ESCONDIDO, Calif., January 8, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- The year was 1871, France just capitulated to Prussia, and Matej Chmelka completed his Slavic family's five-millennium journey to a better life in America. He joined thousands of oppressed Europeans, lured by religious freedom and the glittering promise of free land, gold and economic opportunity. Matej found many challenges in the four-year-old state of Nebraska, but as years passed, the New World's unique socio-political system sparked technological advancements and a work ethic that made America a superpower.
"Matej's Journey to America" (now available through 1stBooks Library) is a tribute to the author's great-great-grandfather, creatively tracing the family's Slavic/Czech roots from man's origin through the notable events of history. It provides readers a thoughtful insight to the genesis of present-day conflicts as they walk in the footsteps of their immigrant ancestors -- ordinary men and women lost in history who breached a geographic and socio-economic gap to a future long considered out of bounds.
Author Don Chmelka was born in a Nebraska farmhouse four miles from where Matej homesteaded after emigrating from Moravia. The would-be author grew up without the luxury of electricity, telephone or indoor plumbing, and attended a one-room country school before earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nebraska in 1963 and later an MBA at Pepperdine.
After a brief career as a reliability engineer in the automotive industry, the author worked on America's first anti-ballistic missile and then traveled the world in support of numerous commercial and military aircraft, missiles, torpedoes and spacecraft. Inspired by a Vietnamese family's journey to freedom after the Vietnam War, Don Chmelka began thinking of writing a book on the experiences of American immigrants. His dream finally took shape in 1997 when he retired as president of a manufacturing company in Wichita, Kansas, re-located to Escondido, Calif., and began writing "Matej's Journey to America."
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