Czechs and Yeggs

George Anton Shonka (1874-1965), my daughters maternal great-great grandfather, was the son of Matej and Mary (Hajny) Shonka (Sonka).  Matej (aka “Mathias”) and Mary immigrated to the United States in 1869 from Bechyně, Tabor, Bohemia, a region now part of the Czech Republic.  After a brief stay in Iowa, the Shonka’s established deep roots in Nebraska.

George and Stazie

George
married Anastasia ‘Stazie’ Prokes on June 26, 1901 and they resided for
a number of years in the village of Richland, Nebraska and raised four
children.  George worked at the Richland State Bank, eventually serving
as bank manager.  During his years of service to the bank, George
encountered “yeggs” on at least one occasion.  I wondered the very same
thing you are probably asking, what are yeggs?

n. “thief, burglar,” especially “safecracker.” 

The news account on the right was published in the Omaha Bee and a later, more detailed story (below) on the same event .

Saturday, April 18, 1896 – Enterprise – Special Dispatch to the World Herald

Revelers
Scare Yeggs Away From Bank Safe Robbers Get Contents of the Safety
Boxes, but Leave $3,000 at Richland Blow Door of Vault

Richland,
Nebraska, December 8. —Young people returning from a dance shortly
after midnight his morning are believed to have frightened three robbers
in the act of rifling the vault of the Richland State Bank here.
Several private deposit boxes and valuable contents of all the others
were carried away, but the yeggs failed in their attempt to blow open
the money safe, containing about $3,000, before they became unease and
fled.

George Shonka,
managing cashier, discovered the robbery this morning, and said no
figures on the loss had yet been compiled, as the bank officers did not
know what the private boxes contained. The loss may be heavy, as the
community consists of well to do farmers.

The
yeggs forced the front door and blow off the vault door. Schuyler
police saw a high powered closed car speed east through that town, eight
miles east of here, about 2 a. m., and now believe it contained the
robbers, escaping toward Omaha, where police were notified. Some wires
out of Richland were cut, supposedly by the robbers. State law
enforcement officials at Lincoln were notified by Sheriff Harennet of
Colfax County.

George Anton Shonka

“A bank was organized in 1906, with George Shonka, president. It was robbed in the early 1920s, and closed in the 1930s, but all depositors were paid 100 percent of their holdings.”  Source: Virtual Nebraska, University of Nebraska – Lincoln/ Richland, Cascade County.

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