Lukovdol, Croatia: I Did See Grisniks!

Someone in my family, I think I was my Aunt Annie (happy birthday in two days, by the way) said that if I wanted to see Grisniks in Lukovdol, I should visit the cemetery. Oddly enough, when I parked the rental car, I just happened to park right in front of the town cemetery:

Here's where it gets interesting in the "interesting" sort of way. The cemetery gates were locked. I wasn't feeling much love from this town so I wasn't going to try to wander inside. So I start glancing around and I very quickly spy my first Grisnik:

Juraj and Olga Grisnik. Juraj was born in 1883. Olga was a bit younger, born in 1906. Juraj clearly was a peer of my grandfather and great uncle.

The tombstones looked very new. They must have been refurbished. Anyway, I move down to the lower section of the cemetery -- it's not a big cemetery -- and I see the grave of Martin Grisnik. Born in 1898. Died in 1973. He would've been 12 when my grandfather left? He would've been 16 when WWI broke out. Would he have been the next one that would've been sent for, had not war broken out?

Fascinating, isn't it? I travel from halfway around the world. I drive down one lane roads looking for this town. I get to the town and, unknowingly, I park right in front of where two members of the Grisnik now reside. And I find their gravestones with no effort whatsoever. They were probably the second and third gravestones I read.

Seeing the dead, the ones who were left behind by the new world emigrants, was the highlight of the visit to Lukovdol. Let me say this about Juraj and Martin: they were no less warm than any other of the inhabitants of Lukovdol.