The Painovich Family Story: Serbian Family Eli and Sophia Bogic Painovich
The Serbian Empire emerged from the Medieval Serbian Kingdom, begun in 1346 AD by King Stefan Dusan and spanning a large part of the Balkans. In 1540, Serbia was annexed by the Ottoman Empire. At the end of WWII, it achieved its borders and became a unit of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Both the Painovich and Bogic families were 100% Serbian and two of many Serbian families who immigrated to America at the early turn of the century because their homeland was in peril.
From Croatia to America
Eli Louis Painovich, an ethnic Serb born in 1874 in Smiljan, a small village in Croatia. Eli’s family was neighbors to Nikola Tesla, a physicist, eccentric electrical engineer, and great inventor of alternating current, the Tesla coil, and many other inventions. He was a recluse and the son of a priest with an IQ of 180-310. Eli had been previously married to a Catholic woman and had a son. Serbs were forbidden to marry Catholics because thousands of Serbs were beheaded and/or their homes were burned by Catholics. Eli’s home was among those burned down. Sophia Bogich was born an ethnic Serb in 1880 in Gospic, Croatia, where her family lived. As a young woman, she met Eli and married him in 1906. The new couple travelled to America to start a new life, never again to see their families.
Labor, Family, and Resilience
The Painovich’s landed in Canada and initially settled in Hibbing, Minnesota, where the world’s largest open-pit iron ore mine was, and needed laborers. Eli worked as a pit foreman and helped Sophia, who was the cook for 50 miners and a midwife. They all lived in tent camps. Eli and Sophia had their first five children within 5 years while in Hibbing: Mary in 1907, Louis (1908-2000), an infant who was born and died in 1909, Mildred (1910-2002), and Mike (1911-1990). After Mike was born, they moved for a short time to Keokuk, Iowa to work on the dam. There were tent camps there for the worker’s families, but soon bunkhouses were built to house 16 men only in each. The Panovich’s then went to Hannibal, Missouri and then south Des Moines where Eli worked for Hawkeye Cement (later his son, Louis, will retire from there as well). Sophia and the children were so happy because the company provided a home, and they had never lived in one before. While there their sixth child, Dan, was born in 1914. They were pulled from Des Moines to Fulton, Illinois, a railroading town, to live near their relatives. While there, the family grew by three more children: Dorothy (1915-1917) who died at 2 from the Spanish Flu epidemic; Violet (1918, and Nick in (1920-1999).
Life on 10th Street
Continuing to work for the railroad, they returned to West Des Moines, then a railroading town called Valley Junction where they spent the rest of their lives at 119 – 10th Street. Eli worked at Portland Cement and did other odd jobs. The 10th and last child, Bessie, was born in 1922. The kids all finished grade school except Violet who finished after 10th grade. Louis said they had only two sets of clothes if they were lucky and sometimes did not even have shoes. Eli and Sophia bought a house on Canary Street (now 10th St.) in a new housing development for $1,100 where they could garden and raise livestock within the city limits. All the houses in that new addition were painted yellow.
From 1932 to 2020: Eli’s Story Lives On
Ten years after their last child was born in 1932 her husband (57) was rushed to the hospital for surgery with an abscessed appendix. The infection spread. Since there was no penicillin in those days, and he did not survive. He was a well revered man. Fast forward to July 10-12, 2020, a date neither Eli nor Sophia would know about, in Croatia and the world celebrated Eli’s 164th birthday in Gospic by presenting Tesla Power of Lights (laser show) along with a documentary of “When I was a Little Boy” an exhibition at the Nikola Tesla Memorial Center.
Holding the Family Together
However, now Sophia Painovich’s life is drastically different. Widowed at 52 with eight children between the ages of 10-23, Sophia was worried about their survival. Sophia was studying to get her citizenship, but to no avail she did not have the money. It was known that one of the people helping absconded with her money. She had a sister, Mildred Loncar, whose family lived a block away, but they also had a big family. The closest Serbian Orthodox Church was St. Nicholas in Omaha, Nebraska which was too far for her family to go live. She began to take in borders, did some bootlegging and whatever else was possible. They did not have running water, heating, or plumbing yet. Louis, being the oldest son, would go out at night hunting for wood to bring home for the potbellied stove and cook stove. Some of the kids were old enough to find jobs but had to surrender most of their earnings to help with bills. Because Sophia had not become a citizen, it was not until the 1950s while in her 70s that she was able to get a small pension from the state. As the kids grew and married, they continued to help her in whatever way was necessary.
Tradition, Family and Celebration
Sophia was a simple, strong woman who did not need much in her life to be happy. She loved to crochet (show my apron, pin cushion) house dresses and full aprons, play cards, watch boxing on TV, and visit the Serbian Church. She also looked forward to our annual Serbian Christmas on January 7th and other ethnic celebrations which brought many Serbs together. As the oldest son, Louis was expected to prepare and roast the hogs or lambs for most of his life. Not just on holiday, but weekly they usually roasted each Sunday so people could take home meat for dinner. This was such a common cultural event, the Des Moines Register featured Louis in a picture roasting a hog. Traditionally families went from house to house to wish each other a bountiful year (and place grain in the corners of each home). There was singing, kolo dancing, mandolin music, wonderful ethnic dishes… plus a little slivovitsa (plum or apricot brandy) that made hair grow on your chest.
A Mother’s Strengh and Lasting Legacy
In the 1950s, Sophia had a heart attack followed by several more but did not die of heart problems (even though the paper indicated that). She was still strong enough in her later years that she was able to be a caretaker of others. Sophia spent time taking care of her son Mike in her home. Mike was wheelchair bound from a stroke. Which meant that her elderly cousin who had lived with Mike and his wife before Mike’s wife passed away was also under her care. It required her to cook, lift, wash, etc. to take care of them. By then they had a few modern conveniences. As she continued to weaken Sophia’s daughter Violet took care of her. In 1974, Sophia died at 94 because her food would not metabolize any more.
In Honor of Sophia
In closing, daughter Mary Ann reflects, “My SHEro is my paternal grandmother, Sophia, whom I greatly admired because of the rocky path her life took as an immigrant in a new world… and one who needed little materialism to be happy! As I think of Sophia and the path her life took, it reminds me of a framed poem that hung on the wall of our home when I grew up that speaks to the value of being a MOTHER.”
No painter’s brush nor poet’s pen
In justice to her fame
Has ever reached half high enough
To write a mother’s name.
~author unknown
