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I am looking for the parents of Marie Horjas. She is referenced to in this obituary. She married Charles Kuchar (b. 1893 in St. Louis). She was born in ca1899 in Missouri. They married sometime between 1917 and 1940. I know this because he is listed on his WW1 draft registration card (1917) as single and on the 1940 census I linked to as married.

I've searched Family Search with the terms, but I can't find anything more. I was hoping to find this on a birth certificate or a marriage certificate, but I have found neither. Where might I look for the information? Any information on her would be appreciated, but I'm looking specifically for the names of her parents right now.

Sources:

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    About that draft card...note that his dependents are shown as 'mother and 1 child'- yet he is shown as single. So is he a widower or what? He and Maria are shown on the 1930 census. (search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/…)
    – Andy Hatchett
    Commented Nov 1, 2012 at 23:07
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    Note the age at marriage on the 1930 census image, which indicates Charles and Marie were married c. 1921, and the children's ages agree with this.
    – Rob Hoare
    Commented Nov 1, 2012 at 23:41
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    @AndyHatchett I thought I was missing something. I just added the 1910 census I found. It reveals he had a sister (Mildred) born in 1909, which would place her under 12 in 1917. Because his mother was dependent on him, it could imply Mildred was the dependent child.
    – Luke_0
    Commented Nov 1, 2012 at 23:45
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    @Luke I thought of that possibility but didn't have time to do more research.
    – Andy Hatchett
    Commented Nov 1, 2012 at 23:48
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    Also on that census (where the family name is transcribed as Kujac): Marie says both her parents were born in Czechoslovakia. The name Horjas doesn't exist in the Czech or Slovak phone books, although there is a town called Horja. So the name in the obituary may not be accurate.
    – Rob Hoare
    Commented Nov 2, 2012 at 3:42

1 Answer 1

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What interesting names!

I realize that your question is focused on learning the names of Marie's parents. You are presumably related, so you are probably interested in her life and her family.

If I were in your shoes, I would use the information you have learned from the obituary and reach out to Mildred's descendants. You might just find a family historian among them, or at least someone who inherited the family papers.

Some additional sources/considerations:

  1. Maria Kuchar died 30 July 1953 [at St. Louis County, Missouri]; she is buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemtery (St. Louis.) See US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Gravesite Locator. Search for surname "Kuchar" at the referenced cemetery.
  2. Death Certificate of "Maria Kuchar" available online from Missouri Secretary of State. Informant was Charles Kuchar, seems likely her son. Certificate reports "Maria" was born 23 Oct 1898 at St. Louis; parents as Thomas Horejs and Barbara ?Uut_. See the death certificate itself for your interpretation of the mother's name.
  3. See also Death Certificate of Charles W. Kuchar, presumably her husband, available at Missouri Secretary of State website. "Marie Kuchar" is the informant on the death certificate. Reports he died 20 Mar 1953. He has memorial at at FindAGrave (Charles Kuchar). A Charles Thomas Kuchar (1929-1981) is also buried in the same cemetery; seems possibly their son. Arthur W. Kuchar buried also at Jefferson Barraks National Cemetery (1899-1962) seems Marie's brother in law; Arthur's wife appears to be Jean S. Kuchar, buried there as well.

P.S. Personally, I would take the informants record of the parents names (given as "Thomas Horejs" and "Barbara _") as just a starting point. St. Louis is one of the places that did maintain a record of births rather early. I suspect that when you find the record of Marie's birth and other information about her, the spelling of the different names will vary.

Worth further checking:

  1. Missouri Secretary of State has Death Certificate for one Barbara Horeys (Horejs), wife of Thomas, reports she died 06 Jan 1946 at St. Louis (city), Missouri. Informant is a ?T/J Singler (an official of the hospital; see the record for details.) Certificate reports Barbara was born Bohemia; father as Francis Tuskisa; mother, Marie Schmieder.
  2. Same authority has Death Certificate for one Thomas Horejs dec'd 13 June 1957; a widower. Informant was a Chas. S. Horejs whose residence address was the same as the deceased.

P.S. Searching FindAGrave for the spelling "Horejs" returns 30 grave memorials. There are entries for a Barbara Horejs (d. 1946) and Thomas Horejs (d. 1957) at Resurrection Cemetery in St. Louis County, Missouri. No images for either stone. Burials at that cemetery for the surname include an "Anna J." and a Charles S.," all worth investigating.

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  • Thanks for the help. That all checks out with the information I already have. I hadn't yet found that MO death certificate site, which is a great help. +1 and accepts
    – Luke_0
    Commented Nov 3, 2012 at 1:22
  • As to the name, it could be "Barbara Uuti". I wonder why that is the one name that was handwritten?
    – Luke_0
    Commented Nov 5, 2012 at 21:39
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    +1 for noticing that interesting difference. See Barbara's death certificate; it would not surprise me to learn that the leading T in that name was soft or silent (ha! perhaps another good question). In the alternative, even if the name had been spoken clearly, perhaps it was so uncommon to the person documenting the death that it came to be handwritten. Worth considering that Barbara's death record information had been extracted from medical records made years earlier. Possibly Barbara (or at least her husband) had a hand in creating those records; contrast then the later record (Mari[e/a])?
    – GeneJ
    Commented Nov 5, 2012 at 21:50
  • So many questions. Alas, we can only speculate the answers.
    – Luke_0
    Commented Nov 5, 2012 at 22:10

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