Anton Vandrovec was born on May 21, 1876. In 1887, he began working for his parents as they settled their homestead in what was to become Stewart Township. One chore involved supplying the homestead with kindling wood for the winter. In the fall, he and his brother John gathered wood into bundles from dead trees along the Sheyenne River and carried the bundles on their backs to their farm a mile away.
Due to the amount of work demanded on the farm, Anton was unable to continue his schooling after the third grade. This did not prevent him from educating himself however, which he accomplished by reading newspapers and periodicals, nor from serving as the township tax assessor for forty-five years.
At age fifteen he earned his first money, a twenty dollar gold piece, by herding a neighbor's sheep for the summer.
During the winter of 1904 Anion attended the Avery Threshing Machine Company's training school in Peoria, Illinois to learn to operate a thresher. So in 1905 he bought an under mounted steamer and thresher and began custom threshing locally. As a custom thresher, he needed a quick means of transportation. He therefore purchased a team of Morgan ponies which could jaunt the thirteen miles to Valley City in less than an hour.
Anton's responsibilities as the head of a threshing crew included maintaining peace among the twenty workers. On one occasion, he heard that one man had threatened to kill a fellow worker, so he began to keep a special watch on the man. A few days later he spotted the troublemaker, gun in grasp, climbing the back of a wagon load of bundles while the potential victim unloaded bundles on the opposite side. Anton quickly scaled the load and seized the gun as the culprit" was taking aim. As a result, no bullets were fired, but the man was, and Anton kept the gun as a souvenir!
In 1926, Anton attended the Catholic Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. While he was there, his wife anxiously awaited a letter for news about the Congress but was disappointed when the letter Anton sent only described his excitement at witnessing a Babe Ruth homerun!
Anton had married Marie Sokol from Milwaukee in 1910. She had migrated to Milwaukee from Nove Mesto, Moravia in 1903. Their union produced six children -Joseph, Ann, Anton Jr., George, Ruth, and Petronella. Joseph currently farms the original homestead. Ann died at aged two. Anton Jr., who operated a dry cleaning establishment in Valley City, passed away in 1973. George farms the land Anton farmed for forty years. Ruth is a secretary in Waco, Texas. Petronel "Nellie," is a nurse in Waco, Texas. The branch of the third generation of Vandrovecs in America have twenty children who are now establishing themselves with families. Eleven of this fourth generation are married and have eight children!
Anton passed away in 1949 and Marie in 1959. Although they did not live to see any of their grandchildren reach maturity, they would undoubtedly be as proud them as they were of their own children.
Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 256