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Vol.11,No.4 Winter 1988 Journal Of the AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GERMANS FROM RUSSIA VOL 11, NO.4, WINTER 1988 Vol.11,No.4 Winter 1988 On the cover: Threshing grain in the Dobruja. Published by American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363 Edited by: Jo Ann Kuhr and Mary Rabenberg ® Copyright 1988 by the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia. All rights reserved. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS GERMANS IN MANGEAPUNAR, DOBRUJA Aubrey B. Marthaller ......................................................... 1 MEMORIES OF JOHANN DAVID IDLER FROM SARATA, BESSARABIA ..…………………………......... 5 A FAMILY DIVIDED Helen Schoenhals Herbel ..................................................... 11 THE OPEN DOOR Karl A, Lurix ............................................................... 15 THE SHEVE FAMILY EMIGRATES Betty Christiansen and Henry Shave ........................................... 21 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHILIP OTT Translated by Edward R. Brandt .............................................. 24 MIGRATION OF BUKOVINA GERMANS TO NORTH AMERICA Paul Polansky Schneller ...................................................... 27 MARIENFELD, RUSSIA ............................…………………………………………………….......................... 35 THE ADOLPH FAMILY: WARENBURG-FRESNO-KAZAKHSTAN LeRoyAdolph .............................................................. 37 ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE EBENFELD MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Solomon L. Loewen .......................................................... 41 WE SING OUR HISTORY Lawrence A. Weigel ......................................................... 49 BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Frances Amen and Mary Rabenberg ............................................ 51 i 3 Doing the laundry. Baking for the wedding feast. The wedding dance. The photographs of activites in Mangeapunar are courtesy of Rosina Weiss, daughter of Marianne Marthaler and Basilius Tillmann. ii 4 GERMANS IN MANGEAPUNAR, DOBRUJA Aubrey B. Marthaller German farmers in the Dobruja did not immigrate to the Disillusioned, many more German colonists left their Danube Basin directly from their ancestral villages in Russian steppes. Thousands immigrated to the United Germany. With few exceptions they came as second- States and Canada. Thousands more, influenced by generation settlers from the Russian Districts of Romanian Minister Peter Carps, settled in Dobrujan Bessarabia, Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, and Taurida, where villages already settled by Germans. their ancestors had settled in response to the edict issued on In spring 1891 Christian Marthaller and his family moved February 20,1804, by Czar Alexander I, grandson of to the Dobruja, likely joining his son Johann in Karamurat. Catherine the Great. Soon afterwards they were joined by his parents and his The first Germans immigrating into the Dobruja were brothers — Johann and Michael — and his sisters — unlike their ancestors who went to Russia by invitation. Philippina, Mathilde, Minna, Helena, Katharina, and There was no governmental plan involved. They were not Francesca. asked to come. Rather, they left their Russian villages, Unlike the rest of his family, Christian's brother, Liborius paying their own way, to look for new lands where they Marthaller, remained in the Crimea. After serving a term in might farm and make their living. It is doubtful that they the Russian Army, he, his wife Philippina and their two even planned to settle in the Dobruja. children, Franziska and Michael all immigrated to America, The first German Russians entered the Dobruja sometime settling near Bowdle, South Dakota, where his second in 1841, likely from the Warsaw colonies. A large group of cousin had already been farming since 1894. Catholic families from Kherson Province in South Russia The village Mangeapunar in the Dobruja (also called settled near Calarasi during the years 1841-1843, They Mandschappunar) was established in 1895. The name were from the villages Josephstal, Mannheim, Elsass, means "Buffalo Well," or place where the cattle were Landau, and Katharinental, among others. watered. The Marthaler/Mar-thaller families relocated there The year 1871 brought important changes to the colonies in on the basis of a long-term governmental agreement South Russia. The Russian authorities now usurped assuring them of land for a ten-year period. Other founding jurisdictional control of the region and also cancelled the families were Weber, Hatzenbtihier, Daum, Braun, Herner, special privileges which the colonists had enjoyed, such as Riedinger, and Keller. freedom from military service and self-control over their Mangeapunar is a prime example of how influential schools and churches. Romanian landlords toyed with the German settlers in spite The Marthaler family had been one of the founding of legal land titles. families of the Berezan village of Speier, but around 1880 The immigrants had legally rented the entire surrounding several of these families emigrated southwards and settled estate, consisting of over 7000 hectares, in Rosental, Crimea. Among these was the family of for twenty years from the owner, Minister Emil Costinescu. Johann Marthaler and his wife Katharina, nee Moser. At the end of the term of the The eldest son Christian, after studying for the priesthood in the seminary at Saratov, left the religious life to marry Philippina, nee Mock. In 1883 this family was living in Blumental, a village south of Speier near the Berezan Liman and quite near the Black Sea. Christian's son Johann moved to the Dobruja in June 1880. At the time the colony of Kara-murat recorded as some of its inhabitants the families Marthaler, Gotz, Moser, Wolf, Baum-stark, Hirsch, Senn, Kunz, Heidrich, and Rucheinski—among others. A new wave of founding of colonies in the Dobruja began in 1890. Russian nationalism was again on the rise, and a new law was passed which required that all persons who still possessed a pass and who had not yet taken out their Russian citizenship were forbidden to acquire any landed property. It also prevented them from plowing and seeding Russian soil. This effectively prevented them from even renting farmland. In 1891 the freedom to hold elections within the community was withdrawn in South Russia. Russian became the official language in the schools. 1 Map showing the locations of German settlements in the Dobruja, an area of Romania. Readers may find more information about this area in Dr. Adam Giesinger's article "Germans From Russia in the Dobruja," AHSGR Work Paper No. 8 (May 1972), from which this map is taken.. original agreement, the village, consisting of all the houses large private operator who, as it turned out, had not and yards, was to remain the property of the colonists— planned to farm the land himself but had hoped to even if the agreement for the rental land was not to be victimize his tenant farmers. extended. Many settlers made the difficult decision to abandon their Based on this legal agreement, the people laid out an homesteads and move on. Twenty-eight families of the extremely wide main street and built for themselves solid, more than fifty left for the Dakotas or Argentina. After permanent homes. By the turn of the century, there were 1906 only sixteen families remained. forty-eight houses, and by 1901 a stately church towered Johann Marthaller followed the lead of his older brother over the village. Liborius, who had left the Crimea in 1906 to settle at Costinescu transferred his estate to his sons-in-law, and in Bowdle, South Dakota. With his wife Marianna, nee 1906 a new agreement was drawn up. Rents were Wanner, and two daughters, Ottilia and Rosemary, Johann substantially increased, and the new term was for only boarded the S.S. Weimar in Bremen and reached Baltimore eight years. At the end of this second term, the estate was on May 14, 1907. leased to a 2 Shortly after his two younger brothers had left Europe, Christian, his wife Philippina, and son Franz traveled across Europe by train and embarked from Bremen aboard the Nord-deutscher Lloyd S.S. Breslau, landing at Baltimore on May 18, 1907. Johann, son of Christian, and his sister Amelia with her husband, Michael Hellmann, embarked from Bremen aboard the S.S. Cassel and arrived in Baltimore November 21, 1907. Valentine, the youngest son of Christian, became ill just when his parents were leaving Bremen, so he had to remain behind until he could recover. He sailed aboard the S.S. Montreal, landing in Saint John, New Brunswick, on April 6,1908. He traveled overland via the Canadian Pacific Railway and then crossed the border at Portal, North Dakota. Helena, Christian's youngest daughter, remained in Mangeapunar, as did her grandparents, Uncle Michael, and all of her aunts - including Franziska who married the Russian Nikiver Tealov. The Liborius Marthaller family moved to Alberta, Canada, in 1909. Johann settled first near Richardton, North Dakota, but after World War II he and his family moved to the booming copper-mining area of Butte and Anaconda, Montana. Christian and his sons homesteaded at Linton, North Dakota, and in about 1918 they settled in Hettinger County. Today their descendants are also found in Stark and Adams Counties as well as throughout the Pacific Northwest. After the German Army occupation during World War I, Marianne Marthaler and Basilius Tillmann on their the estate at Mangeapunar came under German wedding day in Mangeapunar, October 11, 1937. management, and some of the earlier inhabitants returned. The population
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