Children of the Mirna Valley

Book excerpt: In the quiet farmland of southeastern Slovenia the people of the Mirna Valley endured rule by feudal lords and the Habsburg Empire for over a thousand years. In the early 1600�s, the Bevc Family worked the land in the small village of _entrupert. Three generations and over a hundred years later, their descendants moved to the Debenec hills overlooking the Mirna Valley. The family acquired more land and spread to the nearby towns of Mokronog and Mirna. Economic conditions prompted immigration by almost one-third of the Slovenian people. One Bevc generation, a family of eleven children, found different futures in America or Slovenia. Most traded the green hills and hard work of farming for the harsh life of mining coal in a smoky, industrial town. Each withstood hardships so that their children would have a better life. Many of those children fought in World War II. In Slovenia that meant occupation and Partisan resistance; in America, sons went off to war in Europe and the Pacific.