“If It’s God’s Will, I’ll Make It”
Susan Ivik was born on January 27, 1900 to George Ivik and Katarina Turdon in Zariecie, Slovakia. George and Katarina immigrated to the United States and settled in the Pilsen area of Chicago in 1904. George found a job as a machine operator at Western Shade Co. and worked there until he died in 1925, whereupon, as a tribute to him, Western Shade shut down George’s machine and draped it in a black cloth for one whole day, a testimony to his hard work and ingenuity. Katarina was left with their nine children to care for, forcing most of them to quit school to find work.
Susan herself left school after finishing 8th grade and went live with a family friend, Mrs. Mickelson, where she got a job in the Loop at Western Union. Susan was a very independent, spirited young woman, involving herself in the temperance movement as well as the Red Cross during WWI. She wrapped bandages, sold war bonds door-to-door, and practiced marching in Grant Park with her fellow trainees in preparation for their planned trip to France to aid the soldiers there. The war ended, however, before they got a chance to go, and while they were overjoyed, of course, that the boys were coming home, there was a distinct feeling of disappointment that their adventure had been thwarted.
Not long after the war ended, Susan was walking home from work one day and passed down Jefferson Avenue where she saw a group of young men playing baseball in the street. One of them stopped playing and came over to talk with her. His name was Josef Hlavaty, and he later became Susan’s husband on October 16, 1916. Susan was just 16 years old; Josef was twenty.
Josef worked as a truck driver with the Teamsters and did not approve of Susan working, so she stayed home and raised their four children: Susan Rose; Eleanor; Josef, Jr.; and Edward. She also had twins who died after only 6 hours of life. According to her children, Susan seemed to enjoy her life as a housewife and cooked, baked and sewed everything from scratch and who was absolutely full of life.
Every summer she and the children packed up the car and traveled north of the city to the little village of Wauconda, where they had a summer cottage on the lake. Susan loved to fish, garden and read. She was a very intelligent woman and was very strong, and though she was in many accidents over the years, her children say that she never cried, complained or babied herself. They recount many stories of Susan’s misfortunes, including the time she was trapped in a burning car, the time she got her arm caught in a wringer and mangled, the time she stepped on a sickle and slashed her leg, the time she stepped on a rusty nail in Wauconda and drove herself to Chicago with a ballooned foot, the time she dug a fish hook out of her thumb, the time she split her finger open with an electrical saw, her various mild heart attacks, and the time she had her cancerous uterus removed. In all of these situations, her children say, Susan remained calm and cool. Her attitude is typified in a statement she made before her hysterectomy. “If it’s God’s will, I’ll make it; if it’s not, then I won’t!”
She was strong, too, when her husband, Josef, died in 1943 at age 47 of one of his “spells.” Afterwards, Susan lived alone with the children until 1950 when she married Elmer Sturm, a radio and T.V. repairman, though they only had 8 years together before he died, too.
After his death, Susan lived alone in the apartment above her daughter, Susan Rose. She sold real estate for a short time and also worked as a cashier in a department store for a year or two, but mostly she seemed to enjoy being at home. She and her friends formed the “Fat Ladies Club,” which consisted of them going to each other’s homes to eat and play Bunco. She was very handy and could repair many things around the house and loved to paint and wallpaper. She gardened and canned until age 80, as well as baked and cooked. When someone in the neighborhood died, Susan would bake hundreds of kolaches for the family. She was a very kind person, say her children, and she loved life, making it all the harder for them to place her in a nursing home at age 96 after she suffered a stroke. She is no longer able to speak, but her children speak for her, one of them always remaining by her side except to sleep at night, a beautiful testimony to a joyful life lived for others.
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