Elizabeth Dorothy Jordan (aka Betty Kosak)'s Story

This is the story of Betty Jordan Kosak as best recalled by her kids and grandkids. More can also be found in her family pages: Jordan Baznik for her parents and Kosak Jordan for her children.

Birth to Emigration

Betty was the twelfth and youngest born to Joseph Jordan and Frančiška Baznik in Šentjernej, Slovenia. Born a few years before the event that started World War I nearby, life was to begin as a tumultuous time for her. The geographic area would not see an end to the issues; likely not until independence in 1993. Luckily, Betty would recover sooner.

The Slovenia homeland itself was part of the ))Austro-Hungarian(( empire at the time and is nestled into the southern Alps like Northern Italy. It forms the southern gateway between the Romanic and Cyrillic languages of Europe and Asia. As such, its culture and language is a merger of Italy to its left, German speaking Swiss to the north, and the Serbs and Croats to their West and South with Hungary there as well. Senjernej itself is about halfway between and on the road from Libliajana (the capital of Slovenia) and Zagreb (the capital of Croatia). Slovenia has long been a prosperous territory, even during the long post-War communist party rule as part of Jugoslavia. Slovenia was the first to gain independence from Jugoslavia in 1993, without any bloodshed.

Betty's family were reasonably prosperous farmers. Her grandmother Baznik's farm would prove essential later when father Joseph died young. Older siblings say Betty's father had taken to gambling, drinking and other vices that quickly dwindled the family wealth and land. Other reports are that an Uncle that Joseph left the family farm in care of, when he was 18 and had to do two years military service, actually sold off the holdings to pay his gambling debts. Whatever the truth, by time Betty would arrive, the family was near broke.

Father Joseph died when Betty was less than a year old and so Betty never knew him. After his death, the large family of kids with their mother, now pennyless, moved back in with Frančiška's mother Anna Baznik on her farm nearby. To help ease the process, Frančiška sent two daughters (Frances and Antonija) to her brother Ignac's in Cleveland to help with the boarding house he had there. The two oldest were sent to an Aunt in Libjliana. Martin and Frank would go to relatives near Zagreb. The youngest stayed with the mother and grandmother.

Because of the dissolving and struggling family life, Betty was essentially an orphan for a few years even before her mother passed on. She would often visit the nearby Pleterje monastery in Šentjernej and ring the bell at the gate. The monks were wine makers and did well enough to care for themselves and the surrounding populace. As such, they offered help to the poor when asked and Betty took advantage by getting a warm, cooked meal daily from them. She is shown during her visit in 1985 standing near the bell she rang at their gate daily – still there some 70 years later. This path was essential to her survival the last few years there.

But things did not settle fully yet either as there was a World War in progress. In 1919, Betty's mother then also died. So it was just an ailing, aging grandmother to look after 7 year old Betty.
Supposedly an Uncle (surname Khrin? Turk?), the mayor of Šentjernej at the time, split the many kids up further. (Khrin is believed to be Joseph Jordan's mother's maiden name.) This may actually be the time when some were sent, as described earlier. An alcoholic, possibly "idiot" son of the grandmother Anna lived in the house also and would taker a liking to the girls as they came of age. As Anna's health was starting to fail, she sent the remaining girls Betty and her sister, Josephine to America in 1923. Josef was sent to Ignac or left for Karel to care for. Anna's son Ignac in Cleveland had died in 1921 from TB but his wife, (also now named) Anna Baznik as well as the sisters Frances and Antonjia were there and raising families. Pepca, as Josephina was known, and Betty both traveled the long journey by train and boat to arrive at Ellis Island in November of 1923. After a short stay, they made their way to the older sisters houses in Cleveland, Ohio.

Early years in Cleveland

Within a year of arriving, Pepca died of complications from the flu. This was the only family the young Betty really knew. Betty was much younger than her sisters and Frančiška had left before she was born. So she was treated more as house help than a sibling by Frančiška. As Frančiška described in her interview, "Her sister was a spoiled brat and have never worked. I had to come at 15 and work long hours, 7 days a week, for my Uncle. It was time she learned that nothing in life is free." Betty was made to work for her keep. When Betty arrived, she was placed in first grade because she could not speak English. But she quickly advanced in grade as her English advanced.

By 16, Betty was forced out to servitude in a "rich" family house — Mrs. Gebaur in Shaker Heights. She was treated very well by Mrs Gebaur who took her in as her personal live-in maid but almost more as a foster child or really sister. She was not much older than Betty and married to a much older man. Two key things resulted from this relationship. Betty learned to interact with higher society; not like her sisters and their recent immigrant, non-English speaking families. And Betty learned more refined aspects to living and life. This relationship continued for a number of years until Betty met Frank early in the next decade. But what Betty learned would set her apart from her sisters and the new immigrant community for years to come. It was the foundation from which she could now build her life.

Ignac's boarding house cum saloon was in the old St. Lawrence neighborhood. Francis left her work there 5 years later when she married and sister Antonija arrived. Antonija only worked it a few years before she also married but also Ignac died of TB and the saloon was closed. Teta Baznik and the two sisters all moved out of the St Lawrence neighborhood to a new Slovenian neighborhood developing outside an area known as Bedford. The new community was to be called Maple Heights later. It was in this new community the three were instrumental in helping establish and build a new Slovenian National Home. It was this community that Betty and Pepca arrived to in 1923.

Frank Kosak had worked for the family business, the Kosak bar, in the old St. Lawrence Slovenian neighborhood near E80th and Union. (Yes, it existed during prohibition.) As part of this, they needed a car to pickup and deliver alcohol for weddings and such. Having the only car, Frank drove the priest from St. Lawrence out to the Maple Heights Slovenian National Home for catechism classes. Although Betty was too old for the catechism class, the National home where classes were held was across the street from Teta Francis house and the gas station they had on the corner next door. Betty worked the station to pump the gas and it seems this is how her and Frank met. When Frank got married to Betty, he was disowned and lost his job with his older brother Joseph, during the depression, for marrying an immigrant with no status. This even though their family were recent immigrants themselves and had lost both parents early on. Betty and Frank were married in St. Lawrence in August, 1931.

Meanwhile, still back in Slovenia, brother Karel with his sister Marija's husband Frank Rus had started a shipping crate business that would eventually become quite successful. Karel supposedly bought his older brother Ignac a farm outside Trebnje and funded Ignac and his family along with Betty and Pepca to stay in part of the Trebnje Castle (apartment) for a year. This had been Betty's last home before shipping off to America. Eventually, all the lands and money Karel had acquired would be confiscated as they barely escaped to Trieste and then Argentina when the internal strife post world-war split the country into two yet again and the communist faction gained control. But before fleeing, Karel would help out the other family members such as brothers Ignac, Frank and Martin; buying a farm as well as sending their kids to school. Karel was mayor of Šentjernej during WWII; a family "business" it seemed, even though he had not lived there in many years.

Marriage and Raising a Family through the Depression

Back in Cleveland and Maple Heights specifically, Betty and Frank started life renting a room from Teta Bazi's house next door to the Slovenian National Home there. But as they started a family of their own, they wanted to be closer to the Slovenian school and community. So before the kids started school, they moved to the St. Lawrence area where Frank and the Kosaks had been raised. Children David, Betty Ann, and Marjorie followed soon after with Daniel coming later.

Betty's sisters always stayed in the new Maple Heights Slovenian community they helped found. They initially rented 1/2 the duplex town house (one of two) that Frank's mother had built with the settlement money from the railroad when her son died. Eventually, they would purchase 1/2 the duplex next door, on the corner.

Times were tough as this was the height of the long depression. And being part of the recent immigrant community, opportunities were less for them all. Frank worked at xxxxx Tool and Die xxxxxx. Marriage into the Kosak clan, moving back into the old neighborhood away from her sisters, and bringing up a family of her own allowed Betty to come onto her own. By the late 40's, the three Jordan sisters began to be known as "the big three" as they ruled the local family hierarchy. Betty became a naturalized citizen in 1937. Betty was finally reaching a better life.

Due to the connection with Mrs Grueber and all she learned, Betty was able to get a job at the Halle's department store in downtown Cleveland. She worked the first floor hankerchief counter. Mr. Halle noticed the skill and finesse Betty had learned on handling the rich clientele. He quickly reassigned Betty to the Fur department on the 7th floor where she prospered as the youngest by far and only woman salesperson there. Betty eventually would manage the fur department at Halle's for many years before retiring from that job.

The Second War and Kids Growing up

With the end of the second world war, Betty's kids were also coming of age. The whole extended family began to prosper more as the hard work and savings of the generation before turned them into owners of homes and businesses. By the early 1950's, the first three kids were leaving home after marriage. Marge and Dave would move out of Ohio all together and Betty Ann to Ashtabula an hour or so away. Dan was still a teenager and would not leave until marriage in 1965.

In 1947, Pastor Baznik (Betty's cousin), Lou and Louise Prhne and Betty all traveled to Italy in hopes of crossing the border and meeting family. Although the war had ended, internal warring factions were left behind and the communist state group took control of Slovenia and surrounding countries. The border had been closed since the end of the war when Tito formed the federation of Jugoslavia. Betty and her sister Justa could see each other across the border in Trieste from the respective Italian and Jugoslavian guard shacks. There was a mere 10 to 20 yards of no man's land between them. Not having traveled so far to only be turned away, Betty persevered. Guards at both stations were just young teenage recruits. But with rifle's pointed and threats of being shot, Betty crossed into no-man's land to give a hug and try to exchange words with her sister. The guards were fighting with them and each other making it chaotic and difficult to converse. Soon the sisters were separated back apart into Italy and Jugoslavia, respectively. They would not be able to meet again until 1965.

This was even more a problem for a number of reasons. A cousin of Betty's, Marica, had married a senior member of the new communist ruling party; the member who was to run the secret police. Marica Jordan, Ignac's only daughter and oldest child, supposedly gave up her father as a show of loyalty to the state and husband. (We were told she had her siblings and mother also killed but Karl's daughter Lila has most of their addresses and has visited them!)

Karel had been mayor of Šentjernej and was asked by the Germans to round up the jews. That he did but instead of handing them over the Germans he snuck them out to Trieste. Because of these and other actions during and immediately following the World War II, Karel was considered an enemy of the communist Jugoslavia; making visits to remaining family members that much more precarious for him. He fled to Argentina. Up to that point, he had been supporting many of his siblings in Slovenia and Croatia. After he fled, he worked with Betty to make sure the support continued. But it was this channeling of money that Betty had been handling that eventually led to his sister Mara's arrest and imprisonment for 10 years. Sister Mara would not get out till 1956 and able to finally rejoin her husband and kids in Cleveland. But she had been so mistreated in prison, she only lasted a year after arriving. This was the cause of a large rift between Mara and Karel's family that is only now beginning to heal.

The Jordan families began a movement in the alte 1910's and early 1920's to resettle from Newburgh ( St. Lawrence area) into Maple Heights and the emerging Slovenian community there. See Bob Kastellic's historical account of the Maple Heights Slovenian National Home of which the Jordan families played a big part in developing. The new National Home was built across the street from Francis Legan's house and also opposite Teta Bazi (Anna Bazniks) house. The Legan rose garden alongside their house was the site of many photos from the community at that time.

Becoming grandparents

By 1960, Frank and Betty had three of their children married and out of the house. Seven grand kids were there with thirteen more to come in the 1960's and 70's. Betty was managing the Fur department of Halle's department store. Her kids remember Betty taking the grandchildren back into the store room and laying them down on fur coats to change their diapers. Little did us grand-kids know of the luxury we were enjoying after the years of hardship she had faced to get to that point.

The kids began to move farther away as they sought a more prosperous future that was not tied to the old ethnic, Slovenian community. Being American born, English speaking, schooled and of European decent, the kids could seek opportunities and employment around the growing country. Dave, the oldest, moved to the Bayou of Louisiana in 195x to fly seaplanes for the oil exploration companies of the Gulf. He had met a local Cajun girl, Janice Saba, and settled down into his new life within their community. Betty Ann, next oldest, moved to Ashtabula in 1957 (a half days ride then as highways did not exist) after Wally's baseball career came to an end. Wally had started a new career with Reliance Electric soon after marriage. That job gave him the opportunity to operate a new invention they had just acquired — something called an IBM 801 computer. Marjorie married Edward Lostoski who took a job with the Navy designing HVAC systems which relocated them to Washington D.C. (specifically, Potomac, MD was home) where they would stay for many years. By the early 1960's, Betty and Frank moved out of the St. Lawrence neighborhood house to Maple Heights; not too far from the other sisters and their families. Daniel would be married in 1965 and move not too far away (just across the border to Bedford).

The Psychedelic Era

While the rest of the country sought to deal with the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Nixon politics, and Rock-and-Roll Music, Betty had her own issues to deal with. Frank passed away in mid 1972 at the young age of 64. But it seems Betty's stature of running the fur department and being the youngest in her generation of siblings would help make her still a catch at her young 60 years of age. Suitors came to woo and one finally managed to grab her. She married again in 1975 to Stanley Gawor, a recent widower himself and retired executive from Alcoa. They soon sold the Nitra Avenue home in Maple Heights and then even Stan's home in Seven Hills as they followed her sister Franca to Fort Meyers, Florida. It was the thing to do back then — move from the rust to sun belt. But Franca and Joe passed away shortly after arriving there and so did Stan. Left with no real family and cultural community, Betty soon returned to Cleveland.

Living a long, good life

Betty lived in a senior apartment community that had everything from non-assisted to assisted living. She bought her own groceries, made her own meals, and still drove to events. But it was not the same as her larger houses full of grand-kids from before. She soon became more sedentary and prone to illness during the long winter months in Cleveland. As a result, in 1983, her oldest daughter Betty Ann convinced her to leave that life in Cleveland and move in with them in North Carolina. They had relocated there in 1982 and were new empty nester's as well.

Betty enjoyed many years of healthful living there under the care of her daughter Betty Ann and husband Wally. Many of her nieces and nephews that were spread around the country came to visit her there. Betty, Betty Ann, and Wally often made road trips back to Cleveland as family events occurred. With new highways, it was an easy eight hour drive.

In 1985, Betty traveled with Betty Ann, Wally and her grandson Randy back to Šentjernej, Rome, Lourdes and other favorite places. They met Justa, Nadica, and Vasilija among others. See more about nephew Vasilije at Vasilije Gift. Although civil war broke out soon after, it would not be Betty's last trip. Her son David and other daughter Marge would take her back there and to Medagorjie in 1988. That would be her last trip to the homeland. She had been visiting a few times a decade since the 1960's otherwise.

Betty had the opportunity to make two more trips of note though. Her grandson Randy, who lived in California and traveled with her to Slovenia in 1985, had looked up her surviving brother Karel and his daughter Lila in Los Angeles. Randy would visit Karel and Milia on his frequent trips to LA and share in Potica and Wine that was always ready and available. Soon it became visits with his wife and newborn daughter in tow as he visited in-laws frequently in Newport Beach. Betty would come out with Wally and Betty Ann on their drives to California to visit Randy. They would always swing through Los Angeles to meet Karel, Lila, Branka and others. One of the trips was in September 1998 for Karel's 100th birthday. Karel finally passed away in 2001 at the age of 102. His wife Milia passed away in 1999. They had been married 7x years and their ashes are buried back in Šentjernej with Karel's mother and grandmother. Karel's death left Betty as the sole surviving Jordan sibling.

Betty had always wanted to accomplish one act. They had never had enough money back in the 1920's or 1930's to get a gravestone for her sister Josefina (aka Pepca). She had always talked about getting the headstone one day. So her kids got together and gifted the stone to her one mother's day in the early 2000's. Dan worked with Calvary Cemetery to find her grave site and finally have it marked. No one but Betty would ever really know how important Pepca had been to her. Her only link to family she had known that passed soon after arriving in America.

Betty's health slowly declined in the 2000's. Betty Ann and Wally, with daughter Marge helping, cared for her many needs. Dan visited often as did the many grand-kids, nieces and nephews. Although she clearly wanted to remain matriarch of the large Kosak clan, she finally succumbed to conditions of age a few months after her 93rd birthday at Betty Ann and Wally's home in North Carolina (Feb 2006). The funeral was held back at St Lawrence Catholic Church and Fortuna funeral home — a place the family had spent much time at over the years. Betty is buried next to Frank in Calvary Cemetery with so many other relatives of the generation. As if to signal the close of this era, St. Lawrence itself was closed a few years later in 2009.

All but one of her twenty grand children made the funeral. Her oldest son Dave had passed away of lung cancer by this time as did youngest Dan's wife Joanne; of a pulmonary embolism at the young age of 53. But the other children were there as well as grand children; now aged 51 down to 30's. Some even Grandparents themselves now. The funeral home and neighborhood were abuzz in the sleeting snow as they all shared the joy and laughter that was made possible by the hardships and benefits of the two generations before. Great-grand kids were being told the stories of Nana, the Big Three, and life of the immigrant families in Cleveland. Songs in Slovenian filled the air as Dan, Bob, Lou and others brought back the memories of childhoods. The grand kids all voted, without hesitation or reservation, that Betty Ann become the new Matriarch and "Grand" Nana. While all knew she would carry the gavel well with her twenty plus years of recent in-house training, they also knew the era had passed and the experience of their kids and grand kids would be quite different from that point forward.