My South Bohemian, or Czech, ancestry comes to me through my grandmother, Mary Rose Lapic. My grandma Mary was born on 1 November 1902 in Veseli, Rice County, Minnesota. She was the daughter of John Lapic and Mary Trenda. Although my grandmother was born in Veseli, her father moved the family to Lankin, Walsh County, North Dakota in the early months of 1910. It is believed that it was in Lankin where Mary met my grandfather, Eugene Lundholm. As a young man Eugene would go to different parts of North and South Dakota to bring in the wheat harvest, as a member of the threshing crews. Mary and Eugene were married on 18 June 1927 in Chisago City, Minnesota.

Mary’s father, John Lapic, was born in Wheatland Township of Rice County prior to the formation of the village of Veseli. John was born in 1872 and he died in Lankin, North Dakota. During his life time, John was a soldier, a butcher, a clock maker and the post master for the town of Lankin. John first enlisted in the military on 27 February 1893 and was stationed at Fort Meade in South Dakota. He reenlisted again in February of 1898 and was sent to Cuba as a part of the occupation. He was decommissioned in Cuba as a First Sergeant on 26 February 1901. In the original enlistment record from 1893, it states that John enlisted on 27 February 1893 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was born in Rice County, Minnesota; he is 21 years old and his occupation is listed as a butcher. He is described as having brown eyes, dark brown hair, a ruddy complexion and stands a towering 5 feet - 4 3/4 inches tall! After the completion of his service, he and Mary Trenda were married on 3 February 1902. Mary is the daughter of Frantisek Trenda and Maria Bastyr.

​

John Lapic, my Great Grandfather, was the son of Tomas Lapic and Rosalie Nohava. Tomas Lapice (notice the  "e" added to the surname? This was the spelling in Bohemia) was born in 1853 in Bohemia to Jan Lapice and Magdalena Sindler. Tomas (Thomas) was an entrepreneur, as were many of the early Bohemian settlers in this area. Tomas built a large 2 story home that eventually became the towns hotel and attached to the hotel was his butcher shop. Tomas immigrated with his family in 1861 and settled in Minnesota. His wife Rosalie Nohava immigrated in 1871 with her mother, brother Matej, sister Katharina Kubicek and niece Anna Kubicek. Sadly, Katharina died during the crossing so her daughter Anna was cared for by her mother. Anna is found in many census records living with Rosalie and Tomas Lapic as a domestic servant.  I’m not totally certain, but I believe Anna married a man by the name of Frank Machacek in 1885. Rosalie had an older sister, Maria, who immigrated with her husband Mathias Štícha and their two small children Anna and Mathias. This family immigrated in 1867 and settled in Wheatland township. Maria Štícha died in 1873 from injuries she received when her home caught on fire. 

​

Jan Lapice, father of Tomas Lapic, was born in Bohemia in the year 1829. When his father died, Jan inherited the land that his father owned. In 1852 Jan married Magdalena and they started their family. By 1861 Jan and Magdalena made the overwhelming decision to immigrate to the United States. Then in the late spring of 1861 John and Maggie leave their home and head for the port of Bremhaven, Germany. From there they left Europe and arrived at the port in Baltimore, Maryland on 22 July 1861. Their ticket was for a final destination of Newark (New Jersey, I would guess). Their place of origin was Bohmen. The ship that they crossed the Atlantic on was called the Ferdinand. Listed together on the ship manifest were: John Lapice age 35, Maria Lapice age 30,  Baltronia Lapice age 13, Thomas Lapice age 8, Franz Lapice age 6, John Lapice age 4, Maria Lapice age 2, Anna Lapice age 1. There isn’t a baptismal record, that I have found, for the the child Baltronia. I’m not even sure if she is  a child of Jan and Magdalena or even where to place her. Franz and Maria were children of Jan and Maggie, but died between the time the family arrived in the United States and about the time they settled in Rice County in 1863. Earliest records for the church they would have attended start in 1863 and there isn’t a record of death for either child.

Jan Lapice “volunteered” to enlist in the Civil War in December of 1864 and was discharged in July of 1865. His military file claims he went “AWOL”, but he claims he was discharged by a doctor due to an injury he received while wading through a swamp. This 33 year old man, not even a citizen, and couldn’t speak english, was thrown into a situation he didn’t even understand. I can’t even imagine. His military record is under the surname of Lapitza, the phonetical pronunciation of the Bohemian Lapice. 

The Lapic surname was anglicized from the Czech spelling of Lapice (pronounced Laptiza, I think). In church records from the 1700’s, the surname is spelled Lapicz. Using the optional spelling, I was very surprised to discover that Jan’s four brothers also immigrated to the United States. His one sister, Maria, married a man by the name of Jan Barta and remained in Bohemia. One brother Václav (James) lived in LeSueur County and went by the surname of Lapice. He married Anna Havel in 1871. The other three brothers immigrated and settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin and went by the surname of Lapitz. Jan’s brother Josef married Marie Halitsky in 1867. His next brother, Frantisek, married Rosalie Liskowitz in 1863. Jan’s youngest brother Mathias immigrated by himself in 1866, married and had two children and was remarried by 1872 to Marie Cobat. His two children by his first marriage were raised by Marie Halitsky Lapitz, widow of Josef Lapitz. 

​

Through my research and with the help of researchers for hire in, the Czech republic, I have traced this branch of my family tree back to the late 1600s. They are from the South Bohemia area of Trebon, in what is now know as Czechia (2021).

Here is my Lapic branch in pictures and below the pictures is a brief outline of this family’s ancestry starting with my grandmother, Mary Rose Lundholm, nee: Lapic.