Don Blaheta

· · · · · · · · ·

Blaheta

My last name, Blaheta, derives ultimately from Czech. It means "blessed" or "gifted" (ha!), as in "Blahety paméti mél", meaning "he was gifted with a prodigious memory". (Thanks to Skip Diamond for this wonderful and useful little tidbit. :) My paternal grandfather's father was from somewhere in Bohemia... within the U.S. there are currently seven of us (that I know of):

• Mike Blaheta + Jan (née Lux) Blaheta
  • Don Blaheta (me)
  • Kathy Blaheta
• Don Blaheta + Linda (née Seng) Blaheta
  • Mike Blaheta (1969-2006) + Tammy (div.)
  • Doug Blaheta

For a while, all the above people lived within about a mile of each other (in Palatine, IL), but we have since dispersed. Don, Linda, and Doug now live in Arizona, and I live in Galesburg, IL.

Going further back:

Felix Blaheta, from Bohemia, married Maria Richter---from (or in) Vienna. At some point they settled in Bottrop, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, which is where my grandfather Arthur was born.

• Felix (d.) + Maria (née Richter) Blaheta (d.)
  • 4 siblings I don't know about (stayed in Germany)
  • Hugo (d.) + Marta (née ?) Blaheta (d.?)
  • Gustel(?) + Agnes (née Blaheta) Miess (1889-?)
    • Gustel(?) Blaheta
    • Rudi(?) Blaheta
  • Willie (d.?) + Elsie (née Blaheta) Hahne (1904-2000)
  • William Hahne
  • Edith (née Hahne) Knapp
  • Willie Blaheta
  • Gottfried (d.) + Enna (née ?) Blaheta (d.)
    • Rudi + Dolores (née Blaheta) Zander
      • Tommy Zander
      • Mary Zander
  • Arthur (1910-1978) + Margaret (née Fischer) Blaheta (1914-1986)
    • see above

I don't know the order of the children, except that Arthur was the youngest.

Elsewhere in the world there seem to be more--a web search turns up one "H.J. Blaheta", who is a medical(?) doctor in Germany, and one "Radim Blaheta", who is a (research) doctor in Applied Math at the Acad. of Sciences in the Czech Republic. We are, presumably, related, perhaps as close as second cousins. Recently my dad (Mike Blaheta), who works for Motorola in Schaumburg, Illinois, discovered through a name conflict in the computer system that one Roman Blaheta works for Motorola in Prague, Czech Republic. Small world!