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Comment by mpmpmpmp | Hacker News Reader

I never thought I would see something about my hometown of 300 people in rural Iowa on Hackernews. There are several Dvořák murals in town as well as a museum for handmade grandfather clocks made by the Bily brothers. One of their descendants was my bus driver growing up and my grandfather grew up speaking Czech and English in the home. Kolaches are also a town staple and there are many fundraisers for Schools/Churches that include baking obscene amounts of them.

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My dad and his cousin got their deer processed at the Spillville Locker a couple times. Went to see the Bily clocks one time with my grandma. Good times. Small world.

Definitely a small world. I worked at the locker in highschool and was sad to see it close down a couple years back.

What? The Bily clock museum closed down? That's a tragedy.

My bad. It was the meat locker that closed down. I worked there in highschool. The Bily Clocks Museum is still open.

Billy Brothers clocks, as a child in northeast Iowa that place felt world-famous.

Nit: s/ancestors/descendants.

Also, I had some friends from Cedar Rapids who made Kolaches. I never knew how to spell the word. I’m guessing it’s a Czech thing given how many Czech people are in CR.

Proper Czech spelling is "Koláč" and it is universal word for round type of pastry with some filling in it. There are hundreds of variants depending on area and even familly.

Oh, that's interesting. In austria, basically all pastry comes from Czech. The “Topfengulatsche“ is a box shaped pastry filled with curd, now I know what “Gulatsche“ actually means.

And "koláče" is already plural, no need for the "s" at the end :)

I guess it is an anglicisation of the word, czech spelling and grammar are not so widely known outside Czech Republic.

I have seen similar quirks going from English into Czech. Like how there is "sendvič" for sandwich, and "sendviče" for sandwiches ... I've seen some places here advertising "sandwiche" (applying the Czech plural to the English stem).

That's not why they put the e there. It's just formed the same way as couch -> couches. And English e represents i anyway, not e.

Or even non-pastries - mrkvový koláč

Hello from Kendallville.

New Hampton, checking in.

And from Dubuque!

Whoa, the author of Caddy is from Dubuque? That's so cool!

Tom Preston-Werner (of GitHub fame) was born and raised here (Dubuque) as well.

Really? I did not know that!

Small world.

Jesup here

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