It was a good job and it wasn’t in vain so far
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Joseph was born on December 1, 1926, in Napajedla. His family had three sons and one daughter. Josef was the youngest son. His father was a French legionnaire during World War I. After graduating from an elementary school he went on to become an apprentice to a local tradesman and graduated from an apprentice school. By the end of World War II, he was sent to forced labor in a factory in Napajedla that belonged to the Pařík brothers and later on to the railway in Ivanovice na Hané, from where he later escaped. After World War II, he was employed in the farmers’ credit union. On October 1, 1948, he finished military service. After his return in 1950, he worked in the sales department of the Motor Union (the former factory of the Pařík brothers), but he was soon transferred to the production department. During his employment, he graduated from a two-year industrial school, which made it possible for him to get a job as a planner. Later he graduated extra-mural from an engineering secondary school. From 1973 until his retirement, he worked as a safety administrator at the Services department of the Gottwaldov district. He joined the Scout movement through his older brothers, when he participated as an 8-year old in his first Scout Camp. He became an official member in 1945, after World War II. Between the years 1946 - 1948, he led a wolf cub unit and in 1947 he attended for 14 days a local forest school in Starý Hrozenkov. After his return from military service, the Scout movement was banned, so he - and with him many others - joined the Vojan, a voluntary tourist and theater group. There he met his current wife, a girl scout. They got married in 1953. He became a member of the newly formed Old-Scout club in 1968 and he helped in the facilities centre. He co-founded a Scout centre in Napajedla in 1990. In the 1990s, he was a treasurer at the Valašská forest school, where he started the systematic study of historical sources concerning the development of Scouting in Napajedla. He published together with Lubomír Suchdolský-Barva three publications, which summarize the most important developments of the Scout movement in Napajedla since 1923 till the present day. He is a member of Svojsík’s troop since 2001 - the 10th company of Dr. Rudolf Plajner. Scouting is a tradition in Josef’s family - both of his children and four of his grandchildren joined the Scout movement. Both his son and his grandson became directors of Scout centres.
