Dates

• Existence: 1922-

Biography

Annette Cerveny was born October 13, 1922 in Chicago. Her father, Joseph Cerveny, emigrated from Bohemia (now Czech Republic) in 1913 where he had learned the art of shoemaking. Originally he maintained a shop in Chicago that sold and repaired shoes, but in time gave up the retail shoe business and continued his shoe repair work. Her mother, Rose Cerveny, worked while the children were in school at a Chicago department store selling shoes.

Following high school graduation Annette Cerveny worked for Home Federal Savings and Loan Association of Chicago. She became secretary to the treasurer and then to the president of the Association. In 1945 she married Robert Cech. They had two children: Tom, born in 1947, and Barbara, born in 1950. The Cechs moved to Iowa City in 1953 where Robert Cech was a staff physician for the Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1955 another son, Richard, was born. During her children's school years Annette Cech spent many hours volunteering as a Brownie and Girl Scout leader, a Cub Scout leader, and with the school library. She helped run school Fun Nights and supported her son Tom's Science Fair projects. The family spent summers camping and hiking in the national parks.

The family moved to Des Moines in 1969 when Robert Cech became chief of the Nuclear Medicine Section of the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Annette Cech volunteered with the annual Des Moines Planned Parenthood Book Sale, chairing the event twice and working with it for thirty years.

In 1989, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences presented the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly to Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA. The entire family of Annette and Thomas Cech attended the ceremony in Sweden, December 10, 1989.

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