Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

Vol. 8, No. 4 Winter 1985 On the cover: Baking bread in a German colony in South Russia.

Published by American Historical Society of Germans From Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363 Edited by:

Ruth M. Amen, Jo Ann Kuhr, Mary Lynn Tuck

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD IN WORMS, RUSSIA Ferdinand Horst and Willimena Lagge Semmler ...... 1

FILZSTIEFEL Amalia Lorem As Told to Frances Amen ...... 12

UPRISING IN WARENBURG Translated by Richard Kisling ..………...... 13 BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Frances Amen and Mary Lynn Tuck …...... 17

LETTERS TO PAULINE ...... ……………………....…...... 27

THE LIFE AND EXPERIENCES OF SARAH HARDER WARKENTIN Translated by Susanna Warkentin Meinzer ...... 41

A RUSSIAN-GERMAN WEREWOLF STORY Paul Schach ...... ………………...... 48

FAMILY IDENTIFIED ...... …………………………………...... 53

FAREWELL TO NORKA Conrad Brill ...... …………………...... 54

Grape harvest in South Russia. Because South Russia enjoyed a warm, sunny climate, it was an ideal location for growing grapes and producing wine. (Picture taken from Karl Stumpp, The German-Russians: Two Centuries of Pioneering, trans. Joseph S. Height (Bonn, Brussels, New York: Edition Atlantic-Forum, 1967}, p. 90).

ii MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD IN WORMS, RUSSIA Ferdinand Horst and Willimena Lagge Semmler

Ferdinand Horst and Willimena Lagge Semmler spent their childhood years in the colony of Worms, South Russia. Mr. Horst's recollections are from the years 1899 to 1909. He told this story in Lodi, California, in April 1982, when he was eighty- two years old. Willimena Lagge Semmler's story was related to her granddaughter, Mrs. Ken Halsey, while Mrs. Semmler was living in Parkston, South Dakota. Her story begins with the year 1893. Mrs. Semmler was also eighty-two when she talked about her memories of the colony and her life there. From the juxtaposition of the two viewpoints of life in the colony of Worms, the reader has the opportunity to draw many conclusions about the very different lifestyles of the two narrators. Willimena (Minnie) Lagge Semmler and her sister Christina celebrating Mrs. Semmler's eighty-eighth birthday.

Lodi, California, September 22, 1979: Ferdinand Horst at his eightieth birthday celebration. His ten-year-old granddaughter, Lisa Evans, is sitting beside him

Childhood Memories HORST: I was born in Russia, September 22,1899, in the village of Worms—in the old rock house that had been our family home for nearly a hundred years. My grandfather was born there in 1824, and my father also was born in that same old house in 1862, as were all his brothers and sisters. I was the seventh child in a family of sixteen children—ten boys and six girls. Our house was very large—44 feet wide and 90 feet long. It consisted of living quarters on the first floor and storage rooms on the second floor, which was reached by an enclosed stone stairway, at the foot of which was a heavy door with a strong lock. The second floor also contained a stone-wall-enclosed compartment, which was used for smoking meat for several families. The house was heated by a stove, which ran the length of an inner wall and served as a partition between two large rooms. There were several bedrooms in this area. As I remember, one rather large room was reserved for visiting with neighbors and friends. The kitchen, too, was rather large and contained a flat-top stove on which iron pots of various sizes always stood. I recall that water had to be heated in a large kettle and used for washing clothes in stationary tubs with washboards. The fuel for both stoves consisted of dried manure and straw. Our yard was very large and was enclosed by a stone wall. Behind the house stood a row of buildings that contained a blacksmith shop, a chicken house, a horse barn, a cow barn and then a small building for the pigs. Beyond this was a corral, then a large open space where there were always several straw stacks. In the center of this space was an area containing a flat clay surface known as the Dreschplatz or "threshing place." Finally, there was a large garden area. Most of the homes and yards in Worms were similar to ours.

Threshing place with two wagons.

My earliest memories are of playing with my brothers and sisters. I also remember my grandfather, who had his own room, where he always kept a jar of honey. When we behaved well, he rewarded us with spoonsful of honey. All of us started to work at a very young age. My first chore, before I even went to school, was to take our flock of geese to the town reservoir about a mile away. Other small boys had the same chore. We all gathered every morning to drive the geese out to where they could nibble grass and swim in the water. Our mothers provided sack lunches, and we stayed until early afternoon, when we brought our flocks home. Geese were very important to us, because they provided food for the family and feathers for pillows and quilts. SEMMLER: I was born September 12,1893, to Mr. and Mrs. Marian Lagge in the colony of Worms, located in the Beresaner Gebiet in southern Russia. My parents were German Russians. They were married in Worms. They had seven children. Three of their children died. I was one year old when two of my sisters died eight days apart of diphtheria and were buried in crude caskets. One of my sisters was three years old when she died. I can remember my aunt washing the body and putting a blue dress with little buttons on her. The casket had four handles, two on each end, so that four people could carry it. Our home was made of rocks and clay with a grass roof. It was located against a hill. The horse barn was right behind and beside the house. Everything was connected under one roof. The storks would go from one roof to another. They would make their nest on the roof and return every year if the nest was not destroyed. My brother Carl and I would crawl behind the barn and house and walk on top of the roof until our mother caught us. The house had a dirt floor, and when it rained the roof leaked. There were little windows on the side of the house but no windows in the kitchen. The floors of our homes were kept clean by sprinkling sand on them. With this sand on the floor, a person could sweep, and the dust would not fly. The sand came from a gravel pit and was plentiful in the area. The color of the sand was yellow like a lemon or the color of an orange. Over in Russia they made a tall, cone-shaped stove. There was a deep, round hole dug around the outside of it. It was lined with rocks and covered with lime. They would poke straw in for a fire that they had to keep burning for around eight days. After awhile it would burn through the lime, and the fire would burn holes, making it look like a frosted Christmas tree. The product from this was used for painting the insides of their homes. When I was nine years old, I remember using my fingertips to dip into this paint, which had been colored reds and blues, and would "spit" it against the base for a border. I also remember having to clean spoons, which were hung along the wall. Location of Worms in the Odessa Region (Oblast) of South Russia (earlier known as the western part of the Government Cherson.

In the summer we would bake our bread outside. The stove was made of rock and was large enough to hold four loaves of bread. I have often made my arms into a circle to show people in America how large the loaves were. The neighbor ladies also would come and use the oven. They did not have pans for their bread, which was just put into the stove. The stove that was inside their homes was three feet wide and had a hole with a cover. Sometimes someone slept behind the stove. This is what the Russians always did. They would sleep around the stove. The Town of Worms: The Homes and the Business Community HORST: The town was laid out east and west. Most homes in the western section were made of stone, like ours. Here lived the more well-to-do families. In the eastern section, the streets were called Sieh dich vor! or "Watch out for yourself." The residents were very poor. They lived by gleaning in the fields after the harvest—and sometimes by stealing a sack of grain or two. My parents pretended not to see this happen, because my mother, especially, was very kindhearted. I remember the children of these poor people would come to our house at mealtimes (usually in the evening) with bowls in their hands. They would stand there until my mother would put food in their bowls. This was a common practice. As far as I know, there was no welfare system of any kind. There were several business establishments in Worms: two shoe shops, where all our shoes were made; one tailor shop, where all our clothes were made; one glass shop; and three general stores. Most stores and even the post office were operated by Jewish families. The liquor store could not serve drinks. It was against the law to drink anywhere except in the home. Near the outskirts of town was an inn, Einkehr Hof, where travelers could stable their horses and eat a lunch they usually provided for themselves. Sometimes strangers passing through slept there. South of Worms there was a rock quarry, which produced a high-grade product. A clay pit was located near the north side of town. Both were very important because they furnished building materials, since there were no lumber-producing trees in the area. The homes and the fences surrounding them in the better section of Worms were constructed of these rocks. The homes in the poorer areas of the town were made of the clay (or gumbo) mixed with straw or horse manure. The floors in all the homes were made of this clay mixture, which was renewed every few weeks. All buildings were whitewashed frequently and always looked immaculate. Roofs were made of canes about eight feet long, which professional roofers sewed together and fastened to rudely-cut log supports. The town was always clean, and it was every household's duty to keep its yard and street free of debris and junk. SEMMLER: The colony of Worms was started in 1810 and given its name by Chief Mayor Brittner. I remember it as a nice town. The colony had five stores and two churches. A main street was in the middle of this colony, and the Dorfs [Doerfer] were on the sides. We lived by what was called the Ovadorf [Oberdorf}. Our home was located on a small hill, and it had a garden. This is also where the lots were. The cattle, horses, sheep, calves, and pigs were kept in these lots. The flour mill was located near a well. In our section of town, it wasn't so clean. This made us subject to more cases of rabies. There were lots of rabid dogs. The people of the colony would kill little black bugs and squeeze green juice from them. The victim had to take this to be saved. They would also encourage dogs to lick their wounds and believed this helped them to heal.

The Schools and the Churches HORST: Worms had two churches and three schools; a Reformed church and a Lutheran church, each of which owned and operated its own school. Then there was the famous deaf-mute school, which was interdenominational. Our family was Lutheran, so we attended that church and school. Children started school at age seven and left at age fifteen, when they were confirmed. Our school was in a large building with several classrooms. I think there were about three hundred students when I attended it. Children were promoted only when they had learned certain specified skills. So sometimes twelve-year-old children would be in the first grade. The discipline was very harsh. For instance, the teacher had a habit of sending any child out to get a switch to be used for beating another child who had broken a rule. If the first child brought a switch (from a tree in the schoolyard) that the teacher deemed too thin, then that child would also receive a severe beating! I have never forgotten one incident when the teacher beat a Troutman boy for eating part of another boy's lunch. All of us children were crying because the boy was nearly killed! And he was punished because he was so hungry! The instruction was bilingual, half in German, half in Russian. Religious instruction was all in German. The deaf-mute school was a really fine institution. Our pastor, Rev. Dan Steinwandt, helped for twenty-two years to maintain the school, which was funded by private donations. My father often took him to other towns to solicit funds. Father made frequent trips to Odessa to get items that were not available in Worms. One team of our horses was used only for the buggy, and the light wagon was used for these trips. SEMMLER: You had to be nine years old before you could go to the Russian school. It was a two-room building. In one day we would have a German and a Russian teacher. When the German teacher taught, he started the day with a prayer and then a song. The Russian teacher always seemed to be late. When he would come in, we would have to stand up and bow and say, "Good morning, Teacher," depending on if you had him in the morning or afternoon. I can still say the greeting in Russian along with a few other words like "chair," "house," etc. When you were older and did not go to school, a fine of sixteen cents had to be paid. Also, a student had to go to Sunday School until he was seventeen or eighteen, and if he missed, it would cost three cents a day. One time I remember begging my mother to let me take lunch to school like the other children. My mother finally gave in. The other children in school teased and laughed at me and asked if I were eating rat food. I would also beg to stay home from school, and my older stepsister would say, "Oh, let her stay at home; pretty soon we will all go to America, and I may never see her again." This sister never got to America but went to South America instead. Her husband had bad eyes and was not admitted into our country. I have heard from her from time to time throughout my life. In 1904, the year before we left, we had to sell our home and move to a smaller one. This home was composed of two rooms. There were a table, bed, chairs and a tall glass Schrank. Our home was located next to the deaf school. This school was like a large hospital. It had eighty children and two teachers along with nine nurses. My half sister Christina worked there as a nurse. The boys of the deaf school worked in the shops, and the girls helped where they were needed. I remember seeing people from Odessa come and bring their children. As they left, the children would run after the wagons crying.

The Taubstummenanstalt [Deaf-mute Institute} in Worms, the only German custodial institution for the deaf and dumb, which eventually became a school.

One church was a Lutheran church, which had a flat, low roof. The other one was a Reformed church, which had a big clock on the steeple. This was the one to which my parents went. I was baptized in the Reformed church when I was eight days old. One of the churches was made into a courthouse. Pastors were very special people. Someone did their babysitting and cleaned their homes.

Agriculture

HORST: Farming was the main occupation of the people of Worms. All the farmers lived in the town. By law, the land owned by each farmer consisted of strips located in different parts of the area surrounding Worms, so each one had some fertile land and some suitable only for pasture. The farmers worked very hard! The plowing was done in the fall and again early in spring. The equipment was very primitive by today's standards. The ground was prepared by the use of a sort of cross between a plow and a disc—called a Backer, drawn by four horses. Later, the ground was harrowed and then seeded by hand. Then the seed was scratched into the ground with the harrow. We planted wheat, barley, rye and corn. The harvest began in June, and it was a very busy time. Everybody had to help. The mowing machine was similar to the American binder, but the grain was left loose. The machine contained a platform with two seats— one for the driver and the other for the strong man who had to push the loose grain off the platform. My brother Ted was old enough and skilled enough to drive the horses, but he was too small to sit in the driver's seat, so Father tied him to the "lead" horse, and he did a good job keeping the horses moving properly. The older children or the hired men followed the mower and placed the grain in shocks, called Kopitzen. My oldest brother and my sister performed this chore, while my brother Andrew and I raked up the grain that had been spilled. After a few days, the shocks were loaded onto the wagons and hauled to the farmyard, then spread on the threshing floor. The threshing was done by driving around the threshing floor two or three teams of horses hitched to threshing stones. When the husks were separated from the kernels, the straw was removed and placed in huge stacks to be used later for fodder, bedding for animals and as fuel for stoves. Next, the kernels were separated from the chaff by a mobile fanning mill Putzmuehle). The grain was poured into sacks, and some of it was hauled to a river port and loaded into ships. Some of it was carried to the upstairs storage rooms to be kept for seed for the next season.

The threshing process in the Black Sea Region: general view (above) and close-up view (right).

Another crop that was important was mustard seed. There was a mill in Worms that processed this product, which was widely used for seasoning. Other crops for home use were raised in our garden. I remember the sunflower plants and all the good watermelons. There was always a huge cabbage patch as well as a large patch of cucumbers. The cabbage was made into barrels of sauerkraut. The cucumbers were also pickled in barrels. Food was always plentiful. Our life was very good in spite of some primitive conditions. I can't remember that we ever experienced any really hard times! SEMMLER: The families were classified according to what the fathers did. They would take the animals out to pasture. One man would take the bulls. The colony of Worms had three bulls. Another would take calves, cows, or pigs. The lower class of people would take the calves or pigs. My father would take charge of the calves. They would stay out in the pastures until it would get cold. The grass on the steppes was so high that you could hardly see the horse's head. The cattle were driven out to the steppes, which had wells for them to drink from. When it was time for the particular livestock to go to pasture, they came with a whip, and you had to be ready with your stock. The bulls were kept in a separate lot until needed. There was a small fence built with rocks around a lot, which was about three feet high, and the top was about two feet wide. After the cows would leave for pasture, my mother and I would splash the cow dung on the wall. The next day we would peel it off the wall and lay it on top of the rock fence to dry. After it was dry, it would be taken home to be used as fuel during the winter time. We would stack the dried cow dung to look like a haystack and then cover the outside with cow dung to protect it so the rain would not get in. My mother would, of course, make her bread before we did this chore. My mother and I would carry dinner out to my father. On the way home, we would gather twigs, bones, and cow chips. My dad was working about two versts [one verst= two-thirds of a mile] away from the colony. We used a wagon to haul this fuel home. We would have three sacksful on some days. This would also be piled up in back of our home for fuel.

Drying manure to be used as fuel.

One time a neighbor lady was keeping my parents company while her husband was out stealing cow chips that we worked so hard for. She kept saying, "I must go home." My dad finally got mad at her and said, "Go home then." The next morning they saw that her husband had stolen three sacksful of the fuel. My mother would carry water on top of her head. She could walk quite far and not spill a drop. Her hand would be placed on top of her head and then the pail. This pail could hold two little pails of water. I would carry two small ones beside her. My family had one cow in Russia. We got oil from mustard seeds, which grew in the wheat fields. It was pressed into barrels. There were three grades of oil: Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3. The seeds had to be ripe to be used. One grade of oil had a thick crust. The leftover oil could be used for baking. My dad planted grape vines. We built a trench, and the grape-seedling branch had to be cut just so. It was cut on a slant and had to have a certain number of "eyes" on it. The "eyes" were a thumb length apart. There were not many Jews in Worms. I babysat for them for ten cents a day. The Jews had a different set of customs. One was that they had a separate knife for the butter and a separate spoon for cheese. If it was used wrong, they immediately put it into the ground for three days. The Jews had what they called a "catcher" to kill all the roasters [roasting chickens]. They would have the roasters in a small square, and after they would say a few fast words, they would wring their necks. The Holidays HORST: I remember that the holidays were good times for us. Easter was the happiest celebration of the year! I remember how good it felt when the weather turned warm and we could stop wearing the heavy winter clothes. About three weeks before Easter, our parents helped us to prepare for the holiday by planting grain in a little kettle or pie plate. Usually by Easter Sunday, the grain had grown a few inches tall and provided a nice nest for the Easter Bunny to lay the colored eggs. This holiday was celebrated for several days. Everybody went to church. The big boys wore fancy boots and nice suits. The women and girls wore starched petticoats and fancy shawls. They also carried sprigs of mint to church. Big festive dinners were served with lots of Kuchen, cookies and even a little candy, and some halva. People visited each other, and only the necessary chores were done-such as feeding the livestock and milking the cows. Christmas was also important in our home. We all went to special church services. There were not many gifts, and those we received were homemade. It was customary for children to visit their godparents, who usually gave them cookies. SEMMLER: ASCENSION DAY: This was a big event. They would have a parade. The people would throw grass and sand before the horses. The horses would be all clean and shiny and would be decorated with about 2- foot long ribbons, and also flowers would be made out of ribbons. They played the accordion and sang while the horses would keep time with the music. Their homes would also be cleaned and decorated with green grass. CHRISTMAS; My mother would say, "Tonight Christkindl comes," We were all under the bed and very scared. We would come out and kneel down and pray: Christkindl, come make me holy that I can come to heaven. They gave us children some candy and nuts. A man dressed in a Russian coat, with a white cloth thrown over him, would come in and throw the candy and nuts on the floor, and we had to come and get them. (The Russian coats were very nice.) EASTER: The Russian people would put eggs, etc., on the graves, and then others would come and get the food later. When I was about three, I went out to the home of the Russian people who had cows. They gave me candy, eggs and Kuechle [little cakes]. These were put into a basket. I was surprised to get so much. That was the only time that I got to do it. NEW YEAR'S: The Russian children would come and beg for food. They would sometimes come and throw wheat on the floor, and then the Germans would give them something to eat. The Russian people were really poor.

Games—Recreation HORST: Most of the games involved physical activity. We played ball sometimes. The balls were made of an inner core of string and an outer skin of cloth. They were made by our mothers. In winter we played with dominoes and sometimes tic-tac-toe on our slates.

Odds and Ends HORST: Every boy and man had a nickname. My father was called "Red Horst," my brother Bill "Fox," Ted was "Chicken," Andrew was "Putz" and I was "Jew." All of us were superstitious—especially about the ability of the gypsies to put curses on people or livestock. Each boy had a little cache of treasures—such as pieces of metal and bones, which could be traded for money when the rag peddler came to town. SEMMLER: There was no doctor in Worms, The nurse lived about five versts away in a little spot called Barasubka. It was a little place where you could get fruit and other things. I remember one midwife whose name was Mrs. Couck. If she was busy, people would call another lady, but she was not considered too clean. There was a lady whom the children believed brought the babies into the world. "We were so dumb," I said to my granddaughter Mildred (Halsey). "We thought the babies came from the well." The lady would scare us by putting on her apron and coming towards us, and we would run home. My mother sewed clothes for me. I would have only one dress, and this would have to be washed out and worn the next day. There were no machines for sewing. Outside of Worms, the rich families had watermelon patches. They would also drive buggies, while the poorer families lived in Dorfs [Dorfern] and had wagons. My family picked the rich man's leftover potatoes from the fields. My mother's father was rich. My grandmother would give us large loaves of bread and salt behind my grandfather's back. He later lost everything. I felt that the rich Germans treated the Russians badly. The Russians helped them harvest. I worked twenty days for ten cents a day for the Jews and got a pretty, shiny pair of black shoes with a pom- pom-like object on the front. I got some water on the shoes, and the pom-pom shriveled up. It was my first pair of shoes. Later, I got "fast-walking" shoes, like what we call "sandals" in America. My family would eat out of one kettle. Everyone would have a spoon. One time a person who had a drippy nose came over... . I can't remember any huge snow piles and felt the weather was nicer there than in America. I always say that the land over there in Russia looked like the South Dakota prairie. My mother spoke good Russian. My dad could speak it, too, but not as well as my mother. I remember my mother saying that the Russian ladies washed diapers in the same wooden box that they would make their bread in. It made "no difference from the mouth to the hinder." The Russians thought that water would clean up everything. This wooden box was two feet by one foot. It had a handle on each end and was used to bathe babies, When the young people went somewhere together, they were to come home as clean amorally) as when they had left. My mother said that the Russians were cleaner than the Germans that way. A well was built and lined with rocks. Small sparrow-like birds would make nests among these rocks and lay eggs. My brother Carl would crawl in to get the eggs. One time, someone said Carl had fallen in the water, and the water was quite deep. They all got excited, but he was out picking berries by the rocks. There were some large boulders by Worms, where the berries grew. These boulders were called "white mountains."

A draw-well in the Black Sea Region.

Another time, Carl fell into an empty cistern and got knocked out. The lady who owned the cistern gave the children honey bread. The bread just shone a little bit with honey, and Carl and I were disappointed. It was said that my brother Carl had nine lives. The toilet wall was about five feet high. You sat on a board. It was not enclosed, so anyone who wanted to could look in. My dad pointed out a large silver cottonwood (or it looked like a cottonwood) on the way to the store and told me that my grandfather had planted that tree. A nut-like fruit called budushi grew in the ground. It tasted like our Brazil nuts, only sweeter. In the spring the plant had white flowers.

Goodbye I HORST: I remember our parents talking about leaving Russia, because Father did not want his sons to go into military service, which was compulsory at that time. Father had been forced to serve in the cavalry for six years. My parents did not emigrate sooner because they had promised Grandfather Horst that they would care for him in his old age, and he did not want to leave Worms. After he died in December 1908, my parents sold their land. They also sold their farm equipment and household goods in an auction sale. The whole town turned out to wish our family farewell when we left on May 24,1909. We arrived eventually in Butte, Nebraska. It was exactly a hundred years after my great-grandfather, George Horst, had helped to establish the town of Worms in Russia in 1809.

Ferdinands parents in about 1942: Jakob Georg and Elisabeth Fuehrer Horst.

10 SEMMLER: I came to America in 1905.1 remember a lot about my trip. I was twelve years old. It cost my parents $80 to have me come. We came by way of the Black Sea to Odessa and then to Berlin, Germany. From Berlin my family sailed to New York on a vessel named Kaiser Wilhelm. It took us twelve to fourteen days. From New York we went to Yankton, South Dakota, and as the sun was setting in the west, we saw our new home at Tripp, South Dakota, on July 8, 1905. I had to work for three years to pay for my trip. I remember getting one new dress a year during this time. I married Solomon Semmler, whose parents were also German Russians. We had twelve children. One child died as an infant. Our life was spent on a farm six miles north of Delmont, South Dakota. My husband passed away in 1949. After a few years, I moved to Parkston, South Dakota, and still make that my home. Minnie Lagge, perhaps wearing Solomon Semmler and Minnie Minnie La the one new dress of the year Lagge on their wedding day baby Herm

PLAN NOW TO ATTEND!

AHSGR’s

Seventeenth International Convention Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

July 14-20, 1986

11 FILZSTIEFEL Amalia Lorenz As Told to Frances Amen Because the winters in Russia were so severe, warm felt boots (Filzstiefel) were a necessity. Every member of the family wore them, even the children. A child's size pair is displayed in the AHSGR Heritage Center, as well as several adult pairs. As she was growing up, Amalia Lorenz often watched the Weber family make these boots in the Volga colony of Balzer, Russia. The Webers were prominent Filsstiefel [Filzstieuel in the Balzer dialect] makers in the village. Constructing felt boots was a popular home industry in Balzer. The process of making them was quite detailed and required long hours of persistent labor. It was usually done by some of the colonists after the farm work was finished for the year. The first step was a trip by wagon to Saratov, the chief trading center in the Volga area, where large rolls of wool, wrapped in canvas, were brought. Upon arrival in the colony, the wool was brought to a workroom, which was furnished with two long tables, a large kettle for heating water and another table for the finishing process. The wool was unrolled on the canvas on the long tables. Then the "lasts" or leg forms were placed on the wool, and the process of pressing and molding the material around the forms began. This handwork took much patience as the wool was carefully squeezed and pressed over and over again to mold the boots. When this process was completed, the forms were dipped in hot water, and more squeezing was done on the finishing table to remove the water and complete the shaping. A brick oven was heated to a warm temperature (not hot), and the forms were placed inside to set the "felt" or wool. The process of completing the boots often required work from 3 a.m. to 2 p.m. When the boots were dry, the lasts [forms] were pulled out, and the boots were singed over a fire to make them smooth. The final step was to trim the tops evenly with a pair of scissors and sort them into pairs. The finished products were hung on lines, ready to be taken to the street bazaar, where they were sold,

An adulfs and a child^s pair of felt boots (Filzstiefel), such as those made in Balzer.

Charlotte Jensen, daughter of Walt and Karen Sue Amen Jensen of Lincoln, modeling a child's pair of Filzstiefel.

12 UPRISING IN WARENBURG1 Translated by Richard Kisling

A few months ago we received the first reports about a revolt in the large German colony of Warenburg on the Bergseite [sic}2 of the Volga River. We are now in a position to inform our readers of the details about the events in Warenburg. Pastor Schoening graciously placed the information at our disposal for publication. It was supplemented by statements from persons who recently came out of Russia. The bodyguard of the present Russian government, known as the Red Army, originally consisted exclusively of volunteers. With the further expansion of the Revolution on the borders of the empire in Siberia, the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic (in which the [World War I] allies soon took part), the formation of a huge army became imperative. The government was forced to draft nonvolunteers into the army and to order a general mobilization. First, in the late autumn of 1918, all of the former officers, noncommissioned officers and sergeants were called up. Many of these sought to escape but finally had to report, because the government threatened to retaliate against their close relatives. The general mobilization was implemented gradually by province and age group. As early as the autumn of 1918, several age groups were mobilized on the Bergseite of the Province of Saratov, which had precipitated uprisings in several German colonies. The German colonies in Samara Province [Wiesenseite} were especially known to the government as a counter revolutionary element; as a result they delayed the execution of the mobilization decree until January 1919. All men between the ages of 18 and 45 were to be drafted. This news reached Warenburg on January 3. The local soviet made the mandate of the Saratov German Bolshevik Commissariat known to the community at a town meeting. Those who attended were seized with deep indignation, Warenburg's soldiers gathered together and, after considering and discussing the situation, unanimously resolved not to follow the command of the commissariat. They made a solemn vow to each other to stand together to the end. An action committee of three people was elected. The leaders of the village council reported this occurrence to the district soviet in Seelmann (Rovnoye) and requested a dispatch of a unit of the Red Guard to carry out the mobilization. Seventeen Red Guards were sent from Seelmann, two of whom had originally come from Warenburg. The insurgents found out in time and met the Red Guards with a squad of twelve men, with Peter Kaiser at their head. The two groups met outside the village. The Red Guards threatened to shoot. The colonists were equipped only with various farm implements; by that time all weapons had long been confiscated. They seized upon a trick and announced to the Reds that they were armed with bombs and would use them immediately. The Reds, thus intimidated, were taken prisoner. They delivered up a machine gun with five chests of ammunition, sixteen rifles and over two thousand rounds of ammunition. Then they were locked up in Warenburg. Five of them, who had voluntarily entered the Red Guard, were killed by the enraged farmers on the way back to the village. In the meantime, the leadership of the local village soviet had telegraphed to Balzer (a nearby village) and asked for help. The commissariat there sent thirty-eight men, all volunteers and on horseback, under the leadership of the teacher, Schaufler. On January 5 at 10 a.m., this unit approached the village. It had come by way of Achmat and Lauve. As a precaution, Schaufler stayed behind in the latter village. The insurgents were forewarned by the sentinels they had established. In the square in front of the church, they set up the machine gun they had captured the previous day. As the Reds approached, a shot rang out from their midst. This was the signal for the Warenburgers to attack. They aimed the machine gun at the approaching Red Guards and mowed them all down. Only three wounded [Reds] escaped, and they spread the news of the uprising everywhere. Among the seriously wounded there was even a capitalist, who had joined the Bolshevik army in order to thus save his wealth, but he died of his wounds. The incidents in Warenburg were telegraphed via Achmat and Balzer to Saratov. The captured material this time amounted to: one machine gun with five cases of munitions; thirty to forty rifles with rounds of ammunition; hand grenades, revolvers and swords. A regiment stationed in Saratov and made up of Latvians, Russians and Hungarians was sent to Warenburg on a retaliatory mission. The Warenburgers had already received news about this and had quickly organized battle preparations. There were, in addition, two hundred men from the

A street scene in Warenburg showing the square in front of the church, where much of the fighting took place. neighboring village of Preuss, who had arrived ready to help, armed with rifles and agricultural equipment. Both machine guns were set up in Warenburg, and the side streets were blockaded with harrows and other implements. At 9 o'clock the militia from Saratov arrived. Upon their arrival in the village, fire opened up from both sides. There were many dead and wounded on the side of the Reds. They had to pull back and continued the bombardment in front of the village. The gunfire lasted all day and into the night. Because it was frightfully cold, that is to say 26 degrees Reaumur [sic}3, they pulled back by degrees to the nearest villages. Following this, the night remained calm for the most part. The next morning at 7 o'clock, the news spread that a regiment of support troops from Pokrovsk [Engels] was advancing with three field guns (cannons). Simultaneous with the arrival of the Pokrovsk troops, eighty-six men from the German Commissariat in Saratov also appeared. The Warenburgers saw that they were no match for this superior power; their will to resist weakened. The auxiliaries from neighboring Preuss marched off in view of this event. The position of the Warenburgers became untenable. The Reds sent in an emissary right away that same morning at about 10 o'clock to ask whether or not the Warenburgers would surrender. The farmers wanted peace, which was assured them with the surrender of all of their weapons. At that point, the aforementioned regiment advanced into the village, which was already surrounded by troops. After the [Red] prisoners, about ninety men, were freed by the Latvian regiment, the commander said, "Now we'll show them!" That was the signal for general plundering. All who had taken part in the uprising were taken prisoner. Seven men were shot immediately. About ninety men were killed in all. On Wednesday, January 8, Schutz, the investigating magistrate, came from Saratov, and the terrible trial began, All who were under suspicion of participating in the uprising in any way were brought forth. About thirty men were placed on the mountain slope of the village and likewise shot. All their possessions were confiscated. The wives and children of those involved had to leave their homes just as they were. Homeless in the middle of winter, they sought shelter with friends and relatives. Damages of 1,300,000 rubles were levied against the colony. The sum that each had to pay individually was specified. Anyone who refused or could not raise the money was to be shot. The retribution was paid in two hours. About four to five million rubles were confiscated. The worst treatment was to those who had Schutzscheine [certificates of protection] from the German Empire. Five who had been sentenced to death escaped. A bounty of 10,000 [rubles] was placed on their heads. The systematic plundering of the village continued all that day and the following day. Many sheep, 380 horses, nearly 200 cows, camels and other livestock, poultry, food supplies and clothing were expropriated.

14 One of the fugitives, Wormsbecher, who had been at the head of the insurrection, was discovered and brought in on the 10th. He was terribly mistreated on the way back to the village, with a rope around his neck tied to a sled, which he had to run along beside. He was to be hanged immediately. Wormsbecher was hanged on the large church square.

The Bier family of Warenburg. From left to right they are: Berta Lust Bier, wife of Alexander; Alexander Bier; Emanuel Bier; Johann Phillip Bier (the father); two unknowns behind the samovar; Elisabeth Bier Hardt (exiled to Siberia); Maria Katharina Schwabenland Bier (the mother); and three unidentified grandchildren. Although his name is not found in the list of those executed, Johann Philip Bier was shot by communists in 1919, possibly during this uprising.

We further excerpt from the German {language] newspaper Nachrichten, the communist organ published in Saratov, the official account of the uprising.

Record of the Special Investigation Commission Those present were Comrades Saranzev, Ostroglasov, Ebenholz, Schonfeld, Alfred Schutz, Eduard Schutz, Johann Zitzer and Schuiz Grab. Individuals were named with the distribution of duties: as Commander of all Troops Present and President of the Collegium, Comrade Nachalov and Comrade Ebenholz; as Investigative Magistrates, the Comrades Eduard Schiitz and Hermann Schutz; Director in Charge of Arrests, Comrade Zitzer; Deputy President, Comrade Schonfeld; Administrator of Finances, Comrade Reichert; Commander of Those Arrested, Comrade Ostroglasov; Secretary, Alfred Schiitz. Because of their active participation in the uprising [the following men] were judged and condemned to death by shooting:

15 1. Heinrich Trippel 18. Heinrich Schiitz 2. Friedrich Hammel 19. Johann Pfeiffer 3. Alexander Hart 20. Jacob Rasch 4. Georg Kraft 21. Philipp Adolf 5. Heinrich Gabel [Goebel] 22. Friedrich Schmal 6. Philipp Hubert 23. Heinrich Bier 7. Georg Werner 24. Eduard Simon 8. Konrad Roth 25. Philipp Becker 9. August Kramer 26. Heinrich Schpomer [sic} [Spomer] 10. Heinrich Roth 27. Philipp Schpomer [sic] [Spomer] 11. Heinrich Hartwig 28. Johann Braun 12. Philipp Pfeifer 29. Friedrich Simon 13. Andreas Eisner 30. Heinrich Eisener [Eisner] 14. Heinrich Michael Hartwig 31. Johann Stamm 15. David Schiitz 32. Jaeger Wagenleiter [Wagenleitner] 16. Alexander Pfeiffer 33. Michael Funkner 17. Johann Schutz 34. Heinrich Stuppel

Others who were convicted (but escaped): 1. Friedrich Klein 4. Peter Kaiser (son) 2. Philipp Doring 5. Friedrich Krikau 3. Peter Kaiser (father) 6. Peter Schmidt The death sentences were carried out right after the arrests. The property of the condemned was confiscated, as was the property of Vladimir Wormsbecher, whose wife and children were able to keep only the absolute necessities, while the remainder was given over to the Committee for the Poor. The assessment of 1,300,000 rubles, which was imposed on Warenburg, was apportioned in the following manner: Friedrich Schmall, 50,000 [rubles]; Alexander Bier, 50,000; and so on.

Notes 1. This article under the title "Hochwichtige Kriegserfahrungen der Wolga-Deutschen" ["Highly Important War Experiences of the Volga Germans"] appeared on page 6 in the August 26, 1920, issue of Die Welt Post. This newspaper gave credit for the article to the May 15,1920, issue oiHeimkehr, a publication from Germany. 2. Warenburg was actually on the Wiesenseite, or east side of the Volga River. 3. This should probably be minus 26 degrees Reaumur. This thermometer scale puts the freezing mark at 0 degrees and boiling at 80 degrees.

BOOKS AND THINGS The books and articles listed in issues of the Journal under the section "BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES" have been placed in the library at AHSGR Headquarters. This listing does not indicate whether or not the items mentioned are also for sale in our bookstore. For information about items for sale, consult our bookstore price list, which is available upon request from Headquarters. (A copy was also sent to you with the November Newsletter.) If you want to borrow a book or article listed in the Journal, please contact the interlibrary loan department of your local public or university library. Any item may be sent to you unless its number has an R or an * in front of it. Examples: R or *M2198 .S55C64x BX8129 .H8Z53 1943x These symbols mean that the item is restricted to Headquarters in-the-library use only.

16 BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Frances Amen and Mary Lynn Tuck PLEASE NOTE: When a number has an R before it, that indicates that the item does not circulate. This means that patrons may use the item in the AHSGR library itself, but they may not check it out for use elsewhere. * also indicates that an item does not circulate.

GR 1832 (perm.) v.l Amen, CS71 .B736 1979x Brenneise» Nathan, Delbert D., compiler. compiler & editor. Weddings and Anniversaries, n.d. 39 pp. plus Hardships, Blessings, Opportunities. A History of indices. Typewritten. Donated by compiler. the Brenneise Family. 1979. Typewritten Extracted by Mr. Amen from the Washita photocopy, 90 pp. Donated by Harvey Brenneise. County Enterprise newspaper, Corn, Washita A compilation of history, interviews, County, OK, for the years 1928 through 1935. obituaries, sayings and expressions, customs and Marriages have been indexed by article title as anecdotes. Also, genealogical charts of the well as by names. Brenneise family that migrated to the Dakota territories from the Ukraine, South Russia. F782 .K5k57x Bader, Roy and Avis Bader. DK34 .G3B832 1984x Kit Carson County and Its Cattlemen. History and Buchsweiler, Meir. Stories of the Kit Carson County Cattlemen and German Raiony and Their Newspapers, 1927- Women, n.p., n.d. 131 pp. 1941. Research Paper No. 58. Jerusalem: Part I: The cattlemen in Kit Carson County, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, December Colorado; Part 2: The development of the county; 1984. 41 pp. Donated by author. Part 3: Stories of the people who helped develop This paper discusses the relatively small the county. Germans from Russia began coming administrative units (raiony) in the U.S.S.R. and to the county in 1889 from the Ukraine. They gives special attention to those in which Soviet settled in an area northwest of Burlington and Germans reside. The author defines raion and its Bethune, founding what is now known as the changing status with the passing years. He then "Russian (German) Settlement." The churches provides details about newspapers in the German they started in the area are mentioned. administrative districts such as the Republic on the River Volga, the districts in the Ukraine, and F674 .L7B34x Baker, Anna, German districts in other parts of the U.S.S.R. compiler. Hayward School, Lincoln, NE, List of Pupils 1895- CS71 .S934 1984x 1968. n.p., n.d. 40 pp. Christian Stephan Suckle Family Tree. n.p., n.d. A valuable resource, including names of 669 pp. Picture, family group charts, Donated by pupils, pupils' addresses when they started school, Emil and Beulah Bentz. and year pupils began school at Hayward. Comprehensive study of the family lines in the form of group charts. The family went from Verticle File the Wurttemberg area in West Germany to Poland GR 1833 (perm.) and later to Katzbach, Bessarabia, in 1824, then Barton County Genealogical Society, Great on to South Dakota in 1880. Bend, KS. F1079.5 .E3D68 1980x Newsletters. Fall 1980-Sprmg 1985. A quarterly publication, 14 pp. Donated by Ulanda Nichols, Colchester Women's Institute (compiled by). Includes extracts from Plat Book of Barton Down Memory Lane in Colchester. Colchester, County, Kansas, and Marriage Book; AB, Canada: Glenbow Alberta Institute, 1980. obituaries from Barton County Democrat, 347 pp. Donated by compilers. Declarations of Intention and Petitions for A fascinating history of pioneer beginnings Naturalization. Also historical highlights of and experiences of the Colchester community. It Barton County. includes many family histories and photos, also a 1960 map of the township.

17 CS71 .W345 1984x CS71 .K723 1983 Davick, Carol (Walker), compiler. Farina, Geraldine Fay. Walker-Scklecht Ancestry, 1683 through 1983. The History of the Kraft Family. Kitimat, BC: Loves, Lives, Legacies. Pub. by compiler, 1984. n.p., n.d. 93 pp. Photocopy. Maps, photos, Photos, maps, documents. 505 pp. Donated by documents. Donated by author. compiler. Brief narratives of individual members of this A detailed account of the families' origins in Volga-German family, which begin with Jacob South Russia and their genealogy. The villages of Kraft. Hoffnungstal and Grossliebental are described, accompanied by maps and phofcos. The families *CT120 .F47 1984x immigrated first to the United States and then to Ferguson, Jo—Chairman, Central Oklahoma Canada. Chapter AHSGR. Lest We Forget—Obituary Index Vols. 1, 2, and S. CS71 .B666 1983x Computerized copies. 34 pp. each vol. Donated Dockter, Gregory R. by the Central Oklahoma Chapter. Johann Bonnet Familie aus Neudorf. Bismarck, These three indices include approximately ND: n.p. Typewritten, 1983. Donated by author. 6,000 obituaries gathered from Oklahoma A collection of family charts, photos and newspapers, dating from 1898 to 1917, and from maps. funeral home records, the Corn Men-nonite Brethren Church files, personal files and some DK28 .D68 out-of-state records. Persons born in Russia are so Douglas, William 0. noted by an asterisk (*) after the death date. Russian Journey. Garden City, NY: Double-day & Company, Inc., 1956. 255 pp. F1076 -F47x A good resource for the state of the Soviet Ferguson, Ted. economy, government, culture and history up Alberta—A Symphony in Colour. Don Mills, ON, through 1955. Canada: Collins Publishers, 1983. 64 pp. Donated by Edmonton and District Chapter. F645 .R85C46x The book provides a brief historical 1873-1973 Centennial Year for Germans from background, a terse survey of cities like Russia in North Dakota. Bismarck, ND: n.p., June Edmonton and Calgary, beautiful color 1973. 88 pp. photographs and descriptions of the Rockies, the Includes articles about early life among the Badlands, and the Cypress Hills. It also includes Germans from Russia in North Dakota, a program the story of Alberta's oil industry. of the North Dakota Historical Society of Germans from Russia Centennial Convention in CS71 .E443 1969x 1973, information about genealogical and Friesen, Charles T., compiler. historical societies in North Dakota, some The Family Record of Heinrich Ediger and His ancestor charts, family group charts, articles to Wife Sara Heinrichs Ediger and Their Children. aid in pursuing genealogy research, Bessarabian Hutchinson, KS: n.p. Typewritten, 1969. 90 pp. parish lists, and an index of all names mentioned Donated by Mrs. J. Hoyle May-field. in the volume. This family record begins with a brief historical sketch of the Ediger family, dating back to DK28 .E8 about 1770 in West Prussia. Heinrich Ediger grew Ethridge, Willie Snow. up in the villages of Alexander-tal and Schardau, Russian Duet. The Story of a Journey. New York: South Russia. In 1874 he and his wife migrated to Simon & Schusfcer, 1959. 314 pp. America and settled in Kansas. The record In the form of a diary, this factual account of a includes several generations and a complete summer trip to Russia by the former Kentucky alphabetical index of all members of the families. chairman of Russian War Relief and her naturalized American friend, Nila Magidoff, who F1079.5 .B78F76x lived in Russia until 1948, provides some From Bush to Bushels. A History of Bruderheim interesting views and relates some tremendous and District. Bruderheim, AB, Canada: experiences. The goal of locating Nila's sister in Bruderheim Historical Committee, Moscow did not come to fruition.

18 1983. 479 pp. Z1251 .A2A6 1982x Bruderheim was fche name chosen by and for the Historic Sites Committee, American Association of congregation of the Moravian colony in the Spring Museums. Creek area near Fort Saskatchewan. Many of the An Annotated Bibliography for the Development and colonists had been members of the Moravian church in Operation of Historic Sites. Washington, D.C.: Volhynia. The settlement became a large wheat- Historic Sites Committee, American Association of growing and bustling trade center. Its flour mill Museums, June 1982. 48 pp. attracted people from an extensive area. A well-prepared resource that provides guidelines and materials for achieving museum accreditation. CS71 .H328 1985x Haas, Fleming E., compiler & editor. GR 1907 (perm.) "Ilavlinskaya Volost" Johann George Haas Family Russia-America 1876- GR 1908 (perm.) "losefstal" 1985. Ceres, CA: Published by author, 1985. 144 pp. GR 1909 (perm.) "Kamyschin" Photos, documents. Donated by author. Excerpts from Istoriko-geograficheskii slo-var' This family history begins in the village of saratovskoi gubernii (Historical-Geographic Franzosen, Russia, located in the Volga area. They Dictionary of Saratov Province), 1898-1901. Donated immigrated to America m 1876 on the S.S. City of by Edward Gerk. Montreal and settled in Marion County, Kansas. It Articles that deal with the history and founding of includes an interesting biography of George T. Haas the above, as well as giving interesting statistical data and lists family records. Also, a brief account of family such as land-holdings, churches, emigration, area traditions and memories. descriptions, etc.

CS71 .H197 1982 DK4600 .G3442 v.67 1982 Halstead, Gary A. Hobler, Ernst and Rudolf Mohr, eds. Three Hundred and Fifty Years of Hals teads in Vor 200 Jahren aus der Pfalz nach Galizien und in die America. Published privately, 1982. 140 pp. Donated Bukowina. Stuttgart/Bad Cann-statt, W. Germany; by author. Hilfskomitee der Gali-ziendeutschen, 1982. 147 pp. This volume is an extension of Descendants of This commemorative volume includes the reasons Thomas Halstead and Phebe Margaret Bogardus of for the migration from the Palatinate, the settling of the the New York Hal-steads. (p. 63 "The Story of the areas, the fortunes of the immigrants and a look at their Halsteads in the United States" by William Leon Hal- cultural accomplishments in Galicia and Bukovina. It stead, 1934). No reference to German Russians. includes many historical accounts and remembrances of various writers. Also, poems and some nursery PS3558 .A72F5 rhymes. Harvey, Victoria Unruh. 50 Poems. Liberty, MO: The Quality Press, Inc., 1969. BX 8129 .H8H62x 47 pp. Donated by Ruth Love. Horsch, John. Published upon the occasion of the author's fiftieth The Hutterian Brethren 1528-1931. A Story of wedding anniversary, fche poems in this volume Martyrdom and Loyalty. n.p., n.d. 167 pp. reflect Mrs. Harvey's Ukrainian traditions and the love This "original, genuine" Anabaptist group carefully of the farming areas in which she lived in Kansas. preserves the spirit of the Reformation. The author talks at length about the economic and social aspects of CS71 .H556 1985x original Anabaptism. The contrast between the Heimbigner, Anona M. communistic practices of the Hutterites and the brand Heimbigner Family Charts. 1985. Photocopy, 88 pp. of communism practiced by the government of the Donated by author. U.S.S.R. is sharply drawn. Includes a list of the No narrative. Two photos accompanying the family Hufcterian Bmderhofs in 1931, maps showing charts. Hutterian settlements in Moravia and Hungary (now Czechoslovakia), a useful index, and a bibliography.

19 BX8129 .H8H67x Paulinus and Sr. Amanda. Wurzburg, West Hostetler, John A. Germany, n.p., 1956-57. 36 pp. Donated by Hutterite Life. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1965. Lawrence Weigel. 38 pp. The Karlin family tree is given, along with This pamphlet is the third in a series with glimpses of Katharinenstadt (Volga), emigration Amisk Life and Mennonite Life by the same from there to Kansas, where some Russian- author. It depicts the life of the Hutterian Brethren German families established Katharinenstadt in South Dakota, where they settled in 1874. They (Catharine). Harvest reports and other community live in Bruderhofs [Bruder-hofen} (common information are provided for the years 1876-1921. households, or colonies). DK34 .G3K56x BX8129 .H8H58 1985x Kindsvater, Carl E., translator. Hutterite Centennial Steering Committee. A Volga German Chronicle, n.p., 1985. 123 Hutterite Roots. Freeman, SD: Pine Hill Press, pp. Donated by translator. 1985.127 pp. plus addendum. Donated by Reuben This account is based on records that were Goertz. assembled and preserved by Joh. Heinrich Hutterite-Mennonite Centennial, 1874-1974: Kindsvater (1844-1893). It includes personal and Record of births, deaths, baptisms and marriages historical writings and maps. It relates that a copied from two Church Books-some dating back group of 70 families, including the Joh. Hartmann to 1756 and recorded through 1877, A report by Kindsvater family, migrated from Germany to the Arnold M. Hofer of his visit to former Hutterite Volga area in Russia, where they founded the Dorfs [Dorfer} in Russia in 1976 with colony of Oleshna (Dietel) in 1767. The book accompanying photos is very interesting. also includes genealogical tables and documents. CS71 ,D424 1983x Johnson, DeLilah D., compiler. DK651 .P74K547x The History and Records of the Benjamin Deckert KisUng, Richard. Families 1534-1982. Freeman, SD: Die Warenburger: Bin Ruckblick. Waren- Pine Hill Press, 1983.152 pp. Photos, maps. burgers: A Look Back. Concord, CA: Published Donated by author. by author, Sept. 1984. 49 pp. Includes maps, The Decker generations trace their origin to photographs, documents, genealogies. Donated the Przeshowka Mennonite Church records in by author. West Prussia. Benjamin Deckert was a son of This book is the result of a group of dedicated Johann Decker III and Anna Voth. He and his Warenburgers who researched and studied this family immigrated to America in 1874 and settled colony for the AHSGR Village Research Project. in Kansas. The book includes many family There is a map of this Volga colony and several records and interesting bits of history. lists of family names. *CS25 .J65 1985 DK34 .G3G47x Johnson, Keith A. and Malcolm R. Sainty. Klein, Victor and Rudolph Jacquemien, eds. Genealogical Research Directory—Regional and Gestern und heute. Sowjetdeutsche Erzdh-lungen. International. Erskineville, New South Wales, Moscow: Verlag Progress, 1972.192 pp. Donated Australia: (Editors of the) Genealogical Research by Emma Haynes. Directory, 1985. 680 pp. This book includes four stories by contem- A very helpful international guide and porary Russian-German authors: "Ge-sprengte research tool. Explains basic rules for writing and Fessein" ("The Burst Chains") by Dominik requesting genealogical information. Includes a Hollmann, "Die Heimkehr" ("The Homecoming") calendar of genealogical events, a list of by Rudolf Jacquemien, "Wegstuck Leben" ("A abbreviations, and a directory of names. Part of the Road of Life") by Victor Klein and "Bin Soldat kehrt heim" ("A Soldier Returns CS71 .K374 1913x Home") by Hugo Wormsbecher. It is interesting Karlin, Athanasius. to read these stories for their content and also for Reminiscences from the Life ofAthanasius Karlin. the contemporary use of the German language in Translated from German by S. the U.S.S.R.

20 CS71 .B694 1984x tion about major cities in European Russia as well Komlofske, Alvin. as the Central Asia Region. Although the hotel The Heritage of the Boxler Family. n.p., 1984. 170 information may well be outdated, other pp. Donated by author. information can apparently be relied upon to be This family history traces the Boxlers to current. Marienthal, Russia, a Roman Catholic colony, and thence to Kansas. It includes many photos and CT275 .L469A3 1900zx lists generations of the Boxler family, plus a Linenberger, Joseph M. helpful alphabetical index of its descendants. Russland—Die Deutschen am Karman. Ein Steppebild von denJahren 1770 bis 1780. n.p., PT3851 .K667x n.d. 628 pp. Photocopy. Donated by Rosemary Kontschak, Ernst. W. Larson. Unvergessliche Begegnungen. Alma-Ata, Handwritten manuscript written between 1902 U.S.S.R.: Verlag Kasachstan, 1975. 112 pp. and 1909. It is a compilation of the memories and Donated by Emma Haynes. experiences of the author. It has been translated Includes pictures and vignettes of the earliest into English under the title "Grandfather's Story" Russian-German authors and the establishment of by Helen L. Hall, a granddaughter. Manuscript Russian-German literature in the Ukraine. was made available by Lawrence Weigel.

CS71 .K725 1982x CS71 .L434 1984x Kramer, Arthur. Lohrding, Nellie (Lehl), compiler. Kramer Family Charts 1849-1982—Supplement to LehL n.p., 1984. 72 pp. Donated by compiler. A Kramer Genealogy of 1974. Seattle, WA: The Lehl ancestors migrated to the Volga area Published by author, 1982. 28 pp. Donated by of Russia from Isenburg in Hesse Province, West author. Germany. They settled in the colony of Norka. CS71 .K725 1974x The John Lehl family came to America in 1885 Kramer, Arthur. and established a home in Nebraska. In the early A Kramer Genealogy, Seattle, WA: Published by 1890s, they moved to Tacoma, Washington. In the author, 1982. 25 pp. Maps, photos. Donated 1897, heeding the call to the prairies and a desire by author. to acquire farmland, they moved to Oklahoma. Author's forebears emigrated from War- After several years of farming, they sought resi- enburg, Russia, toJansen, Nebraska, in 1893. In dence in Fort Morgan, Colorado, for health 1896 they moved to Ritzville, Washington, where reasons. The book includes photos, family they homesteaded some land. listings, brief histories, and copies of two documents. CS71 .K725 1984 Kramer, Arthur. CS71 .D325 1982 v.2 Ten Generations. Seattle, WA: Published by Mai, Brent Alan, compiler. author, June 1984. 79 pp. Photos, family charts, Deines. Vol. 2. Sharon Springs, KS: Published by maps. Donated by author. author, 1985. 60 pp. Donated by author. A research which began with two families who Pictures, documents, maps, illustrations, settled as neighbors in Pennsylvania. Their genealogy charts, family group information. A lineage has been traced through Scotch, Irish, compilation of the research that continued after English, German, Volga-German, and Norwegian the publication of the original volume in 1982. groups. Two chapters of historical interest are "To Several new family lines are also included, as are Oregon by Ox and Wagon" and the "Volga- some corrections to Vol. 1. German Colonies.'* PZ7 .M474Mas DK16 .L4 Mazer, Sonia, Levine, Irving R. Masha. A Little Russian Girl. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1932. 285 pp. Travel Guide to Russia. Garden City, NY: Donated by Ann Smith. Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960. 416 pp. This Classed as "juvenile literature," this novel takes guide provides travel tips, a brief history of the place in a village, in Kiev, where the U.S.S.R., sight-seeing informa

21 heroine, Masha, goes to high school, and again in the Minnesota prairie. her home village, which was later transformed into a community farm. After she marries and CS71 .N322 1984x after the Revolution breaks out, she and her Naab, M. Clement (Sister), compiler. family escape to the U.S. Facts and Figures of the Family of Joseph & Catherine Naab. n.p. Typewritten, 1984. 52 pp. F1074.5 .M4T53 1984x Donated by Martha Stremel Issinghoff. Melville History Book Committee. Joseph Naab was born in Kamenka, Russia, The Ties That Bind. Melville, SK, Canada: and immigrated to America with his parents in Melville History Book Committee, 1984.881 pp. 1898. They established their home in Kansas. Maps, photos, documents. Donated by Regina This book places most of the emphasis on and District Chapter. statistical data for the benefit of descendants who A complete historical record of the Melville desire to pursue their genealogy. There are community and the pioneers who settled an photos, family charts, and copies of documents. "untamed land." Many of the families listed are of German-Russian heritage. The book includes F675 .A1E83 1984x many "nostalgic glimpses into the past." Patterson-Black, Sheryll. Ethnic Life, Agriculture, and the North Platte CS71 .M544 1900bzx Valley. Scottsbluff, NE: Sponsored by the Miller, James, compiler. Scottsbluff Public Library, 1984. 47 pp. Donated History of Our Grandfather Franz Miller. by author. Washington, MO: The Missourian, 1985. 45 pp. The author, who is "part Volga-German," Donated by Ida E. Pfeifer. gives an interesting account of the richly diverse Accompanied by many pictures, this story is ethnic heritage and history of the North Plafcte about a family that lived and worked for three Valley pioneers. It includes some Interesting centuries in three different countries while experiences, as expressed by immigrant settlers searching for personal freedom and contentment. (first and second generations) in their own words. According to family members, these goals were realized in the United States, The family left CS71 .P734 1900x Alsace-Lorraine in 1808, settled in the Odessa Preisendorf, Mildred Frances. Region, and left for America in 1899, settling in The Preisendorf Heritage, n.p., n.d. 115 pp. Kansas. "The name Preisendorf was listed as one of BX6185 .552s52 1985x the 215 families that settled the village of Norka Mohr, Eugene Irving. (Volga area) in 1767." The author relates a brief Centennial of the Shaffer, Kansas, Seventh-Day history of the family and includes many Adventist Church. Souvenir edition. n.p., June photographs, family group charts, and several 1985. 36 pp. Donated by author. maps. Includes a report of Shaffer's Diamond Jubilee, June 1960, a history of the church and a CS71 .K447 1983x compilation of letters written by descendants of Pundt, Jeri, compiler. the charter members who were Volga Germans. Kelln Family History—Past 'n Present. n.p., May 1983. 71 pp. Donated by Jeri Lynn Pundt. CS71 .H9236 1980x Family emigrated from Holstein, Russia. Myren, Patricia Ross Hubin. Book mainly lists families and their offspring. Radicals To Realists: A Mennonite Legacy, from the Ancestors of Katharine Bergthold and Peter PT1204 .R37x Hubin to Their Descendants, Beginning in 1525. Rath, Georg. Rev. ed. n.p., 1980. 268 pp. Photos, family Fabeln. Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, n.d. charts. Donated by Reuben Goertz. 64 pp. The author traces the family history to an This volume of poetry is entitled "Fables" and Anabaptist in Bern, Switzerland, in 1528. Later includes 50 poems pitting man against flowers, her ancestral Mennonite families settled in animals, the heavens, etc., and also animals Galicia. In the early 1880s they came to the against plants, against other animals, etc. It is United States and began a new life on refreshing reading.

22 PG92 .S3 CS71 .066 1900zx Saltzman, Irving J. Schlepp, Edna Opp, compiler. Writing Russian Script. A Self-Instructional Opp Family History, n.p., n.d. 34 pp. Portraits, Program. New York, NY; McGraw-Hill Book family group charts. Donated by compiler. Company, Inc., 1963. 258 pp. Donated by Mrs. Includes the memoirs of Daniel D. Opp (1872- Katherine (Schumacher) Wilcox. 1956) from his early pioneering days in South When properly used, this self-instructional Dakota. The family history is also provided. plan will help the student to learn the names and alphabetical sequence of the 33 letters in fche E159.5 .S34 Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet. In addition, it will be Schlereth, Thomas J. helpful in recognizing the printed forms of the Artifacts and the American Past. Nashville, TN: letters, both capital and small letters, and learning The American Association for State and Local how to write the letters in script and how to join History, 1980. 294 pp. the letters together properly to form words. In ten original essays, Schlerefch presents ways to explore history by study of historic PT1204 .S255 1929x photographs, mail-order catalogs, cartography, Sammlung Deutscher Volkslieder der historic house museums and villages, plants and Russlanddeutschen in Amerika, im nord- natural material culture, regional studies and westlichen Teil der Ver. Staaten und Canada. several other methods. The final section talks Erster Teil. Bismarck, ND: "Dakota Rund-schau," about ways to collect artifacts and the problems 1929. 88 pp. involved in these processes. A collection of 147 folksongs (without notes), which were native or popular among the Russian- DD258.55 .R87F35x German Americans in the northwestern portion of Schmidt, H. Manfred. fche United States and Canada. These songs were The Current Emigration [sici to West Germany. sent in to the Volks-zeitung and Eureka Typewritten manuscript, 1985. 31 pp. Donated by Rundschau by their readers and later assembled author. by the Dakota Rundschau. "The outline of this paper includes (a) the numbers of people involved, (b) a description of D804 .P6G4 1940f the German-Russian population base in the USSR, (c) the impact of the German-Russians on Schadewaldt, Hans, compiler. the agricultural sector in the USSR, (d) an Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German overview of the efforts by West German Minority in Poland. 2nd ed. Berlin: Volk und governments to facilitate the emigration of at least Reich Verlag; New York, NY: German Library of some segments of the German-Russians, and (e) a Information, 1940. 259 pp. prognosis of what emigration levels can be This compilation is founded on documentary expected to occur until 1990." An abbreviated evidence and published for the German Foreign version of this manuscript will appear in the Office. There is a section of pictures and Spring 1986 Journal of AHSGR. documents, the historical background, the medical examiners' report, the number of Germans dead CS71 .S379 1975x and missing, sources of the information provided Schwabenland, G. Ray, compiler. (including firsthand accounts) and explanatory Schwabenland Family Tree. n.p., 1975. 33pp. comments. Genealogy charts. Donated by Tom Haynes. The compiler is Emma Schwabenland Haynes' BX7255 .R62I44x brother. He provides historical background and Schissler, George. family group charts. The family migrated to the Life and Faith of a German Congregational U.S. from the Volga Region. Church, 1943-1945. n.p. 162 pp. Donated by Rev. George Schissler. F672 .L2A53 The author describes the Immanuel German Suppi Sittler, Melvin, compiler. Congregational Church in Rocky Ford, Colorado, Alphabetical Index of the Rural Residents and where he served as pastor from 1943-1945. Family Members As Listed in the Atlas of Lancaster County, Nebraska, 1921.

23 Published by the Anderson Publishing Co., n.d. *GR 1927 (perm.) 84 pp. Victor MauVs Balalaika Orchestral Scores. n.p., Indexed under the auspices of the Lincoln- n.d. 41 pp. Donated by Dr. Henry J. Zieg. Lancaster County Genealogical Society, this Handwritten scores of a selection of music for volume provides names of owners or renters of balalaika and domra (an instrument resembling a properties in this area, wives' and children's mandolin and a balalaika) in two-part harmony. names, addresses, precincts and sections. Chiefly Russian titles, some American songs,

F672 .L2S58 1980z GR1 .V74 Sittler, Melvin, compiler. Viltis. A Magazine of Folklore and Folk Dance. Plat Book of Lancaster County, Nebraska, 1903. Denver, Co: Vytautas F. Bellajus, 1985. Donated Published by The Brown-Scoville Publishing Co., by Marilyn Fletcher. n.d. 71 pp. Includes an article, "The Dutch Hop in Indexed under the auspices of the Lincoln- Northern Colorado,'' by Marilyn Hehr Fletcher, Lancaster County Genealogical Society, this pp. 16-19, resource provides precinct, section number, owner or renter and post office address as of CS71 ,V644 1983x 1903. It indicates various spellings of family Volk, Leonard, compiler. names. The Descendants of Peter Volk and Barbara Mastel. n.p. Typewritten, 1983. 10 pp. Donated DK904 .Z837x by compiler. Swerew, N. and 0. Mazkewitsch. Peter and Barbara Volk were one of 60 Land der Adterschwingen—Kasachstan. Alma- families that founded the village of Elsass, Ata, U.S.S.R.: Verlag Kasachstan, 1967. 184 pp. northwest of Odessa, Russia. The book mainly Donated by Emma Haynes. consists of genealogy lists. The authors liken Kazakhstan [Kazakh S.S.R.] of the U.S.S.R. to the soaring of an eagle. They CS71 .H327 1984x describe this republic lovingly and thoroughly, Voll, Regina Haar. from its mdustrial productivity to its renown as a An Illustrated Edition of the History of the longevity-fostering area. Heinrich Haar Family. Freeman, SD: Pine Hill Press, 1984. 129 pp. Compiled, edited and Gl .N27 donated by Lenora M. Uhrhane. Tarpy, Cliff. An assembling of many photographs with bits "Home to Kansas," in National Geographic of memories of yesteryear. Heinrich and Dorothy Magazine, Vol. 168, No. 3, Sept. 1985. pp. 352- Haar settled first in Neu-Frie-densthal, Crimea, 383. Photographs by Cotton Coulson. and later in Bulatschi. Heinrich was very A fascinating account of this "premier wheat- interested in music and organized and led his own growing state" and its aviation-aircraft industry, dance orchestra. In 1910 the family immigrated to as well as its international renown in mental America and located on a farm in the Heilbron health treatment. area of South Dakota. D805 .A2T64 1978 CS71 .W344 1979x Tolstoy, Nikolai. The Secret Betrayal 1944-1947, New York: Wall, Cornelius and Agnes Wall. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977. 503 pp. Donated As We Remember. Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite by John Klein. Brethren Publishing House, 1979, 178 pp. An account of the forced repatriation of over This book was written primarily with friends three million men, women and children from and loved ones in mind, not merely as a family German territory to the U.S.S.R. according to the history. These reminiscences are a chapter in terms of a secret agreement between the British Mennonite history. Mr. Wall was a school teacher and the Soviets in 1944, Many had been anti- in the Mennonite community of South Russia. He communist fighters in German uniforms. Large relates his experiences as a male nurse in the Red numbers of them were sent to work camps in the Cross during World War I. In December 1922 the Arctic Circle. Many attempted suicides occurred family immigrated to America. The book is a before repatriation because these people were fascinating account of a life dedicated to aware of what awaited them back in the U.S.S.R. Christian service. 24 CS71 .W346 1900zx Georg Sauter, the migration to America, family group Peter M. Waltner and Freni (Graber) Waltner information and documents, a history of the Emmaus Family, n.p., n.d. Photocopy, 21 pp. Family charts Congregational Church, and a brief history of Carson, by generations. North Dakota, based on George Rafch's account in The Black Sea Germans of the Dakotas. CS71 .W533 1982x Washburn, Alma Wiederrich, compiler. CS71 .B676 1983x Jacob Wiederrich and Descendants, 1770-1982. n.p., Wiens, Martha (Born), compiler. 1982. 64 pp. Photos and family charts. Donated by Wilhelm and Helena. Born Family Record. Manitoba, compiler. Canada: Pub. by Born Family, 1983. 107 pp. Donated Jacob Wiederrich and his brother Peter left by Mr. & Mrs. John Wiens. Germany in 1809 and migrated to South Russia. Some The Born family (Mennonite) record begins in of their descendants came to South Dakota in the early South Russia. They immigrated to Canada in 1892. 1890s. Some of the Wiederrich families settled in Bon Many photographs accompany the individual family Homme County, South Dakota, as early as 1874. Those listings. who chose to stay in Russia suffered under the regime of the Bolshevist government. Others moved later to CS71 .Z323 1979x Hoffnungstal, Bessarabia. The book includes family Zacher, George, compiler. listings and photos. The Life History of Johannes and Johanna {Unser) Zacher. Privately published, n.d. 26 pp. PT2647 .EllV47x Photos. Weber, Robert. Johannes and Johanna Zacher left Russia in 1898 Verheissung. Ed. by Boris Brainin. Moskow; and homesteaded in Strasburg, ND. Also includes story Verlag Progress, 1972, 96 pp. Donated by Emma of the family of Bernard and Anna Marie (Unser) Haynes. Klein who remained in Russia. Bernard Klein died in The poet calls his volume of poetry "Promise." 1947 in a Russian labor camp in Siberia. There are 61 short poems about many aspects of life, including art, leave-taking, a soldier's grave, the PG2691 .Z35 generations, dreams and interpretations of them, a re- Zaiizniak. A. A. buttal, camellias, children and many others. Grammatischeskii Slovar' Russkogo lazyka, Slovoizmenenie. Moscow: Publisher "Russkii lazyk," GR 543 (perm.) 1977. Grammatical Dictionary of the Russian Wetland, K. B. Language, issued for the first time, reflecting (with the Predigten liber Verschiedene [sic] Texte. Cleveland, help of a special system of punctuation marks and OH; Central Publishing House, 1908. 188 pp. symbols) contemporary word usage, including the This group of twelve sermons is the fifth and last declension of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, set (of 12) prepared by Pastor Emeritus Weiland of the and the conjugation of verbs. The dictionary contains Presbyterian Church in LeMars, Iowa. about 100,000 words, arranged in alphabetical order, according to the last letters, instead of the first letters CS71 .827 1985x Wheeler, Marianne Sauter, compiler. of words. Each work has a grammatical symbol and The Sauter Family History. From Waterloo, South index number, referring to the section of "Grammatical Russia, to Carson, North Dakota, 1831 to 1985. Information," where examples of declension and Yukon, OK: Published by compiler, 1985. 180 pp. conjugation are given, according to which readers may Family group charts, pictures, documents, maps, index. determine the form of the word that interests them. Donated by compiler. The dictionary is intended for linguists, Following an informative and interesting philologists, teachers, and mefchodologisfcs of the introduction, the compiler provides a history of Russian language; it can also be useful for foreign Waterloo, information about the ancestor, readers studying the Russian language. (Annotation provided by Dr. Alexander Dupper.)

This map shows the relationship of the Russian city Mikhaylovka to Saratov. Mikhaylovka is on the Medveditsa River in the Don River Basin.

26 LETTERS TO PAULINE On November 24, 1913, a young German girl from the Russian town of Mikhaylovka arrived in the Port of Galveston aboard the S.S. Breslau. This young girl, Pauline Schlegel, was enroute to her relatives near Alva, Oklahoma. There she met the young man who became her husband, was married, gave birth to six children, and died on March 22, 1981. Pauline was the only one of her immediate family to come to the United States. In 1955 she wrote of her life in Russia, explaining her desire to come to the United States, her trip from the Don River in Russia to Alva, Oklahoma, and giving a brief description of her life in the United States. These memoirs, reproduced below in part, were provided to us by her son, Elvest L. Lehl, of Wichita, Kansas. "There were seven children. One sister was married. Mother had a cousin in Oklahoma, so I wrote to them about my wish to get out of Russia and asked them if they could see their way to sending me a direct ticket. I was happy beyond words when a letter came with a promise to help me. But the crops were poor at that time, and I was too young to travel by myself, so we wrote to each other back and forth for several years. "My home was an agricultural town of about seven thousand people in southeastern Russia, in the Don River Basin. The people were prosperous in that part of Russia. My parents settled there, coming from the German colonies along the Volga River. "As we children grew up, we were sent to the Russian school and [Russian Orthodox] church, but we had our Protestant service every morning and evening in German. We were taught to read and write German at home. As there were only a few Germans in that town, it was impossible to have a German school.

An unidentified older brother of Pauline SchlegeL Pauline Schlegel and an unidentified older brother.

27 "My father's name was Heinrich Johann Schlegel. Our business was furniture making and a butcher shop. We processed all the meat ready to eat, such as hams, bacon, and all kinds of sausages. We had Russian and German people working for us. We had many Cossack friends who came from surrounding villages to trade in town. "Our town, Mikhaylovka, was a beautiful place. On one side was hilly farmland, and the other side was wooded, with rivers, lakes and meadows. Winters were very cold and blustery, but it was fun to swim in summer and skate in winter. "It was hard to part with all that was dear to me, but the pull to go was greater than I could resist. I found out later that it was God's hand that led me. "After I went to Tsaritsin [later Stalingrad, now Volgograd] by train, I went to Saratov by boat, where I was to get my passport. I had to do this because that was my parents' home district. Then I went west on the train to the border, where I was met by a travel agent, who sent me across Germany to Bremerhaven, where the ocean liner was ready to depart the next day. The sea was very heavy most of the way, I was seasick for several days. "In Philadelphia I and some other passengers went ashore to buy some fruits and candy. We were there on the ship over Sunday. Some German ministers came on board with some religious literature for us so that we wouldn't be so lonesome, as the day was cold and cloudy. The paper I got was the German Methodist Apologist [Pauline (Schlegel) Lehl was a dedicated member of the Methodist Church in Alva.] On Monday we left. The sea was calmer, and, as we went around Florida, the sea was as smooth as a looking-glass—not a ripple. And so we came to Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico. I went by train to a town in Kansas, where I stayed in a hotel overnight. In the morning I went on the train Co Alva, Oklahoma, my destination. It was Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1913. My cousin was at the depot. We drove to their farm six miles out east of town, where I ate my first Thanksgiving dinner. So, I was in the New World. "I started working in January for a banker's family by the name of Stuart. I was as one of their own and was very happy. I learned to speak [English] very soon, and read and write in the Latin [Roman] alphabet. In November 1914 I married a farmer [William Lehl] and so started a life of hard work. The summers were hot and dusty, but the years went by so rapidly with three wars in-between. We had many joys and sorrows. God has been good to us and our four children." [Two children had died as infants.] Pauline kept in close contact with her family as long as conditions would allow the correspondence to continue. The letters that her family in Russia wrote to her give us an insight into the conditions in Russia and the Soviet Union from 1914 until approximately 1931. We are grateful to the Lehl family for making the following selection of letters available for publication. It is assumed that all letters were written by family members, although many are not signed. The letters, written mainly in Russian, were translated by Dr. Alexander Dupper, Dr. Ralph Koprince, Dr. J. W. Nickel and Ms. Ludmila O'Donnell. October 28, 1914 Hello, dear Pauline. We got your letter and were all very happy because we hadn't received a letter from you for a long time. Pauline, you write that you got married and wanted to send us a studio card. Get your picture taken in your wedding gown and send us the card. Pauline, Dad and Mom thought that you could come sometime, but now you probably can't come any more. Dear Pauline, we wish you much happiness and [many] blessings on your holy wedding day. Pauline, you write that your husband promised to send Andrei [Andrew] a ticket. But how can we let him go? He is our provider. He feeds all of us. Sanka [Alexander] is also making trunks. We have an order now for ten trunks from Aksionov. Here in Mikhaylovka there is sobriety. There is no vodka or wine anywhere because during the mobilization here they broke up the state store and dragged out about forty thousand buckets of vodka, Mom is almost always ailing and misses you. And Mom is always saying that you are now working for strangers, but Mom works alone at home. Katya [Katherine] is always at Amalia's and spends the night there because she is all alone. Ilarion [?] goes home nights. Amalia also cries every day because the war keeps getting worse. Regards to all of your acquaintances and to Aunt and Uncle. [no signature] 28 The wedding picture of Pauline Schlegel and William Lehl.

February 2, 1915

Dear Sister and Will, We are alive and well, thank God, and wish the same to you and also good health and long years of life by God's grace. We were very glad to receive your letter. You wrote to us that you had sent your photo to the aunt, but she has not received it. The weather is fine here. There are very many Cossacks in Mikhaylovka. On January 25 there was a call up, and on the 19th of the next month, nineteen-year-old boys will be drafted. They exempt nobody from the military service. Today at the meeting in Mikhaylovka, speeches were made against citizens of German origin. They want to exile us. And it has become so strict. They are making a count of Germans in all the region and in the villages. Brug was beaten several times, and she is disliked by everybody. The wounded are brought daily from the front to our hospital. We sent you a letter with Stepfather's address. As soon as you receive this letter, give it to my uncle. Amalia's affairs are not bad. Her cow calved. She is selling milk. Now we have two calves. We sold the horse for eighty-five rubles because she limped more and more. Best regards from Lisa and Theresa. Things are not very good with us. [no signature]

June 5, 1916

Dear Pauline, Excuse me for not yet answering your letter which you mailed to me on April 17. I don't know exactly why I haven't written to you yet—maybe it is because I don't want to explain my situation or to stir up the past, when you were still with us. And I am thinking whether we really will not meet again. I blame myself partly because .1 suggested to you to take that trip. All this is very hard for me to think about, and, therefore, I postponed writing to you from day to day. I have received

29 the photo of your friend [husband?]. Believe me that I would crush him if I met him now. I have just received a letter from Katya [Katherine], She writes that they live quite well and that all my farm is in order. Most likely our Sanka [Alexander] will be called up in autumn and maybe even earlier. And if the war doesn't end in summer, then Andrei [Andrew] will be drafted into the Army too. All this is too hard for Mother, but we cannot change anything. It is fate. My aunt recently sent me a parcel of rusks and vobia fish. She complains that everything has become very expensive. It is almost impossible to live. For instance: sugar is 80 kopecks a pound, butter 1.5 rubles a pound, and there is no flour at all. For a month and a half, they didn't sell white bread in the stores. Then white flour was brought, and for some time we had white bread. Now we have only dark wheat bread. Ten eggs cost 50 kopecks, potatoes 8 kopecks a pound. Everything has become so expensive that it will be good if we have a bottle of milk for 30 kopecks every day. A cow costs 500 rubles, a pair of shoes 25 rubles. It is impossible to imagine what will happen if the war continues. We, thank God, live relatively well. The apartment is free [of charge], we get some food from the soldiers' kitchen; dinners there are not so bad. Sometimes we ourselves cook some meals, at least we don't have to buy everything. If it were not for this, our expenses would have doubled. I worry all the time about my things. I am longing to see other members of the family, but still I don't intend to go there, as such a trip is very expensive—40 rubles for a one-way ticket. I was going to have photos of my children taken so many times, and now it is much more expensive. It is such a pity to spend so much money, but maybe I will make up my mind [to do it]. The weather here is very hot, just a tropical heat. Every day we go to swim. I made myself a cork air mattress, and then my ear began to hurt. I got hard-of-hearing and thought that I would need an operation, but now, thank God, the hearing has improved. The children are healthy, only Volodya [Vladimir] is depressed all the time. I spoke with them about you. Edya [Eudine] wants to go to see you when she grows up. Tell us whether you want to come to us someday or not. Katya [Katherine] and almost all the children have grown up. But only a few of them have got enough education. We live in Russia, and that is why we hope that someday we will manage, but everything would have been quite different if Father and Mother had taught us some skills to earn our [own] bread. Well, enough of that. There is nothing more to write about, maybe only about the news in Mikhaylovka. Grushenko died. From their group some ran away to the war as volunteers. Alexander Veretennicov died. Augusta Ivanovna, the teacher, was killed by the pole of a giant swing near Melnichikha. About Brug I know nothing. Karl is also in the army. I think you know about it. Pauline, write at least short letters, if you don't have time to write long ones. Give my best regards to everybody you deem necessary. I wish you the best of health. Don't forget us. Sasha [Alexander] tells me all the time that I will never see you again. Can it really be true? Tell me frankly whether you regret that you left for America. So far I didn't dare to ask you this question. Goodbye, Your sister, Amalia The above letter was probably written in Batumi, where Amalia's husband Alexander was stationed in the army. Mikhaylovka February 19, 1917 Dear Sister, We received your letter and are very happy that you are alive and healthy. I want to tell you that our brother Andrei [Andrew] has been discharged for good. He served three months, first in Nakhichevan, and then in Tiflis. In Tiflis he was found unfit for service. Andrei and Alexander are now working in a workshop. Andrei recently made two stools and a closet for the administration office. Now he is working on a writing desk. Almost the whole winter they were working on tables for the grain and cattle bureau. There is now a government butcher shop in Mikhaylovka where about one hundred steers are butchered every day. First they butchered only cows, but now they are taking steers. Father is now occupied with smoke drying. We've never had so many hams as this year. Father smokes them in the summer kitchen because there are so many and it takes a lot of time.

30 Pauline, I am writing you for the second time that Amalia, Sasha [Alexander] and their children visited us for a short stay. Sasha had a one-month furlough, and they came for Christmas. Lydia can read and write in German, which she learned from Amalia; she learns Russian in the first grade at school. Talya [Natalia] is learning to count, and Volodya [Vladimir] is starting to talk. Amalia sent a photograph of them, which was taken in Batumi. After she returned to Batumi, we received a letter and a package of oranges from her. Father had given her the money. She mailed two packages, but we received only one; perhaps the other will arrive soon. She arrived there with great difficulty; the trains were overcrowded; changing trains was an ordeal. They had to enter the railcar through the window, with the children and baggage—it was impossible to use the door. Lydia didn't want to leave; she said that she wanted to stay with Grandmother. We celebrated a very merry Christmas. Recently we received a letter from Uncle Karl; he is staying in the city of Nikolayev now. Malinsha [Malvina] is employed in Saratov and is earning forty rubles per month, maybe even more now. Everything is high-priced. A laborer receives three rubles per day. Last week Mother made soap and now she is sewing. I am knitting stockings. Before Christmas I was studying German script and Roman letters. I have studied Bible stories, and now I will study the catechism. I can read and write well in Roman letters; sometime I shall write you using the Roman alphabet. Pauline, we've received a letter and thirty rubles from you. We are happy that you haven't forgotten us. Annushka [Anna] sends you her regards. They took Andrei and Peter from her into military service. Peter is stationed in Tiflis. Andrei is a prisoner in Austria. Alexander Helwig was wounded on the German front. Shura Judinova got married. The oldest daughter of the Bolotnikovs got married. The husbands of both are in military service. Bolotnikova's husband is a prisoner in Germany. Mother is very happy that you sent her a poem for the New Year; she, too, sends you herewith a poem. With fond greetings I remain your sister. Pauline, give my regards to your parents [parents-in-law] and to Aunt and Uncle with all their family. Schlegel Batumi April 20, 1917

Dear Pauline, I have been waiting for a letter from you for a very long time. Either you are not writing letters or they get lost. And all the letters I write to you are registered. On Christmas, when I was at home, I sent you a photo of my children. I don't know whether you received it or not. It is a great pity if it was lost. Please write to me as soon as possible. Dear Sister, we have a lot of news. Up until now I haven't made up my mind to write to you, but I think you know from newspapers what is going on in Russia, What a Revolution! It is just unbelievable! But it is quite true that Czar Nicholai [Nicholas] has been overthrown. I want to tell you very much but don't know how to begin. A couple of weeks before the Revolution broke out, it was so quiet—as one feels before a storm. There was nothing to be learned from the newspapers, and there were rumors that the Black Sea naval squadron revolted, and that the German-Turkish battleship Lebed would come and shell Batumi. But nobody knew what was going on exactly, and everybody expected something. But nobody thought that the Revolution was so near. There were a lot of casualties, of course, but there was no other way out. All the same, the people are starving, but the old government was quite indifferent to it. In Batumi we had to stand in line at the bakery at midnight to get bread in the morning—and it was only brown bread. And in the big cities it was even worse. They had to earn money and stand in lines in the stores and somehow provide for the children. Everything was very expensive. How can one live under such conditions? Cotton is very expensive—more than one ruble for an arshin [28 inches]. Laundry soap is one ruble for a pound; shoes about 50 rubles; good high boots more than 100 rubles; meat 75 kopecks a pound; butter 36 rubles a pound; a box of matches 10 kopecks— to enumerate everything. And after the Revolution, as if by magic, everything became available: white flour and bread, and the goods began gradually to get cheaper. Czar Nicolai has been arrested and is kept in Peter and Paul Fortress. Political prisoners have been set free. There are not enough trains to bring political prisoners from Siberia, 31 I am so happy. Now my only wish is for the end of the war, with God's help. It is just terrible how much dirt about Czar Nicolai and his wife has been exposed by the revelations in the newspapers. Now I read a newspaper every day, and before the Revolution I didn't read them at all because there were only lies in them. It was just disgusting. Now it is quite different. Meetings are being organized. The speakers tell the people very much and try to convince them and appeal to them to unite. They also tell what kind of a man our Czar Nicolai Romanov was, but you know yourself about him. In April [according to the old calendar] we celebrated the first of May [by the new calendar]. I am sending you a newspaper which describes how this holiday was celebrated. I and Sasha [Alexander] also took part in it. The demonstrators carried red banners made of velvet and satin. There were banners for every guild—cabmen, shoemakers, barbers—there were more than fifty banners from all unions and parties. On the placards were such slogans as: "Long Live the Democratic Republic," "Land and Freedom," "Equality," "Brotherhood," and a lot of others like this. In the morning we demonstrated in the town. Then three separate rallies were organized. After that we went to the cemetery, I have never seen anything more beautiful in all my life. Every union and party was marching under its own banner and singing the Marseillaise. Military and student orchestras were playing. Georgians and Armenians were singing in their own languages, and our soldiers in gray greatcoats were singing such songs as "Let's Renounce the Old World" and other songs hated by our old government. And it was so merry that I just wanted to say something pleasant to everybody. And all the people became so polite, as if they were quite different people. Please send me a registered letter as soon as possible and say whether you received the photos. Write how your boy is, where you work, and how your health is. I have just received a parcel from my mother with ham and sausage, but the sausage spoiled while being transported. I sent them three parcels—12 pounds of oranges in each one. There were many natural disasters in Russia this year. In Medveditsa [Frank] there was so much snow and then water that the bridge collapsed. I learned about it from the newspaper Russian Word. I haven't received any letters from my relatives for a long time. Aunt also doesn't write anything. I want to write to her. And please write to our- aunt in Astrakhan, because she thinks that we have quite forgotten her. Goodbye for now. Greetings from my husband and children. The children have grown, but Lida [Lydia] is depressed most of the time, as her health is poor. Tolya [Anatol] cleans plates and dishes every day, and Volodya [Vladimir] is teasing girls. I hope that you will write me soon. Waiting for your letter. Your loving sister, Amalia

Pauline^s older sister Amalia. Another unidentified brother of Pauline.

32 July 3, 1922

My dear Sister, I should have written to you long ago but have had no .wish to write, because you apparently haven't been receiving my most important letters, and for some reason I don't feel like writing about minor matters. For now, we are all alive and well, and with all our hearts we wish the same for you. We are living, thank God. We have bread. We eat our fill despite the fact that all around us many people have starved to death. But now, no doubt, the high rate of mortality has dropped, because the rye is already being threshed here. We have not only very good rye but also young potatoes. Those who have planted them dig their own, and those who have not steal them from others. We have had many stolen, but we planted many; perhaps we'll still harvest some for the winter. So far the wheat has also been good. On the whole, a good harvest is expected. We still don't know how much they will tax us. We have a monetary head tax, a butter tax on cows, and a wool tax on sheep. Only the eggs are not considered a tax on chickens, but a tithe: we must give up a tenth of our eggs, The grain and hay tax has not yet been fixed. The price of grain has fallen. Recently it was twelve million. Now you can buy a pud [36 pounds] for three million. Still, many people have nowhere to get even three million. Pauline, this winter many people here were eating dogs and cats and even people. At Ust-Medveditsa they have prosecuted many persons who killed people and sold them roasted or cold at the market. Mostly they kill children. Here at Mikhaylovka there are persistent rumors circulating about the loss of several children, mostly orphanage children. Yesterday evening I sent Lida [Lydia] to the field for the cow. The cow came back, but not Lida. Talya (Natalia] and I ran to find her. The cow had gone around Lida, and we did too. So I nearly went out of my mind until I saw her alive again. Talya cried; I simply couldn't calm her. I even vowed to give up letting them go after the cattle in the evening. I have long forbidden them to go into the woods. And in Rostov and Novocherkassk there is downright cannibalism, not to mention the starving provinces such as Samara and Saratov. They've been at it there for a long time. Pauline, Pauline, the prophets forewarned us, but we wouldn't listen. Pauline, I could write much to you on this topic, but I'm afraid it won't reach you, and therefore I'll limit myself to a little. Reforms are coming and even earmarked for our Orthodox Church, in which the communists, that is the authorities, are taking an active part. Apparently there have been inquiries from the populace as to why they are interfering in church affairs. After all, they deny God and everything divine. I read an answer in the newspaper. They write: "We support reform not because we dislike any particular church ceremony or order of service, but because it is a blow to the church. We supported the first blow—the denunciation of the relics; we supported the second blow—the confiscation of the church and monasterial valuables; and we will support this one too, and we will keep on supporting them until nothing remains of faith and religions, because the working people should have no religion.'' I'm not going to write you anything more. I think you yourself will understand. Read the Second Epistle of Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, chapter 2. I will also write you that all winter Yasha IJakob] has been planning to go to you, but now they've registered him, and all spring he had to drill. Now he is faced with service. Pauline, what I feared so much would happen, did. How I would have liked him to have gone to you. But there was no chance. From Brother Sanya [Alexander] we hear nothing. Maybe he's long dead, but we still have hope. A few Mikhaylovka fellows turned out to be in South America. They sent letters to their families. But many have not been heard of in a long time. Mom often cries for him. Pauline, I sent you a letter on our Easter which Katya, Yasha, Maria and I wrote. Did you receive it there? I described many aspects of our life to you. Then later I sent you a letter in which I enclosed a letter from Many a [Maria] to her brother in Siberia. Then Katya sent one in which she enclosed her photograph. Did you receive all of these letters or not? Pauline, you write that you want to send us a package. If you haven't sent it yet, please don't. There is nothing that we need. Why should you go to the expense? In every letter I ask you not to send anything. Thank you for your attention, but I don't want you to make expenses for yourself without need. Maybe the need for it will yet arise—then we'll reconsider. Let's wait and see. Pauline, the other day I sent Aunt a letter. It has been a long time since I received one from her. From Uncle Karl we receive nothing. We don't know whether he is alive. And from Aunt Katherine we don't have anything either, no information. Last summer, when Dad was in the Tsaritsin jail, a woman saw her at Saratov and told her that Dad was in jail. She cried a good deal. I thought

33 that she would come to inquire, but neither she nor a letter ever came. Last summer Malyusha [Malvina] wrote me from Balashov that she was in great need. I want to write to her again, but I simply cannot find her address. About her parents she doesn't know anything either. She wrote to me that she had made inquiries about them at the church in Saratov but had received no answer. Pauline, I'll write to you about Sasha's [Alexander's] family. His father died in 1920. Fyodor Pavlovich, Sasha's brother, died last summer. Masha also died in the fall of 1917. Her husband died a year later. Zoya is married. Some of Sasha's family remain in Petrograd: his sister Pasha and brother Mikhail [Michael]. Manya has not yet married. She is living with her mother. Amalia Brug married a certain Kovalev. Soshevnika ended up in the large family of Ivan [John] Brug. Maria married a Soviet worker last year and already has a child. Today is Sunday. I drove out the cow and am writing you a letter. Sasha just returned from fishing. He and Volodya went together for the night. They brought some fish for dinner. Well, I'm coming to an end. Katya spent the night with me. Right now she is sitting here spinning tales. Regards to your husband and children. Your sister, Amalia

1923

Greetings, my dear Sister Pauline. At last I've pulled myself together to write. Pauline, don't be offended. I received your letter dated December 1, 1922. So far we are all alive and healthy, which we wish you wholeheartedly too. Pauline, you wrote that Aunt Christine is always begging you for help. That is very unpleasant to me. She sent us a letter in the autumn. We did not know her whereabouts until now. Pauline, she surely thinks that in America everything is available to everybody. She is forgetting the many Germans and people from other countries who immigrated, and by now the country must be over-populated too. There is probably more open space in Russia. It was impossible to find a good place to live in Russia up to now. It is true, the Russians cannot or have not learned how to use everything that they have. Now we have to pay high taxes for the cattle, premises, income, and civil taxes. I cannot remember them all. There the farmers are transporting everything they have to the market, and the price for necessary produce is down, because the farmers sell everything to pay their taxes. In the autumn, one formerly could pay with wheat per dessiatine |1 dessiatine = 2.7 acres]; now they take only money. The price for wheat all during the winter was only ten million rubles per pud [36 pounds], now it is closer to fifteen million. Meat is two million; fat and butter from three to five million. We are not buying meat; we butchered eight goats and two rams. Sasha also has earned bread, so that we are not in need of anything, although we have nothing in excess. We have to pay school tuition for the children. Lydia and Talia are attending the Gymnasium; however, it is not called Gymnasium anymore, but "Secondary School." For Lydia we have already paid sixty- two million; Talia entered school after Christmas, and I figure the school year will soon cost us one hundred or more million rubles. Sasha sold a lot of wheat already to cover our expenses. Right now we are selling cattle, because the hay is very expensive, and we have to pay taxes. In the autumn we thought that prices might be better in the spring; as it turned out, prices dropped. Our cow calved and we got a bull; we would like to raise him. We have two goats (one had two kids and the other, one) and three sheep; each one brought a lamb. However, one lamb suffocated. Then we still have last year's calf from our cow, and another cow that will calve later in the winter when it gets warmer. We also have rabbits—three old ones and ten young ones. Sasha alone has to take care of all the livestock. I was ill all winter; the doctor indicated it is my stomach. I cannot eat meat or anything that is fat. If I get tempted by anything, I always have to suffer for it. I avoid eating rough bread. Broth and milk are my nourishment. I am always hungry," and without meat I don't have any strength. When I have to fetch water, I take a small pail. I don't know why my stomach got bad; I always ate the best piece. When I do not eat meat or fat, I feel completely healthy. Today is the last day of Shrovetide. Pauline, the holidays are not celebrated so elaborately anymore; on the street you almost don't notice the holiday season.

34 Pauline, I recently received a letter from Malinsha in Saratov; I don't know whether you know her or not. She wrote that Uncle Karl died last spring. Her life is not to be envied. Yes, Pauline, very few can be envied nowadays. She asked me to send her your address. I am happy that she is very religious, according to her letter. Yes, Pauline, it seems our life should, for a moment at least, be without animosity and hate. Meanwhile everybody is ready to drown his own brother in a spoonful of water. People are getting worse, and there is no end to their perversity. Today they get married, and tomorrow they run for a divorce. Many leave their wives with the children and get married again; wives, too, are leaving their husbands to get married again. This includes Karl Brug, who separated himself from his wife Otilia. He drove her away with the children during the terrible famine year. She has two big boys; they eat once a day in the American dining kitchen [ARA]. She was starving and swelling. She sometimes came to me, and I fed her and gave her millet or potatoes. In the spring she abandoned the children and went to Tsarifcsin. The children went to their grandfather. I don't know where she is now. Old Brug is living on bran; they took their house away. Rumor has it that Karl is living at the Pakovka Station and is chasing the Cossack womenfolk. Amalia got married. Maybe you remember the Kovalev leather merchant; she married his oldest son, Sasha. They are living prosperously; in other words, it is a good marriage. Pauline, you were asking about my neighbors, the Sinevoys. Well, they all died except the Akulin children, Shura and Victor. Victor is a hunchback. They are living with Gavrilov's wife; there is also a communist living with them. So, I do not visit their house. Their grandfather, the cabman, and his wife died. The Panovs got expelled from their house. They are now living in the kitchen and basement and are thankful they weren't driven out completely from their courtyard. The Karasuchevs sold their house; I do not visit with the new inhabitants. Pauline, one must be very careful—your friend today may be your enemy tomorrow. I don't go anyplace except to our own people. Perhaps you do not remember any of our neighbors anymore. Pauline, you wrote that you cry for our brother. It is difficult for me, too, to think of him. However, if he would have had to remain at home, he probably could not have survived. The government changed hands so often, and so many, many young people perished in prisons or were executed. If our brother died, he died in a hospital, because his friends visited him. All the patients of the hospital were evacuated before the army retreated. Rumor has it that they were sent to Turkey. He suffered from typhoid fever. Pauline, many recover from typhoid fever, although it is a very severe illness. We repeatedly hear that he is in Turkey, but those are all rumors without any proof. Not long ago my neighbor told me that a soldier, who had returned from Turkey, said to his acquaintance that there are several lads from Mikhaylovka where he was, including the butcher from the New Plaza. When I asked where I could see this man, I was told that he was from Ust-Medveditsa and came here ac- cidentally. Always those rumors; how to know if they are true? Pauline, please do not grieve so much; if he died, he is better off than we are. If he is alive, he also is better off than he would be at home. Many people do not have any information about the whereabouts of their sons and brothers. Pauline, you also wrote that you would like Katya to come to you very much. I would like to fulfill your wish with all my soul. However, Pauline, Katya is studying very well, is one of the best students and will be graduated with one other student this coming spring; all other students will have to stay for another year. She would like to go to Rostov or Moscow to continue her education. She already earns money with tutoring and pays for herself and Kalodin. She even gave money to Father, but I don't know how much. She has not decided which faculty to enter. She told me that her teachers are suggesting she study mining engineering; I, however, suggest that she become a physician. Pauline, you wrote that she would have to do rough work in America. Just think, is it really worthwhile for her to go there for that? Lydia and Talia are also learning well. When Katya wanted to introduce Talia to the teacher, he said that he already knew that Talia was related to Katya, because she was the best in passing the examination. Volodya is lazy, although he is talented. It turns out that Kalodin is becoming more of a musician than a pastor. Mother shakes her head sometimes and says, "Did I ever think of that?" Maria suffered again from typhus all autumn. When she started to recover, then Rudya got sick; just a week ago he began to recover. Mother is still very vigorous, although she complains often about headaches. I don't know what else I should write. Oh, yes, Aunt and Makar T. are here; they are doing nothing. The work always seems inconvenient. In the spring they want to return to Astrakhan. I don't know from where they think they will get the means to travel. One ticket to Tsaritsin costs 100 million rubles. They spend everything for living and traveling, but the sad truth is that they don't like to do anything. Oh, well, I don't even like to talk about them. Tasha is waiting to be called up to military service any moment now. 35 Now I have written about everybody, except Papa and Sasha. Papa, thank God, is still walking and visiting in the evening. Sasha is always busy with his cattle. My regards to your husband, and I kiss your children and you soundly. Goodbye, darling, dear sister. Greetings to you from my family. Annushka and her family are living well; she often visits us. Amalia

April 16

Darling Sister, Long ago, I cannot remember when, we received a letter from you; but I could not find any time, until now, to write you a few sentences. First, allow me to congratulate you on your daughter, a future student. I would like to see your "kiddies" very much. But very likely my dream will never come true. The rumors lately are such that I cannot make any decision. This is my last year at the Gymnasium; I shall graduate. Now I have to think about my further education. They are taking fifty million per month for school tuition. This is a burden to our father. What will happen if one wants to continue her education at the university level? The cost is very high. But this is not all. It is very difficult right now to enroll in a college, because members of the Komsomol and persons with credentials from trade unions have first priority. Since I am not a member of either group, it will be very difficult for me to enroll. I tutored students in mathematics and physics through the winter, so that I myself could pay for my education. Kalodin is now in the next-to-last grade so that he, too, must prepare himself for a higher institution soon. Lydia has to attend the middle school for another two years, then she has to stamp out her footpath into life. Oh, Pauline, Pauline! One has to trace out one's road into life as long as one is still young, with vigor and energy, before life crushes one in its claws. In my opinion, higher education is necessary not only for men, but for women too; one should have a profession one can always fall back on, especially in emergency circumstances in life. I did not like to study in elementary school, but now I cannot imagine life without school. Mother cannot accept the prospect of my parting from her and living in another city. She has aged very much as a result of the war. You can't imagine how much we've experienced, and yet we got so used to the turmoil of war that it is almost boring without hearing the roaring guns. Yes, people can get used to anything. Darling Sister, I am writing this letter for Amalia. Almost the whole day, no, not almost, but the whole day, I was not at home. I was with my friend doing schoolwork, because we don't have enough books, therefore we go to each other to study and prepare for examinations. These tests torment us to death; we have to study too much. Rolodin cannot find time for confirmation; it always interferes with some German examination. Yesterday was the last day of Easter, and there were many weddings. We have nice weather, that is, it is clear. The snow melted long ago, but we've had frost all the time, with very cold nights. Perhaps Andrei and Yasha will soon go into the field to sow; perhaps we will soon be real farmers. We now have one horse, three cows, two sheep with two lambs, four calves, of which two are one year old, two pigs, six hens, two rabbits, three dogs and two cats. That is all our livestock. Our people could not do anything through winter. They have not made the columns and have not worked in the carpentry shop because of the high taxes for everything. One works only for the right to work. Now we pay so many enforced taxes: for cattle, for people's jobs, etc. .,.[?] that he can enroll in a technical secondary school. I would like to tutor him through the summer, and then we could both go to study in Rostov. I do not think about the capital anymore, because it is very difficult to enroll there. Right now Amalia tells me that Lydia and I should go to Turkey, but what can we do there? This is her fantasy. Mother received a little message about Sasha yesterday. They say again that he is in Turkey. This is not the first time we've heard that, but this is the third man who says he is in Turkey, even though it's not official. In my opinion, if they would have talked differently, then we should not believe it, but they all say the same thing, so I think we should not despair. We had written you that guests came to us from Astrakhan, but they don't like it here. They are impatient to get back to the big-city noise. What else do they want? All the produce and the living are cheaper here than in the city. They cannot find any jobs here, so they want to go back to Astrakhan with the first available steamer.

36 I want to describe to you how they celebrated the Komsomol Easter here. At the same time the service in the church was going on, they became downright mad, losing their minds. They invited all the people from Mikhaylovka to celebrate a "Komsomol Easter" with them. During Holy Week the club announced lectures: "Is There a God?" and "The Origin of Easter." They also made a scarecrow. There were fireworks with rockets, dancing, shooting, singing, in a single word, "madness." On the first day of Easter, instead of saying Christos Voskres [Christ is risen], they said Christos sgorel [Christ burned up], hinting that the burned-up God is the burned-up doll scarecrow. Two students from our class enlisted in the Komsomol. They did this only so that they might enroll in an institution for higher education. We often stroll along the embankment. The Medveditsa has not flooded so far this year. In general, I do not like the spring. Almost all the water is frozen. Perhaps we shall start our gardening soon. I would like to plant a little flower garden this year. Last year I did not plant anything because everything in the village of Mikhaylovka was flooded. But now the village has been drained. The little garden that you planted near the kitchen dried up. Now we are starting to plant it again. Dear Pauline, is there a forest near you like we have here? I think it is not pleasant in a forestless country. I feel so miserable about the depredation of our forests in the last years. Those tall trees near the "birds' place" are gone, only the stumps are left. The beautiful old trees along the embankment also have been cut down. Now I think I have told you something about everything. Oh, I forgot to tell you about Rudya. He is a very playful boy; he is a kind of clown in our house. Without his amusing antics, the house is empty. He chatters about almost all essentials. It is, of course, a mishmash, but that is what makes it so funny. Father always plays with him, and I do not know who is entertaining whom—Rudya our father, or our father Rudya. You have not written about your Elvis. I think he must be grown up already. Is he going to school or not? How is your little daughter? Is she still trying to become a missionary or did she decide to select a different profession in life? Right now life is very difficult. When one enters the waves of life, it is quite rare that a man is not swept away and comes out as a conqueror. But you are a hero! You were not afraid to jump into that raging sea, and you emerged as a conqueror. But are you happy, are you satisfied with your lot? Your sister [Katya]

Kisses for you, regards to your husband. Greetings to your children from mother.

Pauline's younger sister, Katharine ("Katya") , and her youngest brother, Kari.

37 September 26, 1924

My dear Sister Pauline, I received your short letter. I wrote you a letter and wanted to know more about Kaldya [Kalodin]. This is my biggest question and you did not write anything about how he can get there. And it is necessary that he has to go. Katya and I wrote to you in the last letter that Kaldya was ready to go to America with Brug and one more family, but there were changes of plans because they cannot sell their house and mill. They have all the papers ready to go to Mexico. It looks like they won't be able to leave before winter, but Kaldya has to leave earlier before he will be registered. After the New Year then he won't be able to leave. I was home and Papa said he was afraid to let Kaldya go to Mexico by himself, it is so far from where you are, and so he asks you, and I also ask you—help him to come to the United States as a student. So please send him a ticket. If you do not have money for it, please borrow it somewhere and Papa will send you money with Kaldya. Papa has money ready for this trip. He sold his sausage-making equipment for 200 rubles, a horse for 110 rubles and a cow for 40, then he will sell other things also. Katya earns pretty good, 75 rubles a month, and she will save some for the trip also. So there will be enough for the trip and more. Pauline, if it is possible, Kaldya would like to go directly to New York because he has a letter of recommendation from his music teacher to a friend of hers where he can work and study. Pauline, if he can come to the United States, send a ticket for somewhere near you. I would have liked for Katya to go with Kaldya. Mama and I would feel better, but we cannot do it; there is not enough money. If Kaldya could wait till Katya has enough money for her trip also—but he cannot wait. I will not write any more about it. Katya and Kaldya will write you. Pauline, I beg you, don't let little Kaldya perish. I think we all will go to America some day. Please hurry with the ticket, Pauline. Your sister, Amalia Dear Pauline, I wrote to you to send me a ticket to go to the United States and now I ask you if you did not send it yet, please send it to Kaldya. You know he has to leave as soon as possible before the registration. Papa has enough money for the trip and he has all his papers in order to go to Mexico. His co-travelers are not ready because of their property sale, and it may be, they won't go at all, so Kaldya has to go by himself, but Papa is afraid to let him go to Mexico because it is so far from you, so he asks you to try to get Kaldya to the United States and as soon as possible. You know, Pauline, we cannot buy a ticket to the United States because one cannot get a passport to go to the U.S. So try to get him the ticket and he will pay you back as soon as he gets there. I will have enough money by spring, so you will need to send me a ticket also. Your sister, Katya Sebryakovo March 24, 1929

Greetings to all your family. Some news about our family affairs. Katya [Katherine] will write about it and I will write about other things. To answer your question about the position of religion here, I am sending you a newspaper clipping from Izvestya [News Report] of March 22nd of this year. I can add that I think it is clear enough, and that the Orthodox religious holidays are celebrated by the Russian church according to the old calendar, and the authorities use the new calendar. The workers worked during the religious holidays. We saw the picture of your president before he had been elected. He was bowing and smiling. But our newspapers say that the lot of small farmers in your country will not get better. During the winter I used up about forty square meters of firewood. I cut the wood with a round saw. It needs a motor to work, but here individuals are not permitted to buy tractors. They are sold only to a group of people.

38 Our newspapers write that America will have diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R., but our leaders don't pay great attention to it. Trotsky has been really exiled from Russia somewhere and bears malice because of it. Last summer there was a drought in the Ukraine, and now they are taking grain from here, so we have no flour on the market. We have grain until the new harvest, but it is impossible to buy it. We already have many loudspeakers here, but they hiss like a bad gramophone. Do you hear well there what is said over the loudspeakers? And who is responsible for the broadcasts? Here it is the post office board called "People's Commissariat of Post," Narcompochta. Here all such names are abridged. Our government is investing about $1.5 million in construction, and therefore taxes are high. It has to be taken into consideration that, since the war, the country has become very impoverished. There were shortages of everything. I planted trees around the house, and I still have a garden of old apple trees, so in spring it will be something like one hundred trees altogether, many of them quite young. There is also quite enough space for a vegetable garden. Land is neither sold nor bought here. It belongs to those who cultivate it. Selling or buying land is a criminal offense. New state farms are being organized [soukhozi] with areas of cultivated land up to 300,000 acres. Tractors in groups of two to three hundred are used for tilling it. According to the plan of VSNKH [The Supreme Council of State Economy], our country will be transformed in five years, but now it is hard to live. The prices for supplying the state with crops are the following: $43 for a ton of wheat; $12.50 for a ton of hay; kerosene is sold at $50 for a ton; and for the tractors [kerosene is] about $30 a ton; iron roofing material $120 a ton. All cars are very expensive. A bicycle is $20. I converted all the prices into your money. From your letters, I cannot make out clearly what the worth of a dollar in rubles is. So, I have to look it up in books. We again have a new address. Now there are no provinces, but the country is divided into economic regions. A new central board has been organized. Our address: Lower Volga Region, Khopersky District, Railway Station Sebryakovo, Ukrainian Republic. In Stalingrad [formerly Tsaritsin, now Volgograd], they are building a tractor plant which will make forty thousand tractors a year. From Saratov, (which is twenty-five kilometers from us), they will build a railway line to Ust-Medveditsa and farther. Here a poultry slaughter house is being built, equipped with refrigerators. They are also building mills. With the best of wishes. Your F[yodor] Yudin

April 26, 1931

Hello, my dear Pauline! I received your letter long ago, but only today have I got around to answering it. Today is the first day of Easter, but the church holidays are not being celebrated here. Fedya [Fyodor] worked. I alone prepared for the holiday: I baked Easter cakes, made cheese pashka, and colored eggs. But many, many people had no chance to prepare anything for Easter. There are such frightful prices for everything here that a worker cannot survive on his earnings if he shops at the market. Fedya gets 3.15 a day, but this sum suffices only for bread, groats, a little butter, and sugar, which workers get at the cooperative stalls. At the market here flour is 60-70 rubles a pud [36 pounds]; eggs are 6-7 rubles for ten; mutton is 50 rubles a pud; lump pork fat is 600 rubles a pud, etc. Just imagine what our life is like. The co-ops don't furnish us with enough; they don't give meat at all, and on our earnings we can't even think of buying any at the market. We are still living, that is, we are eating well, because my goat is giving milk, four bottles a day. Then I have four chickens, and this is a great help to us. In the fall I salted two rams—they were cheaper then—so we haven't starved. I planted a garden near our cottage, so we'll have our vegetables. My Kirochka already says everything. She is two and one-half and almost always plays alone. Aunt A. sent her some toys from Rostov. She has left us for N. She is working in Rostov. Not long ago I received a letter from Talya [Natalia]. She has given up teaching. She writes that it doesn't pay, that is, a teacher's labor is poorly paid, but there is much more work for a teacher

39 to do now. Besides school work, they have to do all kinds of social work. For the time being she is living with Amalia. Sasha has been removed from his job. They are accusing him of some sort of sabotage, and they have put him in a correctional institution [prison]. Andrei is working on a sovkhoz, that is in Soviet agriculture, and Yasha is studying at Tsaritsin to be a civil engineer. Kaldya is working as a physician in the German colony near Kamyshin. We live so far from each other that we rarely get a letter. Fedya's relatives are as yet all living. The old folks were living with Katya Zotova (sister), but now they have probably moved in with A. I rarely get letters from home. The whole time I have received one letter from Father and one from Andrei. Kaldya writes most often. Well, goodbye for now. Write me often what your life is like. We hope that when the five-year plan is over it will be easier for the people. Right now the state is taking much of the people's livelihood for all sorts of construction which has been planned for these five years. [unsigned— possibly written by Pauline's sister Katherine]

PICTURES, PLEASE The editors take great delight in selecting pictures for your enjoyment to accompany each issue of ova Journal. We hope you enjoy them. To aid us in planning pictures for future issues, we would like to request the assistance of our readers. As you go through family photo albums and photo collections, please think of us and send us any pictures that you may find depicting life in the German colonies in Russia. We also welcome pictures of the immigrant families—as well as the stories of their immigration. Please provide a complete identification for each picture. All pictures received are a great asset to the picture collection in our Archives. Each and every one received is greatly treasured. The growth of all aspects of our Archives depends upon you, our members and readers.

40 THE LIFE AND EXPERIENCES OF SARAH HARDER WARKENTIN1 Translated by Susanna Warkentin Meinzer

Seventy-five years have passed since a child was born on November 24, 1858, in the Bergtal colony of Schoenfeld in South Russia. She was welcomed with love into the home of Frank Harder and his wife. She joined a sister and brother. Two older brothers had died in infancy. When she was two and one-half years old, the family bade a fond farewell to the home in Schoenfeld and moved ninety miles to the west, where they rented land and buildings in the beautiful village of Silberfeld. There another sister was born in 1861, but she died in infancy. In the summer of1863, the heavily-laden stork brought twins. Sarah remembers their birth welt As a four-and-one-half-year old, it was her duty to sit on a small chair between the two cradles and gently rock the babies to sleep. In the spring, the children liked the freedom of the outdoors and would spend much time outside. As the twins could not yet walk, she would carry one part of the way, put it down, then go back for the other one. When they were older and could walk, the three of them would walk hand-in-hand throughout the area, In the fall of 1866, Sara began school. She was able to attend school for only four short years. She writes, "I learned a lot in those years—reading, writing, arithmatic and singing. We did not have notes then [for singing} but used numbers instead. [End of poem.]

My Childhood

When the twins were two years and three months old, we got another little brother, Peter. He was such a sweet baby, but when he was eighteen months old, he began to get sickly. He could talk already. I took care of him all the time, and when I wasn't with him, he would ask so pitifully, "Where is my Sarah?" He didn't seem to care about anyone but Mother and me. We were his best friends in this world. Then in the fall and winter, I had to go back to school. When I got home, I had to keep the stove going. The houses were heated with large brick ovens that burned straw. It took about two hours, then it would keep the house warm for half a day or longer. I was with Peter as often and as much as I could be. In June of 1868, two more little pilgrims arrived and wanted to share our pilgrimage with us. Then I could sit between two cradles again. That summer I got sick. I had chills and fever. Little Peter kept on getting worse until he finally had to stay in bed. One day Mother had put him in front in a big bed, and I had crawled in back of him with my fever and had gone to sleep. Then all at once I heard Mother say, "Father, Peter is dying!" I jumped up and out at the foot of the bed and went into another room and cried as if my heart would break. Then a neighbor, a Mrs. Fast, came and took me out at the other end of the house and said, "You won't even let the poor child die." So I didn't even see him die. It was customary for the men who worked in the fields to rest for an hour at noon. They worked from daylight till dark. It was just at the noon hour and Father and my brother Martin were home resting. This was on a Friday, July 20, 1868. The twins were just a month old. So Father and Martin could not go to the fields anymore that day. They had to dig the grave. All the men were working in the harvest. Mr. Jenzen always had a cabinetmaker in his shop, so he made the coffin. We had to pay for that, but Mrs. Jenzen sent word that she would send the zwieback and ground coffee for the funeral. (It was customary to serve coffee and zwieback after the funerals.) Mrs. Jenzen also came Sunday morning and dressed little Peter. She dressed him so nicely in pants and a coat. He had never worn pants yet. Sunday was the funeral. As they didn't work in the fields on Sunday, all the men living in the village could come to the funeral. It was a large funeral. Our schoolteacher had to conduct the services, as we had no minister there. Our little Katherine was sick, too, and the next Wednesday night she followed Peter. Thursday, Father and Martin opened up Peter's grave and dug a little more on the side, then Friday we had her funeral. They then put the little coffin in alongside Peter's, so they are both resting in one grave. The men of the village couldn't come, as they were all working in the harvest, but the women all came. The schoolteacher had to conduct the services again, and he also carried the small coffin to the graveyard that was about a mile away. But we still had little Abraham. 41 The cemetery outside Silberfeld.

Then in the next spring, 1869, we left Silberfeld and moved to the Danish [sic}2 side, about 200 miles away, to a landlord. This was in 1869. We were there only a short time when Abraham died on May 29 and followed his little brothers and sisters into that Heavenly Home. He was nearly one year old. Then we went to visit Father's sister. They lived on the Danish [sic] side, too, but a long way away. They visited other acquaintances too. They took me along, as I was so lonesome for my little brothers and sisters/ My loving services were all over. I always wanted to be a good child and tried to do a lot of good. God gave me the privilege of caring for my little brothers and sisters. I loved them and did it very willingly. The Lord be praised! There were no schools on the Danish [sic} side, so I couldn't go to school. But that winter I made it my privileged duty to teach the six-year-old twins. I was eleven that year. I opened and closed my school just like they did when I went to school. They learned to read and write enough to get along. Later on, in the winter of 1869, we did a good deal of studying.

The Bergtal Fire When I was fifteen years old I worked in Bergtal. One day when the teamsters were expected back from taking the people to the trains, there was a big fire in Bergtal. At noon a girl came running and said, "Fire in the village," and that I should tell the next neighbor. So I ran and told them, ran back and got a cart, and the lady packed things in a big chest. I wanted to get some of my things, too, but the lady didn't like that. I took an armful anyway and put them in the chest. She got a big looking glass and put it on top, then we dragged the chest outside. The cart wasn't long enough for the chest, but [it was] wide enough, so we could get one end in, and the other end stuck out. Then we put a table on top with the legs up, then packed as much bedding as we could on top. The lady walked alongside to keep it from tipping over, and I dragged it to the back end of our orchard. Then she wanted me to go back and get a pot of lard from the cellar. But when I got halfway back, I saw the fire start on the roof of our house, and in a minute the whole house was in flames. So I couldn't go in any more. In a few minutes, the three neighboring houses were in flames. Then there was a creek, and the other houses were a little farther away. But in a few minutes, eighteen houses were in flames. On the other side of the creek, there were four houses that didn't burn. There was a bridge across the creek, and about a city block farther on was a cross street between this street and the creek. There were the schoolhouse, a magazine [store], and then a big corral where the horses were kept at night. On the other side was a farm, but with the end towards the cross street. There were more houses on the street going north, about as many as in our part that burned. The main street went

42 east and west and the cross street north and south. There were seven houses there, mostly business houses. The first two houses on our street were made of brick with tile roofs. The houses on the four corners were all close together, but these two of brick didn't burn. Then there was another brick house farther away, but with a straw roof. It belonged to a Mrs. Harder. She lived alone with her servant girl. Next was a miller, who had a windmill a little distance from the village, then a dry goods store. Then a restaurant, then a Jew. He must have been a tailor or a shoemaker. We found out later how the fire started. A servant girl had been home alone, but evidently was expecting her people home for dinner, so she made a fire in a tea pot [samovar]. It had smoked too much for her, so she put it outside the house, and the straw roof caught fire. When she noticed the fire, she could not get out the door anymore but had to crawl out the window. Then, since the wind was blowing across the village, the fire went across the street to a granary full of linseed. Then the fire went down both sides of our street. Six houses on one side and seven on the other burned—that was a big fire. It burned all through the night. The next day they began to clean up and put out all the fires and coals where they were still smoldering so it wouldn't- start up again. At the second house from the end on the north street, a man had been standing in his yard and had seen a burning piece of wood come flying through the air. He watched to see where it would fall. It came into his own yard and fell between two haystacks. So he ran and put it out. If he had not seen that, the fire would have started there, too, and the damage would have been greater. But the Lord was merciful.

A portion of AHSGR Map #21 showing the location of the Bergtal Colonies and Silberfeld in relation to the Molotschna Colonies and the Russian city of Mariupol.

43 The Emigration In 1874, I was still working in Bergtal, all the Bergfcal Colonies8 went to America. They all agreed to go and they helped each other. The ones that didn't have enough money were helped by the ones that had more than they needed. A lot of people from some of the other colonies and villages and settlements around there went to America too. But those villages were still run by the Mennonites that were left. People gathered from villages and settlements and territories around wherever the Mennonites had scattered. But not so in the Bergtal Colonies. All the Mennonites left. That must have been about like when the children of Israel left Egypt. Only five [Mennonite] families were left in that territory. One was a wealthy man who owned a lot of land about 150 versts away [1 verst = 0.663 miles]. The rest were so scattered they couldn't have any fellowship with each other. My parents were also very poor, but they didn't go along yet on account of other reasons. Two groups left in 1874 and two more groups in 1875. The day the returning drivers were expected back was the day of the big fire, which I described earlier. In 1873, when the Mennonites started to plan on immigrating to America, twelve men were sent to America by the churches to find out about land where they could settle. Three men went from Bergtal. Mr. Wiebe and Mr. Peters were sent by the church and had their expenses paid. A Mr, Cornelius Buhr went, too, but paid his own expenses. They had selected Canada for the Bergtal group. Gerhard Wiebe, our minister, had at one time dreamed that he had driven a big flock of sheep into one pen. When he had the gate shut, all the fastest and best sheep jumped over the fence. That's the way it was when he had his group of Bergtal people in Canada. Of the ones that had enough money left, some went to Minnesota and some to other places. So that was the meaning of his dream, (Bergtal was founded in 1836, and the emigration was in 1874). When these representatives got back to Russia from America, the people began to prepare and get ready to leave. Then in 1874 and 1875 about 4,000 Mennonites left. This colony had existed only about fifty years. My grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Harder Sr., had come there with the first settlers when they were young people. Most of these must have been from the Chortitza Colonies. My grandfather died in 1874. He was seventy years old, so we can figure that the colony was about fifty years old when they started to emigrate. So Grandfather did not get to make the trip to the U.S. with us, as he died just before they started to emigrate. In 1876 the whole colony of Bergtal was sold to some Catholic people.4 They were very nice people and spoke Low German just like we do. Schoenfeld and Schoental were sold to some Lutheran people. They also spoke like we do. Friedenstal was sold to some Russian people. Heuboden was sold to some Swabians. They spoke High German in church, but I don't know how they spoke in their homes. They bought the Bergtal church, too, so they had a nice farewell sermon for us. They brought their organ into the church. That was the first time there ever was an organ in the church. That Sunday, a missionary by the name of Dirks came to the church. (He is well known to many people.) He and the Swabian minister had very good farewell sermons in both the morning and afternoon. I can't remember what they were about, but they were good. The Swabian minister often mentioned that we were going far, far across the ocean. Then in May, the last ones left. They always left in time to get to the next station on time. They had to travel two hundred versts to where they could get a train. The last ones left in two days. On Monday, we helped the Jacob Hieberts; that was Father's sister. On Tuesday, we helped the Henry Hieberts; that was Mother's sister. After we said our goodbyes, I went to see my girlfriends. There were three girls at the Loewens, and Katnerine Unger was there too. Their wagonloads were gone already, but they wanted to walk a ways and they wanted me to walk with them a little way. So I walked with them to the end of the village. Then I went and stood on the inside of the fence around the church and watched them as far as I could see them. More wagonloads came by, and from each wagon they called and said, "Goodbye" and "Come along too." I can't find the words to describe my feelings at that time. After they had all gone, I went home. Then on Wednesday we started to get ourselves ready, and on Thursday we bade farewell to Bergtal and left for Huleupol [sic].5 My brother was working there in a flour mill as a miller, and my sister was working for a landlord about thirty-five miles farther. That is the reason we didn't go to America with the rest of the Bergtal group. We rented a room and stayed there for awhile,

44 In about two weeks I got a job still farther away than my sister was. One day the lady asked me what I was dreaming about at night. She said I was singing out loud. I told her I dreamed I was in Bergtal in the church. I would sing lines and sometimes a whole verse before I would wake up. The third Sunday I was there, everyone left and I was all alone in that big house. I was afraid even in broad daylight, so I locked the outside doors. Then I began to have such a strange feeling and began to realize I was just homesick. So I got my Bible and found comfort and help. I couldn't speak any Russian, but the two Russian girls who worked there helped me to learn to speak Russian. When I would say something wrong, they would tell me just how to say it. In three months I could speak enough so that I could get by with all I needed in my work. My father got a job as a miller for a big landlord, and we worked there for three years, until 1879, when we had the opportunity to go to America with a group from the Molotschna Colonies.

On the Way to America

We began to get ready to leave two weeks ahead of time. We went to Schoenwiese, as the Molotschna group was to come through there. Our passes were not ready, however. My brother Martin had to go to Ekaterinoslav [now Dnepropetrovsk] with our papers, but things were not in order yet. We had to get some more papers, a visa or something, from Bergtal. When Martin got back one evening from Ekaterinoslav, he got ready to go to Bergtal right away. He hired a Russian teamster and started out that same night. They would always go as far as one team could travel in one day, then hire another team. That way he traveled 300 versts one way in three days and three nights. On the return trip it didn't take him so long, as the teamsters were all ready and waiting. He got home one evening and took the next train to Ekaterinoslav. We had already received word when our train was to come through Schoenwiese, but Martin wasn't back with our papers or passes yet. (The town council was in no hurry.) Father said we would just go along with our group, and, when we got to the place where Martin's train was to come through, we would meet him there and then follow the others. While we were waiting at the depot for our train, a Mr. Kran came in and said Martin had sent a telegram that we should come on, and he would meet us where our trains came together. About midnight Martin came into our train. When we reached the Russian border, we had more trouble. We had had to deposit 150 rubles for each person (there were seven of us), and we were to get that returned to us at the border, but it wasn't there yet. So Martin had to stay behind and wait for the money. We packed a box of food and a few other essentials for him. There were two other couples who had to wait for their money, too, so they waited together for a few days. We got to Antwerp on a Wednesday, and they got there the next Saturday. Our ship left on Monday, so we could all travel together on the same ship. One of my sisters worked as a maid and another as a babysitter for our benefactors while on ship and kept their jobs later. We were on the ocean for fifteen days. We landed on June 12, 1879. We had to wait one day in Philadelphia until everything was regulated. All those who went to Nebraska had to take one coach. All the different places had their special coaches too.

Life in America

We arrived in York, Nebraska, on a Saturday evening. We knew of no relatives or friends there, but the dear Lord sent someone to us. Father and Martin had gone to see about our luggage and other business. Mother, Frank and I sat there like a dejected little bunch of poverty waiting for God's help. All at once a man (Mr. Goertz) came by and asked if we had someone to get us. We said no, we didn't know anyone there. So he said he would take us to his place and that he would gladly take a family into his home. So when Father and Martin got back, we went with him. We had to go about fifteen miles in the dark. We would go down steep and deep places and things would rattle so that we were scared. But by-and-by it began to get a little lighter and we got there in time for breakfast. We started to prepare our breakfast when Brother Goertz said, "No, today you are our guests. Tomorrow you can start for yourselves." Later on we rented a farm. In 1882, just before Christmas, Brother Martin and Sister Agnes were married. On February 22, 1883, I was married and changed my name from Harder to Warkentin. We lived in Nebraska for seven years. They had such big storms there, especially the last summer

45 [we were in Nebraska]. The whole town of Bradshaw was practically demolished; not one house was left undamaged. Then we decided to go to Oregon. In six weeks from the time we first mentioned going, we were on our way. We had rented a farm, but two weeks before we left, we found a buyer and sold it. Then we had a sale with our other things. We had planned on leaving our things in one room in case we would want to go back. We had our sale on a Monday, and on Tuesday, September 19, 1890, we left. I will never forget that trip. We left about 11 a.m., traveled east for a couple of hours, then had to change trains. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the other train. Then we went west. There was a strong breeze coming in the open window right by my children, so I closed the window. Two boys were sitting just in front of us. They started cussing and opened it again. So my five-month-old baby, Frank, got too much draft and was sick the next day. I had to hold him all that day. The older son, Cornelius, who was one year and nine months old, was already sick before we started. Everyone at the sale thought he would die before we left, but we carried him along. On Wednesday, towards evening, I got them both to sleep, so I asked to sit next to the window so I could see better and more. I had only sat there for a little while when I heard the whistle blow. I thought, "Who will hear or see you among these curves in the hills?" I had just thought that when we met head-on with another train. Later on, a woman told me that a young man had been looking out the window when he saw the engineer jump from the locomotive. He had thrown himself out of the window and had rolled over and over down the mountain side. We had to stay there all night. When I woke up once during the night, the whole car was full of smoke. I woke my husband and he opened up some windows and went out to see what was the matter. There had been a fire under our coach, but they were putting it out already. The other trains had to be kept back. Thursday morning they started to work real early. There was just enough room between the train and the mountain wall to put in another track. Just at noon, after my husband had gone to get us a can of water for our dinner, our car began to jump and jerk. One time it leaned one way, then another jerk and it leaned the other way. I thought we would tip over. Our car broke loose. The engine went a little farther and had to cross a small bridge over a deep gorge. The bridge broke, and the baggage car and coal car both fell into the gorge. So we were lucky that our car had broken loose before that. When we got out of the mountains, there were hills on one side and a valley on the other. We all had to get out and wait there in that valley until everything was in shape to go again. In the evening we started. But, oh my, how they traveled! They wanted to make up for lost time. When the conductors would go through the train, they would have to hold on to the backs of the seats. When the doors were opened, we could see how the cars wobbled back and forth. The dark night came, and the mountains were terrible. We sat there scared and expected death any minute. But the Lord was merciful.

Sarah Harder Warkentin and her husband, Cornelius Warkentin.

46 Friday morning we arrived in Portland, Oregon. There we had to change trains again, then we left for Independence. We got there about 11 a.m. My brother-in-law, John Siemons, was waiting for us and took us home. The family had lived in Oregon for about a year. Sister Elizabeth had stuck her hand with the eye of a needle when she was wiping off the tablecloth. (She had previously stuck it into the tablecloth.) We had to poultice it day and night until it was ready to be lanced. The doctor lanced it, but it started up again in another place, and we had to poultice it again and again. It kept on that way until the doctor had lanced it five times. Then it finally got better. I had my hands full. I had to do all her work and mine, too, for five weeks—washing, ironing, patching, cooking and baking for twelve people. We had four children and they had four children. Their youngest couldn't walk yet, and when I would sit down to nurse my baby, she would come crawling, get hold of my dress and pull herself up. Then I would take her on my lap and give her the other breast. After Elizabeth's hand began to get better and she could help a little with one hand, we each cooked and ate separately. We lived with them from September until the next July. We bought a farm near Dallas and moved there in July. We lived there twenty-one years. In November 1911, we moved to Reedley [California], bought a farm and lived there nine years. We moved to Shatter [California] in 1920, bought a farm and lived there four years. Then we went to live with our daughter Sarah in Sacramento. My husband had had a kidney ailment for a long time already. We lived in Sacramento one year and nine months. We took Father to the hospital on July 2, 1926. He had an operation on July 16 and died August 5th at 2 p.m. He was buried in Shatter on August 8, 1926. He was in the hospital thirty-three days. I had always had such poor health that I thought I would soon follow him. But now I have been here thirteen years already. I am very comfortable here. My daughter has a rooming- and boardinghouse with seventeen rooms. She rents out eleven and sometimes boards as many as twenty people. Excuse me if this writing is too long. I have tried to make it as short as I could and wrote just the most important things. I could have written four times as much if I had told of our life and experiences on the farm. I will write a little about myself. I am quite deaf, so that I can't understand anything in church anymore. And my health is so poor that I can't go to church. But, thanks to God, I can see enough to read, and I can read my Sunday sermons. I have a daily service book, too, and a lot of other good books, so I don't get lonesome. Now I wish all my readers God's blessings in the New Year. Sarah Harder Warkentin died in Sacramento, California, on April 8, 1945.

Notes 1. Sarah told of her life in a journal, which she wrote in a beautiful German script. The journal was translated by her daughter and made available for publication by her grandson, Lester N. Meinzer. The first part of this article, in italics, is a poem she wrote on the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday in 1933, We have condensed it here to prose. 2. The reference here to the "Danish" side appears to be in error. Perhaps she meant the "Swedish" side. The Swedish settlement consisted of about 11,000 dessiatines of land along the Dnieper River, fl dessiatine = 2.7 acres.] It was approximately two hundred miles southwest of Silberfeld. 3. The Mennonite Bergtal Colonies and their dates of founding were: Bergtal (1836), Schoenfeld (1837), Schoental (1838), Heuboden (1839), and Friedrichstal (1852). 4. When the Mennonites emigrated from the Bergtal Colonies, Bergtal was sold to Catholic Germans, Schoenfeld to Lutheran Germans, Schoental and Heuboden to Separatists from Berdyansk, and Friedrichstal to Russians. 5. Perhaps she means Gulyapol, a Russian city not far from Silberfeld.

47 A RUSSIAN-GERMAN WEREWOLF STORY Paul Schach Of the many oral tales brought to this country by German immigrants from Russia, the most intriguing ones are stories about wolves. As I have shown elsewhere, these tales fall into two distinct categories.1 On the one hand there are maerchen-like stories with happy endings similar to Little Red Riding Hood or Peter and the Wolf, most of which can be traced to German or Russian elementary-school readers or other children's books. A subtype is the tall tale, in which a resourceful individual or animal eludes or overcomes one or more elves. Anecdotes of this kind frequently appear in newspapers, but their ultimate sources often remain obscure. Some of them may well have originated as oral tales. In marked contrast to these cheerful, humorous anecdotes are grim stories in which parents sacrifice one or more of their children, or sled drivers cast a newly wedded couple to a pack of ravenous wolves in order to save their own lives. It was this type of wolf story that was exploited so skillfully by Robert Browning, Willa Gather, and Mela Meisner Lindsay. Although these three writers used different immediate sources, these all derive from the same original source, which was a bit of French anti-Russian propaganda,2 A preliminary survey of the numerous tales collected from Russian Germans on the Great Plains suggests that a majority of them represent gesunkenes Kulturgut, that is, literary works that underwent various changes in form and purpose and eventually came to be regarded as genuine oral tales or folklore. Conspicuous by its absence from the plenitude of wolf tales still remembered and related by descendants of Russian-German immigrants is the werewolf. This seems all the more remarkable in view of the fact that werewolf superstitions are said to have been especially strong in France and Russia.3 Of the dozens of tale-tellers interviewed during the past thirty years, not a single one could recall ever having heard a story told about werewolves. Indeed, most of them did not even know the meaning of the word. Only two informants had ever read a werewolf story, and only one of them could still identify that story, which bears the simple title "The Wolf."4 The story itself, however, is far from simple. A structural and psychological analysis of "The Wolf" may perhaps suggest reasons why the werewolf seems never to have been part of the folklore of the Russian Germans. But before we discuss this short story, it will be necessary to review briefly several pertinent facts about the werewolf superstition and its treatment in literature and the film. The belief in werewolves and other kinds of shape-changers is, to quote Montague Summers, "as old as time and as wide as the world."5 In his History (book 4) Herodotus writes that the Scythians were willing to assert under oath that the neighboring Neuri once a year became wolves for a few days. Herodotus himself, of course, did not take the Scythian story seriously. Pliny the Younger in his Natural History (book 8, part 34) also declared confidenter that stories about humans being changed into wolves were false, and he rather smugly scoffed at the Greeks for their credulity in believing such falsehoods — several of which he related in detail. Probably the earliest, and certainly one of the most influential, literary treatments of the werewolf theme is found in the Satyricon, a prose romance attributed to Nero's sometime friend Petronius Arbiter (died ca. AD 66).6 The tale is related in the first person by the ex-slave Niceros, who emphasizes the fact that its purpose is merely entertainment. Niceros and a certain soldier set out to visit their girl friends. As they were crossing a cemetery, Niceros's companion took off his clothing, whereupon he was transformed into a wolf. When Niceros, "looking like a ghost," arrived at his girl's house, he learned that a ferocious wolf had just killed many domestic animals there, but had been stabbed in the neck by one of the slaves. Upon returning home, Niceros found the soldier lying on his cot "with a doctor patching up his neck. I understood that he was a skin-changer, and after that I couldn't sit down to a meal with him to save my life" (literally non si me occidisses, i.e., "not if you had killed me"). Repercussion (the appearance of wounds suffered by a werewolf on his or her human body and vice versa) is a frequent feature in modern werewolf fiction, which rather tends to follow the pattern set by Petronius.7 Three works, from the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, will suffice to show that the werewolf theme, contrary to general belief, was not shunned or neglected in medieval literature.8 Marie de France (Fl. 1185) treated the wolf man very sympathetically in her well-known lai [lay] "Bisclavret." Biselavret reveals to his wife that he is a wolf for three days each week and that he will be unable to resume human form if his clothing should be stolen during that time. Horrified

48 at the thought of being married to a shape-changer, his wife, with the help of her lover, hides Bisclavret's clothing. After narrowly escaping death at the hands of hunters, Bisclavret succeeds in gaining the protection of his liege lord. When, at the royal court, Bisclavret rips the clothing from his wife and attacks her lover, the king suspects foul play. The two are forced to confess and to return Bisclavret's clothing, after which they are both banished from the land. Bisclavret resumes his human form — permanently — and enjoys wealth and happiness to the end of his days. Marie de France assures us that the story is true, and the Norse translator of her led avows that he saw in childhood a wealthy farmer who could change himself into a wolf.9 Whereas Bisclavret, like the soldier in the Satyricon, actually underwent metamorphosis, the relationships between humans and other creatures in native Norse literature do not always involve transsubstantiation. Without assuming animal form, berserkers or wolf skins, for example, could temporarily attain the ferocity of bears or wolves by wearing shirts made from the hides of these beasts. Conversely the spirit of a human being could take possession of an animal while the individual remained inactive. The best known example is Bodvar Bjarki in Hrolfs saga kraka.10 With the advent of Christianity, this motif was modified somewhat: a demon familiar was believed to possess the animal and to use it to attack livestock and people. Of the more conventional werewolves in medieval Norse literature, the best known are King Sigmund, his son Sinfjoth, and the mother of King Siggeir in Volsunga saga (ca. 1250), a major source for Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen.11 It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that the werewolf and the lycanthrope appeared frequently in macabre fiction. Although Robert Louis Stevenson did not use the word, he treated the theme of the werewolf in several stories including his well-known Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The fact that the transformations in this novel are effected by chemical means is especially interesting in view of recent investigations into congenital porphyria and into the connection between the ingestion of chemical substances such as ergot and LSD with the hallucination known as lycanthropy.12 Fascination with the werewolf in modern times reached a peak around the middle of the twentieth century, which saw a spate of horror films featuring this creature. Symptomatic of the craze is the fact that the article on werewolves in the most recent edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is illustrated by a picture of Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man, one of the best known films of its kind. As we have seen in this brief survey of werewolf fiction since the time of Petronius, perceptions of the wolf man and literary treatments of the shape-changer theme differed from one author to another. Despite this wide variety of attitudes and depictions, however, certain patterns or types emerge from the welter of tales, novels, and films that enable us to classify most of the individual works. To date, "The Wolf," for which I have found neither source nor parallel, has resisted classification.

The Wolf

"Ivan Dmitritsh! Seize him — the shameless thief! Seize him! Seize him!" With these words a motley band of men and women, armed with clubs and brooms, goes storming after the boy, who just then disappears into the protection of the evergreen forest. The cursing pursuers give up the chase, for the winter evening, which is already descending over the Siberian border village, makes searching in the forest impossible. Ivan has noticed that they have given up the pursuit. Panting heavily, he stops running and with the back of his broad hand wipes the sweat from his forehead. "Miserable rabble!" he mutters. "You won't catch me! Haha! And the goat will taste especially good — to me and to Marushka." His knees tremble from running so hard. He sits down on the snow-covered ground and leans his head on his brown hands. Then there is a crackling sound in the underbrush. Ivan whirls around wildly. A pursuer? No, a girl — in rags, like himself. Not really beautiful, but slender, with long, blond braids and the earth-scented charm that is often so characteristic of children of nature. The boy's wild, angry expression grows soft, like that of a child. "Marushka!" he said — that was all. But m this one word a whole world of love reveals itself. "Ivan, you have stolen!" Her voice is gentle and shy, like that of a person who has been harassed and buffeted all his life. The boy remains defiantly silent. And Marushka continues: "Why did you steal, Ivan — especially today?"

49 "Especially today, Marushka! Hadn't you promised to go away with me? And I wanted at least to be able to share a warm bite of meat with you ~ especially today, Marushka!" "Go," she said harshly, although her eyes were brimming with tears. "You must not steal. . .. And I am not going with you." "Marushka - I...." "Go! The goat is still alive. I saw it in your hut. If you do not return it to Wassilev, I shall leave, and you will never see me again." Ivan knows that she means what she says. With a sigh he gets to his feet and walks to his hut. The peasants and their wives have assembled in the living room of the village magistrate. In their midst stands Ivan, glaring about him with defiant eyes. Wassilev, the owner of the goat, has begun to speak, and he continues in an insistent tone of voice: "Vaterchen, listen to me! I swear to you by God and all the saints — this is not the first time that the rascal has stolen. Even if he did bring back the goat today — he probably had no real use for it. How often have we, and you, lost chickens, pigs, bread, tallow, and what-not? Arrest him, for he is certainly the wolf that has robbed us at night." During this accusation Ivan has grown pale, his eyes blaze. With the last words he jumps — a single leap — and his sinewy hand clutches the throat of the speaker. The women scream loudly, but his voice rises above all of them. "You mangy dogs! Naturally — haha — I was the wolf. And I still am. Don't you know that I can practice sorcery — that I can assume the form of a wolf whenever I care to? Haha! How frightened you are. But it is true. I shall often turn into a wolf and come to you at night. I shall devour your goats and chickens and your children. And if I can find nothing else, I'll devour you too." Ivan is raving. Foam appears on his lips, and only as if from a far distance does he hear the magistrate's words: "Yes, you are right, children. He must be imprisoned. He is more than dangerous." The roar of disorderly shouting engulfs Ivan, but yet he can discern a whisper. Was that not Marushka's voice? There, close beside him. "I'll wait until you are free, Ivan. In the meantime I'll find shelter somewhere — perhaps in the next village. I'll be waiting for you." As in a dream he hears the magistrate give the order to board up his hut ~ his miserable hut, in which not even mice and rats want to live. Quietly he lets himself be led to the dank hole in which he must remain until taken out to be brought to the city jail. Gradually the magistrate's office grows empty. The men have left to accompany the dangerous boy, and only the women remain for a short while, scolding and complaining. Finally they also leave, all but one — Marushka. Just as the magistrate is about to stride out through the door, the form of a tall, slender maiden arises from the window niche and, in the uncertain illumination of twilight, steps in front of the man, who shrinks back, startled. "Do not be frightened, Vaterchen," she says softly, "I will not murder you. I merely want to request something of you, Vaterchen. Let Ivan go free — do you hear me? He will never steal again. I will see to that." "You? Hoho!" "Yes, I am fond of him, Vaterchen. Let him go free. He is not bad. I will be thankful to you. I can be thankful." "Really?" The man looks at her in a way that she does not yet understand. How attractive she is, in spite of her rags. None of the village women is like her. For a while the magistrate stands motionless. Suddenly he throws his arms around the young, soft shoulders and pulls her lovely head to his hot lips. There! What was that? He staggers — before his eyes a thousand sparks flash. His face burns as though struck by the blow of a fist. But when he again regains consciousness, he is alone. Outside, night descends upon the village and the forest. The hut that serves as the provisional local jail, with its poorly grated windows, stands at the end of the single row of low buildings in the village. The highway, which is a short distance from it, stands out like a dull gray stripe from the hard-crusted, gleaming snow and disappears

50 in the forest, in which Ivan recently found shelter. Beyond the wood the road continues toward the neighboring village, to which Marushka intends to flee. He wonders whether she is already on her way. Although the night is cold, it is calm and bright, so this makes it easier to walk across the still fields. Easier than sitting in the dark jail that encloses Ivan. He stares out into the clear night. Tomorrow, from the city jail, he will no longer even be able to see a wide, still field. And so for week after week his life will be like a gray, endless expanse. And Marushka — There! The boy leaps up like a tiger. He presses his face against the cold bars of the window and breathes rapidly. There, on the gray, winding road — there is someone walking. He cannot distinguish the face, but he recognizes the slender limbs and the light, elastic gait. With both hands Ivan seizes the bars so that they tremble from the pressure. With the full force of his voice he shouts the beloved name out into the still night. The girl has heard him. She stops and points with her arm to the forest. Then she continues on, walking erectly, until she disappears in its darkness. The boy's spirit has grown bright and still. What was that? A horrible scream is heard — there, another one! The peasants light their lamps and bundle up in their fur coats. Outside they gather. There — another scream, weaker now — it came from the forest. Anxious and silent the men set out. The snow crunches under the hard soles of their boots. In the dark forest they search for a long time in vain until finally they hear a fourth, very weak cry directly before them. God be praised, here the forest is less dense. There — all bend forward, staring at the white forest floor. Then they look at each other in horror and consternation. Before them lies Marushka in a pool of blood. The flesh of her head and breast has been mangled. Beside her are wolf tracks. Then someone comes racing and panting toward them. It is Ivan. His hands are bleeding, for he smashed the prison door with the strength that only desperation can give. With a fearful cry he breaks through the ranks of the peasants. Then he stands there as though in a trance. Ivan doesn't even say anything when suddenly someone behind him cries out, "The wolf!" He says nothing when the others repeat this word until their voices rise in a shrill crescendo and they all scream, "The wolf! Look, look! Ivan was the wolf. He threatened us. Down with him!" The superstition overwhelms them all. A stone flies toward him -- a second one. The boy staggers. Light- red blood spurts from his mouth. He collapses. On the other side of the forest, however, a shy gray creature slinks away, licking its bloody snout. * * * Even a cursory reading of "The Wolf" reveals that it is not a recording of a folktale. An oral tale consists of a linear plot, usually confined to a single, well-developed scene, and bracketed by a narrative introduction and conclusion. By contrast, "The Wolf" begins in medias res. The scene of action changes quickly as the narrator sharply focuses the attention of the reader momentarily on one character after another. Instead of describing his characters, the anonymous author has them reveal themselves through their words and actions. Although he seldom comments on his characters, he has them comment on each other. In short, we are dealing here with a degree of narrative sophistication and condensation that is foreign to the folktale. The narrative compaction is comparable to that in Strindberg's short story "Fagel Fenix," and the simultaneity of action effected by plot interlace is similar to that of the Icelandic sagas, though without the amplification that is characteristic of medieval literature. Even more striking than the structural complexity and narrative compression of "The Wolf" is the author's skillful motivation of the action, his psychological manipulation of his characters and his audience. The story takes place during a midwinter night in a Siberian border village and an adjacent forest — time and place are ominous. Although moonlight is not specifically mentioned, it is suggested by the description of the night as "calm and bright," and moonlight is associated with werewolves. The hysteric violence of the peasants at the end of the story is skillfully prepared, primarily through unobtrusive hints. Ivan and Marushka are virtual outcasts from the village, which itself is on the

51 verge of human habitation. When the author refers to Marushka as a Naturkind, we recall stories about feral children. Similarly Ivan's angrily glaring eyes and the froth on his lips are symptomatic of werewolves in their human forms. Although the author did not call Ivan's hands Krallen ("claws"), he used the derived verb krallen to describe Ivan's seizing Wassilev by the throat. When Wassilev calls Ivan a wolf — he uses the word metaphorically in the sense of "thief" — Ivan reifies the metaphor in order to terrify the peasants. In this he succeeds all too well. The sight of the mangled girl precipitates among them the same kind of "glamour" or hallucination that unleashed a legal holocaust against reputed werewolves in Europe in early modern times.13 Just as the author of "Der Wolf^ precipitously introduced us to the action of his story, he leaves us dangling in puzzled, unresolved suspense at the end of it. Who or what killed Marushka? Were Wassilev and the village magistrate among the hallucinating peasants who murdered Ivan? Was the shy gray creature that the author mentioned in the final sentence a real wolf, or the embodiment of Marushka's spirit? The wolf tracks beside the girl's body permit either interpretation. The blood on the creature's snout could have come from Marushka's mangled body, or, if the animal is Marushka's spirit, the bloody snout could represent repercussion — as in the case of Petronius's wolf man, but in reverse. It is even possible that the wolf was intended to represent Ivan's spirit, in which case the bloody snout would represent the blood that spurted from Ivan's mouth when he was struck by the first stone. There are two other possibilities, however. As already noted, neither Wassilev nor the village magistrate is mentioned as being present when Marushka's body is found. But Wassilev's angry words reveal him to be a simple, honest peasant who is angry and indignant that he and his fellow-villagers should have been robbed. The Vaterchen, however — the "little father" —- is not quite such a simple soul. He is just a bit too willing to be persuaded by his "children" to declare Ivan "more than dangerous" and to order his incarceration. His sudden outburst of passion reveals the Biblical wolf in sheep's clothing. Does it not seem likely that during his protracted state of unconsciousness his demon familiar in the form of a wolf pursues and kills Marushka? The "little father," after all, is the only person in the story who has a motive for killing Marushka: revenge for her humiliating rejection of his sexual advances. I rather believe that this interpretation accords with the intent of the author. Whether or not this surmise is correct, however, the author in this brief tale has displayed a remarkable knowledge of werewolf-story motifs and techniques. What is most surprising of all about this story is the fact that the author obviously assumed a high degree of literary sophistication on the part of his readers -~ German farmers, artisans, and tradesmen living in Russia and the Ukraine during the first decade of this century. The author gratefully acknowledges research support for his study of the language and literature of German Americans on the Great Plains from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Nebraska Committee for the Humanities, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Center for Great Plains Studies.

Notes 1. Paul Schach, "Russian Wolves in Folktales and Literature of the Plains: A Question of Origins," Great Plains Quarterly 3 (1983); 67-78. 2. Schach, "Russian Wolves," pp. 76-77. 3. Montague Summers, The Werewolf (Secaucus, N.J.: The Citadel Press, 1973), pp. 217-61. 4. "Der Wolf" appeared anonymously in the Neuer Haus-und Landwirtschaftskalender fur deutsche Ansiedler im sudlichen Russland (Odessa: L. Nitzsche, 1908), pp. 137-40. Reuben Goertz of Freeman, SD, called my attention to this story. The translation is my own. 5. Summers, The Werewolf, p. 1. 6. An English translation of this anecdote is found in W.M.S. Russell and Claire Russell, "The Social Biology of Werewolves," in Animals in Folklore, ed. J, R. Porter and W. M. S. Russell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Ltd., 1978), pp. 143-144. 7. Russell and Russell, "The Social Biology of Werewolves," p. 151. 8. Basil Copper, The Werewolf in Legend, Fact and Art (New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Robert Hale Limited, 1977), p. 130, 9. Jessie L. Weston, Guingamor, Lanval, Tyolet, Ie Bisclaveret. Four Lais Rendered into English Prose from the French of Marie de France and Others (New York; AMS Press, 1970), p. 94 and Strengleikar. An Old

52 Norse Translation of Twenty-one French Lais, ed. and trans. Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane (Oslo: Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, 1979), p. 99. 10. This story can be read in Eirik the Red and other Icelandic Sagas, trails. Gwyn Jones (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 221-318. 11. Volsunga saga has been translated into English by Margaret Schlauch (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1930); R. G. Finch (London: Nelson, 1965); and George G. Anderson (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1982). 12. Montague Summers, The Werewolf, p. 1-62; Basil Cooper, The Werewolf, pp. 74-82; and Russell and Russell, "The Social Biology of Werewolves," pp. 164-171. 13. On werewolf trials see Russell and Russell, "The Social Biology of Werewolves," pp. 151-156.

FAMILY IDENTIFIED

The family shown on page ii of the 1985 Summer Journal has been identified by Mrs. Katherine Weber Rudolph of Portland, Oregon. Mrs. Rudolph left Norka with her father, Conrad Weber, and the family in 1925. Her niece, Mrs. Edith Spady, interviewed Mrs. Rudolph about this family and recorded her comments. She then kindly sent a copy of this interview on cassette tape to AHSGR headquarters, so that we might share the information with our readers. The unidentified family is that of Schulmeister (teacher) and church organist Carl Leonhardt. Carl came to Norka with his wife, three children and his widowed mother in 1904 or 1905. While in Norka, Widow Leonhardt married Mr. Weber, who was Katherine Rudolph's great-uncle. Carl and his mother were from Grimm; his wife, Katharine Backer, was from Messer. Their daughter Eda (Edith) was a good friend of Mrs. Rudolph's. Carl Leonhardt was an excellent musician, "the best you can find," skilled in playing the organ and the violin. All the Leonhardt children except Eda were also musically talented. When he had to leave Norka for the army in 1916, his assistant, Julius Schott, had to do everything—but he was not a musician. Carl's other assistant, Alexander "Sasha" Leonhardt (no relation), took over the musical duties. After the war, Carl returned to Norka but left abruptly in about six months. No one knew why. He went first to Messer, then to Hussen-bach, where he died. His widow was still alive when the Weber family left Norka in 1925. She had remarried after the Leonhardt children were grown and had gone with her husband liber die Wolga (across the Volga River).

The family of Carl Leonhardt and his wife Katherine nee Backer. Two of the older Leonhardt children, Bertha and Victor, are not in this picture. The girl at the top is Eda (Edith). She is resting her arm on Amalia^s shoulder. The boy in front of Eda is Carl. The names of the other three children are unknown.

FAREWELL TO NORKA1 Conrad Brill

People and Industry Norka Orava was an area east of the bridge, which led into the village of Norka. Bakke-stan Pauli's brickworks were located here, as well as the homes of several families of the employees, who lived right at the job site. The bricks were made of materials found at this site. The mixer consisted of a long pole, with a horse pulling it around in a circle, .similar to the horse-pulled merry-go-round. On the other end of the pole was a gear connected to two paddles, fuming in opposite directions, so the ingredients were mixed like in a mixer today, but by horse power. The mortar was shoveled into wooden forms, where it was sun-dried until firm enough to be handled by hand without breaking. Then it was placed into a trench or open bunker-type silo, which was about a city block long—maybe 16- to 20-feefc wide and 8- to 10-feet deep. The brick was stacked so heat could circulate through rows and layers. A hot fire of old hay, straw, or any burnable waste was thrown into the pit and burned. The brick was so hard that it took a hacksaw-type saw to cut one in two. The finished, red product was piled along the site for almost one-quarter mile along the roadway. The more prosperous folk built with brick, Faigler's leatherworks were in the first row, where the Unterckirf and the Oberdorf came together. They soaked hides in vats of solution, which loosened the hair. Everything had to be done with great precision, or the leather or hide would be overdone and fall apart, or it would be so weakened that it wouldn't hold up. Mr, Faigler had the reputation of being one of the most generous employers in Norka. Employees had schnapps breaks and were fed a generous meal at noon too. I had several occasions to be there at break time and participated in some of his generosity while there on business. During the years of the war and the Revolution, animals died by the hundreds. Many of us had to get information so we could cure our own hides, because the hide industry had too many hides at one time and couldn't take them all. The hides were soaked, scraped,' washed, resoaked in clearing solution, then dyed. Sinner's Mill was electrified and had two large water-operated turbines. Flour was ground there twenty-four hours per day when necessary. In earlier days we used wagon boxes, which we filled with grain to be ground. We took the grain to the mill, where someone had to stay with it to help the mill employees handle the box and grain until it was flour and back in the wagon. Later, bags came into being and it got easier, but one still had to remain to be sure one got the grain that was his and to help with the bagging. There were others in the milling business: Poste Krieger had a mill, as did Giebelhaus, Weidenkeller, Schleuning and more out in the land away from the village. The Weidenkeller mill was put up in an area that wasn't always able to get enough wind, so the folks sometimes joked that Weidenkeller had built his mill by a hill so they could get some days off to rest. Katse Sinner trapped fur-bearing animals, which were skinned out and sold to Russians in another village. They made caps out of them, similar to Davy Crockett coonskin caps. Whenever a youngster was headed for the Oberdorf swinging a dead cat by the tail, everyone knew he was headed for Katze Sinner's. My brother Johannea was married to Katze Sinner's daughter Katharine. Reiche Schleuning farmed with twenty-five teams of horses and with oxen. He had only one son, so he employed many people to farm his land, take care of his fruit and vegetable gardens and run the lavka and mill. He raised my uncle when my grandfather died. My uncle worked for him until he was married and started a family of his own. Then my uncle took up land and farmed. There were folk who had many chickens and raised them for eggs. One had to put a layer of straw into the wagon bed, then a layer of eggs fitting tightly together, then another layer of straw, then eggs again, and so forth until there was a twenty-four-inch-thick load, which was then covered with a canvas and strapped down tight so the eggs couldn't knock together and break. One would then drive to a busy corner in another village, usually Russian, and be sold out within three hours> Many times not one egg would get broken, although in Saratov the streets were made of stones laid side by side like brick, with rounded edges protruding above, and one got the bounciest ride ever. We had wagon makers, too numerous to mention, and the Yeager [Jaeger/Jager] brothers, who built or made the plows and plowshares famous for many miles around. Some of our village merchants

54 even had rowboats, which they would take to the Karamysh River for a weekend of fishing and picnicking with their families. Generally the fish we ate most in Norka were bought from Russian peddlers. They caught them in the Volga at Schilling. This was usually accomplished by tying one end of a net at the shoreline, then the other end to the boat, and making a circle out as far as the net would allow, usually about fifty feet. When the boat got back to shore, it had a real netful. These fish were then thrown alive into vats of salt water, so the fish were even salted inside, since they were never cleaned first. They were allowed to lie in the salt water a couple of days, then strung up on lines and dried. They were brought to our village by the wagonload and sold or traded by the string—one kopeck per fish. Most generally the Russian peddler would prefer to trade for grain or anything, because money wasn't as important to him as something else in trade would be. Sometimes when a dried, salted, large fish was pulled apart, it was discovered to contain a small, sardine-sized fish inside. It would be salted through, too, and edible. I never was fond of fish much so never enjoyed salted and dried ones at all. When a Russian peddler of dried fish appeared on the bridge yelling out his wares, the youngsters could be seen headed for their family's chicken house before their mothers knew the man was in town. There they would grab an egg or two from under a hen and go trade the egg for two or three fish, depending on the size. Long after the man was gone, the kids were congregated out of sight, eating dried fish. We had mail call every Saturday similar to mail call for the men in the service. Every family sent a person to the post office, which was next to the courthouse. At a posted time, all mail was called out. Many people made trips to the post office and home again empty-handed, but they usually enjoyed the event, because they could fraternize with folk they hadn't seen since the week before. Kerb2 was held the first week in October and lasted three days. After church services on the first Sunday, one could hear musicians going down the streets toward the appointed place of celebration. In the Unterdorf it was usually at Dicker Helzer's. He would take the windows out of the house and put them in his barn for safekeeping, as in previous years many had been broken. The houses had shutters, too, so they could close them if need be. One would bring one's own booze or buy it from him, as he usually bought a good supply from the state-owned liquor store ahead of time. There was a bar set up in a back room. Helzer got about five kopecks for three or four fingers of booze. Dancers paid two kopecks for thirty minutes of dance time, so musicians could be paid. At the first session or two of music, dancers were few, but, after a few drinks, the party got a little more lively and dancers were plentiful. Mr. Helzer carried a scale stock, about the size of a child's play bat, which he occasionally used on someone's back too. Many villagers went to different villages each year at Kerb time, either to visit other relatives or just to have tried different village celebrations. We got many from other villages also. I have heard that many villages had quiet festivals, especially in the small, more religious-oriented villages, but in Norka, and especially in the Unterdorf, it was a festival time, celebrated loud and strong. Our beds were like deep boxes with legs just high enough so one could sweep under them. We laid long, clean straw, about one and one-half feet deep, into the bed, covered it with heavy cloth like canvas, then a blanket or sheeting. We had feather ticks for covers. Each morning we fluffed the straw after we got up and occasionally added more or changed it. I never saw a mattress in Norka. Even a straw pillow-type bag was used, like a pillow case full of soft flax straw. Many people used goose-down pillows, but I preferred my flax-straw pillow.

Fortune Telling

Almost all of us believed a little in fortune telling, witchcraft and healing. This story concerns the Faigler family, who lived in Norka and sold leather products all over the Volga territory. Mr. Faigler outlived several wives and fathered about fifteen children. We had an old lady, whose name slips my mind at the moment, who was a midwife and in that stead had delivered hundreds of babies. Observing the youngest son of this large [Faigler] family while visiting when the boy was about one year old, she looked startled and predicted to the mother that this boy would drown. Needless to say, the mother was frantic and watched this child all its growing years. On many occasions she would severely discipline an older child when this boy would get out of sight and be momentarily lost. When the boy reached marrying age and married, she started to breathe a little easier. After he was married and had two children of his own, he did drown at age 28 while crossing a creek on horseback. The shock even after all the years of looking after this child was too great, and the mother died of it. The old midwife would usually go out and look up at the sky when a baby was born, then

55 would make predictions, so I would assume she was into astrology. I guess I was as bad as the next person in believing in witchcraft and even used to put a horseshoe by the door. Was I surprised when I got to the U.S. and learned that here the horseshoes were nailed over the door on the woodshed. It was probably because the neighbors laughed about the horseshoe lying by the front door that I put mine over the woodshed, too, and didn't notice any change in its power. I once hauled a lady to the Braucherin to cast out the spirits that a supposed witch had cast on her child. Now that I am older and look back on the situation, I can see why the child shrieked and cried after the supposed witch had visited the home and put the spell on the child. This old lady was always talking, usually at a shriek, and never was a calm person. She was strictly boss in her household (it was rare for a Volga German to let his wife rule him). Her daughter grew up to be as loud and outspoken as she was. When she married and left home, she wouldn't tolerate the old woman's gripes and curses as she had while living at home, especially since the old woman was doing her yelling at the daughter's house. I guess, after a couple of hours of mother and daughter yelling and cussing each other, it was only natural that the newly-born baby would be upset and cry or be in hysterics after each visit. Many young mothers weren't smart enough to realize that stomachaches, being too hot or too cold, and hunger might contribute to a baby's discomfort, so Braucherins were sought out on many occasions. One of the cures was to keep a variety of handwork tools under the child's pillow, which I now know was a dangerous tradition. It usually involved a needle, crochet hooks, scissors and other types of things. I guess you can see how silly or even stupid the cures could be. For warts, they used to have one cut a potato in two and press it on the wart while saying, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." This was to be done for seven consecutive nights, then the warts were to be gone. Each night the potato halves were to be buried in a different spot. Usually one forgot to do it several nights into the operation and had to start all over again. Most times the warts were gone, and one didn't remember if the required number of procedures had been carried out or not. Almost all of the cures were connected with the same expressions. Tea-leaf readers could cause some spats with newlyweds or intended marriages. One case I remember was when the boy and girl had the tea leaves read, and it was said that he would be the father of two children, and she was to have either three or four. The boy figured right off that he would be killed and she would remarry. Then he got to thinking maybe they would have a couple he didn't father. They squabbled about this often. Before they got married, the army came and grabbed him. She quickly married another guy and did have four children. Later the boy married a different lady and had two living children and two who were born dead.

The Battle at Rybushka A man I believe was named Seifert owned about six thousand acres near the river on the outskirts of the Russian village of Rybushka. He evidently had many unpleasant experiences, because those people were poor and didn't have enough land for their population. A few years before the Revolution started, he evidently felt something would happen that could jeopardize his situation, so he offered to sell his land to the folk of Norka. They had a town discussion and voted to buy that land, which they did. They used it for potato growing. It was good, fertile land, so we went for several years, planting and harvesting our potatoes, without any problems at first. When things got bad in 1918, the folk of Rybushka pled their case to the authorities in Saratov. I suppose the government officials there decided it was best to give the people in Rybushka the land, as it bordered their town and was many kilometers from Norka, although the people of Norka had paid a previous owner for the land. We made many appeals but got at least two or three official documents telling us that we weren't to farm the land again, as it was going to belong to the villagers of Rybushka. When spring came, a good many people of Norka loaded up their wagons, plows and seed potatoes and headed for that disputed land, I went on horseback, accompanying my in-laws, Dicker Helzer, his wife and the boys. We got there real early and planted the Brill- assigned parcel from the year before, then moved over to the river bank to where the Helzer parcel was. About this time, many wagonloads of Norka folk arrived at the land. Soon we heard shooting. The folk of Rybushka were coming down the river in boats and rafts, shooting as they came. Others came by horseback. Most were furious and in a killing anger. We threw our plows into the Helzer wagon,

56 This picture of Conrad Brill, 19, was taken in Norka in 1914.

clambered aboard and headed out through the brush land for Norka by way of Dufka. The others went in all sorts of directions. The Aschenbrenner family went to the road leading from Norka to Saratov. As they went by a deep ravine, several villagers from Rybushka and three of our Norka town folk, who had ridden to Rybushka to warn the villagers we were coming, jumped out of the ravine and attacked the wagon with axes. (The Norka men were: Rote Kiebel Weber, because he was a redhead and a Bolshevik; a man called Zubegesicht (Tooth Face) Kreis, because of his protruding teeth; and a man named Garte Hinkel's Johannes. In the melee, a Norka man and lady were shot. Sou-Jac Krieger had his horse shot out from under him. The Weidenkeller wagon lost a wheel and broke up in the process. Those coming from Norka with guns and spoiling for a fight did a lot of shooting, too, but soon turned and headed for home, People were very upset with things and many times took out their frustrations on their neighbors. There was a family living in Norka, who had been to the U.S.A. but came back to Norka. They had a lot of chickens, but no fence to keep them in, so the chickens would stray into the yard and garden of Garte Hinkel, whose house was just outside Norka in the area called Norka Grava. They laid eggs in the yard and probably ate some produce too. The man went over to chase his chickens home, and the son of Garte Hinkel told him to get out of the yard or he would shoot him. The man thought he was bluffing so continued to chase the chickens homeward. The boy went in, got the shotgun, came out and shot the man dead. He was still considered a juvenile, so the authorities didn't press any charges against him, but the family who had moved back to Norka from the U.S.A. was left fatherless. From discussions with the younger people and the articles that have been printed in earlier issues of the Journal, [I feel that] many people get the idea that we were a united village of Germans who were all being repressed by the Russian folk, but that is far from actuality. There were many townsmen who were pro-Bolshevik and felt they had been victims of our own prosperous German merchants.

57 They embraced Bolshevism as much as did the poor Russian peasant. It is hard to judge the percentages pro and con, but we can understand differences of opinions in politics, religion and, closer to home, the inner feelings in daily family affairs. I suppose it would be fair to say that when our folk first left for greener pastures, those seeing them off were jubilant because their kin were making an exploration from which the whole family could get benefit in the future. Meanwhile, there was now more land for fewer mouths. We used our imagination a lot, and the fertile acres we heard of and dreamed of just had to be better than those we could see. Later, in some cases, people who had purchased a dusha or personal property and had made donations toward their family members' departure would feel a bitter resentment, and some would even feel victimized, because they had stayed behind to keep the family base intact. My own feelings are that we were a people who were victims of circumstances beyond our control. We raised the grain to feed millions. I must truthfully say that I saw much of it loaded onto barges and ships going to Germany. I would think that if the Russian government was in some way responsible for the starvation of Russian folk in cities and towns, it was up to the government to make the necessary changes to see that their own population had ample grain first. I also realize that, with the population explosion which took place between 1763 and 1918, it was impossible for us to think we could hold the Russian government to treaties and manifests which had been made 150 years previously. In some cases, our religious teachings of turning the other cheek got a lot of us knocked flat. It seems that, although we were all taught or told the same things through life, in many cases our neighbor might interpret what we learned differently from the way we do.

Our Last Days at Home When things got so bad that we finally decided to leave Norka, a group of twenty-nine people decided to leave in two separate parties, in opposite directions, in order not to cause any revelation of our real intent. There were many more who would have wanted to join us or who might have caused us problems with the move. We were joined by two families of Kriegers—both sons of the Enterich Krieger, so named because, as a youth, he always made duck calls or sounds. One of the Krieger boys had a wife and two children; the other had a wife and one child. Also in the group were my father-in-law, Dicker Helzer, his wife and three children besides my wife, and another family of five. A single man, Conrad Weidenkeller, also came, as did his girlfriend, Katherine Kildau. She sneaked her clothes to our house a day or so before we were to leave, as her parents would not let her go. In 1906 they had let her sister leave for America with the George Schleuning family. A Lofing, who was in America, had sent for her to be his wife and had provided her with the fare. The Schleunings let her accompany their party when they left. Word got back in a few months that she had fallen off the train and had been killed. There were several versions of the incident, but just recently I heard the true story firsthand. Conrad and Heinrich Schleuning, who were sitting in the same seat with her on the train, told me what had happened. They said a Russian soldier got himself a large glass of water from a water dispenser in the passenger car. He couldn't drink all the water and handed the glass to the Kildau girl, who was sitting closer to the door, and asked her to throw out the water. She got up and opened the door. The suction of the wind tore the door open and pulled the girl out, throwing her to her death. This explains why Katherine's parents were against her going and why Conrad Weidenkeller tapped on her window at 3:00 the morning we left our home in Norka for the last time. My brother Hannes (John) hauled us by wagon to Saratov, then he returned home, where he and his wife and family remained. An older sister I had living just across the creek a short ways also remained in Russia. The other wagonload of people left in the other direction, but we all met in Minsk later. My wife and I had one son, and my brother and his wife had two girls. Conrad Weidenkeller had papers made by an uncle who was in on his leaving, as his parents didn't know he was going either. I used my brother Hannes's papers. Conrad and I were both still army material and wouldn't have been allowed to make the move with our own papers. My brother George had sold his house, as he had planned the move and was leaving nobody behind from his place of residence. My family and I were still living at our parents' home with my brother Hannes and his family, so Hannes was to keep living there with his family.

58 We left Norka at 3 a.m. and went to Saratov, where we bought railroad tickets to Minsk for a million paper rubles per person. Money was worthless. It was in sheets, similar to the discount coupons used by supermarkets now. You cut it apart with scissors. We had planned on getting a guide to get us over the border to Krakow, Poland. A Jewish labor contractor met us when we got off the train and asked us if we wanted to go to work repairing war damage at a railroad depot about sixty kilometers away. The group decided it was the thing to do, so they provided us with two boxcars, plus the lumber we would need to build bunks and tables and benches, and we had the railroad authorities haul the cars to where we joined others at work repairing the tracks, depots and surrounding rail property. This took nearly two months. While we were working there, my father-in-law died. My brother George sent Conrad Weidenkeller into town to find us a guide to take us by sled to Krakow. He returned with one who asked us for a million paper rubles or twenty in silver. The Helzers, as well as the two Krieger families, decided to use their money to return to Norka rather than to accompany us to Germany. At this time, the brother of my sister-in-law, Margaret Doering Brill, decided that he and his wife and baby could walk to Krakow in the tracks of the sled we paid to ride in. Neither Conrad Weidenkeller nor his girlfriend had money to pay this amount, so Conrad talked my brother George into loaning him the fare for his journey. His girlfriend, Katherine, could return to Norka with the four families who were going back, if she wanted to [which she didn't do]. We left on the sled on Christmas Eve, 1921, in the worst snowstorm I ever saw. It was a bright, clear night, but the snow came down so thick, that you could only see the rumps of the horses pulling the sleigh. We traveled about sixty or so miles, through a fence on the border. The guide stopped and walked to a shack, where, I assume, he paid someone to let the fence down for us to cross. When we got to Krakow, my wife, brother, his wife and two children were all sick with the flu. My wife had black pox all over her body. We were all in a weakened and starved condition from the existence in the boxcars with improper diet. Sitting still in the sled in freezing conditions must have been harder on us than it was on the parties who walked the distance two nights later and who met up with us in the boiler room of the courthouse in Krakow. That was the Becker party from Erienbach. They had been forced to walk because of the actions of a shyster guide, which I will describe later. But for now I want to get our group in its proper setting. After we left Russia by sled, Mr. and Mrs. John Doering, brother of my sister-in-law, left with their child and Katherine Kildau. Margaret Doering Brill and John Doering were both children of Stannehos [Stone Pants] Doering. They walked, carrying packs on their backs. The baby was wrapped in a Pels and tied to a small sled, which the father pulled. When it became daylight, they discovered the child was dead of exposure. Although wrapped well, it had frozen to death, because the snow was over the infant's whole body. It was impossible to dig a grave, and they were in a strange place and all liable to die as far as they knew, so they tunneled down into a deep snow bank about eight or ten feet and left the wrapped bundle, hoping that some Christian person would find the remains in the spring and give it a burial. They never did catch up with us until Frankfurt on the Oder, Germany, in April of 1922, so we knew none of this until that time. In the meantime, we were in the boiler room of the courthouse in Krakow and were to remain there until enough refugees straggled in to cause the authorities to hook another car to a train going to Germany. While there we got a chunk of bread and a bowl of soup from the Red Cross, which was doing a good j ob of helping peasants from Russia get to Germany, The German government had barracks in Frankfurt on the Oder, where they had interned Russian prisoners of war during World War I. They had now converted these barracks into a refugee camp for Volga Germans waiting for letters, fares and such from their folks already in America. We had been there about twenty-four hours when the Becker party from Erienbach walked in and shared the spot around the furnace with our group.

Anna Becker

Anna Becker [Baecker/Backer] was born on May 5,1899, in Erienbach, the youngest child of Philip Jacob Becker and Katharina Elisabetha Busch. My records show her mother being fifty-one years old when she was born, which also corresponds with her relatives' beliefs here, because her mother and two of her daughters were pregnant about the same time. So Anna had nieces and a nephew the same age as she was. I did get another date from her nephew in Germany. He has Katharina

59 Elisabetha almost five years younger, but Anna always said that her mother was over fifty when she was born. Many women in Russia had children after age fifty, and most of us who were youngest in the family had nieces and nephews as old as—and even older than—we were. Anna's father died when she was ten years old, and her oldest brother took over the leadership of the family. He had married a Charlotte Schmidt. They had four or five children as well as Anna and her mother living all together. There were about eight aunts or uncles on both sides of the family, and most had five or six children of their own. All were close in age, so she and many of her nieces and nephews were more like brother and sister, rather than aunt and nieces or nephews.

This photo of the family of Philip Jacob Becker and his wife, Katherine Elisabeth Busch, was taken in Erlenbach in 1917. A son and a daughter had moved to the U.S.A. prior to that time. Those sitting, from left to right, are Jacob Becker (born 1911), Heinrich Becker Sr. (1875-?), Heinrich Becker Jr. (1907-1984), Lydia Becker (died 1946), Maria Becker (1899-1971} and Anna Becker (1899-1975). Seated are Charlotte Schmidt Becker, Kathrine Elisabeth (Dimbet) Becker Urich (1872-1942) with her son Gottfried in front of her, and Katherine Elisabeth Becker (1852-1918). The boy Jacob and his wife plus three of their children with families have moved to West Germany since 1980. He still has six children with their families living in the U.S.S.R. Heinrich Becker Jr. visited the U.S.A. for three months in 1972. Maria Becker was the eldest child of Heinrich Becker Sr. and Charlotte Schmidt, She and her husband, Conrad Becker, left Erlenbach with the group with Anna Becker. They went to Argentina, Katherine Elisabeth Busch Becker was the mother of Heinrich Becker Sr,, Katherine Elisabeth (Dimbet) Becker Urich and Anna Becker.

When her mother died, she was nineteen, and her brother thought it was time she married. She had a sister who had come to America, then back to Russia, then back to America again, and also a brother who had come to America after finishing his military service prior to World War I. His

60 commanding officer had told him that there was going to be a bitter uprising, and if he were a smart man, he would get his family out right away. He left with his wife and child and encouraged many of the cousins to leave too. The mother wouldn't leave because she had two other children with large families there, as well as Anna, aged fourteen at that time. Anna later married a family friend whom she had known all her life. He was a little older than she. He was in the army, so didn't have a chance yet to get settled down to family life before he was ordered to take two prisoners to a military prison. It was a several-days' journey, and he had an army wagon, horses and a rifle. He and the prisoners were amiable and friendly. At night he slept on the ground under the wagon in order to hear if the prisoners in the wagon moved to escape. He must have gotten asleep too soundly, as they descended from the wagon and grabbed his rifle before he could rouse himself. When he followed them on foot, they threatened to shoot him if he took another step, so he returned to the wagon and proceeded to the military prison, where he was sentenced to sit out the sentence imposed on the two escapees. It was the custom in those days to allow a prisoner to go on leave, if someone else would sit in jail in his place. By this time the Revolution was in full gear, so food was scarce, but Anna traded some goose-feather quilts for dried fish. Anna gave some to a neighbor man who sat in prison in her husband's place while he came out and bathed and ate and visited friends and relatives. This happened several times, until she had nothing to barter and nobody to sit in the cell. She couldn't even get transportation to the military prison. Soon she got word that her husband had starved to death, and they mailed her his death certificate. Just at this time, her uncle Johann-Georg's (Han-Jorig's) grandson was forming a group to go to America. Her uncle's grandson was older than she, but she had two nieces with husbands and a teenaged nephew, brother of one of the nieces, who were going, too, so she decided she had no reason to stay behind. The ones remaining were in a state of starving, and the ones in the U.S. wrote of better things there, so she joined the group. This group consisted of: George Becker Jr., son of George Becker and Maria Urich, his wife Maria Katharina Becker and several children; Conrad Becker and wife Maria Becker, who was Anna's niece; Heinrich Maier (Meyer) and wife Anna (nee Urich), a niece of Anna's; Conrad Urich, about age eighteen, Anna's nephew; David Becker with a wife and son. He was a second cousin to Anna. I believe that with children and all it was a party of fourteen or fifteen. They rented a boxcar and rigged it up to travel in, so as to make it cheaper than passenger-car fare from Erienbach to Minsk. It could have worked that way, but railroad men sidetracked it to a siding. Then it took some payoff to get it hooked onto another train. They left Erienbach on November 27, 1921, and didn't get to Minsk until a day or so before Christmas. When they got to Minsk, George Becker Jr. found the Jewish guide who was going to get them through the border and into Poland. Had the paper money been any good, there wouldn't have been many complications. They all paid with a million paper rubles except Anna, who didn't have that much. The man accepted twenty rubles in silver from her. He took them to about one-quarter mile from the border, where he instructed them to go by foot so as not to make a lot of horse and sleigh tracks, which could be instrumental in alerting the border guards. They all got out and followed him, until it was discovered that the children couldn't keep up. He said they could follow in his tracks, while he went ahead to the opening in the fence and made arrangements with the other guide, who was to take them the rest of the way to Krakow. They did as they were told, but when they got to the fence, his tracks veered off to the right. They followed them in that direction. By daylight Anna said, "Let us find out from the house over there in the snow where we are. We have been walking in circles all night." George Jr. asked her, "What makes you think we have walked in circles all night?" She told him that she had seen the same clothes on that clothesline at least twice before. He went down to the cleared walk going down under a snow bank. The snow was so deep that only the chimney was above the snow, and one went down ten feet to the door. He called out in Russian, and a Russian farmer opened the door and came out. He engaged the man in conversation and explained the situation to him. The Russian urged the whole group of fourteen or fifteen into his little house, got his family up, put all of the Becker group into the warm beds and let them sleep until dark that night. Then he woke them. His wife had a kettle of hot soup ready, and they fed them all, whereupon the group gave the Russian family a goose-feather pillow and such for the generosity. The man said, "Now I will lead you to the border." He did, and at the fence he sat and lit his pipe for a last smoke

61 with the poor Germans, who were going on afoot. He told ,them to travel straight ahead in that direction, and by daylight they would be able to hear the roosters or the dogs in Krakow. At this point, Maria Becker, Anna's niece, gave him another fancy pillow out of her back pack. They exchanged last goodbyes and were underway for Krakow. As the night progressed, Anna Becker kept getting farther and farther behind, and her bundle of possessions was a strain on her. Finally she couldn't even hear the voices of her comrades way ahead of her. Exhausted, she finally collapsed on a snowdrift and leaned on her backpack, weak and wanting to fall asleep. Up ahead, her niece Maria missed her and told the others to stop. She urged them to go back looking for Anna. Her husband said, "We are all tired. We cannot scatter to look for her or anyone else who gets lost, or we'll all freeze to death out here. We must keep going." Maria finally broke down and cried and said, "You keep on going, but I will wait here for her." George Becker Jr. finally said they would wait and rest if Conrad and/or Maria wanted to backtrack to find Anna. They found her sound asleep. Conrad then ripped open her backpack and threw most of her belongings into the snow and said, "I lightened your pack, and now you must keep up, or we'll leave you behind." They both got her by the arm and led her up to the rest of the group. At about dawn, they could hear roosters crowing and soon dogs barking. Then the outline of the town buildings sprang up against the skyline. They had reached Krakow. At the edge of town they were met by a constable, who led them to the courthouse basement, where the Brill party was keeping warm. With both the Becker party of fifteen and the Brill party of eight, the basement got crowded. Anna Becker set her shoes close to the furnace to dry them out. They dried hard, so the toes pointed straight up in the air. When she wanted to put them on again, she bent the toes down, and one shoe broke in two. She had to wear the half shoe until the party got to Germany almost two weeks later. She usually pulled an extra heavy sock over the foot and broken shoe. Anna Marie Brill, my wife, was very ill by now, and everyone seemed to be afraid to be too close to her because of the spots on her face and body. Young Adam, my son, was bloated from malnutrition, and both of the Brill children were very ill. The authorities got everyone into a train to Warsaw. Anna Becker bathed the face and body of Anna Marie Brill to make her more comfortable, as she looked as if she were dying. Because of the death of her own husband and being nearly frozen to death in the snow, Anna Becker wasn't too concerned about catching anything from anyone else. She said she had prayed for death on several occasions in the last few months. When we arrived at Warsaw, the Red Cross met us at the station, and the whole George Brill family was hospitalized. Anna Marie Brill was also taken to the hospital. There was a trainload of other fugitives from Russia waiting at the station. My son Adam and I weren't sick enough to need hospitalization so were put right on the train along with Conrad Weidenkeller. We were told the sick would join us in the barracks at Frankfurt on the Oder after they had recovered enough to travel. The Becker party had already gone ahead to the train, as none were sick enough for hospitalization. They never expected to see anything of the Brill party again.

The Camp in Frankfurt on the Oder When the Becker party got to Frankfurt on the Oder, they were led into a compound full of other emigrants, and rain was pouring down. All the people—men, women, and children—had their heads clipped to the scalp. They were told to undress, which they did on their own or were undressed forcibly, were then deloused, bathed and issued a hospital-type gown to wear until their clothes could be deloused in big ovens, where they were dried after a delousing wash. The people were taken into a barracks building about one block long. It had three stoves for heating; one was placed at or near each end and one in the center. There were doors to the outside on both sides of the barracks near the stoves. I suppose the location was picked for getting wood in and also for fire safety. There was a row of cots the length of the barracks against both walls and an aisle down the center. There was also a row of tables from one end to the other, from stove to stove. Everyone was issued a cup, a plate, fork, knife, and spoon. By the time we had been deloused, clipped and bathed, our names were tacked to the bunks we were to use while we lived in the barracks. The next day Hilda Becker, who was about eight at the time, discovered that Adam, his father and Conrad Weidenkeller were there, too, and had been put on the same train out of Warsaw. It was January 8, 1922, and we were in Germany, except for the sick left behind in Warsaw and the

62 other three, who walked from Minsk. We figured those returning to Norka were safely there by now. Germans who needed help in their farming or whatever would come to the displaced-persons barracks to hire some of us for cheap labor, thus giving us a chance to earn some money while we were waiting to get letters to the U.S.A. to our relatives, letting them know where we were and hoping they could come up with the fare to continue our journey. I got a job working for a man who pumped septic tanks and took the material out to put on the farm land. Adam went to school. Weekends he rode on a bakery wagon with an elderly German man who delivered bread. Conrad Weidenkeller worked for a gardener and greenhouse keeper. In the meantime, we waited for letters from America and for the sick to get better and join us in Warsaw. Conrad Weidenkeller got a letter from his uncle in Portland telling him he couldn't get any help from him, so he wrote to his uncle in Nebraska, and he sent him the fare. My sister in Portland sent me two and one-half fares for myself, Anna Marie and Adam. The cost at that time from Germany to Portland via ship and train was just over $475.00 for two adults and one child. The Beckers were around, but I don't know where they worked. Later I learned that Anna sorted potatoes on a potato conveyer, but at the time we saw casual acquaintances from the barracks only in passing. The Beckers had all been writing relatives for fares also, and the fact that there were so many of them and they were all related to the same people made it an impossible situation. In April my sister-in-law, Margaret Doering Brill, came from Warsaw to the barracks with only her daughter Elizabeth. She said that her husband, her daughter and my wife, Anna Marie, had all died from their illnesses. In the group of refugees she came with were Katharine Kildau and Margaret's brother and his wife, whose baby had frozen to death on the walk from Minsk to Krakow. We had all planned on coming to Portland when we left Norka, but now that my brother had died, his widow chose to accompany her brother and his wife to Colorado, where they had relatives. Since Conrad Weidenkeller had been turned down by the uncle in Portland, and he was getting help from Nebraska, he certainly had to go there. This time his fiancée, Katharine Kildau, accompanied him. Only my son Adam and I were left, and we were going to Portland. We had an extra ticket, which my deceased wife wouldn't be using. The Becker family had all given up and signed with a Catholic priest to go to Argentina in bondage for the fare, which they could work off at a church-owned hacienda when they got there. Anna Becker hadn't signed up as the rest did because her brother, who was in Oklahoma at the time, wrote and told her he didn't have the necessary money at the time. As long as she was in Germany, she should stay put and keep writing. When he had the fare, he would send it. After all, Argentina was as far from him as Russia. I wrote my sister and told her of the death of the others and asked her what I should do with the extra ticket. She wrote back that I could do well by picking up a wife to raise my son, probably at the barracks. If I could find a good wife, I should marry her and bring her along. I asked Anna Becker if she was willing to marry me and be a stepmother to my son Adam. I already had the ticket, made out to Anna Marie Brill. If she married me, she could use that, and someday we could get her to her family in Oklahoma. She wrote her brother and asked his advice. He wrote that she was now twenty-three and should be able to make her own choice about a mate. They were moving from Oklahoma to Michigan. He would write her as soon as he got a new address, so she could contact him to let him know where she was and what she was doing. She decided she would marry me. On May 14 we married and made arrangements to get ship reservations. When we went to get the required physicals in order to immigrate to the U.S.A., it was discovered that Anna's eyes were too bad to allow her to enter the country. So, here we sat married, Adam and I were leaving for the U.S.A. in September, and again I had to leave a wife behind because of health. We left her in care of an eye doctor. Adam and I boarded a ship named the Sammalot or-Mongolia. [Perhaps it was the S.S. Samland, which sailed from Danzig and arrived in New York on November 6, 1922.] Anna was to follow when the doctors thought she was fit to travel.

Left Alone

Anna Becker Brill felt like her world had come to an end. She had gone through a terrible crisis at home in Erienbach. Now, when she thought it was going to end reasonably well and she was about to be underway for the U.S.A, where her family, who had left Erienbach years ago, would be so happy to see her, she discovered that the authorities would not allow her to go the U.S.A. because of her eyes.

63 They had lived mostly on dried fish while traveling in the boxcar from Erienbach to Minsk, then more dried fish on the trek to Krakow, then finally some hot bean soup and bread in the basement of the courthouse in Krakow. In a way, their party had fared much better than the Brill party, because three of those had died, and several others had been hospitalized. All of the Becker group who had walked and had a rougher time of it made it to the city of Frankfurt without any fatalities or serious illness—until she was turned down for a passport to the U.S.A. The authorities thought that, with a good diet and regular treatments by an eye doctor, she would pass the medical tests in a month or two. Now she was alone. Having always lived in a home full of family made her loneliness even worse. Her mother had died in 1918, leaving her lonely but in the same house with her eldest brother, his wife and their six children. (Four of those people would die in Erienbach in the famine of 1922-25.) When she got married, it should have been a joyous time, too, but with the fighting, her husband being imprisoned, then starving, everything was heaped on her to the point of making life unbearable. Therefore, when she had the chance to join the other clan members on the journey to a land they had heard of in highest praises, she jumped at the chance, thinking that by rejoining the sister and brother in Oklahoma she could start a new life. Maybe the bad things that had occurred were really God's way of making her new life in the future that much more enjoyable. That was all shattered when the bad news came that the funds weren't readily available from either of her family members in the. U.S.A. So, when this widower with the son proposed marriage and a way to America, she accepted. After all, the rest of her family and friends were all departing for Argentina. The only other people in all of Germany she knew on a speaking acquaintance were the members of the Brill party that had been on the train with them. Her mind wandered to the last visit from her niece, Maria Becker, before the Beckers all left for Argentina, They had gotten their papers in order, and, while, the rest packed, Maria told them she would have to go to the hospital and say goodbye to her Aunt Anna. She feared that, since she had been turned down for a passport, there was nothing left for her Aunt Anna but to return to Erienbach, even though she was married and had a ticket to Portland, Oregon. The two visited for several hours, discussing each family member left in Erienbach, those who were now leaving for Argentina, and also the ones who were in the U.S.A. and unable to help at this time. When they finally ran out of time, Anna decided to walk to the street with Maria, where they held each other and cried. That was the last they were to see of each other. Forty years later Anna would send many international money orders to Maria in Argentina after Maria was widowed and alone. By late August, her new husband and her stepson were making their preparations to leave, so once more she was being left, but this time by the last of the people with whom she had any acquaintance. Although she was married, she was practically a stranger to her husband. Now he was leaving, and she just wasn't too sure she would ever get her eyesight back enough to be passed by the immigration officials. By October, the doctors thought she had regained the use of her eyes enough that she could go to Hamburg and be treated as an outpatient at the clinic and maybe try again for a passport. This she did by the middle of November. While she was in Frankfurt, she walked to the eye doctor every day from the time her eye problems were discovered until she was sent to Hamburg. It was a walk of three miles and required someone to accompany her, which wasn't bad when she had relatives there, but when it was up to a fellow barracks-dweller, it made her appreciate all that a stranger can do for a fellow human being.

Journey to America Adam and I had an uneventful trip from Germany to Ellis Island. I don't know if it was because we were going to a new home or because other passengers around us were in as poor a condition as we were. We didn't give too much thought or attention to the goings on above in the more expensive quarters of the ship. I did have one scare. Adam disappeared and I was frantically searching for him, when I discovered him lying on his stomach at the rail of the ship watching the waves go up and down. The wind had blown his cap off, and it was lost at sea. I don't know if he was just mesmerized by the high, pitching waves or if he was contemplating jumping in to try to get his cap, which we had just bought new for the trip. We arrived in New York one evening. By 2 p.m. the next day, our papers had been processed, 64 and we were boarding a train for Portland, Oregon. When we got to Chicago, a man got on the train with several boxes of apples. He walked the aisles of the cars and sold apples. Adam kept begging me to buy some, and I kept telling him—like only a Volga-German parent could—that they were too expensive. We had only a little Eriaubnis Geld left. This is a sum that one had to have before being allowed to board the train. This way the authorities knew nobody would get on completely broke or destitute and be forced to beg or starve. The man heard our bickering. When he had finished his trip through the train, he came back to talk to us. He had to ride to the next stop before he could get off. He asked if we were Germans and where we came from and where we were going. When he found we were going to Oregon, he told us all about Hood River, Oregon, and the apple crops there, which he said were the best in the world. He also gave us four apples, which we appreciated. We thanked him then and again after he was gone and while we were consuming the last of them. It took about five days by train to reach Portland. When we got to Union Station, we were lost. I suppose nobody expected us so soon, or they figured we would be able to get around as easily as they could. They had been here sixteen years, and we were really saudumm, as the people used to say in the old country. We got off the train and looked at all the people standing around. Several redcaps came by to ask us about baggage. We knew about as much English as a cow knows Spanish, so we moved outside the depot and leaned against the building. After a couple of hours of this standing, a redcap brought a cabbie over to us. He asked if we were Germans and where we were going. I quickly told him we were and that we were intending to get to the home of my Aunt and Uncle Weidenkeller. He said, "My name is Sinner, also a Volga German; I know them well, so get in." He took us to their home. We spent the night with them. By that time, my brother Conrad and sister Elizabeth knew we were here, too, and we moved in with my sister Elizabeth and her family, where we awaited the arrival of Anna. Anna was finally cleared to immigrate to the U.S. and boarded a ship in Bremen, which left there on December 3,1922. It was crowded with people from Czechoslovakia and Poland and with Russian Jews. She met only one other person, with whom she could occasionally talk. The trip took about ten days. When she arrived at Ellis Island, she again ran into problems concerning her eyes. She was also asked for more money, as fares had increased since the tickets had been purchased. She wrote to Portland about her problems, and I contacted a German-speaking attorney. He advised me to write and notify the authorities that she had her ticket, which was paid for; her son and husband were in Portland, and they couldn't have any more money. This letter allowed her to be released on December 22, 1922. While Anna was at Ellis Island, she met a lady named Anna Giesick, who was also getting a run-around from the Immigration Department. They had told her she must return to Germany. Mrs. Giesick's case hadn't been resolved by the time my Anna left for Portland. To her dying day she wondered and fretted about the outcome of Mrs. Giesick's case. Anna boarded the train in New York on December 22. She had no idea of when she was to arrive in Portland. She heard several men from Czechoslovakia talking about Portland, Oregon, so she sat near them. Every time they got up to go somewhere, she would follow, as she didn't want to lose sight of them. Several times she nearly walked into the men's room, until she figured out what it was. A couple of times she followed them to the dining car, so sat nearby to eat something top. When she finally saw them bundling up their belongings on December 27, she figured this was the time and place and got her things together too. When the train stopped at the depot, and the three men started off, she got to thinking, "What if it's not the same Portland I want? What will I do?" As she trailed down the aisle to the door, she glanced out the passenger car window, and there, near the head of the line of people waiting for passengers to detrain, was Conrad. Her anxiety gave way to tears, and she cried with joy—something she had not done for many months. As long as she lived, she would tell that she arrived in Portland, Oregon, at 5 p.m. on Friday, December 27,1922. It turned out to be on the birthday of my Aunt Lena Weidenkeller, my mother's sister. We stayed at the home of my sister Elizabeth and her husband for about a month or so. We then rented a little house, which sat in the backyard of another, larger house and was owned by a former Norka resident named Schleining (Schleuning). The house was on Garfield Avenue, and the rent was three dollars a month. Anna got a letter off to her brother and sister, who had lived in Oklahoma. We discovered they had made the move to Michigan, as farming in Oklahoma wasn't profitable. Soon she had made contact with many of her cousins, whom she hadn't seen since they had departed from Erienbach many years before. They all wrote praises of the auto industry and how plentiful

Conrad and Anna Brill in front of their

Conrad Brill, his son Adam and his wife, Anna Becker Brill. home in Portland, Oregon. The picture This picture was taken in Portland, Oregon, shortly after was taken shortly before her death in Anna arrived. 1975, the work was and that we should think about moving to that part of the country when it became possible. I wasn't able to speak any English, so had to depend on relatives and friends to provide me with work enough to earn money to live on until I learned enough of the language. I have always been grateful for the work and help I received during those trying times. But, being a stubborn Volga German, I probably never did come out and openly thank them often enough or express just how I really felt. I still have that problem today, and I suppose my children know it better than anyone else. So, almost at my ninetieth birthday, I know it's kind of late to thank the ones to whom I owed the most of my life here. Many times I have wondered how the lives of all of us who left Norka in October 1921 would have turned out if we had gone directly into Poland and on to Germany, instead of working first at the railroad depot. My father-in-law was the first to die while we were at work there, so his family returned to Norka. The Doering baby freezing to death on the walk to Krakow, my brother, his daughter, and my first wife—all were dead due to the delay of our trip into winter. I guess we have no way of ever determining such a thing. I suppose, when you think of my having been born in the time of the dusha system, my life has been a great success. I have had two good wives, who have had twelve children, two of whom are buried in Norka. My thirty- five grandchildren have provided forty-four great-grandchildren at this writing. I have been fortunate enough to live to this age. I have been living alone since my wife died in 1975 and still drive my automobile to the grocery store or to my daughter's for lunch five days a week. If things continue for me as they have, I see no reason why I can't reach the age of one hundred years.

Notes 1. Refer to the Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer 1985), pages 1-16 for Mr. Brill's "Memories of Norka." 2. Kerb was a festival celebrated in most of the Volga villages in the fall. It apparently had its origins in the Kirchweih festivals in Germany. Originally a celebration of the dedication of the church, both Kirchweih and Kerb developed into a celebration lasting several days and often involving much eating, dancing and drinking.