2024 Week 33: Favourite discovery

The surname Stepek is not a common one. The name itself is from the Greek Stephanos of Ukrainian and Rys origin and is most commonly found in Poland. According to the website forebears.io, there were just over 900 people with that surname in 2014 and funnily enough, the country with the fourth highest number of Stepeks was .... Scotland! And of course, all of them were my husband Martin's family!

Incidence of the surname Stepek in 2014 from Forebears.io

Incidentally, even within Martin's family, the surname has now arrived in England, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark! That said, none of Martin's nephews are called Martin. Therefore, it was a lovely discovery, when, Martin 'googling' an article that he himself had written, came across an image of a postcard online - of a cafe in early 20th century Vienna owned by another Martin Stepek !

Over the past few years Martin has started a collection of postcards featuring "his" cafe. He now has seven! There are two different versions of the postcard, one depicting winter scenes around the cafe of which we have five and the other two showing the cafe's interior and illustrated with grape vines, as wine was sold there.

These cards were all sent between 1914 -1917, during the First World War. Three of the cards appear to have been sent to the captain of a Germany cavalry unit and are signed by a number of people. Another one is signed by a group of people but seems to be a personal one. Of the remaining three, one dated 17 May 1917 is signed by a Josef Stepek (a relative??) - maybe he only sent it because of the surname too!

There are obviously some mysteries to be solved here. The big discovery is of course that there was another Martin Stepek! Who was he? Where did he come from? What happened to him and his cafe??

We are trying to find out. Martin has written to the local mayor's office in the area where the cafe was situated, just outside of Vienna, but unfortunately, the officials were unable to give out any information about the current owners of the property under data protection. Instead they suggested he write directly to the "present occupier" at that address. He has done so, but we are yet to hear back.

Hopefully we will get some answers and another story!

( It would be nice to own a cafe in Vienna!)

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