Invitation to Cat Spring: From European Tyranny to Freedom to Civil War

Virtual Serfdom under the Hapsburgs has gripped the Czech lands for generations. In the mid-nineteenth century, letters arrive from Cat Spring, America, telling of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. Rozina and her family decide to leave Moravia and take their chances. After crossing Europe by foot, wagon, and train, they make the arduous sea voyage to their new home, braving unbelievably crowded conditions, hunger, storms, sickness, and death. As the family begins to scratch out a meager living and adjust to the adopted homeland, Civil War looms. They don't speak English, oppose slavery and are against secession. When Texas joins the Confederacy, difficult choices must be made. Two sons join the Confederate forces and find themselves involved in the Battle of Galveston, the largest Civil War battle fought on Texas soil. Another avoids the military, choosing, instead, to haul cotton to Mexico - a more hazardous undertaking than he can possibly imagine.

A fourth-generation Texan, Mary Frances Chupick Bennett grew up in the "black lands" of Central Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas in Austin. During her school teaching years she received many awards including "Teacher of the Year" from her south Texas school district. For many years she felt the contributions of the people from the Czech lands of Europe had not been adequately told. Little has been written about these intrepid people who left their ancestral home for an unknown land. Invitation to Cat Spring; From European Tyranny to Freedom to Civil War is a historical novel molded from stories, written and oral, old documents, legends, traditions, and customs. After several years of research and writing, and a trip to the Czech Republic, she entered her work in the 2003 Writer's League of Texas Manuscript Contest where it placed in the finals. She and her husband live in the Hill Country of Texas. They have two sons and five grandchildren.