Adventure in Lobor, Croata

May 25th. Arising early, we picked up two of our Branch members, Zoran & Stanko to begin a day's adventure to the little mountain town of Lobor. Stanko and I have been working on his family history and he had reached a stalmate with his grandparents birth.

He knew that they had lived in Lobor because his father was born there. Lobor is about an hours drive from Varazdin where he has lived his whole life. His family does not have a car and so it would not be possible for them to drive to Lobor and look for any kind of records. His parents also thought he was strange that he was even interested in dead people. Stanko doesn't speak much English and Zoran only a little but we had the same goal in common, to find Stanko's grandparents records. The little village was indeed in the mountains and what a beautiful sight it was. We had an appointment to meet with the local Catholic priest, but he was not very interested in helping us. Upon learning our desire for records from the late 1800's, he slowing got up from his desk and going to the shelf pulled out a register book and flipped carelessly through the worn and tattered pages. I cringed, wanting so badly to photo every page! He finally found a few entries that he was willing to share and gave Stanko the information to copy down. He snapped the book closed and stood up to shake our hands and send us out the door.

We were not satisfied with our information and walking back to the car we asked a passerby where the local registry office was. Keeping in mind that is a very small village, I was surprised to learn that a few more feet into the posta office, was exactly the office we needed.

The office was closed for lunch when we reached it, but after a short wait a worker arrived who was surprisingly pleasant and most anxious to help us find the exact information we needed. After about 30 minutes for computer work and note taking, we had his grandparents information and all eleven of their children as well. Stanko was nearly dancing with excitement.

To celebrate we walked "uphill both ways" to the local cemetery. It was truly on the top of the steep hill going out of town but the reward for the walk was a view of the whole countryside. Amazingly beautiful country and Stanko said yes he would have loved to have grown up here.

We climbed around the cemetery for a short bit talking about local burial traditions and found several of his family names buried there.

Taking our pictures, hunger and time brought our adventure to a close and we returned to the car and a few villages down the road, stopped for pizza and refreshment. Successful Day!!