This Sunday, an “old country” Czech tradition will be held in DTJ Taborville in Auburn Township — as it has been for the last 80 years.
This Sunday, an “old country” Czech tradition will be held in DTJ Taborville in Auburn Township — as it has been for the last 80 years.
The annual Obzinky, or Harvest Festival, will be celebrated Aug. 10 to give thanks for a bountiful harvest.
“When the farmers’ crops came in and they harvested them, they would have a celebration in Czechoslovakia,” explained Linda Zmek, who along with her husband, Dave, has been involved for 25 years in the annual DTJ Taborville Harvest Festival Parade.
“And that carried over (to America) and they decided to have a parade,” she said.
DTJ Taborville, a Czech community founded in 1927 at the intersection of Bartholomew and Quinn roads, will be transformed into an open-air market with vendors — and authentic Czech beer.
“I like the dark beer,” Linda said. “I was going to have one the other night, but then I was driving so I said I better not — because it really hits you.”
Visitors will be able to sample traditional Czech dishes including pork, homemade dumplings, sauerkraut, tripe soup, wieners, beef goulash, homemade garlics, pastries and more.
The community will honor its agricultural roots with a parade at 2 p.m., including a lineup of tractor-pulled wagons, fire trucks, Scouts, Kenston Sparkletts junior drill and pom-pom team, DTJ and American flags, Geauga County Sheriff’s Office personnel and Rick O’Shay, the sheriff’s office miniature horse, Geauga County public library and park district exhibits, Arabian horses from Wind in the Woods farm — and local, county and state politicians.
“We need cars, tractors, bands, drummers, horses and more participants,” Dave said. “It’s very, very important.”
Linda added, “If we knew someone who had a seven-foot high trailer, we would have a camel (in the parade).”
Both children and adults will enjoy the special events planned for the day, including demonstrators and entertainers. There will also be a Chinese raffle, 50/50 raffle and children’s playground.
Bands will play from noon to 7 p.m. The lineup features the Sokol Greater Cleveland Concert Band, Eric and Nancy Holkamper, Anthony Culkar and the Frank Moravcik Orchestra and Linda.
T-shirts and other Czech items also will be for sale.
Festivities start at 11 a.m. and run until dusk. No carry-in coolers are allowed.
A donation of $5 per person will be accepted at the gate for those over 12.
For more information or to register for the parade, call Dave or Linda at 440-543-5008 or akpote96@aol.com.
DTJ Taborville
According to Taborville’s history, written by Ray Tittl on Taborville.com, DTJ stands for “Delnicka Telocvicna Jednota,” Czech for “Workingmen’s Gymnastic Union.”
The DTJ organization was founded in Prague, Bohemia (current day Czech Republic) in 1897, by members of the tailor union. The first DTJ unit in the United States was founded in Cleveland, in January 1909, with the purpose to promote social democracy and gymnastics.
The development is named after the city, Tabor, located in the Czech Republic. Tabor was founded in 1420 and its name was taken from the biblical name of a hill in Jerusalem.
In 1925, a group of DTJ members came from Cleveland to Auburn Township to look for a location for a summer camp. They found two 50-acre dilapidated farms, the Jackson Farm and the Kasek Farm. These farms were purchased and Taborville was born.
“They would come out every weekend and have parties and stuff,” said Dave, whose grandparents bought two sublots on Mt. Pleasant Drive for $200, selected through a lotter drawing.
They later built two man-made lakes across the street from their sublots.
“It seemed like every time I turned around, my parents and my aunts and uncles were having parties out here all the time,” he recalled. “That was really nice that the families would get together more than what they do now.”
Dave added, “I used to play the accordion and my aunt, Aunt Josephine, she used to dance and my dad used to dance with her. They liked the Czech polkas. So, it was more family oriented back then. The families didn’t have TVs; they didn’t have all of these other things that they have now. That’s all they had, was to get together and do things.”
Times Have Changed
Today, many of the once small cottages have given way to permanent homes. There are around 80 permanent residents, Dave guessed, including homes in a smaller development down Quinn Road that Linda affectionately refers to as Taborville Heights.
The development also is no longer predominantly Czech.
“It’s changed during the years. You cannot prohibit people from coming and moving out here,” Dave said, adding prior to passage of fair housing laws, property owners could only sell their property to a Czech.
Many of the cottage owners, however, are still Czech, Linda added.
“That’s their little piece of Taborville,” she said.
Dave and Linda have lived in Taborville for about 25 years. He first started attending the annual Harvest Festival almost 80 years ago as a young child and has served as parade organizer and grand marshall for nearly 10 of those years.
Behind the DTJ hall near the entrance of the development used to be a large “gym field.”
“This is what they were; they were gymnasts that came out here in the beginning. They used to get people from Europe coming over here and they used to compete,” Dave said. “I remember sitting on the hill down there and watching them all compete. But now, the grass has grown up and everything.”
When deed restrictions for the development were created in the 1920s, the DTJ was allowed exclusive use of the development for three events during the year, Linda explained.
These fundraisers are held to maintain DTJ’s existence (and the development’s roads). Otherwise, all DTJ’s property, including the hall, would be transferred to the other property owners.
“One is the gymnastics exhibition. The other is the Vojan singers and the other one is the Harvest Festival,” she said, adding members of Czech organizations in the Cleveland area, including Sokol Ceska Sin on Clark Avenue and the former Komensky Hall, attend the fundraisers.
Vojan is a singing group that originally was formed to sing Czech songs, but has added English tunes to its playlist..
“We’ve only got five people left in the group. I play the accordion,” Dave said, adding Vojan held its yearly concert July 27.
“We sang some Czechoslovakian songs and then we sang some English songs,” he said. “We had about 150 people there.”
The gymnastics exhibit was held June 1.
He also is in charge of the Harvest Festival parade, which will travel a half mile from the back of Taborville to the DTJ hall.
“We have three flatbed trailers with straw on top of them, pulled with tractors. There will be the Seniors, which is one organization. The Gymers, which is a gymnastics organization, and the Vojan, which is the singing group,” Dave said.
In the past, the parade would include people passing out pickles and a wagon filled with vegetables and fruit. There were ladies dressed in their Czech outfits, carrying bread.
And there used to be a man with a wheelbarrow, who represented the farmers.
“But through the years, a lot of these people have passed away and we don’t have all those things anymore,” Dave explained. “The pickle man is still around and one or two ladies will wear the Czech outfits, but not very many.”
He added, “I’ve carried on the parades for a long time. We’re trying very hard, but we don’t know how long it’s going to last. We all try to maintain those things, but we have a lot of people out here that aren’t interested in that. So, I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but hopefully it’ll last for a very long time.”
