did he know that someday, more than a century later, his great-grandson would be trying to gather up these scattered pieces of the story?
Probably not.
He likely did not imagine a blog post, a family historian, or a descendant trying to trace his footsteps from South Omaha to Chicago to Stamford and then onward into the Czechoslovak Legion.
But perhaps he did hope that someone would remember.
Remembering the Volunteers
When I read the names, Ján Švagera, Václav Truneček, Alois Jaroš, Bohuslav Krejča, Karel Špaček, I do not see merely a list of old Czech names from an old newspaper.
I see young men standing at the edge of history, immigrant sons carrying two worlds in their hearts.
South Omaha connected to Chicago, Chicago connected to Stamford, and Stamford connected to the battlefields of Europe.
I see a people who refused to let empire have the final word.
And I see a reminder that freedom is often born long before it is officially recognized. It begins first in memory. Then in song, in sacrifice, and in the courage of ordinary people who decide that the story of their people is not finished yet.
For Czech-Americans like Ján Švagera and the others who traveled to Stamford, the nation they served had not yet been born.
But in their hearts, it was already fully alive.
Suggested Internal Links
- Czech-American Volunteers and the Czechoslovak Legion
- Jan Svagera: Czech Legionnaire
- The Czechoslovak Legion in France, Italy, and Russia
- South Omaha Czech History
Suggested Backlinks
- Czechoslovak Legionnaire Database – Military Historical Archive Prague
- National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
- Library of Congress
- National Park Service – Mount Rushmore / Gutzon Borglum
