The tiny village of Begovo Razdolje, high in the Dinaric Alps and home to some 48 souls (as of 2011), is sometimes called the top of Croatia. Located not too far inland from the Adriatic and tucked into the northwest corner of this small Balkan nation, it is the highest occupied settlement in it.
So the geographical contrast between Mike Shragol's hometown and his final resting place in Chariton's Calvary Cemetery could hardly be greater. But because Mike left Begovo Razdolje when he was only 16 and lived in Lucas County for more than 50 years, Iowa's was the landscape he knew best.
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| Begovo Razdolje, Croatia. |
Mr. Shragol's story is similar in several ways to hundreds of Lucas County immigrant narratives that could be told if those who lived them had just written them down --- or if their descendants could remember them.
We know a good deal of Mike's story because he was a gregarious sort who shared his story widely at various times --- when reporters for the various Chariton newspapers were present. The following is pieced together from several of those reports, the first published in 1922; the last, during 1968, when he died at the age of 77 and was buried at Calvary.
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Mike was born Sept. 29, 1891, in the village of Begovo Razdolje to Andrew and Mary Shragol. "Shragol" is not the family name, but rather an anglicized version of it, adopted after he left Ellis Island in 1909, headed for the Midwest. Mike never married and his only relatives in the United States were cousins, so I've not been able to recover the original version of his surname.
Andrew Shragol died when his newborn son was a month old. According to Mike, Andrew had emigrated to the United States a couple of years earlier, intending to send eventually for his family, and somehow ended up in Spokane, Washington. He was working there when his health failed and managed to make it home to his mountain village, but died approximately a year later.
After five years of public education, Mike was apprenticed to a cabinet maker and learned that trade, but could not find work that payed a reasonable wage once his three-year term of service was completed.
So during May of 1908, Mr. Shragol and a fellow 16-year-old left Croatia behind, looking for work --- and perhaps adventure. Arriving in Vienna during June, the young men found jobs but also became aware that if they remained in Austria they were likely to be conscripted into the military.
As a result, they decided to emigrate, traveled from Austria to Cherbourg, France, and during early 1909 booked steerage passage on the liner St. Louis, arriving at Ellis Island during the spring, perhaps late April. Mike traveled west immediately, to Canton, Illinois, where his only relatives in the United States --- and aunt and cousins --- were living.
Unable to speak English but with a strong back, Mike found work in the Canton-area coal mines. When reports of better working conditions and higher wages farther west in Iowa reached Canton, he came to Iowa's legendary Buxton and found a mining job there. In 1913, he moved west again and went to work in the new Central Iowa Fuel Co. Mine No. 1, two miles north of Chariton.
Still restless, Mike headed east to Pittsburgh in 1916 and went to work in the steel mills there, but discovered that he preferred life in the mines and returned to Lucas County after World War I ended, living in both Williamson and Chariton and finding work easily as the Central Iowa Fuel Co. expanded its operations and opened more mines in northeast Lucas County.
But by 1922 and now over 30, as Mike told the story, he had had enough of the mines. Early that year, he took a suit that needed alteration into a shop on the west side of the square operated by Will C. Ruth, a tailor. Ruth was interested in expanding his business to include a dry cleaning operation and invited Mike to join him. The two men formed a partnership, Ruth & Shragol, and prospered with Will handling the tailoring end of the operation and Mike, the dry cleaning. They eventually named the operation Paramount Cleaners and operated it together until 1927 when Ruth sold his interest to Mike and moved his family to Kansas City.
After three years of solo operation, Mike formed a new partnership with Dee Batten in 1930, a partnership that lasted until 1936 when Batten was appointed Chariton postmaster. After that, Mike continued as sole owner --- for 24 years, until retirement in 1960.
Mike became active in the city he now called home, joining the volunteer fire department, Rotary and other organizations. And he continued to invest in the latest equipment for his business, making sure it offered state of the art service.
Following retirement during July of 1960, Mike began serious planning for his first trip back to his native Croatia --- now part of Tito's Yugoslavia --- in 50 years. He traveled from Chariton to New York City by train, then set sail for Europe on Sept. 15 aboard the SS Saturnia. Because everyone in Chariton knew Mike and he had shared his story and his plans widely, there was considerable interest among his friends and neighbors in the trip.
Mike always had maintained contact with his family in Croatia and was met in Trieste by the sister he hadn't seen in 50 years, her husband and two children, one of whom was a physician. The traveled for eight hours by train in order to reach Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where they lived. Later on, Mike and his sister traveled together to Begovo Razdolje to visit their brother, who scratched out a living on 35 acres --- now government-owned --- near the village.
Mike returned to Chariton during December, grateful he said to be home, and shared accounts of his travels with various civic groups. Would he consider returning to Croatia to live? "Never," he said.
During early December, 1968, Mike was injured in a one-car crash on the Melcher road and hospitalized at the then new Lucas County Memorial Hospital. When that hospital was in the planning stage, he had made a $1,000 donation to the hospital foundation in honor of his father, Andrew.
He died of complications from internal injuries on Dec. 9, 1968, at the age of 77. After funeral services at Beardsley Funeral Home, friends then carried his remains to their final resting place in Calvary Cemetery.
Mike always had maintained contact with his family in Croatia and was met in Trieste by the sister he hadn't seen in 50 years, her husband and two children, one of whom was a physician. The traveled for eight hours by train in order to reach Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where they lived. Later on, Mike and his sister traveled together to Begovo Razdolje to visit their brother, who scratched out a living on 35 acres --- now government-owned --- near the village.
Mike returned to Chariton during December, grateful he said to be home, and shared accounts of his travels with various civic groups. Would he consider returning to Croatia to live? "Never," he said.
During early December, 1968, Mike was injured in a one-car crash on the Melcher road and hospitalized at the then new Lucas County Memorial Hospital. When that hospital was in the planning stage, he had made a $1,000 donation to the hospital foundation in honor of his father, Andrew.
He died of complications from internal injuries on Dec. 9, 1968, at the age of 77. After funeral services at Beardsley Funeral Home, friends then carried his remains to their final resting place in Calvary Cemetery.
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