David Propper

"New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WDF-B3P : 3 June 2020), David Propper, 2 Dec 1900; citing Death, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, New York Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,322,706.

From Eva Propper:

My grandfather, [David Propper] like everybody else, had a small farm. I suppose this was outside the village, but I don’t know. Nor do I know what he raised, but it may have been mainly hops. He was known far and wide in the area as Darik (Czech for David, which was his name), and seems to have been universally liked…

I think it was probably from Krušovice, that grandfather took Papa in a buggy to see the first railroad in the area under construction. The laborers were all Italians and apparently a very rough lot as my grandfather did not consider it safe to drive too close to them.

It was about this time that Grandfather decided to move his family to Saaz, in order that the children could have a better education than the village school afforded. This was a beautiful old fortress town in Bohemia, in a German-language area, and here the children forgot most of their Czech. Grandfather was a hops dealer here, but he did not prosper….

[Later, talking about life in the United States] Grandfather was now an old man and his children wouldn’t let him work. But one day he came home and proudly announced that he’s gotten a job – picking raisins. That didn’t seem too arduous, so they didn’t protest. But soon after, my father came home one day and found Grandfather sitting with his foot on a char, swathed in bandages. Seeing the look of alarm on my father’s face, Grandfather explained ‘A raisin fell on my foot.’ What happened was there was a longshoreman’s strike and he had gotten a job as a scab. A ship’s screw had landed on his foot and, I think, broken the toe.”