Subject: Scotch Coulee Families
 Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 11:21:46 -0700
 From: "rebateman" rebateman@msn.com
 To: terry@cestnik.com
 
 Hello Terry,
 
 My name is Evelyn Kotar Bateman.  I'm the only child of Joe Kotar and Ann
 Marie Planichek Kotar.
 
 My cousin, Mary Kotar Sutherland, e-mailed me suggesting I search for
 "cestnik" on the internet.  I did and had a great time looking at some of
 what you've created.  I recognize some pictures and names, though some of
 the spellings are different than I'm aware of.  We always spelled our name
 "Kotar" instead of "Koter" though many folks pronounced it like the latter
 spelling.
 
 Tom Lindsay (another different spelling) married Ann Kotar (daughter of
 Elizabeth and Mike Kotar).  They had two daughters:  Margaret (deceased) and
 Dorothy Lindsay Jorgenson (Walter), who lives in Billings.
 
 Rudolph Kotar married Rosie and they had two sons:  Rudy and Leon.
 
 We lived in the Coulee until I was 5.  We moved to Bellingham, WA in 1944
 after the mine explosion.  My folks, Joe and Ann Kotar, and Mike and Mary
 Kotar, with their daughter, Margery (Marge) moved at that time.
 
 Ours was the next house down the road from my maternal great
 grandparents, Jake and Ursula Mourich, and it was on the same side of the
 road.  After we moved, Tonch and Virginia Planicheck lived there.  It's
 still standing and someone was living in it when we walked through the
 Coulee a few years back, when we were in Billings for our Kotar Cousins
 reunion--which we've had annually for several years now...maybe since the
 late 1980's, anyway.
 
 I don't recall other houses (Verteen and Weydits) being between ours and my
 great grandparents
 
 It's been delightful looking through everything you've done, and I hope to
 spend more time on it when I can.
 
 Best regards,
 Evelyn, near Seattle, WA (Bellevue, actually)
 
 Her second letter:
 
 
 Hi Terry,
  
 I am English-speaking only (except for a Spanish class or two, along the way).  
  
 How wonderful for you to have gone to Slovenija, and enjoyed it so much.   
 Some of my cousins are talking about a trip there next summer.  I can hardly 
 wait to hear more from them.  I'm a stick-in-the-mud myself.  Armchair adventures
 and other people's scrapbooks, pictures, videos or anything else are my source of enjoyment.
  
 Don't be concerned about the spelling.  There have been many spellings and 
 changes along the way, I understand.  If you'd gotten it all right the first time, 
 I'd be afraid to write to you.  Perfection scares me.  Phonetic spelling does the 
 job, and one can branch out from there.
  
 Please feel free to post my letter.  I'd like also to pass your name along to cousin 
 Mary Kotar Sutherland in Marysville, WA (No, it's not named after her...she just 
 happens to live there).  Giving my e-mail address out is okay with me, too.  I get my 
 husband's computer all day while he's at work, so I don't interfere much with his 
 using it.  His computer's hooked up to the internet.  Mine's not.
  
 Have you contacted Linda Planichek in Red Lodge, too?  She is married to Frank 
 Planichek, son of Tonch and Virginia Planichek.  Tonch was Ursula and Jake's grandson.
 Her husband, Frankie, grew up in the Coulee, and has been in that area all his life.  
 He might be a good source of information.
  
 Marlene Mourich Matranga was Lubes and Mary Mourich's daughter.  They grew up 
 in the house up the hill on the other side of the road from my great grandparents.
  
 You've spaded up a wealth of information, and I'm tickled to be in contact with you.
  
 Best regards,
 Evelyn