Roll Call Tribute

(Published in) The (Bryan-College Station) Eagle on January 3, 2017

Hornak, Vladimir Josef

Vladimir Josef Hornak August 17, 1919 - December 10, 2016 Vladimir Josef Hornak died peacefully on December 10, 2016 at Merrill Garden Community in Rocklin, CA. He was 97 years old. Born August 17, 1919 in Lovcici, Czechoslovakia, he immigrated to the US with his parents, Josef Hornak and Anna Drozd Hornak that same year. They made their new home in College Station, Texas, where his father, Josef opened his master tailoring shop making uniforms for the ROTC Cadets at Texas A&M. Joe graduated from Texas A&M University in 1942. He went on to attend the US Army's Advanced Officers Candidate School before shipping off to the European Theater of War, serving until 1946. In 1945, he met Virginia Leah Steinruck, herself a Second Lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps, in the forests at Compiegne, France, whereupon a storied romance began that lasted 62 years. They married in 1946 in Munich, Germany. Before resigning their commissions upon marriage, both had achieved the rank of Captain, and went on to serve with distinction in the Post War Military Government. Two of their children, Tamara and Eric, were born in Munich before the family returned to the US in 1949. The new family settled in Houston, TX where their third child, Bruce was born in 1950. In 1953, the family moved to Los Angeles, CA, where Joe became an executive Vice President for the LB Foster Co, and Virginia a lecturer at UCLA. Before Virginia passed in 2007, they had traveled the world extensively and their romance matured and deepened. Joe is survived by his two sisters Anne Hornak, Lillian Sorrels and his three children, Tamara Kellett, Eric and Bruce. Services will be held sometime in the Spring 2017 at College Station, TX where Virginia's ashes are interned.