The nuns were kind-hearted, I was sorry they had to leave
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Hana Jonášová was born on 30 May 1950 in Jablonec nad Nisou. She lost her hearing at the age of eight months after repeated ear infection. Her parents Františka and František Vojtíšek, as well as her older brothers František and Jiří, could hear well, her father worked as a locksmith in a jewellery factory in Mšeno nad Nisou, her mother worked as a seamstress. Hana Jonášová attended a regular kindergarten for a year, a kindergarten for the deaf in Prague-Radlice for a year, and spent the next twelve years in a kindergarten and school for the hearing impaired in Prague’s Holečkova Street. Here she experienced the care of the nuns and still remembers them to this day, but in 1955 the communists expelled the nuns from the school. She spent twelve years at the boarding school in Holečkova Street, going home only at Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. After primary school, she joined a jewellery factory in Mšeno nad Nisou, where her father worked, painting spoons and jewellery. When she got married, she moved to Klatovy, in 1979 her son Pavel was born and in 1983 her daughter Alena. Son became an electrician and then finished his secondary school diploma, daughter Alena is a researcher at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Faculty of Applied Sciences. Hana Jonášová worked at Kozak Klatovy, then at Obzor Klatovy and Obzor Plzeň. Her marriage was not a happy one, since 1998 the couple have been separated. She has been retired since the age of fifty-eight and regularly meets with the deaf people from the Deaf Association Pilsen.
