Tract #22- Frank Wallic and Bertha J. Wallic
Frank and Bertha J. Wallic were the 25th and 26th signers of the Federal Heights Petition to Incorporate. The Wallics had purchased Tract #22 on March 17, 1938 from Joseph L. and Gertrude Frances Moore.
Frank Valic was born in Lokafec, Primorska, Austria on June 4, 1894. Frank and his family boarded the ship Martha Washington on May 23, 1910 in Trieste, about 40 miles from their home, to come to the United States. They immigrated through Ellis Island, arriving on June 5, 1910. Frank was 16 years old.
On August 10, 1916, Frank declared his intent to naturalize and become a U.S. citizen. At the time, the 22-year-old was living in St. Louis, Missouri working as a translator and advertiser.
When Frank registered for the WWI draft in St. Louis, he was working as a salesman for Union Dairy. He served as a private in the U.S. Army from May 1917 until June 1919. When he was discharged, he came to Colorado where he petitioned for United States citizenship on October 31.
On February 21, 1921, Frank married Mabel R. Chambers in Loveland. The couple lived in Denver where Frank worked as a salesman.
In 1926 and 1929, Frank filed three ranching land patents in Moffat County. One of them, along the Yampa River, called the “Maybell Ranching Patent,” was located about 12 miles from the town of Maybell, 72 miles west of Steamboat Springs, in the northwest corner of Colorado.
Bertha Jean Cizek was born in Czechoslovakia around 1905 to Bohus Anton and Agnes (Yanda) Cizek. She and her older sister, Mary, came to the United States with their parents on the vessel Rhine, arriving in Galveston, Texas on December 8, 1912. Bertha’s father declared his intent to naturalize in Orange, California in 1913. Her father, Bohus, has several recorded first names in historical documents including Gottlieb, Frederick and finally, Jim, an Americanized name he probably chose for himself. In 1917, Bertha’s younger brother, Edward, was born in Otero County, Colorado, where the children attended school.
By 1927, Bertha and her sister, Mary, were living in Denver working as maids.
On July 20, 1929, Frank Wallic Jr. was born in Denver to Frank Wallic and Bertha Jean Cizek. The family moved to California and Frank and Bertha were married on May 8, 1933.
The Wallics lived in California for a brief time and then moved back to Denver, living at 227 W. 5th Ave. where they had taken in four boarders. They sold their tract in Federal Heights on February 12, 1940 to Bert L. and Hilda E. Geer.
In 1947, when Frank registered for the “Old Man’s Draft”, he named his father-in-law as the person who would always know his address. No mention was made of Bertha after the 1940 census, and no further records can be found for her.
Frank married Helen F. Wright. He died in Arizona on January 10, 1977 and is buried next to Helen at Ft. Logan Cemetery in Denver.