The Ashes of Bohemia

Rose and Augustine Cipera, and Josephine and Benjamin Dedic are forced to enslave themselves to the Lord of the Manor in 1750 Bohemia. After years of struggling on their small plot of poor land to survive, the two families along with thousands of other towns people, rebel against the authoratative Lord of the Manor and their Queen, Maria Theresa, in the town square of Ceske Budajovice. It soon becomes an all out revolt as the towns people fight for basic necessities to survive. Two of Rose and Augustine, and Josephne and Benjamins children get married. Their neighbors are horrified as army men come and kidnap their young son, Joshua, declaring them unfit paretns, sending Joshua to work in their wollen facories and spinning mills. Emotionally crushed, Pavel and Karolina are forced to accept the absence of their young son, as Queen Maria Theresa sends twenty-thousand troops to regain control of the town and the people. Reigning from Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria the fair minded Queen Maria Theresa has her own problems dealing with Catherine the Great of Russia, Fredrick the Great of Prussia, and her daughter Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. As the powerful French people rise up against their own leaders for better living conditions and basic necessities, they become even more and more powerful, creating fear and wars among the reigning Royalties of all the countries in Europe. During over one-hundred years, Bohemia is invaded again and again under the reign of several Kings and Queens. As Pavel and Joseph discuss the problems each men are being faced with as they are forced in and out of servitude and their own families and children's survival. Joshua returns to Ceske Budajovice as a member of the Queens notorious army. Karolina sees him, and is strucken with emotion and collapses to the ground. Members of European Royalty are at their wits end, trying to stop the powerful French people from invading and claiming all of their lands and holdings and decide to hold a mutli-nation congress, called the Congress of Vienna. Joining foreign diginitaries and Royalty from every sitting Monarch and union in Europe, the delegations debate ways to try to end the fighting and bloodshed. Redesigning boundaries and dividing nations in the process. With uncertainty and mayhem everywhere Frantisek and Anna, and Pavel and Karoline and their neighbors hear about a foreign land, America, that is giving away free farmland to anyone who is willing to farm it. They discuss the painful decision to leave their beloved Bohemia for the unknown and uncertainty of journeying to a new land. But the group finally decides they will be better off to leave, walking for days on end to meet the train that will take them to the ship that will cross the ocean and take them there. Storms ravage the ship and its passengers on the voyage. Most of the three families survive the crossing and make it safely to New York harbor, but not all. With the long ocean voyage behind them, trying to find a place to settle becomes an even more difficult task, but the adventurers eventually find a place to build a shelter and finally call home.