This is the story of one immigrant family's origins in Moravia and their route to the Czech settlements of Plasi, Prague and Appleton, Nebraska. With an extensive use of historical sketches, personal memoirs and archival documents, Ms. Gehle brings the Rerucha family to life. In sorting out the history of this unique ancestry, the author retains the richness of their lives, allowing the reader to journey with them from Central Europe to the Nebraska prairie bringing; their sturdy fiber, their festivities, their "old-country" music with its notes of passion and despair, their strange, intense language with its jarring Z's and R's, their Catholic faith. The Reruchas struggled over several generations to overcome hardship, bankruptcy, the Great Depression and World Wars. Facing many, apparently insurmountable difficulties, they rose above them and endured. Articulated by those who knew Joseph P. and Anna best, you will see into their lives through a daily diary written between 1925 and 1927 and personal remembrances from their children and grandchildren. Their stories describe Nebraska farm life between 1900 and 1944. The details of this book have become poetic as they recede into the past. The poetry lies in the fact that what will matter, are not our memories, but the memories that live in those who loved us. It is the hope of the author, that this book will preserve the memories of Joseph P. and Anna Rerucha and the Czech culture in 20th century Nebraska.