John BERLISG

                   Frances Povirk wanted to come to the United States.  She worked from the time she was 14, saved her money and came to America when she was 18.  She couldn't speak any English but found her way to Eveleth, Minnesota where there were people she knew from her old country.  She worked helping a family run their store and care for their children.  She met Michael Rednak who played the accordian and worked in the mines.  They married, had children and moved to Moundsville, West Virginia to work the mines.  Michael was injured in a mining accident and died.  He owned a house in Yugoslavia, and told his wife she was still beautiful and to go back to Yugoslavia, live in the house with the orchards, marry again and raise the children.  Frances did that.  Used the home as a boarding house.  John Berlisg boarded there, asked Frances to marry him, moved the family to Kansas where he mined with his brother, and he directed orchestras and choruses.  They had a son, Dominic, who died as a baby from typhoid fever in Stone City, Kansas, March 1909.   There were 13 babies vaccinated for this disease, and they all died within 3 days.  When the mines were worked out, the Berlisg family moved to Detroit to say goodby to friends before they settled in California.  They never made it to California.  John Berlisg was a marvel with getting machinery to work.  Ford Motor Company kept him on in Detroit, and Frances and John Berlisg remained there til their death.