Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.)_Catholic Women's Union of Texas

The women's union grew from one parish. Its own account says Anna Jakubik and Marie Yurek first met after Mass in April 1894 with Father Francis Just, and the first society was organized that September at St. Joseph's in Yoakum, under the patronage of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with Father M. Vaculik assisting. The Handbook's Czech entry counts the statewide union, whose full Czech name is longer, from 1897. It was one of the Czech Catholic and fraternal bodies that split from national orders to become Texas institutions, alongside the men's KJT of 1888.

What the plaque says

Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.)_Catholic Women's Union of Texas Czech families came to Texas in the 1800s and bought farms where women worked equally with men to clear land and plant and harvest crops. Despite their efforts, life insurance companies would not sell policies to women, citing uncertain income and lack of credit or savings. At the same time, funeral costs and other hardships added to families' difficulties in times of illness or death. To help alleviate these burdens, in 1894, Anna (Migl) Jakubik (1853-1946) and Marie Yurek (Jurek) (1860-1950) of Yoakum founded Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.), or Catholic Women's Union of Texas. Jakubik and Yurek approached Rev. Francis Just for help in forming a mutual aid society for the Czech women of St. Joseph's Parish. Ten women gathered at the first meeting and the organization quickly grew to include multiple affiliated groups across the state. By 1917, there were 60 societies in Texas with more than 8,000 members. The organization initially formed to aid families during times of death. However, the K.J.Z.T. transformed into a successful financial institution providing life insurance, loans, mortgages, scholarships and community service. From the beginning, the K.J.Z.T. exclusively employed women to oversee and operate its business, giving Texas women professional and career opportunities and training. The statewide group also printed a sizeable weekly newspaper, Novy Domov (New Home), published in Hallettsville by Anna Jakubik and her husband, Frantisek. The full-size newspaper printed in the Czech language included hard news, unusual among women's publications of the time. Novy Domov later merged with the newspaper Katolik to become the K.J.Z.T. News. From origins as a small aid society, the K.J.Z.T. grew to become and influential organization with thousands of members. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spoetzl Brewery — 10 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• Lavaca County Courthouse — 16 mi
  A limestone Romanesque courthouse of 1897-99 on the square of a town founded by a widow trader, in a county seat that once printed the Socialist Party's state paper.
• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 16 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Gonzales Memorial Museum — 23 mi
  A 1937 Centennial museum for the Immortal Thirty-two who died at the Alamo, holding the small iron cannon Gonzales calls its Come and Take It gun and the Handbook calls a second one.

More markers nearby

• Yoakum National Bank — 0.5 mi
• Yoakum — 1.1 mi
• The Trail Drivers of Southwest Texas — 1.1 mi
• West-Wagner Homestead — 8.2 mi