The branch line from Čadca up the valley reached Turzovka on 9 July 1914 — three weeks before the war began, which is about as unlucky as timing gets. The First World War was a catastrophe for this town on a scale that is hard to take in: about 500 of its men were killed at the front, and a typhus epidemic that followed the war home killed roughly another 450. That is nearly a thousand deaths in a town of some ten thousand people, and it fell on the same scattered hamlets that had already been sending their young men to America for thirty years. Epidemic deaths are part of the war and belong in the same sentence as the battle deaths — soldiers coming home carried the infection into houses with no doctor within a day's walk. When Czechoslovakia was declared in October 1918, Turzovka had already paid for it.Lokálka z Čadce hore dolinou dorazila do Turzovky 9. júla 1914 — tri týždne pred vypuknutím vojny, čo je asi najhoršie možné načasovanie. Prvá svetová vojna bola pre toto mesto katastrofou v rozsahu, ktorý sa ťažko chápe: na fronte padlo okolo 500 jeho mužov a epidémia týfusu, ktorá prišla za vojnou domov, si vyžiadala ďalších približne 450 životov. To je takmer tisíc mŕtvych v meste s asi desaťtisíc obyvateľmi — a doľahlo to na tie isté roztrúsené osady, ktoré už tridsať rokov posielali mladých mužov do Ameriky. Obete epidémie patria k vojne a do tej istej vety ako padlí: vojaci prichádzajúci domov zaniesli nákazu do domov, od ktorých bol lekár na deň chôdze. Keď sa v októbri 1918 vyhlásilo Československo, Turzovka zaň už zaplatila.
