Mirko's History of the Gorisek family

Mirko’s family history lesson.
Mirko Mihelic – Winemaker, owns a 16th century castle (1679) in Vinica on the Slovenian border with Croatia. The only room that remains in the castle is the chapel which is where he makes the wine. Two of the saints depicted in the wine cellar chapel are St. Martin (very big saint in Slovenia) and St. Katherine. His nephew, Ignac Strmec is the small boy on the 1961 pictures (along with Mirko). Ignac’s mother was a Mehlic, Mirko’s sister.
The relationships described here are those of our mother, Isabelle, and us.
Barbara is mom’s grandmother, our great grandmother (stella mama) and Franc is our great grandfather. Franc was a travelling salesman in Slovenia, Germany, Austria and Czech. He did well enough at selling to open a shop and inn and sold wood, arranging for shipping of it to Vinica, which at the time was a big business. He was the mayor of Vinica multiple times. He also loaned money although he wasn’t a banker. An economic crisis affected him and not everyone repaid the loans so his business suffered. He and Barbara had 8 daughters and 2 sons, one of which died as a child. Rudolf, the other son, died in 1939 and Mirko knew him personally. Ana (Oton’s mom), Katka and Barbara are the only ones who stayed in Slovenia, all the other sisters went to America, including our stella mama, Johanna, so he lost track of them. (Side note: the reason Mirko gave for going to America was “go with your stomach after the bread”) All the daughters married well so Franc needed large dowry’s which almost broke him. When he died he was poor and only had a housekeeper taking care of him. Rudolf was a large man and could have been the man Judy remembers seeing in a photograph.
Katka, Johanna’s sister, married a shady character, Victor. He took one of his children and left Vinica, never to be seen again.
Grandpa Gorisek was doing well as a business official in finance before he left Slovenia.
Oton’s sister (mom’s first cousin) was living up in Ljubljana and came down to Vinica for the holidays one year and died at 16. Only her mother, Ana, was able to come to the funeral because of money woes. She’s buried in Vinica.
Johanna’s sister, Barbara, married a teacher here in Vinica, Borstnik, whose brother was a great actor and every year an award for high achievement is presented to a person in the arts, called the Borstnik award.
Note: The above is all about Johanna’s father’s side of the family. The next part is about her mother Barbara’s side of the family which is where Mirko comes into play.
Barbara was one of 10 children, 9 of which were daughters (side note: large daughter population on both sides you’ll notice!). Barbara’s loan brother, Ive, is Mirko’s great grandfather. One of Johanna’s first cousins married a Vlasic, our cousins from Pittsburgh (who Mirko knows) are from this side. Vlasic’s first wife died and he married his niece from Marijo’s daughter. Mary Ann Vlasic is Mirko’s szynomic (niece) and his message to Mary Ann, and her siblings Isabelle and Eugene…come see Uncle Mirko!
Mirko’s grandfather, France (wife was Marijo) worked in America for 20 years and would come back to Slovenia every couple of years. Oton would argue with France about the English language – Oton learned it with his eye and France with his ear. France bought the castle and the surrounding fields in 1925 for $1,800. In Slovenia the oldest son inherits the farm, so that’s why Mirko has it (in Croatia all sons split the farm).
Then the wine came out and the history lesson was over, but the wine was good!!