The Sernett Story

This is the story of the search for my Czech or Bohemian heritage. My father was of Czech ancestry, but his death in 1950 when I was only seven created a situation where my mother's German American heritage was more intact. Beginning with a sketch of the history of the Kingdom of Bohemia, I trace the sojourn of my Czech Srnec (Sernett) ancestors from the Old Country to America where they eventually settled in Iowa. Most became farmers in Pocahontas County. My father Lee Louis Sernett (1892-1950) moved to Hampton, Iowa, in 1927 and two years later began operating a gas station. So it was that I grew up not on a farm but in a small town in farm country in the upper Midwest. During those decades I was exposed to the remnants of my mother's German-American heritage. This book is an attempt to discover and recover the Bohemian/Czech side of my family story.