Tales of an old Croton family: The Jurkas
Charles E. Jurka was a local dentist some Crotonites still remember today; psychiatrist Edith Jurka built the house that still sits at Gouveia Park.
Chronicle readers will recall that last month, we told the story of the losing battle to fluoridate Croton’s water supply, which had its last gasp in the early 1980s. The hero of that fight was the popular dentist Charles E. Jurka, who lived in Croton but had his practice in Ossining. We posted the story on the Croton Friends of History Facebook page, among other places, and asked if anyone remembered Dr. Jurka.
Several people responded that they did, and that he had been their family dentist. We were delighted when Dr. Jurka’s daughter, Heidi Jurka, also popped up to ask what we wanted to know about her father. Heidi now lives in Virginia, but she keeps in touch with all things Croton, where she and her sister Wendy grew up.
With Heidi’s generous help with sources and photos, we were able to retrace the story of an illustrious family with deep roots in Czechoslovakia, a famous star of Broadway and film, solid achievements in dentistry and psychiatry, and a legacy that still graces Croton today—the house in Gouveia Park, which will soon be home to the village recreation department and a cultural center.
Let’s begin the story with Antonín Jurka, a Czech schoolmaster who emigrated to the United States in 1866. He ended up living and teaching in Minnesota, and was the father of four children. One of them, born Blanch Jurka in 1887, later became a famous actress under the name Blanche Yurka. Blanche’s Wikipedia entry is stuffed with famous roles she played on Broadway and in film (she was also a theater director.) Probably her most famous film role was her portrayal of the revenge driven Madame Defarge in the 1935 version of “A Tale of Two Cities,” which also starred Ronald Colman as Sydney Carton. Yurka died in 1974 and is buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla.
Meanwhile, Blanche’s sibling Charles A. Jurka, a few years her senior, had launched his career as a dentist in New York City. He ended up marrying another dentist, Edith Shevcik, whose family had also emigrated from Czechoslovakia. The couple had three children, including Charles E. Jurka, the hero of the fluoridation fight. The senior Charles died young, at age 46, and Charles E. eventually went into dental practice together with his mother Edith. Charles E. and his wife, Patricia Maloney, had two daughters, Heidi and Wendy. (More on that in a moment.)
Now, at the risk of confusing readers, we have to explain that Charles A. and his wife Edith had an older daughter, also named Edith, who became a psychiatrist practicing in Manhattan. Edith Jurka, in 1962, bought the property that is now known as Gouveia Park. Heidi, who is Edith Jurka’s niece, tells us that her aunt went through a number of architects while trying to have a house designed on the property, and in fact records in the village of Croton Engineering Department show that her original building permit expired and she had to argue with the village to get it renewed.
Heidi remembers wandering the property over the years that it was still an empty lot. Eventually, employing a design by the architect Edward G. Schildbach, “The Aerie” was built in 1967. Edith Jurka lived there and in Manhattan until she sold the Croton property to Laurel Theise (later Laurel Gouveia) in 1984. Edith died in 2012.
Meanwhile, the Charles E. Jurka family moved first to Croton’s High Street, and later to 65 Radnor Avenue. Heidi recalls a childhood often spent by the water, catching blue crabs from the Hudson and swimming at Silver Lake. Heidi attended Croton-Harmon High School, and then left to attend college in California in 1973. After moving back to Croton for a short time, she embarked on a career as a chef, first in New Mexico and then in Florida.
Charles E. Jurka eventually retired from dentistry and died in 2006; Heidi’s mother Patricia died in 1988. Heidi keeps in touch with Croton happenings via Facebook. There are no more Jurkas in the village, but there are still villagers here who remember the family dentist who once, long ago, tried to do his best to give them the brightest possible smiles.
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The look of love on Clara's face as she gazes at Maggie says it all. We all adored Maggie, and she was the perfect dental assistant. Was sad to learn she has recently passed on. RIP dear one.
So interesting! I love the Gouveia connection.