The People That Helped Along The Way: Agnes Hrstka Kratoska

     I grew up on a farm, in a mobile home my parents bought after they got married twenty years before I was born. The old farmhouse was still there and still occupied by my Father's Mother, who had lived there since 1939 after she married my Grandfather. I knew her as my Grandma Kratoska, and she was like a second mother to me.

My Grandma Kratoska - Agnes (Hrstka) Kratoska

    Every day after school I would drop my backpack off at home and run over to Grandma's, where she would feed me her fresh chocolate chip cookies and let me watch cartoons as I chattered on about my day. On the rare occasion I didn't go to Grandma's, she would call home to make sure I was ok.

    There are so many things she told me that I've forgotten, but there are moments that I can never forget. The day I went over to find Dad sitting with her while she was sick, both looking worried, is one such moment seared into my mind. They both gave me a small smile and told me not to worry. That's something you tell a seven-year-old when there's definitely something to worry about, but you don't know for sure yet and don't want a worried child.

    You see, shortly after my Grandpa Kratoska died, my Grandma Kratoska got cancer. After cancer treatment and surgery, she won the battle. Around a decade later, on a chilly January afternoon when she told her granddaughter not to worry, I can't help but wonder if she had already realized that she was about to lose the war.

    She lost that war in March 2010. I can never remember the day, and it would be easy to find out, but I don't want to remember when she died. I'd much rather remember January 9th, 1919, the day when such a beautiful life began.

When she was a little girl, my Grandma, then known as Agnes Hrstka, decided that she would be a teacher. Back then, you didn't need to have a college degree to teach in the one-room schoolhouses that still dotted the countryside, all you needed was a high school degree with a special certificate. That might seem easy enough, but the closest high school to her rural Iowa home didn't issue the certificate that she needed. 

    But that wasn't going to stop her. It wouldn't be easy, but she was going to graduate from high school with that certificate one way or another. 

    The closest high school that did offer the proper credentials for teaching was too far away from her home. There was no way she could make the trek into school and back home again every day. Driving also wasn't an option: Agnes came from a farming family and went to school during the Great Depression, so they weren't exactly rolling in money. If she couldn't come every night, then the only logical solution would be to stay in town when school was in session. 

    That leads to another problem, however. Where was she going to stay? Agnes didn't have any family living in that town, and she obviously couldn't rent a room. Well, it would be more accurate to say that she didn't have any money to rent a room. If she could rent a room without having to pay cash to stay, then that would work.

    And it did work. Agnes Hrstka went to high school during the day and went back to the house she was staying in and did chores at night. After four years, she had done it!

    After a few years of teaching, Agnes met a young farmer named Alfred Kratoska at a local dance. They fell in love, got married, and the rest is history. She married in November, and the following May she sent her students off on summer break for the last time. That was just how things were done back then. Having Miss Hrstka as a schoolteacher was fine, but Mrs. Kratoska was a ticking time bomb. What if she got pregnant? The horror!

    Now, Agnes giving up teaching for a life as a farm wife might seem like a sad ending to her story, but it isn't the end. I'm sure it was hard giving up something she had worked so hard for, and I wish so badly that she could have kept teaching. She had a difficult choice, and the one she made resulted in three lovely children, several grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. When that young farmer she fell in love with passed away, it was after 52 years of marriage. 

Agnes, Alfred, and their oldest, Robert or "Bob" (My Uncle)

I miss my Grandma Kratoska a lot, even after 12 years. While she was only in my life for a short time, I wouldn't be the person I am today without her. I sometimes wonder if, given the opportunity, she would have wanted to go to college. I like to think that she would have, and in a lot of ways, going to high school for her was like what going to college is for me today. That's why I have a picture of her on my desk at school:

Agnes Hrstka reading on the lawn

I can't help but wonder what she was thinking about. Her slight smile and her dreamy, far-off look makes my mind race. Was she dreaming about going to school? About becoming a teacher? Was she reading a novel that made her stop and think? I suppose I'll never know, but whenever I need a bit of motivation, all I have to do is look at my Grandma's face, long before she was ever my grandmother, and I keep moving forward. We might not always know what the future holds, but if you work hard for what you want, you just might get it and more than you had ever imagined.