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Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Vol. 13, No. 2 Summer 1990 COVER PHOTO: Franz Ullrich and Marie Elisabeth Dinkelacker. The picture was taken in Neu-Messer, circa 1913. Depicted left to right are: unknown boy, Franz Ullrich, unknown child, Marie Elisabeth (Dinkelacker) Ullrich, unknown man and child. INDEX THE TIES THAT BIND—THE DINKELACKER LETTERS...................……………….…..... 1 William Seibel THE BEGINNING OF AN ODYSSEY Ella (Wasemiller) and Werner K. Wadewitz............................................………………………………………........ 12 ETHNIC WOMEN HOMESTEADING ON THE PLAINS OF NORTH DAKOTA H. Elaine Lindgren ........................................................................………………………………...…… 15 SUFFERINGS OF THE FIRST GERMAN COLONISTS DURING THE FIRST TWO DECADES, 1764 TO 1784 John Erbes ..........................................................................………………………………………..…… 26 THE TREK OF 1921-1922 Glenn Mueller ......................................................................……………………………………………….………..... 29 VILLAGE LIFE Alex Bauer ...............................................………………………………………………….............…...... 34 RESTING IN PEACE V. Krasnovsky ........................................................……………………………………………………………...…...... 37 KUKKUS, ONCE . AND TODAY Reinhold Keil................................................................……………………………………………………………..….. 38 DONATIONS TO AHSGR LIBRARY ....................................……………………………………....… 39 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE GERMAN COLONIES ON THE VOLGA Arthur E. Flegel...............................................…………………………………………………………….................... 40 EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO . Dakota Freie Presse, 21 May 1903............................................…………………………………………................... 48 I'M SMART AND I CAN PROVE IT Olga Schmidt Bauer ...............................................................……………………….…………............ 49 FROM WASHINGTON George Heinrich Hartwig ..................................…………………………………………………....................... 50 THE GERMAN-RUSSIAN FARMER'S PRAYER Elmer Suderman ....................................................................………………………… ………............ 50 CURRENT STATUS OF GERMAN VILLAGES IN THE VOLGA REGION Theresa Dahn ............................................................................…………………………………………………....... 51 THE GRAFENSTEIN-FORDSON TRACTOR STORY Arthur E. Flegel......................................................................…………………………………………………............ 52 NEW ADDITIONS TO AHSGR LIBRARY Frances Amen and Mary Rabenberg..........................................………………………....................... 53 Published by American Historical Society of Germans From Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363 Edited by Richard R. Rye © Copyright 1990 by the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia. All rights reserved. THE TIES THAT BIND— THE DINKELACKER LETTERS William Seibel The Dinkelacker Letters consist of fourteen letters and a few miscellaneous scraps of written or printed information from the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Several were written in Russia by rela- tives and friends of Heinrich Franz Dinkelacker and his wife, Marie Barbara Ullrich. Others originated in America. All were retained by Marie Barbara and, following her death, came into her daughter Leah Rosa's possession. Leah very generously made them available to me for research into family history. The letters were written in the old style German script which generally went out of use in Germany itself some- time in the latter part of the nineteenth century. However, as in so many other respects, current German practices were unknown to our ancestors, isolated since the 1760s in the depths of Russia. I've tried to render them as faithfully as possible but I'm sure to have introduced a few errors, Alexander Ullrich and Marie Kathrine Ullrich Taken in owing to my lack of knowledge as well as inability to Neu-Messer about 1905, the time of their marriage. decipher some of the handwriting. For the most part, though, such instances are of relatively minor importance was there my grandparents and mother were born. to the events narrated in the letters. Franz Ullrich was the village "doctor" in Neu-Messer. Both sets of my maternal great-grandparents were born He wasn't formally trained but was the one who attended in the 1840s in Messer, bergseite, on the Karamysch River the sick and dying, whether human or animal. According to about 85 kilometers south and a bit west of Saratov. family tradition, he was very good at it. Marie Elisabeth, Unfortunately, I have the given names of only my grand- not unexpectedly perhaps, was the midwife in Neu-Messer. mother's parents. These were Franz Ullrich, whose prob- The couple had five children who survived to adulthood: able year of birth was 1843, and his wife, Marie Elisabeth twins Johann and Jakob who were the eldest, Marie Dinkelacker, born no earlier than 1845. However, my Barbara (Barbel—or as it was more often misspelled in grandfather's parents were brother to Franz and sister to correspondence, Berwel), Heinrich, and Kathrine Marie Marie Elisabeth respectively. Thus my maternal grand- (Katrimari, my grandmother, the youngest). parents were double cousins as well as man and wife. How Only the three youngest children and their families left long my four great-grandparents remained in Messer is Russia. Marie Barbara Ullrich was married to Heinrich unknown, though it appears likely they were involved in Franz (Heinefranz) Dinkelacker', and the couple had two the establishment of a daughter colony, Neu-Messer, about daughters, Rachel and Sarah. From an earlier marriage the time of their marriages. Marie Barbara had another daughter as well, Marie Gobel. Neu-Messer was founded in 1863 by overflow popu- Her brother Heinrich was married to Ana Marie (Amische) lation from (Alt) Messer. The daughter colony was also Heidenrich, though like his sister, this was a second sometimes called Lysanderdorf. It was located about 33 marriage. This couple also had two daughters, Nathalie and kilometers slightly north of due west of the mother colony Leah, and were raising Heinrich's daughter Marie from the on the north side of the Perevosinka, a stream which first marriage. My grandparents, Alexander Ullrich and flowed directly into the Medveditsa about 18 kilometers Kathrine Marie Ullrich, had only a son and daughter, farther west. No matter how my great-grandparents came Alexander and Nathalie. to be in Neu-Messer, it is clear both sets lived out the greater part of their lives and finally died there. And it AHSGR Journal I Summer 1990 Page I journeys in the expectation of later being helped themselves by the immigrants. Helpers who remained were sometimes bitterly disap- pointed as their anguished words record. Jacob Manweiler, husband of Heinefranz Dinketacker's sister Marie Kristina, wrote to the three immigrant families: Now I have a request of you three in-laws, since you, Brother-in-law Heinrich, gave me a promise that you would help me by year's end. I wanted to be gone already. I wanted to position myself at Bremen, but my wife, namely your sister, didn't want to do it. She was afraid. I put up with a bit of need and you didn't help me. I find his remarks doubly sad, for by 1924 his wife was dead, probably of starvation. And he had remarried in Frank, where he, too, succumbed to starvation. I do not like to try to imagine the anguish of my great- grandparents and my grandmother when she left Neu- Messer for America. She and her two young children can be seen in the family album, dressed in their best finery, in a picture which I believe was taken the day she left. Grandmother and her children as they were leaving for Grandmother is seated on a bench outside a building with America in 1912. Left to right: Alexander Ullrich Jr,., Kathrine another woman and appears to have been crying. Mane Ullrich, Nathalie Ullrich (my mother), unknown woman Alexander, her son, is twisting and fidgeting by her right and child. knee—enough that his features are smeared by the stow film used. A little girl, my mother, stands between the two The Dinkelacker Letters begin shortly after the three women peering up shyly. The second woman holds a boy youngest children and their respective families emigrated on her lap who seems to be about two. There are only from Russia between 1911 and 1913, but the letters cast strained and saddened expressions in this picture, even on considerable light on the reasons for and the reluctance the faces of the children who could not be expected to have attendant upon leaving Russia. Life in the German colonies fully understood what was taking place. had become difficult and not the least of the colonist's More than three-quarters of a century later, Great- problems was persecution. The Pan-Slavic movement grandfather Franz's words still convey the grief in a most which began in the mid-nineteenth century produced effective way. In the first of the Dinkelacker Letters, dated increasing antagonism toward the German colonists. The September 8, 1913, he expresses the deep sadness he and growing likelihood of hostilities with Germany simply Great-grandmother feel at the loss. He calls it "being exacerbated the situation. The interest in military service robbed of their children." The guilt he lays on them is displayed in the Dinkelacker Letters suggests impending almost palpable. He writes;

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