Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia

Vol. 17. No. 2 Summer 1994 Editor CHRISTINE CLAYTON

Editorial Board IRMGARD HEIN ELLINGSON PETER J. KLASSEN Bukovina Society, Ellis, KS California State University, Fresno ARTHUR E. FLEGEL TIMOTHY KLOBERDANZ Certified Genealogist, Menio Park, CA North Dakota State University, Fargo ADAM GIESINGER GEORGE KUFELDT University of Manitoba, emeritus Anderson University, Indiana, emeritus NANCY BERNHARDT HOLLAND LEONA PFEIFER Trinity College, Burlington, VT Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS WILLIAM KEEL HELMUT SCHMELLER University of Kansas, Lawrence Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS

On the cover: The Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is published quarterly by AHSGR. Mennonite Prayer House in Orlov on the Members of the Society receive the Journal, a quarterly Newsletter, and an annual genealogical publication, Clues. Members qualify for discounts on material available for purchase from AHSGR. Membership categories Molochna, Photo courtesy of Landsmannschaft are: Student, $20; Individual, $30; Family, $30; Contributing, $50; Sustaining, $100; Life, $500 (may be paid in der Deutschen aus Rußland. five annual installments). Memberships are based on a calendar year, due each January 1. Dues in excess of $30 For an account on the Mennonites in may be tax-deductible as allowed by law. Applications for membership should be sent to AHSGR, 631 D Street, Danzig shortly before the onset of their Lincoln, NE 68502-1199. The Journal welcomes the submission of articles, essays, family histories, anecdotes, folklore, book migration to Russia see Anthony R. Epp's reviews, and items regarding all aspects of the lives of Germans in/from Russia. Manuscripts should be typed article, starting on page 1. Horst Gerlach's double spaced with endnotes. Computer fan-fold paper should be separated before mailing. If written on article, starting on page 11, describes the computer, please include a diskette containing a copy of the computer file. We can accept IBM-compatible ASCII or WordPerfect™ files. Our style guide is The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. revised (Chicago: Mennonite emigration in detail. University of Chicago Press, 1993). Please indicate in your cover letter whether you have photos or illustrations to accompany your article. If you wish your submission returned to you, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope with adequate postage. Unless you instruct us otherwise, submissions not published in the Journal will be added to the AHSGR archives.

The International Foundation of AHSGR is a non-profit organization which seeks funds beyond the annual dues of members of AHSGR to support the needs of the many operations of the Society. The Foundation accepts monetary gifts, bequests, securities, memorial gifts, trusts, and other donations. Gifts to the Foundation may be designated for specific purposes such as promoting the work of the Aussiedler Project gathering information from German-Russian emigrants recently arrived in Germany, the AHSGR/CIS Project of research in Russia, or supporting the Society's library or genealogical work; gifts may also be designated for use where most needed. All contributions help further the goals of AHSGR: to gather, preserve, and make available for research material pertaining to the history of Germans from Russia. For information and to make contributions, contact the International Foundation of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 631 D Street, Lincoln, NE 68502-1199. Telephone: (402) 474-3363. Fax; (402) 474-7229. Donations to the International Foundation are tax deductible as allowed by law.

Opinions and statements of fact expressed by contributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society, the Foundation, the Editor, or members of the Editorial Board, who assume no responsibility for statements made by contributors.

Published by the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, NE 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363 © Copyright 1994 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0162-8283 CONTENTS

OBSERVATIONS ON DANZIG MENNONITES FROM 1773 ...... …...... ……...... 1 Anthony R. Epp

KLEINLIEBENTAL REVISITED—MAY 1993...... ………...... 7 Doris Dickenson..

FROM WEST PRUSSIA TO RUSSIA, 1789-1989: BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MENNONITE EMIGRATION...... 11 Horst Gerlach Translated by Christine Clayton

GROWING UP FEMALE ON THE KANSAS PLAINS: THE DEPRESSION YEARS ...... 23 Humanities Scholars and Students of Fort Hays State University

RETRACING THE SCHMIDTKE TRAIL IN POLAND...... …………...... 43 Edward Reimer Brandt

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994

OBSERVATIONS ON DANZIG MENNONITES FROM 1773 Anthony R. Epp

In 1919 Willibald Franke published Daniel Chodowieckis ments that individual Dutch Mennonites arrived in Danzig Künstlerfahrt nach Danzig im Jahre 1773. To the 108 as early as 1530, with the city supporting a congregation by drawings from Chodowiecki's sketchbook [Skizzenbuch], 1569.2 Menno Simons may have ministered among them, previously published only in a very limited and expensive and Dirk Philips did in fact carry out a ministry of nineteenth century art book, Franke first added the portion preaching, and administering baptism and communion. of Johanna Schopenhauer's memoirs dealing with people In 1466 a military defeat had forced the Teutonic and sites in Danzig which Chodowiecki would have Knights to cede their Baltic lands to Poland. Danzig itself, observed as he immortalized them in his sketchbook. Then, however, remained a free city until 1772. That status, with from one of Chodowiecki's distant heirs, a Frau Doktor its attraction of religious freedom, offered in a city which Rosenberg, editor Franke obtained permission to print, for early became a stronghold for the Lutheran branch of the the first time, Chodowiecki's journal (1 June to 19 August Reformation, made it an attractive destination for the 1773) of the trip. Mennonites figure in all three elements of displaced Protestants of Europe. Although Lutheranism the book—in Schopenhauer's memoirs, in Chodowiecki's became the official religion, the city, in addition to sketchbook, and in his Tagebuch [diary]. Whereas attracting Flemish and Frisian Mennonites, was home to Chodowiecki came from Polish heritage, he chose to relate sizable populations of Jews and Huguenots, as the French to the French colony in Berlin, preferring to speak and Protestants were called. Johanna Schopenhauer (mother of write French. Frederick the Great nevertheless considered the philosopher), in describing her home city Danzig as the artist a German, thus relegating him to second class Chodowiecki recorded it in his 1773 sketchbook, adds status with the monarch.' The king preferred French verbal detail to his visual portrayal. After portraying the language, literature, and art to German language and Jewish community and before turning to Catholics, monks, culture, and seeing in Chodowiecki a German, he refused to and Russians, she devotes a revealing paragraph to sit for a portrait by Chodowiecki, even after he became a Mennonites: leading member of the Berlin art world. By 1773 Danzig had been home to Mennonites from In my time, freedom of religion reigned in my home- the Lowlands for over two centuries. Under the reign of the town, which acknowledged the Lutheran confession. strict Catholic emperor Charles V, Mennonites had already The Mennonites, who came from Holland, and most of begun emigrating across the Baltic Sea to Danzig in the whom were well-to-do, divided themselves in the fine sixteenth century. The Mennonite Encyclopedia docu- and the coarse [groups]; they had their houses of prayer, and uneducated citizens of their faith (mostly laborers or shopkeepers) held the position of preacher and A twenty-year member o fAHSGR, Anthony Epp comes from a long exhorted their fellow believers with good hearty line of German Russians. In the 1870s the Epps left the Molochna speaking. They were also allowed to have their children Colony in Russia to settle in Henderson, Nebraska. There the author's grandfather served the Bethesda Mennonite Church as baptized as late as they wanted: I myself once witnessed 3 elder. On his maternal side, the Wiens grandparents were sent by the baptism of a sixteen-year old girl friend of mine. their families in the early 1900s to study at Bethel College in Kansas. Before finally settling in Newton, they spent three decades Her distinction between fine \fein\ and coarse [grob} as missionaries in India. Anthony Epp married Dianne Waltner of Mennonites reflects divisions that had emigrated with them rural Freeman, South Dakota. Upon earning his Ph.D. in French from the Lowlands. The Flemish [fern] would require from the University of Colorado in 1971\ he joined the Modern rebaptism of Frisian [grob] Mennonites for church mem- Language Department at Nebraska Wesleyan University where he bership.4 teaches French and German.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 2 Danzig Mennonites While Mennonites endured many sanctions and pri- their first reunion in over thirty years. By then he was an vations in order to maintain the principle of refusing mili- established artist, married to a woman from the French tary service, they nevertheless managed to survive and even Protestant colony in Berlin (French Huguenots comprised flourish in Danzig. In 1772, however, Frederick the Great nearly a third of the city at the beginning of the eighteenth carried out the first of three partitioning of Poland, with the century), and the father of several children. area west of the Vistula River being the first installment of Traveling by horseback, he left Berlin on 3 June 1773, Polish land to come under Prussian rule. Henceforth it reaching Danzig on 11 June, The journal reflects on-going would be known as Westpreuj3en [West Prussia], thus preoccupations with his newly acquired horse, for he was adding to the kingdom being established by a militaristic, concerned whether it would survive the trip. Indeed, he and expansionist monarch. the horse did sink into a swamp before arriving. He slept in Daniel Chodowiecki, born in Danzig in 1726, left the homes, inns, and barns, found a Silesian traveling city and his family while still a teenager to find a trade companion and observed "uberall Soldaten" [soldiers while living with a merchant uncle in Berlin. Although everywhere]. From the very first entry, Chodowiecki's commerce failed to excite him, he did discover avenues in journal reflects worries about the political situation, for Berlin for developing his artistic interests: drawing, when he had secured his passport, he wrote of having re- painting, and especially etching and enamel art. He even- ceived assurances that "die Danziger Affäre sei beendet"5 tually became the most sought after engraver in Berlin for [the Danzig affair was over], a reference to the recent first illustrating books. In 1773 Chodowiecki was able at last to partitioning of Poland. set out for Danzig to visit his mother and sisters,

"Ein Bauernhaus bei Oliva unweit Danzig." Not far from Oliva, Mennonites had their own farms.6

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 When he reached Danzig, neither the people nor the the French journal. (The French version has never been countryside but the Prussian presence struck Chodowiecki, published.) Keeping that in mind plus the fact that Chodowiecki heard the name in a French conversation, one From here [Oliva] on, to the right side, one sees nothing might legitimately consider other ways that the name he but woods and farm houses belonging to the monastery, heard as "Donet" might have been spelled. Someone to the left [there is] the sea with many ships on the speaking French could pronounce at least one German horizon; ahead one sees Langfuhr [a Danzig suburb name, "Donner," and have a French interlocutor hear where the Templars formerly had their seat]. As we "Donet." Might one be allowed to speculate that the Men- arrived, we saw the Prussian eagle on the barricade, a nonite artist in question could have been a "Donner"? The Prussian sentinel. ... It [Schottland] resembles a pretty Mennonite Encyclopedia (Volume II, 84) indeed mentions little town, where everything points towards Danzig. I West Prussian Mennonites named "Donner," including one saw two more eagles, one at the tax office and one on a who preached at the Frisian Mennonite Church in Danzig. tobacco outlet. At the end there was another barricade Two other prominent names among Danzig Mennonites and a sentinel.7 appear both in Chodowiecki's journal and in the sketches, although he does not specifically identify them as In his initial journal entry from Danzig, Chodowiecki Mennonites. On the very first day in Danzig, he went to underscored the potentially oppressive situation created by visit Herr van der Smissen, but having been told by the the military occupation, noting as he entered, the gallows domestic that the gentleman was eating, arranged to visit and "the small white house in which they give a last drink another time, to criminals."8 Hardly had Chodowiecki arrived and been united with his family, when he embarked on a two-month round of calls. His contacts with upper crust Danzig often led to commissioning of portraits. On a personal level, his journal shows his eagerness to learn new techniques, especially in etching, and to make the acquaintance of the Danzig art world, of its collectors and its artists. His journal entries after such visits consist of descriptions of the artworks shown to him, followed by critiques. On 15 June he wrote:

I sought out Herr van Waaserberghe, who received me very well, and showed him my miniatures, which interested him a great deal. He wants to take me to a Polish colleague who possesses a beautiful collection of paintings and is supposed to be a good connoisseur. Around here Herr Wessel is supposed to be the best painter, for copper etching there is only Donet, a Mennonite, and Deisch, from Augsburg, both of whom do shoddy work.9

This "Donet" does not reappear in the Chodowiecki journal nor has the present author succeeded in locating any mention of Danzig Mennonites named "Donet." If his name was indeed spelled "Donet" in the French way, then he might well have left the Danzig French colony to join the Mennonites, It might be instructive, on the other hand, to note first that editor Franke admitted to having had problems deciphering Chodowiecki's handwriting in

"Herr van der Smissen." Did this gentleman, a dealer in art, belong to one of the Danzig Mennonite churches?10

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Five days later, Chodowiecki did indeed transact business Dierks, Dirksen, Duerksen figure prominently in Danzig with Herr van der Smissen. For 16 June he wrote: church roles. "Drew my sister. Went with her to the Peterskirche. It has a In the home of a Monsieur Du But, to whom beautiful organ. Then I went to Herr van der Smissen's. He Chodowiecki refers as the engraver of medals [der has sold the Bernouin paintings and will pay me before my Medailleur}, he examines Du But's creations of busts return trip."11 modeled in colored wax. After listing some of Du But's Towards the end of his sojourn in Danzig, van der accomplishments, Chodowiecki continues his journalistic Smissen entrusted letters to Chodowiecki for delivery in critique of the art that he finds in Danzig. On the one hand, Berlin, And in the 19 August entry (the last one), he reports he admires the busts of Peter the Great, the Prince of having delivered van der Smissen's letter to Mr. Bernoulli in Bavaria, and various leading citizens of Danzig; on the Berlin. other hand, Catherine the Great pleases him least of all. In On 24 June Chodowiecki, finding himself in need of the midst of this artistic critique, Chodowiecki included local currency, arranged with a banker to change money. remarks about the bust of an unnamed Mennonite: "In the same style, he has done a Mennonite. but he is dressed in green and gold, which does not suit his face. That really ought to be changed." 14 The Du But (a name also written as "Dubut" in French) whose work Chodowiecki critiqued on 19 June, is Frederic Guillaume Du But (1711-1779), a sculptor born into the French community in Berlin. He held various royal ap- pointments as sculptor and engraver of medals under King August III of Poland, Elizabeth of Russia, and Catherine the Great. In 1766 he left Saint Petersburg, Russia, for Danzig. As a sculptor he had made his greatest mark in marble statues and wax busts.15 On 20 July Chodowiecki notes visits paid and received. With no preparation and no follow-up, he cryptically tells us: "The English Mennonite, Mr. Gemion, paid a visit to Mons. Boquet."16 While in Danzig, Chodowiecki frequently visited Boquet, a French Protestant pastor. In all of the preceding examples, the Mennonite pres- ence is at most a footnote to Chodowiecki's visit to Danzig. One is left with questions, wondering for instance whether a Herr Jansen, whom he mentions, was Mennonite. Of great interest would have been an indication whether Chodowiecki tried the brandy for which Mennonites had become famous (having found the doors to other occupa- tions closed to them as a means of limiting their expansion and as the price of having their military position tolerated). Chodowiecki did indeed use brandy, specifically mentioning not only having consumed some but even hav- ing had his foot bathed in brandy after his horse had stepped on it. However, he does not tell whether he had

2 purchased one of the types of brandy for which the Men- "Der Bankier Dirksen" [Banker Dirksen}' nonites became well known: Danziger Goldwasser, Kurfürstlicher Magen, Krambambuli. Such details about In his journal that day, he wrote: *'I had an appoint- the Mennonite presence in Danzig, circa 1773, remain ment with Mons. Dierks, in order to see if he might ex- untold in his account. But then, as if in deference to a change 150 gulden 6 groschen for ducats, to which he said modern Mennonite reading his journal 220 years later, that I could bring them to him tomorrow morning."13 The artist labels the portrait "Der Bankier Dirksen" but in the journal he refers to "Mons(ieur) Dierks." Dirks,

AH5GR Journal/Summer 1994 Chodowiecki decided on 7 July 1773 to record two Men- Hausgewand vor seiner Tür, seine Pfeife rauchend. Auf nonite jokes. die Frage, wer und was er sei, wird ihm geantwortet, er sei Mennonit. Der General, begierig von ihm selbstw Ein bonmot: Ein Mennonit trifft einen anderen erfahren, was sein Glauben sei,fragt ihn, was er mache. Mennoniten, der auf einem kleinen Wägelchen zur Stadt Er antwortet: Ich [sic] handele so eenbeetiken. Womit kommt und ohne Überrock nur mit Weste bekleidet. Der denn? Eh, met allerhand Saacken; ersterefragt ihn: 'Wat sind Sie vor einer [sic] Landmann zugleich zeigt er ihm allerhand Kleinigkeiten, wie ? Antwort; Ick bin von West-Preujße [sic] (der Konig Bänder, Schnürsenkel usw. Was glaubt ihr denn ?frug nennt seine Erobemngen in Polen WestpreujSen). ihn der General. Ja, det darff ick wohl nich sagen. Warum sittjeh denn so in der Weste? Antwort: Eben Warum denn nich? Ja, jeh würden böse wären. Ei deswegen, weil ick von Westpreujße bin, de Konig von warum? sagt nur. Ih, ick glowe, wir wären alle arme Preufie hat uns den Rock utgetrocken on man de Lude weren.19 Westen hett he ons gelatten.17 Another one: General von Stuttersheim, traveling A quip: One Mennonite meets another Mennonite who through Schottland (a small place near the mouth of the is coming to the city on a little wagon and is not wear- Vistula) sees a Mennonite in a housecoat smoking a ing a topcoat. The first one asks him: Where are you pipe in front of his door. To the question of who and from? Answer: I'm from West Prussia (the king calls his what he is, comes the answer that he is a Mennonite, conquests in Poland West Prussia.) Why are you just The general, eager to know from the man himself, what sitting there in a vest? Answer: Well, because I am from his beliefs are, asks him what he does. He answers: West [pronounced like "vest"] Prussia, the king carried I'm somewhat into commerce. With what then? Oh, off our topcoats and left us the vests. with all kinds of things. At the same time he shows him a lot of little things like ribbons, shoelaces, etc. And * * * what do you believe? the general asked him. Now, that

18 I'm not allowed to say. And why not then? Well, you Ein anderes: Der General von Stuttersheim, durch would get angry. Come on, why? Just tell me. OK, I Schottland (kieiner Ort in der Nähe von Weichselmünde) believe that we might all be poor wretches. reisend, sieht einen Mennoniten im

"Der Leuchtturm von Weichselmiinde, den Chodowiecki am 5. Juli besuchte." The lighthouse at the mouth of the Vistula River. The first Dutch Menno- nites settled in nearby Schottland, and it was from there also that Dirk Philips carried out his Danzig ministry.20

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 6 Danzig Mennonites Following the two Mennonite jokes, Chodowiecki records three shorter jokes, again at the expense of Prussia's pressive measures under less ambitious Polish rule voracious expansionist appetite. (measures imposed in large part because their expansion was threatening the dominant Lutherans), certainly must Als der König den Primas fragte, warum er nicht in Polen have harbored concerns about being able to continue sei, antwortete ihm dieser: Sire, meine Gesundheit exercising their religion under the new regime. That erfordert, dap ich bestdndig infreier Luft atme. regime, represented in the joke by a general, must also have had questions about how to deal with a sizable minority When the King asked the Bishop why he was not in population unwilling to serve as a military means to Poland, the latter answered: Sire, my health requires me Prussia's expansionist ends. About fourteen years later, to breathe free air at all times. when the religious principles of the Mennonites and the royal demand for acquiescence in military matters had * * * come into increasingly sharp conflict, the Mennonites began emigrating to Russia. Eines Tages sagte der König zum Primas beim Fortgehen; Betet zu Gottfur mich, damit ich in das Parodies komme, Der Primas, der ein Stuck Land, das NOTES Parodies genannt, besaß, das sich aufvom König erobertem Boden befand, antwortete: Seit Ew. Majestdt 1. Willibald Franke, "Daniel Chodowiecki als Mensch und im Besitz, des Paradieses ist, habe ich dort nichts mehr Klinstler" in Daniel Chododwieckis Künstlerfahrt nach Danzig im Jahre 1773, ed. W. Franke (Leipzig: Grethlein u. zu sagen. Co. G.M.b.H., 1919), 6. 2. General information about Mennonites in the Danzig area has One day the King, upon taking leave, said to the Bishop: been substantiated with the articles "Danzig Mennonites" and Pray to God for me that I might get to Paradise. The "West Prussia" in The Mennonite Encyclopedia (Scottdale, Bishop, who owned a piece of land which was called Pennsylvania: Mennonite Publishing House, 1956). 3. Johanna Schopenhauer, "Die Stadt Danzig zu Chodowieckis Paradise and which was located in the territory Zeit—Schilderung aus den Lebenserinnerungen der Johanna conquered by the King, answered: Since your Majesty is Schopenhauer" in Daniel Chodowieckis Künstlerfahrt nach in possession of Paradise, I have nothing more to say in Danzig im Jahre 1773, 17, that matter. 4. The Mennonite Encyclopedia, s.v. "Danzig Mennonite Church." * ^ * 5. Chodowiecki, "Tagebuch" in Daniel Chodowieckis Künstlerfahrt nach Danzig im Jahre 1773, 20. 6. Chodowiecki, "Skizzenbuch" in Daniel Chodowieckis In Oliva sprach ein Mönch mit mir von den Künstlerfahrt nach Danzig im Jahre 1733, 32. gegenwarligen Vorgdngen, er sagte: Der König von 7. Chodowiecki, 35-36. Preuften gibt uns brave Soldaten, die werden uns 8. Ibid., 36. beschutzen, daft man uns nicht noch das, war er uns 9. Ibid., 41 (Boldface added by the present author). 21 10. Ibid., 46. gelassen, nehme, 11. Ibid., 42. 12. Ibid., 58, In Oliva a monk was speaking to me about recent 13. Ibid., 54. events and said: The King of Prussia gives us brave 14. Ibid., 47. soldiers, who will protect us, so that no one takes away 15. Roman d'Amat and R. Limouzin-Lamothe, Dictionnaire de what he has left us. biographic francaise, fascicule LXV (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ane, 1966), 1122. In this context of critical jokes about the then current 16. Chodowiecki, 101. political situation, the joke in which the general wants to 17. Ibid., 78. 18. The General von Stuttersheim might well be Joachim know what Mennonites believe takes on historical signifi- Friedrich von Stutterheim (1715-1783). A member of the cance. Prussia, in expanding militarily, would be needing Prussian nobility and having made a career in the military, he soldiers. As many as 15,000 Mennonites had settled in West participated in the various Prussian expansionist wars and Prussia. The Mennonites, already familiar with re ended his career by serving as Governor in the East Prussian areas of Königsberg, Pillau, and Meinel. See Helmut Rössler and Günther Franz, Biographisches Wörterbuch zur deulschen Geschichte, Volume III (München; Francke Verlag, 1975), 2822, 19. Chodowiecki, 78, 81. 20. Ibid., 76, 21. Ibid., 81.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 KLEINLIEBENTAL REVISITED—MAY 1993

Doris Dickenson The road sign reads "Malodolinskoye," but to me it means Kleinliebental, village of my father's birth. I first saw it two years ago, but I had been with a bus tour, spending an hour looking around and taking pictures. This time I was in a private car with members of my father's family, the Malsams. I felt like I was coming home. Kleinliebental is a short twelve mile drive southwest of Odessa, through almost flat countryside that changes rapidly from urban dwellings to tree-dotted rural surround- ings. Then, almost before one knows it, the ships and in- dustrial buildings of the port of lllichivs'k, second in size to Odessa, appear on the left, the waters of the Black Sea lapping against the side of the road. To the right, the liman spreads out, its banks showing signs of the port's industry that is threatening to encroach on the small village beyond. Kleinliebental. Lenin Street, ending at the liman. Industry of The square outline of dilapidated St. Wendelin's Church port encroaching on the village. can be seen on the crest of a low hill above the liman, villages of most concern to each of us and that we not only Sloping gently upward, the road curves around to the meet the German villagers, but spend a night among them. few streets of a village that has grown little in size over the I do not speak either German or Russian, but in the years. Here lie the roots of my family, and here I am again, group I was always with an interpreter or English-speaking after two years, seeking my own history, host. In spite of my frustration at not being able to I never expected to return to Kleinliebental when I communicate directly, I managed very well under all made my first visit in 1991, I even brought home small circumstances. It is amazing how much friendship can samples of soil for my immediate family to symbolize the overcome. full circle of the Malsam family. But when I afterwards My village experience was a little different from the heard about a tour that was to take us among the German experiences of others in our group. Through a contact made people of Ukraine I could not resist going again. My first earlier in the year, and with the help of our tour organizer, I visit to Kleinliebental was such an emotional experience spent two days and two nights with members of my father's that I hoped to approach it in a more objective way this family whose exact relationship is yet to be determined. But time. I needed to reinforce my memories. we know it is very close. I did not stay in Kleinliebental. The twenty-five tour members were all German Rus- Instead, my relatives drove me to the village and nearby sians with Black Sea roots. The tour organizer made ar- towns from their apartment in Odessa. rangements so that we could meet with German groups, Physically, Kleinliebental is much the same as Rev. visit German schools and go into German homes. We were Conrad Keller described it in The German Colonies in South introduced to all aspects of the German return to the Russia, 1804-1904, 2nd ed., (Lincoln, Nebraska: Ukraine from exile through our meetings with members of AHSGR, 1980). The approach road from the east goes up a the Odessa German Society Wiedergeburt ["Rebirth"], But slope and cuts across the two main streets of the village. I best of all, it was arranged that we visit the ancestral was anxious to verify an error I thought I had found in Doris Dickenson's article on her 1991 trip to the USSR, "German Keller's book. I have a document written by villager G, C. Churches of the Black Sea Region—1991." appeared in the Spring Daeschle in the early 1900s which was sent to a relative, In 1993 issue of the AHSGR Journal. describing the village it names the two streets as the German Street and the Russian Street, St. Wendelin's Church being located at the middle of the easterly German Street. My father's family lived on the westerly Russian Street. Rev.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 8 Kleinliebental Revisited Keller, however, describes the streets as the Jewish Street ing to the left of the church as the "old parsonage, on the west and the Russian Street on the east, with the present residence of the sexton," whereas Keller identifies church being located on the Russian Street. the parsonage on the left, built in 1883, as the new one.] By checking the signs on the front of a nearby house, I The "newer" rectory stands opposite it and is the gatehouse verified that the church is on the street now named Schmidt for the property, Street. The westerly street is now called Lenin Street, From The morning's storm had filled the semi-paved country that we have to draw our own conclusions about the roads with water and mud holes when we retreated to original names until I can verify my information through a Odessa for lunch, but we soon were blessed with brilliant newly-found Kleinliebental relative who has moved to sunshine and returned to Kleinliebental for the afternoon. Germany. The wide unpaved streets of the village are lined with There is now one additional short street parallel to trees. Widely spaced houses surrounded by gardens are Schmidt Street on the east. It is called Karl Marx Street and located behind low fences or walls. Lilacs were particularly ends near the church grounds. abundant in May, The houses are built in the elongated I wanted my cousin, who accompanied me from German style found in all the old villages. They are America, to see the sad remains of the church which our frequently brightly painted and in seemingly good repair. ancestors helped plan and for whose interior they provided Except for power lines and an occasional vehicle, it could a statue from Paris. Through the intercession of my Odessa have been a scene from the past. relative who was with us, we went behind the locked gates My relative had hoped we could meet an old woman, that now face Schmidt Street. Following damage over the Rosa Malsam, who had lived in the village all her life, but years and a severe fire some time ago, the former church when we stopped at her house we found she had died re- now serves as a factory which makes containers for over- cently, However, the woman who was there pointed out a seas shipping. The plant manager was very gracious and Malsam house and a Heier house across the street, I had in talked to us about their restoration efforts. We saw an ad- my possession a hand-drawn map sent to me by a recently jacent small park-like area, which once was the graveyard, discovered relative in Germany indicating some of the being attended by several women. In spite of a severe, fast- former Malsam and Heier houses. However, neither of moving rainstorm we took pictures, then looked at the these two houses were on my map, so I could not identify original rectory, which still stands at the south entrance to these families any further. Sadly, while some of the old the churchyard. [Here again, Keller differs from my houses are undergoing repair, some are being torn down relative's church document which identifies the build and being replaced by new ones on the sites,

German boy filling jugs at Arte- sian well for drinking water.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Kleinliebental Revisited 9

Most of the houses we intended to photograph are on Church at Kandel, formerly used as Lenin Street so we parked the car and leisurely walked grain storehouse, now boarded up. around. My cousin and I soon attracted curious villagers man-Russian relatives. What a mix of languages—English, since we were on a street with little automobile or foot German, and Russian, and only one person knew all three. traffic and carried video and still cameras. Once my Rus- But there was a feeling of kinship I will never lose, even if sian relative explained our ancestral interest people spoke we did not solve the matter of our exact relationship, freely to him and were very friendly to us. Unfortunately, The next day our relative took my cousin and me to the because all Germans had been removed during the war, and outlying areas of Kandel, Selz, and Mannheim. A herd of because the Germans now living in the village after goats was munching contentedly near the Kandel church, returning from Kazakhstan and Siberia are not original now closed up after being used for grain storage. Some villagers, we did not learn much about our own families. children came over from a nearby school, but they knew We did find out that "kids are the same everywhere." A nothing of the area's history. At Selz we were impressed school bus dropped children off near the intersection of the with the exquisite details still remaining inside the empty main road and a group of boys came skateboarding down shell of a once grand church. We found the abandoned the street where we were taking photographs. church at Mannheim full of dead birds and boisterous Later we met a young boy at a curbside water pump. children on their way home from school. We did not seek Through my Russian relative, who had brought along an out villagers at any of these sites, English interpreter, we found out the boy was from a Ger- When we rejoined the members of our travel group, we man family who had recently relocated to the village. He each had individual experiences to share. Some had located said that the villagers used the water from Artesian wells family members in the villages, some were disappointed for drinking purposes and that house water was used only that records were almost non-existent and graveyards had for cleaning and washing. He had a little wagon to pull his disappeared. But all of us felt a sense of connection with full jugs home. the villages of our ancestors. When we finally joined the flow of traffic on the main It was not only in the villages that we began to under- road and returned to Odessa I could not help but wonder if stand the place of Germans in Russian society, both in the this would be my last visit to the village. I had thought that past and in today's world. In other parts of our trip, while two years ago, too, so maybe I will return again. The we were guests of German and Russian individuals, we ancestral pull is very strong when one stands in the streets realized that people everywhere, even half a world away, that parents and grandparents once trod. want the same kinds of things for their families that we At a family party that evening we met eleven Ger- do—and, especially, an understanding among people. This trip surely helped us in that.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 10

This map by Karl Stumpp (AHSGR No. 16) shows the areas in Danzig/West Prussia/row which the Mennonites migrated to Russia between 1789 and 1807.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 11

FROM WEST PRUSSIA TO RUSSIA, 1789-1989: BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MENNONITE EMIGRATION

Horst Gerlach Translated by Christine Clayton

members at their peak in Moravia and Hungary, they suf- I. Historical Background fered—as a consequence of the Thirty Years' War—from pillage, persecution, and recatholicization. A small group reached Transylvania, where they were joined by some A first group of four families set out from Danzig to move "transmigrants." Empress Maria Theresia would not tol- to the Ukraine in the spring of 1788. However, some erate any Lutherans in her country and imitated the unfor- families from Danzig and surroundings had moved to the tunate Bishop Firmian von Salzburg, who expelled about Volga colonies founded by Tsarina Catherine even before 30,000 Lutherans in 1731; some of those moved via Elbing then. Towards the end of the Seven Years' War, the to the area of Insterburg-Gumbinnen in East Prussia. From empress, from the house of Anhalt-Zerbst, made several 1752 to 1758, Maria Theresia made 2,974 individuals who appeals (in 1762 and 1763) in which she recruited settlers secretly confessed to Lutheranism move from Styria and to Russia. She envisioned an expansion of her empire to the Carinthia to Transylvania in thirty-eight convoys. Some of west and to the south, In fact, she wanted to conquer them were even accused of being persuaded by the Constantinople (Istanbul) and to found a new state on the Prussians to participate in strikes' (Austria happened to be territory of Alexander the Great's empire; this state was at war with the Prussians at the time); consequently, the supposed to be governed by one of her grandchildren or a Lutherans were locked up in prison in Hermannstadt. In member of the Habsburg family, At the same time, she short: a connection between some of the Hutterites and wanted to improve economic conditions in her own country some of the transmigrants was established in 1761, and with the help of new settlers. They were supposed to serve Hans Kleinsasser founded a Bruderhof in Deutschkreuz the the Russian peoples as teachers. same year. When the authorities learned about that, they Zaporozhian Cossacks then inhabited the lower wanted to expel the adults and put the children in Catholic reaches of the Dnieper River, the area to which the settlers orphanages. The Hutterites fled over the Carpathian from the Vistula delta were supposed to move. Catherine Mountains and founded a Bruderhof in Krahbach near had the Cossacks resettled to the Kuban [river area of the Bucharest, which was later moved to Priziceni on the North Caucasus] without much ado, using very rigorous Arges. As a result of the Russo-Turkish War, numerous methods. pillaging soldiers loitered about, and there was danger that Independent of these events, Hutterites came to the the Hutterites would be sold into slavery. Mennonites in Elbing in those days and from there went on In this precarious situation, the small group met the to visit the communities in the Werder area and in Driesen Russian commander-in-chief, Count Rumiantsev. He in- (Netzebruch). The Hutterites established themselves as a vited them to settle on his estates in Vishenka on the Desna, baptismal special group in Nikolsburg (Moravia) in 1528. a tributary of the Dnieper. Thus, sixty-six of the surviving Their doctrines were very similar to the Mennonites' Hutterites moved to the field marshal's estates in Vishenka doctrines; however, in questions of personal property they in 1770.2 The field marshal was well known in West practiced community of goods in their Bruderhofs Prussia. He had passed through West and East Prussia [communal farms]. Although they had 70,000 during the Seven Years' War with the Russian army and had defeated Frederick the Great near Kunersdorfin 1758. The article, "Von Westpreußen nach Rußland 1789-1989. Hintergrunde und Bedeutung der mennonitischen Auswanderung," After his return from the battles, he told the tsarina about originally appeared in Westpreußen-Jahrbuch 41 (1991). Used with the Mennonite peasants and cheese producers of West permission.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Prussia and thus contributed to bringing about the emi- 21 August 1783.6 gration.3 At that time, Prussia and Austria were in search of Since the Hutterites were only a relatively small group, settlers themselves: Prussia for the marshes of the Oder and they tried very hard to gain new members. They corre- Netze, the empress for Galicia, Bachka, and Banat. sponded with the Bohemian Brethren settlement in Sarepta Therefore they tried to hinder the emigrations. Russia did on the Volga (today within the city limits of Volgograd). not want to fall out with Prussia and Austria and looked for They also contacted the elder of the Mennonite community a loophole. They found it in the city state Danzig, which did of Elbing-Ellerwald, Gerhard Wiebe, who headed the not fall to the Kingdom of Prussia until 1793, community from 1778 to 1796, By the way, the Hutterites Georg von Trappe, a nobleman from Württemberg, was for a short while had a Bruderhof near Elbing on the staying at the court of Catherine the Great's son Paul, then Drausensee as early as 1604.4 heir to the throne. He [von Trappe] knew his [Paul's] The Hutterites then undertook six missionary trips to second wife, the Württemberg princess Sophie Dorothea fetch some of their scattered members from Hungary and (Maria Feodorovna). With the help of Sophie and Count Moravia to Russia. During their travels, they also came to Potemkin, von Trappe—who also said he spoke Low Ger- Prussia. They usually traveled in pairs like the apostles (cf. man—received a position as colonist recruiter, and, for this Mark 6;7). During their third trip, the brethren Joseph reason, he arrived in Danzig in 1786, Trappe's recruiting Muller and Christian Hofer came to Cracow; from there efforts were intense, and he succeeded in winning 200 they decided to go to Prussia. They already knew Elder families for emigration within months; almost all of them Wiebe through correspondence. Their report reads: were relatively poor Lutherans from the city of Danzig. The first group of 146 persons left Danzig on 21 October 1786, And since God showed them they should travel to traveled via Riga, and established the Josephstal colony Prussia, they took their course on to Cracow, to the near Ekaterinoslav. Two Mennonite deputies, Jakob royal Poland, and, on 10 January 1783, they happily Höppner and Johann Bartsch, accompanied them to arrived in Poland in the royal capital Warsaw. And from Russia.7 there, traveling with wagoners, they proceeded on to Together with a major by the name of Meier, the depu- Elbing, where they arrived on 22 January. ties visited several areas on the Crimea in the winter of The Mennonites received them in quite a distinctive 1786/87. They had already met Count Potemkin, who was and friendly manner. They were extremely interested in preparing the empress' trip to New Russia. He was having a hearing how we had fared. Therefore our brethren had wooden castle built on the banks of the Dnieper near to tell them what happened to us during the expulsion Khonitsa for her reception. When the empress arrived in from our fatherland and from Transylvania, and how we Potemkin's headquarters in Kremenchug in May 1787, she came to Russia. Also of the order and arrangement of invited the deputies to join her on her trip south to the our community, all of which they liked. Praised it and Crimea. They accompanied her and wrote a petition con- did not criticize it. The next day they were led from the taining a twenty-point-program, in which they asked that town of Elbing to Ellerwald to Elder Gerhard Wiebe.5 several conditions be fulfilled. Potemkin agreed to most of those points.8 Then they visited some other communities, and Elder Originally they had planned to found a new settlement Wiebe gave them twenty Bibles and other books. The on the Molochna, slightly southeast of Khortitsa. The soil in brethren also held a collection and gave them traveling the area was good, so that raising cattle and growing grain money. They bought a wagon and two horses with the was possible; and there were markets for their wares in the money collected and traveled along the Vistula to Schwetz, city regions to the north, the Black Sea harbors to the south, on to Kulm, and to Niescheffkel to Elder Abraham Nickel. the harbors of the Sea of Azov, and in the Caucasus. Fifteen people had gathered at the house of Elder Nickel; The Mennonites in the Danzig area were very happy some had come from West Prussia, some from the Driesen about the return of the delegates. There was promise of a colonies Franztal and Brenkenhoffswalde in order to join new future. Georg von Trappe had met with several offi- the Hutterites. Among them were people named Decker, cials to eliminate the reasons cited against the emigration of Schmidt, Knets, and Nachtigal. They [Joseph Muller and the Mennonites. Land had become rare in West Prussia, and Christian Hofer] returned with this group to Vishenka on Russia offered land. Von Trappe arranged a meeting

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 with the delegates for 19 January 1788. At the meeting, the Peter Alexander Rumiantsev (1725-1796) was the com- deputies gave a comprehensive report on their successful mander-in-chief of the Russian troops in this area. He be- agreement with Potemkin in Kremenchug and of the came acquainted with the Mennonites and was supposedly confirmation they had received in St. Petersburg. very impressed by their farming achievements in the Hoppner and Bartsch explained the results of their visit Vistula delta. Rumiantsev was in command of the Russian in detail. The land near Berislav, which had been promised center during the battle near Kunersdorf in 1758, where to them, resembled the land which they currently inhabited Frederick the Great suffered heavy losses; he conquered in many regards. It was ideal for growing grain and raising Kolberg in Pomerania, Tsarina Elizabeth rewarded him cattle. There were also good opportunities for different with the title of field marshal for this achievement. trades and industries. The people present listened with Edward Carstenn's chronicle of Elbing reports that the enthusiasm. Certainly, they also were flattered that the people of Elbing negotiated with Fermor, a Russian gen- tsarina had asked their deputies to join her on the voyage to eral, and that von Soltikov, the lieutenant general, arrived at the Crimea. the landing place and marched into town through the "Their enthusiasm reached its climax when von Trappe market gate on 3 March 1758. The Russian occupants showed a signed copy of the 'extensive privileges, various stayed until 19 September 1762. Pestilence raged and deci- forms of assistance, credits, etc., which Potemkin, the mated the population as a consequence of the war and of omnipotent vice-king of New Russia, granted to them and the occupation. General Fermor, who was from an English [a signed copy] of the official approval from St. family, had also conquered Thorn and became governor- Petersburg.'" general of Prussia in 1758.10 One of the key points was that each family was to He [Rumiantsev] had the Hutterites settle on a farm in receive sixty-five dessiatines of land and twenty dessiatines Vishenka on the Desna. However, when the field marshal's of grassland on the island of Tavan as their personal and descendants wanted to enslave the Hutterites, they appealed heritable property. None of the deputies had been required to Emperor Alexander I in 1801; in 1802 they received the to repay the government's assistance for transport and food crown land from the emperor in Radichev under the same for themselves and their families.9 "conditions and privileges granted to the Mennonites."n 3. A devastating dike breach occurred near Halbstadt in II. Reasons for Emigration the Groß Werder area on 13 March 1781. Many Mennonite inhabitants suffered enormously. The community Elbing- 1. The Hutterites had given the Mennonites very de- Ellerwald therefore decided to support those fellow tailed information on Russia and living conditions there believers, who were affected by the dike breach. They during their visits to the Mennonite communities in Danzig decided to collect money; eighty-three talers were collected and in the area of Driesen. They had often lived with the from the urban Mennonites and 68.20 talers from the rural Mennonites for days and described the conditions in con- Mennonites. In addition, they collected natural produce, versations. For this reason, several small immigration such as wheat, for the value of sixty-five, barley for twenty- waves to Russia took place before the recruiter Georg von two, peas for four, and oats for fifteen talers. The Trappe entered the scene, community collected a total of slightly above 258 talers in 2. The Russian field marshal Count Peter Alexander donations. Rumiantsev recommended the Mennonites from Danzig- Elder Wiebe reported that he held a sermon in August West Prussia to Tsarina Catherine, In Mennonite tradition, 1784 in Barwalde (near Purstenwerder) and that he brought two main principles play a major role in explaining the along donations for the poor which consisted of money and reasons for the immigration to the Ukraine. The first reason grain (wheat, barley, and oats). Wiebe emphasizes that the was Empress Catherine's invitation to immigrate to the donations had been collected to aid those affected by the recently acquired areas of her empire; the second reason dike breach near Fürstenwerder in 1783. was Georg von Trappe's arrival in Danzig. There might 4. During times of war, the population of Danzig— like have been a third reason. How did one know in St. Peters- the rest of the population—usually suffered immensely burg that the Mennonites were good farmers? One possible from pillaging soldiers who spread pestilence and other explanation is that Russian troops and their officers were communicable diseases. In other words, the population was stationed with them [the Mennonites] in Danzig-West dramatically diminished. There was a major popula" Prussia during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and re- ported favorably about their experiences at court. Count

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 14 West Prussia to Russia tion explosion after the Seven Years' War. Thus, the com- second and third sons of farmers, who could not inherit the munities experienced substantial growth. In the Mennonite farm; and there was hardly anything to be bought. They congregation of Elbing, eleven individuals were baptized in were people who could not acquire property due to the 1784, Nineteen individuals were baptized in the "New scarcity of land in the Mennonite communities, as described House" (which refers to the newly built church in above. The community Rosenort then had 1836 members Ellerwald). One hundred fifty-six members participated in and 129 hides and twelve Morgen of land, which means 2.1 Holy Communion in the city, and 282 participated in the Morgen per capita! (One assumed approximately one country. hectare was necessary for a cow!) The community Gerhard Wiebe recorded eleven marriages, forty-three Tiegenhagen had 5.4 Morgen per capita, and the births, and twenty deaths in his official diary in 1787.12 community of Fürstenwerder had 6,7 Morgen [A "Morgen" Thus, there is a mathematical increase by birth of twenty- is an agricultural measure of land varying from 0.6 to 0.9 three individuals. One has to take into consideration that at acres.—Translator]. The first four families departed from that time some children did not live to grow up. From 1748 Danzig on 23 February 1788. Another eighteen families to 1788, the Mennonites increased their land property in the followed them during the course of the year. The first Werder area around Marienburg from 392 to 643 hides— emigrants from the Werder area gathered in Rosenort. A thus almost doubling it—because of their population farewell service was held on 28 July 1788. If one looks at growth.13 [A "hide" is a measure of land varying from 80 to those first emigrants, one cannot but admit that they 120 acres.—Translator] emigrated mainly due to economic reasons and not due to 5, The relation of the King of Prussia, Friedrich questions of conscientious objection. During the discussion Wilhelm II, and the Mennonites worsened in 1784 because of the symposium in Bechterdissen (1989), one participant of the royal army recruiters who were among the members even said that those emigrants were "economic refugees." of the community near Driesen (Netzebruch). Some One might think this expression too rough, but it outlines brethren gathered at Cornelius Warkentin's in Rosenort. the situation better than any other description. Elder Benjamin Wedel and his fellow preacher, Jacob During a conference in Tiegerfeld on 23 September 1788, Wedel from Schwetz, joined them. They reported that three the following emigration figures were announced; young men of their community had voluntarily enlisted in the regiment of the Prince of Prussia (later King Friedrich Community Number of families Wilhelm II). They were now staying with the recruiting Community of Danzig 22 families soldiers near Schwetz and upset the community by their Community of Tiegenhagen 41 families recruiting methods. A decision was made to ask the Prince Community of Rosenort 22 families of Prussia to withdraw the recruiters immediately so that the Communities of Orlofferfelde 6 families community would no longer be upset, Gerhard Wiebe was and Ladekopp asked to write a draft for such a petition. Community of Heubuden 17 families To do justice to the crown prince, the future King Community of Elbing/ 20 families Friedrich Wilhelm II, we should mention that he settled this Ellerwald affair on good terms. However, the relation between him and the Mennonites was never the same as the relation Total 128 families between his uncle Frederick the Great and the Mennonites. The families leaving Prussia had to apply for a pass- III. The Emigration to Russia port and pay ten percent of their property as Abschofi [legacy tax]. These families, by the way, did not emigrate from the "Free State of Danzig," as one sometimes reads 1, The Trek to the Ukraine (Khortitsa) inAmerican descriptions ("Free City of Danzig"). The Free The emigration fever rose after the meeting with State of Danzig did not come into being until after the Bartsch and Hoppner. The administration offices steered Versailles Treaty, that is, after 1920. Danzig at that time against it. They tightened the restrictions for house or land was a city state and was called "Republic of Danzig" for a owners. Those who registered for emigration were mainly short while after the Napoleonic occupation of Prussia "little people," such as carpenters, milk carriers, linen from 1807 to 13 February 1814. weavers, daily workers, servants, and others. They were At the end of 1788, 228 families had emigrated, or

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Mennonite Farmer's House in Khortitsa, Photo courtesy of Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland.

approximately 1,000 individuals. Thirty families from the ous, five-week-long journey. There they rested for four district Gumbinnen (East Prussia) were among them. N, J. weeks, since the cattle were exhausted. Then they contin- Kroeker writes that the first group of emigrants consisted of ued their journey. They followed the left bank of the river fifty persons. They departed on wagons from the village of Dvina southward and came to Dubrovna on the upper Bohnsack near Danzig on Easter Sunday, 22 March 1788. Dnieper. There they were to spend the winter. Other emi- Cornelius Regier, the elder ofHeubuden, admonished them grants followed them. As mentioned above, there was a to exercise the fear of God and brotherly love when bidding total of 228 families. Some of the emigrants were so poor them farewell. He said that those principles should also be that two or three families had to share a wagon. The depu- applied in a foreign country. Unfortunately, the emigrants ties Hoppner and Bartsch led the trek. Some of them had did not always heed his words.14 traveled by boat on the Dvina. In Dubrovna they waited Relatives and friends had gathered to say good-bye to until spring because of the Turkish war. the group of emigrants. Then the journey started. It was Lieutenant Colonel von Stael was in charge for the spring, and parts of the trails were muddy. They spent their government. They [the emigrants] did not arrive in nights in the open air. They arrived in Riga after a strenu- Khortitsa until August 1789. Most of them owned wag ons by then. They had invested part of their support majority. They wrote to congregations in Prussia and asked money m buying vehicles. Those who did not own vehicles for help, since such a large congregation should not be reached their goals on boats that were available on the without a bishop.15 Dnieper from Moilov to Ekaterinoslav. From there they continued with Russian carts. 2. Another Destination than Expected The travelers were bothered by the fact that no preach- ers accompanied them. However, they held reading services While a part of the emigrants was traveling down the at their religious gatherings, where a person chosen for that Dnieper, a group of men led by Jakob Hoppner hurried to task read from a collection of sermons. Then questions Berislav to wait for the ships there. Soon afterwards the arose as to who would marry the young people, who would group arrived in Kremenchug, the center of Potemkin's hold the Holy Communion, and who would try to settle administration for New Russia. When Potemkin heard of arguments of which there were more than a few. One big the new settlers' arrival, he granted them a hearing. He problem was the differences between Frisians and surprised them with the unwelcome news that they were Flemings; the former were slightly more liberal and in the minority, and the latter were more conservative and in the

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 16 West Prussia to Russia not allowed to go to Berislav, He claimed the front of the New Russia. Potemkin died in 1791, and Empress Turkish war was still too close. Potemkin ordered the new- Catherine II died in 1796. The Mennonite immigration was comers to settle along the Dnieper River near the Island of briefly interrupted after those two deaths. After years of Khortitsa. In that area, the plains were rutted by the waking, the Mennonite deputies in St. Petersburg managed Khortitsa Creek and other rivulets and dry stream beds. The to receive the "privilege of grace" from Tsar Paul I (1796- wooded valleys resembled a wilderness, and the soil was 1801). This privilege was supposed to guarantee to all rather sandy. Above all, they did not receive the land that Mennonites already settled and to those who might the scouts Bartsch and Hoppner had selected. immigrate in the future complete religious freedom, release Dr. David Rempel believes that Potemkin's decision from the oath [of allegiance], from military and civic was not prompted by the Russo-Turkish War or the Nogais, service, freedom of trade, and freedom from paying taxes who sometimes were restless, but rather by Governor for ten years. On 20 February 1804, Tsar Alexander I Potemkin's personal interests. Potemkin could count his (1801-1826) issued another manifesto which confirmed the arrangements for Empress Catherine's journey in 1787 as a privilege granted by his predecessor.17 Russia's obliging huge personal success. However, their relationship cooled attitude on the one hand, and Prussia's sometimes less than noticeably after that, although the empress still pursued her obliging attitude on the other hand caused a second huge goal of conquering Constantinople and Alexander's former immigration wave to Russia. The Prussian government was empire (read: Turkey). In July 1787 Court Banker experiencing problems with the French Revolution and with Sutherland and Count Potemkin had entered into a contract the Napoleonic troops, who moved from the west into which was supposed to secure the financing of the settler Germany and on into Prussia in 1806/07. Thus, the Prussian colonies in New Russia, and for which 354,293 rubles were government did not show the same willingness to oblige as set aside. The governor had to ask the finance department of Frederick the Great had formerly shown. New Russia, which was in a chronic state of collapse, for From 1803 to 1805,342 Mennonite families emigrated further financial aid. Thus, it might be explained, according from the Elbing and Marienburg area to South Russia and to Rempel, that the governor forced the settlers to come to were sent to the "Milk River" (Molochna) to settle on an his own estates in order to improve his own personal and area of 120,000 dessiatines. From 1804 to 1806, eighteen financial status. The first eight villages were founded on his villages were founded there. On their way to the Molochna, estate in the fall of 1789 and the winter of 1790. Those the emigrants had the opportunity to halt for a rest with villages are Khortitsa, Rosental, Island of Khortitsa, their brethren in Deutsch Kazun, a few miles from Warsaw. Einlage, Kronsweide, Neuenburg, Neuendorf, and When they continued their journey, they were received in Schonhorst. the first seven villages on the Dnieper (Khortitsa) in a very In 1802 the government acquired approximately 11,755 friendly manner. The newcomers lived in the houses and dessiatines for 24,000 rubles from Councilor of State barns of their brethren for up to two winters, until their Miklashevsky, on which the villages Nieder-Khortitsa, farm houses in the Molochna area were finished and they Burwalde (in fact named after Barwalde near could move in. They also profited from the experiences the Ftirstenwerder), Kronstal, Schoneberg, and Neuosterwick previous immigrants had made during their first years. were founded. Until shortly before the sale—at least until There were additional newcomers from Prussia. Fifty- 1798—this land belonged to Countess Skavronskaya, a seven villages and three outworks had been founded in this relative of Potemkin. Rempel first learned about statements area by 1865. The newcomers, though, were not only from that the Mennonites had been settled on one of Potemkin's West Prussia but also from the Netzebruch area, where private estates from a testimony made by a Mennonite Mennonites settled in 1765 after they had been expelled by representative named Naufeld (probably "Neufeld") during Polish aristocrats. According to Hansler, the first a court suit of the Island of Khortitsa against the fortress Mennonite moved from the Neumark area to South Russia Aleksandrovsk in 1800.16 as early as 1783. In addition, Unruh states that his great- grandfather Benjamin Unruh moved to Volhynia. The 3. Further Migrations to Russia: The Molochna Mennonites' mass migration from the Neumark area took place in 1834. The Mennonites in the Neumark area had The emigrants had originally planned to migrate from received a letter from the ministry in 1831 according to West Prussia to the Molochna. However, they were rerouted to the Khortitsa area by Potemkin, the governor of

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 West Prussia to Russia 17 which the privileges granted to them would henceforth be invalid. Three suggestions were made to the Mennonites, tions and was on the brink of ruin. The state was forced one of them being emigration. The Mennonites petitioned to borrow money from the Netherlands. Each peasant in the King Friedrich Wilhelm III, who was favorably inclined Werder area had to pay an emergency tax of one taler per towards them in principle. He himself gave them the fol- hide.21 Elder Donner notes that, regarding the situation in lowing answer: "My dear children; as much as I would like general, the Mennonites and other peasants earned quite a to help you, I cannot do it." good living because of the rise of food prices. On the other Consequently, the entire community was determined to hand, they suffered from the trade restrictions in the cities. leave the Neumark area. They offered their land in the area In 1810 an important state official, whose name Donner of Driesen for sale. Some of them had even sold their plots does not mention, suggested to the Mennonites that they try over hastily: they learned from the Consul General of to change the king's mind with a gift of 100,000 talers. Danzig that the Russian emperor Nicholas had prohibited They found the sum too high and also felt that unlimited further emigration. They decided to send him a petition freedom of trade might be harmful to the Mennonites from asking him to allow the immigration of another forty a religious point of view. They probably were afraid the families to the Molochna. The petition was sent off in the city might have a negative effect on their simple brethren summer of 1832.19 from the country. After some negotiations back and forth, Elder Lange received the permission to immigrate; in they presented the king with a gift of 10,000 talers on 8 1834 forty families moved to Russia and first stayed in June 1811. The king gratefully received the gift in Potsdam Alexanderwohl, but later founded the colony of and assured them of his special grace. The money was Gnadenfeld. A German traveler, who visited the eighteen deposited at the main bank in Marienwerder on 18 July Molochna villages in 1806, reported; 1811. But Berlin papers announced as early as 27 June 1811: "It is an example of the new dedication to the state, Their houses, stables, barns, gardens, and lands dem- and it deserves public mention that the Mennonite com- onstrate their love of order and diligence. They came munities in East Prussia, West Prussia, and Lithuania— with their own wagons—which were sometimes drawn prompted by their admirable patriotism—volunteered to by five to seven horses—and had brought nice walnut collect a sum of 10,000 talers for the state and put it at the furniture, such as chests, cabinets, chairs, and beds. disposition of His Majesty the King."22 Thus, their living quarters looked rather homey. Many The Mennonites did not have to wait long for the re- of them had sold their property in Prussia for 35,000 to sponse of the West Prussian government. In the beginning 40,000 guilders, and all of them could claim to have of January 1812, the government decreed that the Menno- paid their ten percent emigration tax. Sixty-three of the nites were allowed to buy domains, "regardless of previous 322 families had not taken an advance from the Russian restrictions due to canton duties."23 The French army and government; further, eighty-nine families had brought their allies once again devastated East and West Prussia in 10,000 to 12,000 gold guilders which they used to 1812/13. Danzig was occupied by the Russians and support their poor brethren. In just two years after their Prussians in 1813. The French forces attacked, pillaged the immigration most of their houses were completely sand bar area horrendously, and drove all the cattle they finished. These diligent people even owned beautiful could find into town while they were retreating. The windmills for the bolting of flour. The Mennonites not Prussians then planned to enter the fight with their home only brought many cows, horses, and sheep from reserves, and they also wanted to enlist the Mennonites. Prussia but also bulls for breeding.20 Since the Mennonites did not comply, they were maltreated by the people coming through. However, the king released On the whole, the Prussian government's attitude to- the Mennonites from doing duty in the home reserves by wards the Mennonites was mixed at the time of King way of his resolution of 25 August 1813 made in Toplitz/ Friedrich Wilhelm III. After defeating Prussia during the Bohemia. Subsequently, however, several young Menno- Prussian-French war of 1806/07, Napoleon reduced the nites were conscripted to the baggage train. The objections number of inhabitants in Prussia from fifteen to five mil- of the elders were put aside with the statement that the train lion by claiming huge portions [of Prussia]; at the same did not require military duties, but rather harnessing duties. time, he requested unmanageable war reparations. The Those conscripted were eventually released as well. (Those Prussian state could not pay the enormous war contribu who are of the opinion that the main reason for the Mennonites' emigration consisted of the Prus"

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 18 West Prussia to Russia sian government's rejection of their attitude towards mili- made the decision that "compulsory military service should tary service should study the sources more carefully.) be universal for everybody." On 28 August 1848, they re- Back to the Molochna: By 1863 fifty-seven villages jected "a release from military service because of religious and three outworks had been founded in that region, partly reasons." by newcomers from Schwetz and Kulm.24 At that time, most of the Rhenish Mennonites (Krefeld) These immigrants on the Molochna brought consid- had accepted their military duty. However, Amish peasants erable property assets with them, in contrast to the immi- and landlords in the Trier area frequently formed an grants of the old colony Khortitsa, which mainly consisted exception; in 1815 they lived or had moved to areas which of poorer people. Dr. Karl Lindemann, a professor in fell to Prussia at the Congress of Vienna (Rhine Province). Simferopol, was an expert in this area. Some older The elders and preachers of the West Prussian Men- Mennonites from Russia, such as Hans Hubert of Weierhof nonites gathered in Heubuden near Marienburg on 14 Sep- (Palatinate), still remember him. Even at a very advanced tember 1848 and composed a petition, in which they asked age and after having gone blind, Lindemann, who was born the representatives in Frankfurt to make an exception for in 1844 in Nizhni Novgorod on the Volga, gave lectures at their approximately 11,000 members. They refuted [the Mennonite schools in Russia. Hubert remembers that he opinion of] Hermann von Beckerath, one of their Krefeld visited the Mennonite central school in Karasan (Crimea) Mennonite brethren, who served as a representative at the and Orlov along the Molochna and gave lectures on the Paulskirche and as finance minister for short periods of tsetse fly in 1922/23. time in 1848/49; namely, they rejected his statement "that Professor Lindemann relied on the archives of Pro- most Rhenish Mennonites had accepted the military duty" fessor G. G. Pissarevsky as far as the immigrants' property as not applicable to the West Prussian Mennonites.26 assets are concerned. According to those archives, the In Prussia the special rules for the Mennonites regard- settlers brought not only cattle, horses, and farming ing conscientious objection were confirmed several times, equipment with them but also considerable sums of money. for example by the Prussian chamber of deputies on 17 In July 1804 ninety Mennonite families with 501 members February 1853, when the state government declared "that arrived and brought 100,000 Prussian guilders in money the Mennonites' privilege of release from military duty was and goods with them; that was a very large sum at the time. not altered by the constitution."27 In August of the same year, seventy-six families with 401 At the same time, the Mennonites threatened with members arrived. They brought money and goods emigration. In that case, mainly the wealthy would emi- equivalent to 112,719 Prussian talers with them; grate.28 The biographies of the trek leaders Claaß Epp from Lindemann describes that as bordering on wealth. Fürstenwerder and Johann Wall from Ladekopp prove only Lindemann thus argues against theses, which were in part that the Mennonites' immigration to the colony Am spread by Russian nationalists of his time (in the 1920s), Trakt was mainly caused by conscientious objection being that the immigrants had arrived with empty pockets, had abolished in Prussia. His EEpp's] father had been mayor in enriched themselves at the Russian peasants' expense, and Fürstenwerder, and, just like him, he had the talent to lead had "taken the bread out of their mouths."25 others. He traveled the country in Russia in search of appropriate settlement sites. He emigrated in 1853 and IV. The Final Major Emigration Wave in 1848 founded the village of Hahnsau with his four sons and others. It was the oldest Mennonite village on the Volga. The introduction of a new military service act in the Epp could be charming and, at the same time, show North German Confederation [Norddeutscher Bund} was relentless toughness to his subordinates.29 Whether those one of the reasons for the final major immigration wave to are particular character traits of conscientious objectors Russia. This military service act is essentially a result of the might be questioned by many a thoughtful reader, Epp French Revolution, with its demand for "equality"; owned another three properties in the village of Orlov and in the end, however, this demand led to a "leveling out." was considered a diligent farmer. In the beginning, he was The Prussian dynasty of the Hohenzollern was, for the most not in a leadership position, though he tried to attain it in part, favorably inclined towards the Mennonites and secular and church matters. In the 1870s he started to accepted their being different. The "upright democrats," predict the last days and, according to Rev. 12:14, wanted however, had different ideas on this, especially those of the to prepare a safe haven for the Mennonites. The well- parliament at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt/Main. They meaning but mistaken man turned into a heretic.30 One might

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 ask whether Epp did not have those thoughts on his mind earlier. In any case, one of the results of his teachings was nized emigration to Russia, although separate emigra- the emigration of this particular group to Asia. The second tions still occurred afterwards, partly until 1880.33 leader of this group was Johann Wall, preacher of the The area is located in the Samara district and measured Ladekopp community. He accompanied Claaß Epp as a 9,794 dessiatines (that is almost as much in hectares). scout to Russia in order to look for land. From 1853 to Almost all of the immigrants were German, a total of 182 1858 he served as first Elder. On the one hand. Wall was a families with 884 persons in 1913. Of those families, 133 convinced proponent of the Mennonite belief in families with 551 persons belonged to the Mennonite conscientious objection; on the other hand, he was deeply congregation of Alexandertal; twenty families with ninety- influenced by chiliasm. Chiliasm—to which Epp adhered seven persons belonged to the Mennonite Brethren as well—had its origin with Jung-Stilling and Christoph congregation of Mariental; twenty-eight families were Cloters. It determined (according to Gerhard Hein) their Lutheran; and one family with five persons was Roman "turning toward the east," which obviously influenced the Catholic. "exodus" of a group of Mennonites from the Volga to The climate was "continental," that is, the summers Middle Asia in 1880/81; Wall's son, Cornelius, participated were short and partly dry, and the winters were long and in it as well.31 Thus, one might assume that a combination snowy. The next market town was 120 versts (125 of conscientious objection with chiliasm and withdrawal kilometers) away. It was only at such a distance that one from the world was the reason for the last emigration wave. could sell the colony's products, such as wheat, oats, millet, At that time, the Russian government allowed one and good potatoes. This remoteness had been chosen hundred West Prussian Mennonite families to immigrate; it deliberately to keep the members of the community away asked, however, that 350 talers be deposited, out of which from the harmful influences of the world. This, however, the travel advances should be paid. They deposited the changed in the course of time, when a cheese dairy was money at the Russian consulate in Berlin; after subtracting established there. In addition, the railroad from Simbirsk to the expenses, the remaining money was to be paid to them Bugulma was established there in 1911, and land prices had later. Each family received 160 dessiatines of land; the risen fifteen to twenty times by 1913. release from military duty was granted for twenty years, At that time, the population consisted of Lutherans and after which fees had to be paid for the release from military Catholics, who had immigrated as Germans from Poland. duty. The settlers were supposed to be showcase farmers The other neighbors were Russians, Estonians, for their surroundings. Mordovians, Chuvashs, and Tatars, many of whom made In 1853 the first twenty-two families left West Prussia, up the working class of the Alexandertal volost.34 led by Epp and Wall. They stayed with their brethren on the Molochna until the land was divided. By 1880 the 2. Statistics following ten villages had been founded: Hahnsau, Koppental, Lindenau, Fresenheim, Hohendorf, It is difficult to come up with a final figure of emi- Lysanderhoh, Orlov, Valuyevka, Ostenfeld, and Medemtal. grants. Dr. Stumpp, probably the most knowledgeable One hundred ninety-seven families with 1,176 inhabitants expert on Germans in Russia, refers to Dr. Horst Quiring's lived in that area in 1897.32 following final figures:

1. Alexandertal Immigration to Amount To the colony of Khortitsa about 400 families From 1859 to 1870, Mennonite emigrants from West to the colonies of Prussia also lived in the Alexandertal volost. The first Taurida and Molochna 1,049 families settlers, led by Claaß Epp, arrived on 20 August 1859. to the colonies of Samara 438 families They covered a distance of about two thousand kilometers ______"by land, in a trek lasting months, with wagons drawn by horses, bringing farming equipment, cattle, and sheep with There were also many single 1,887 families35 them." This was the last orga individuals among the immigrants. For example, the church book of the

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 20 West Prussia to Russia Ladekopp congregation near Danzig, which is deposited at the Mennonite research center, contains a statement from 11 August 1873 by Elder David Hamm from Koppental which indicates that one of the owners, Jacob Reimer, had come to West Prussia as a bachelor, but that he was addicted to drink and therefore was excluded from the Holy Communion. It might be assumed that he had come to West Prussia in search of a bride.36 Stumpp calculates the number of persons based on Horst Quiring's figures: Assuming four persons per family: 7,550 persons Assuming 3.4 persons per family: 6,500 persons.37 Gerhard Hein thinks that about 2,300 families with about 10,000 persons emigrated from Danzig and Prussia (which also includes the Netzebruch area) between 1788 and 1868. Pour hundred sixty families moved to Khortitsa, J, Comics' House in Orlov. Photo courtesy of 1,200 families to the Molochna, 580 families to the Volga Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland. (Am Trakt and Alexandertal), sixty families to Poland and elsewhere, V. Achievements When talking of "Poland," one has to consider that the The immigration of the Mennonite farmers—who often communities Deutsch Kazun, Deutsch Wymysle, Wola moved to Russia together with Protestant tradesmen— Oscynska, and Wola Wodcynska also belonged to Russia strongly contributed to the improvement of farming and until 1916. farming techniques in Russia. This also included the es- Taking population increase through births and immi- tablishment of machinery factories. Johann Cornies, born in gration and subsequent [decrease through] emigration into 1789 in Barwalde, deserves special credit in this area. His account, Hein comes up with the following figures father had gone to sea from Danzig and had seen a large part [Mennonites in Russia]: of the world. Cornies grew up in Schonbaum on the Frische Around 1840: about 17,500 Nehrung; he and his parents emigrated from Muhlhausen in Around 1865: about 37,000 the district of Prussian Holland to Khortitsa in 1804. At that Around 1890: about 52,000 time, Tsar Alexander I invited the Mennonites to Russia and (About 18,000 of the 45,000 Mennonites immigrated promised them land, release from military duty, release from to North America after 1874, due to the introduction having to pay taxes for a number of years, self-government, of general military duty.) etc.39 Around 1915: about 104,000 Two years later, the family moved to the Molochna, During World War I: 120,000 and the father worked as a physician among the Nogais, a Around 1940: about 90,000 shepherd people, who lived near the Molochna. His son (dramatic decrease because of famine, deportations, purchased and rented several estates, contributed to the and epidemics) progress of the educational system, helped establish a farm- 1945: about 60,000 ing association, and further contributed to the education of 38 1948: about 60,000 to 80,000 (estimated) German and Russian apprentices and to the improvement of As a principle, the Germans and the Mennonites did the product yield per area. Because of his breeding talents, not immigrate to Russia because of religious repression, livestock production was greatly improved by the The periods of enlightened absolutism and high baroque introduction of Merino sheep and the "red German cow," were no longer a time of religious persecutions. We have which, according to his testimony, came to the Ukraine already explained what happened to the Salzburgers and with German settlers. The "red German cow" is essentially what Maria Theresia did to the Protestants (and the a milk cow, which nowadays is still "red," but not Hutterites) in her empire. The restriction of the principle of "German" any longer.40 conscientious objection was also only a partial reason for Cornies also furthered crop and fruit farming. This the Mennonites' emigration. included the planting of shelter belts for protection against the winds that scorched the steppe.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 West Prussia to Russia 21 The settlers exceeded the government's expectations. nies in Haifa, Sorona, Jaffa, and Rephaim. The German The Bolshevik administrations gave them no thanks for houses in Haifa with their German inscriptions still exist that. In the 1920s, the settlers' descendants were dispos- today. The temple ideas also reached the Mennonite colo- sessed, deported, and some of them were murdered. J. C. nies of Logion and Alexandrodar in the Caucasus. As early Toews estimates that the famous Cornies (who died in as 1870 (and during the subsequent years), several dozen 1848) had about 700 descendants. Eighteen of those de- Russian Mennonites (Templar Mennonites) immigrated to scendants were listed as murdered, and fifty-six were sent Palestine and joined the local Templars. They also helped to exile by the KGB.41 During the chaos of the Revolution found the Templar settlement near WiIhelma (near Lydda). and the Stalin era, 40,000 of the 120,000 Mennonites living These Mennonites came from the settlements in Russia were murdered or died otherwise.42 Wohldemfürst and Alexanderfeld on the Kuban River.44 Fifty daughter settlements of different sizes originated When Emperor Wilhelm II visited the Holy Land from the mother settlements; they comprised 385 villages (1898), he unrestrainedly praised the achievements of the and cultivated an area of 725,000 hectares, which is equal colonists, who numbered 1,200 at the time.45 These colo- to the area of the former kingdom of Württemberg, The nists, who later reached a number of 2,000, were restricted daughter settlements went as far as the Caucasus, Orenburg and then deported to Australia and Cyprus after 1939. As in in the Ural Mountains—where they still exist today—and Russia, their possessions were expropriated. They strongly to the Asian part of Russia. Most of them [the Mennonites] influenced street construction, education, and agriculture in live there today after they were released from deportation the Holy Land. Many Jewish settlers and Arabs could learn and exile (about 1954/55). from them.46 Since 1847 the Russian government tried to settle Jews Many Mennonites had emigrated from Russia since In a Jewish area [Judenplan} near Khortitsa, It established 1874 because of the introduction of general military duty. six villages with about eight Jewish families and some First, 18,000 left for North America. From 1921 to 1926, Mennonite model farms. The settlement was planned for another 21,000 tried to escape their hardships by migrating forty to sixty Jewish families. The project was not always to Canada. In 1929, about 6,000 left Russia and, after successful. In 1851 the government selected Dietrich Epp, spending some time in German camps, most of them im- then thirty-two years old, as local supervisor. On 3 April migrated to Fernheim in Paraguay, Hundreds of thousands 1900, when Epp died at the age of eighty, the Jewish writer of their descendants currently live in North America, Sinov described Epp's activities at his grave side: "When Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. They use Dietrich Davidovich was named the supervisor of the West Prussian Low German as their colloquial idiom, and Hebraic colony, he immediately started to manage the they use the Elbing Catechism (first edition 1778) for their colonies entrusted to him in an able manner..,. The local baptismal instruction. The same catechism—also known as supervisor did not spare any efforts to give the settlers the "Prussian Catechism"—was published by the Amish enormous help by his instructions in agriculture. During from Hessia as "Waldeck Catechism" (first edition 1797). the work in the fields, he constantly drove around on the The Amish in the United States still use it today, as the steppe and instructed the Jewish farmers through words author was able to witness in Pennsylvania in 1989. Since and deeds on how to cultivate the land. He also showed 1953 Mennonites and related emigrants have come back to them how to plant trees around the house."43 [former] West Germany from the [former] USSR. Hans One might consider the history of this Jewish area no von Niessen from Neuwied, the Mennonite resettlement more than "a pebble in the big sea" of history. However, administrator, lists their total numbers as 45,000 to 50,000 starting at the end of the nineteenth century, about 25,000 for the [former] Federal Republic of Germany and 1,000 Eastern European Jews immigrated to Palestine within a for the [former] German Democratic Republic.47 After short period of time. It might be possible that some of them World War II, some of the Mennonites' descendants joined might have put their experiences in the Jewish area near the Baptists, Evangelical Christians, and Pentecostal Khortitsa to practice. Christians. Those are comprised in the above number. The It is certain, though, that pietistic-chiliastic circles restrictive [Russian] minority politics— which caused formed a temple congregation, which was led by the theo- many Mennonites to immigrate to America beginning in logian Christoph Hoffmann, near Marbach—north of 1874, and back to the Federal Republic of Germany since Stuttgart—in Württemberg in 1861. Some members of this Adenauer's visit to Moscow in 1955—generated quite a congregation immigrated to Palestine and founded colo number of curiosities. The immigrants took

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 22 West Prussia to Russia a special kind of hard wheat to the prairie states of the 18. Penner, 35. [The reference to this note is missing in the United States (Kansas, North and South Dakota) and of original text.—Translator.] 19. Benjamin Unruh, "Die Mennoniten in der Neumark," Canada (Saskatchewan and Manitoba), and cultivated it ChristlicherGemeindekalenderl94](.Kaiserslautern, 1971): 71. with success. 20. Penner, 34-37. North America has produced an agricultural surplus and 21. Ibid., 37. has sent huge grain shipments to the USSR for decades. 22. From the community chronicle written by Elder Heinrich The resettlers send packages from Germany to their friends Donner of the community Orlofferfelde; [the chronicle is] part and family in the [former] Soviet Union. All this is of the church book of the community Orlofferfelde, [which is deposited] at the Mennonitische Forschungsstelle in Weierhof happening because Russia, especially since 1915, has prac- (Palatinate). Page 6 of typed manuscript in possession of the ticed a misguided agricultural policy and later, after the present author. collectivization, a misguided economic policy; those poli- 23. Penner, 37. cies had catastrophic consequences. Had the Germans in 24. See Donner, 20 ff., and Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. Russia been allowed to stay independent in their economic, "Molotschna" by Abraham Braun. 25. Karl Lindemann, "Von deutschen Kolonisten in Rußland," cultural, and religious development, they could have con- Schriften des Deutschen Auslandsinstituls Stuttgart, A. tinued to be a great gain for the peoples of the [former] Kulturhist. Reihe 14 (3924); 38. Soviet Union. 26. Horst Gerlach, "Die Wehrfreiheit der Ost- und Westpreutiischen Mennoniten und die Reichsversammlung von 1848," Westpreufien-Jahrbwh 24 (1974); 112. 27. Johann Wilhelm Mannhard .Die Wehrfreiheit der NOTES Altpreupischen Mennoniten (Danzig, 1863): 188 f. (basic). 28. Gerlach, "Wehrfreiheit," 113. 1. Erich Bucninger, "Der imherische Zuzug zu den Hutterischen 29. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v, "Am Trakt" by Cornelius Krahn. Brüdern im 18. Jahrhundert," in Die hutterischen Täufer, Krahn is of the erroneous opinion that the problem of "consci- Geschichte, Hinlergrund und handwerkliche Leistwg entious objection" was the main reason for emigration! (Weierhof, 1985), 143. 30. Mennonite Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., s.v. "Claaß Epp." 2. Ibid. 31. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Johann Wall" by G. Hein. 3. David Rempel, "The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia, A 32. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Am Trakt" by Cornelius Krahn Sketch of its Founding and Endurance 1789-1919," and Gerhard Hein, Mennonite Quarterly Review XLVII (1973); 277. 33. Karl Stumpp, Die Auswanderung aus Deulschland nach 4. Mennonite Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., s.v. "Hutteria Bretheren." Rußland in den Jahren 1763-J862 (Tübingen, ?), 166. 5. From Amtstagebuch des Ältesten Gerhard Wiebe van der 34. Mennonitisches Lexikon (Weierhof, 1913), s.v. "Alexandertal." Gemeinde Elbing-Ellerwcild (Menn. Forschungsstelle, 35. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Rußland" by Hein and Stumpp, Weierhof [Palatinate]), 71. This carefully written official 166. diary contains many details and covers the years from 1778 to 36. Horst Gei\ach, Bildbandwr Geschichte der 1796. Wiebe died in 1796. [See] Klein-Geschichtsbuch der Mennoniten(\.S\ien-Oldenstadt, 1980), 79. hutterischen Brüder, ed. A. J, F. Zieglschmid (Philadelphia, 37. Stumpp, 575. Pennsylvania, 1947), 369. 38. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Rußland" by Hein, 6. Ibid. 39. Compare Horst Gerlach, "Johann Comies—Bin Westpreuße 7. David Rempel, "Bemerkungen zu unserer Mennonitischen reformiert die russische Landwirtschaft," Westpreufien- Geschichte," Der Bole 34 (1966). Jahrbuch 1975: 138, 8. Ibid.; [see also] N. J. Kroeker, Erste Mennonilendorfer 40. Horst Gerlach, "Der Mennonitische Beitrag zur agrarischen Rußlands 1789-1943, Chortitza-Rosenlal (reprint, Coaldale. Entwicklung RußIands; Die rote deutsche Kuh," Der Bole 17, British Columbia, 1981), 11-13. 18, and 21 (.m\). 9. Kroeker, 14. 41. C. J. Toews, [?], Leamington, Canada; [manuscript] typed in 10. Edward Carstenn, Die Geschichte der Hansesladt Elbing Karlsruhe-Rlippur in 1954, 1; deposited at Mennonitische (Elbing, 1937), 404-406. Porschungsstelle Weierhof, 11. Rempel, ["The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia"?], 278. 42. Horst Gerlach, "Schicksal der Mennoniten aus Rußland und 12. Wiebe, Amtstagebuch, 42, 90-94. der Sovietunion," in Weltweite Bruderschaft by Horst Penner, 13. Walter Hubatsch, "Friedrich der Große und Westpreußen," Horst Gerlach and Horst Quiring (Weierhof, 1984), 269. Westprenpen-Jahrbuch 1972: 12. Compare also Gerhard Hein, "Die Mennonitengemeinden in 14. [See] Horst Penner, Die Ost- und Westpreujßischen der Sovietunion," Ev. Diaspora, Jahrbuch der Gustav-Adoff- Mennoniten, vol. II (Kirchheimbolanden [Palatinate], 1987), Werkes 41 (1970); 105. 31-32. and Kroeker, 14. 43. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Judenplan." 15. [See] Franz Thiessen, Neuendorfin Wort und Bild, Chortizer 44. Mennonitisches Lexikon, s.v. "Tempelgemeinde" by Chr. Neff Bezirk, 1789, 1943 (Espelkamp, 1984), 7, and Kroeker, 14, and Cornelius Krahn. 16. Rempel, [?]. Der Bote 35 (1966). 45. Paldstina-Chronik compiled by Alexander Carmel (Langenau- 17. Mennonitisches Lexikon (Karlsruhe, 1958), s.v. "Rußland" by Ulm, 1983). 225. G. Hein. 46. Paul Sauer. Uns riefdas Heilige Land, die Tempelgesellschaft im Wandel der Zeit (Stuttgart, 1985). 47. Information by Hans von Niessen, Neuwied, 18 January 1990.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994

Bertha Binder On 23 March 1993 I was welcomed into the home of Mrs. Her parents were very strict, said Mrs. Binder, and Bertha Binder in order to gather information about her expected their children to meet curfews, once they started experiences during the Great Depression. Although I did going to Saturday night dances. They were instructed to some background reading to familiarize myself with key return home immediately after the dance. Since Mrs. issues facing our nation at this time in history, I did not Binder liked to dance so well, she had her mother's bless- influence Mrs. Binder's answers to the many questions ing to stay until the dance was over because she wanted to concerning the project. I relied on three sources to enlighten dance the last dance. myself on the subject of the depression: Caroline Bird, The The Pfannenstiel family was involved m farming and Invisible Scar (New York: D. McKay Co., 1966), Glenda this operation enlisted the talents of not only the men but Riley, The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of also the women, who shared the field work. There was no Women on the Prairie and the Plains (Lawrence, Kansas: female/male distinction as far as chores were concerned— University Press of Kansas, 1988), and Joanna L. Stratton, everyone was expected to contribute his fair share. For Pioneer Women: Mrs. Binder this included milking, feeding the animals, Voices from the Kansas Frontier (New York; Simon & gardening, and household jobs. She remembers thrashing Schuster, 1981). The information contained in this report as being one of her favorite times of the year on the farm. pertains only to Mrs. Binder's experiences during the Although the thrashing was done by hire and it meant a lot depression years. of work, it was a time shared by neighbors. There was a Mrs. Bertha Binder was born on 27 December 1913 in need for many wagons to carry the grain, so the neighbors Topeka, Kansas, to Nicholas A. Pfannenstiel and Anna pooled their wagons together and helped each other haul Wasinger. She was the oldest child of the family and had the grain into the barns; one of the wagons was her charge. one sister and one brother. Within the first year of her Using a team of horses, Mrs. Binder plowed, disked, and birth, Mrs. Binder's parents moved to the Antonino area drilled in the field. Drilling caused her the most stress, where her parents took up farming. After her father's death, mainly because she wanted to be sure the rows were drilled the family became a part of the Wasinger family. One year straight and that the seeders would function properly, after her father's death, Mrs. Binder's mother married Nick leaving no unseeded areas behind. There were crops of J, Pfannenstiel, whose wife had died leaving him with two feed that were cut and raked with a dump rake. Later on the sons and two daughters. Eventually four brothers and one horses were traded for a tractor, and Mrs. Binder retired sister were added to the blended family. Mrs. Binder's fam- from the field work except for her help in stacking the feed. ily farmed one mile south and one mile east of Munjor, The days in the Pfannenstiel household were filled moving to and from the farm in the spring and fall of the with many activities, which started with feeding the ani- year. For the most part, Mrs. Binder spent the fall and mals and milking, followed by breakfast. After breakfast, winter months living in Munjor, going to school, and the daily care of the house, siblings, washing, cooking, and family moved to and lived on the farm during the spring yard work had to be done. Monday was not a washday in and summer months. Mrs. Binder married Alois Binder on the Pfannenstiel family; that was reserved for Tuesdays. 19 April 1932, and they continued farming with the Binder Mrs. Binder still remembers her mother's first washing family. They are still involved in farming south of Hays, machine, which needed to be hand-cranked to set the agi- and have one daughter and one son. tator into motion. She and her siblings took turns pushing At the onset of the Great Depression, Mrs. Binder was the lever to-and-fro to do the wash. It took the strength of a teenager who enjoyed spending time with friends, sing- two people to maneuver the lever, and this task was hard, ing, and dancing. Sundays were set aside for socializing in tiring work. the neighborhood. Mrs. Binder said that they had no car, so What detergent was used to do the wash? Mom's they walked to the neighbors and relatives to visit. One of homemade soap, of course. She said that her mother was her favorite activities on those days was to make ice cream very particular about getting the soap made just right, and with her friends. She recalls that, at times, there was not it had to be white. enough ice, "so the boys had to walk home and get some "Mother made the soap and we had to get things for more ice. Well, I tell you we got it churned together." They her. They butchered their own pork and rendered the lard made good ice cream.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 with those cracklings. That's what she made the soap with. stress was a family relative who would come to the We had to bring everything to her so she could fix the soap. house to sew for the family. Some of the summer hours She made nice soap; it had to be white." were spent "recycling" old worn out clothes, some for rags; Her mother was equally particular about the bread or they were cut into strips, sewn together, rolled into a making, which took place several times a week. "Every ball, and braided to make rugs. This project usually other day she would make bread, too. She mixed the dough involved four people, three to sew the strips and one to roll in a special bread pan, and I wanted to help, but my mother them into a ball. They were then braided and sewn or always thought she could do everything the best. She didn't crocheted together to make rugs. Mrs. Binder said that she turn anything over to us very easily, especially not the still has some of those rugs. Nothing went to waste—not bread making. She also did all the cooking." even scraps of leftover material. These were used to make Much of the food used by the family was grown on the piece quilts. There was also embroidery work and farm and included meats and vegetables. Frequently, soup crocheting to be done. So the days were filled with a served as the main meal of the family in those days, the variety of things to keep one busy. Mrs. Binder also had a main meal being the noon meal. There was a smaller meal job doing house-cleaning before she got married, and she served at supper time which included homemade sausage. gave part of her earnings to her mother for household Their garden supplied the vegetables, and made for lots of expenses. canning for the winter months. There were many In April 1932 Mrs. Binder got married. Prior to the blackberries, Schwanberren, to pick, potatoes had to be wedding, arrangements were made for the occasion, Mrs. dug, and of course hoeing and weeding went along with the Binder had this to say about the preparations: gardening. A vivid memory of Mrs. Binder's was that of making sauerkraut in the fall. The cabbage was shredded Well, we got called out in church on Sunday [meaning and put into a crock, which provided enough kraut to last that the priest announced the upcoming marriage three the winter. The cabbage cores were a favorite treat for to four weeks before the wedding]. Monday, my fiancé, those persons working on this project. his parents, and I went to town and bought the things Mrs. Binder talked about the family togetherness for the wedding. The dress cost ten dollars; the veil was shared after chores were completed. This included sitting seven dollars and fifty cents. I had my engagement ring on the porch swing singing, and listening to the radio, already; it cost fifteen dollars, and the wedding band which was the prized possession of the household. When was ten dollars. Immediate family members attended the battery ran down, it was a sad day in the household the wedding ceremony as well as the meals served to because a replacement was not always a priority item the families. The food was prepared by various family needed for the family. Mrs. Binder said that part of the members and included roast, potatoes, gravy, bread, and money she and her siblings got for wensching on New cake. The dance was held in a hall at Schoenchen, Year's was used to pay for a battery replacement or some where other guests were invited to participate in the household bill which needed to be paid. There was an old wedding dance. victrola that played music which the family danced to. The children learned to dance polkas [hochzeits] and waltzes After her marriage, she and her husband lived with her out on the porch. Her father played the organ around which in-laws for one year before moving to a farmstead just one everyone gathered to sing German songs. There were yard mile away. There she took care of the chores while her games, charades, playing school and house, and dolls. The husband continued working on the family farm of his dolts were stocking dolls very specially made by Grandma, parents. They hatched their own chickens, sold milk, but, oftentimes, a quart jar filled with water and wrapped cream, and eggs in order to buy supplies they needed in with a blanket served as the doll. their home; and besides that, the water had to be hauled in Having such a large family required not only extra food to the farm since there was no suitable drinking water to be but also mending from Mrs. Binder's mother. Each child found on the property. She said that they had no money but was equipped with three sets of clothes: one for everyday, that they were happy. They always had lots of visitors and two for school and church. Although Mrs. Binder did all good friends. the mending and sewed the boys' shirts, someone was hired Two years later they moved another house to a nearby to sew dresses for the girls and to make other items such as farmstead, where Mrs. Binder was thrilled to have water curtains for the house. At times, the seam and could actually hand pump water for her farm needs. In her words, "It was heaven!" The nearest neighbor was

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 half a mile away and there were visitors three times a week. came without warning in the midst of a beautiful sunny day Sundays were always days spent visiting and playing cards. or just as the sun was setting. Like rolling clouds, they So her life after her marriage was very similar to life as came sweeping across the fields and deposited dust she knew it while she was single. Mrs. Binder said, everywhere. Machinery was sometimes buried in drifts of however, that the washboard was used to do laundry at the dirt similar to snowdrifts, and one had to scoop the dirt Binder household and that her duties remained pretty much away to uncover the equipment. At one time, the Binders the same as those she carried out at home. She got a sewing were en route to visit some neighbors and suddenly met machine from her mother, which she used to make items for with a dust storm, the force of the wind so strong that it the house. Money left over from their wedding gifts was propelled the car to its destination. During this time, people used to purchase a bed, mattress, and dresser. She was learned to look for signs on the horizons, but oftentimes given a small china cabinet with glass doors for storing the they got caught in the midst of the storm while working in dishes. As for the table, chairs, and stoves, Mrs. Binder had the field, grabbed the seemingly electrified fence line and this to say: "The table and chairs, well, I still have the blindly fought the dust and wind to find their way home. chairs, but not the table; but I still have the chairs and I And what a chore to clean up! But this task was like all treasure them. We had three stoves in that kitchen: a other struggles and demands of that time—one learned to kerosene stove, a range stove, and a heating stove, a pot- adjust to it. After several storms, the cleanup became rou- bellied heating stove. We had plenty of room, and we tine, as people accustomed themselves to the inevitable burned cow chips for heating. Mr. Binder picked them up at task. Floors were swept with brooms dipped in kerosene, the experiment station, seven loads at one time, and stacked which seemed to be the only way to pick up the fine dust them up. We burned them and carried out the ashes. Doesn't particles. There were many "spring cleanings" during those that sound like fun to you? I tell you we were really happy, days! Windows were sealed off with some type of tape, really happy." along with moist rags, and dampened bed sheets were Mrs. Binder related a story about the uniqueness of draped over babies* cribs to keep the dust from entering. friends, relatives, and the trust they had in each other. She Not until May of that year was there enough rainfall to said that they never locked their doors when they left the settle the dust. This is what Mrs. Binder had to say about house. She described one such occasion: the dust storms:

I have to tell you this. We left one evening with the In the morning of 2 February 1935, we got ready to go horse and buggy and went to visit the folks. As we were to a funeral two o'clock in the afternoon. Looking to the returning home that evening, I noticed something at our north as we were at the cemetery, the sky looked dark house. I said, "Gosh, I think there's light in the house. gray, kind of like smoke, as if somebody were burning Drive faster so we can get home." I thought there was a rubber tires. Wind was calm, actually beautiful sunny fire. Well, when we got home, there were two couples day until 7:30 p.m. My mother was visiting with me, there, now I tell you, we had more fun that night, in that and we had just had our first baby. There were some old house, just visiting. The house wasn't on fire, had a other visitors there, too. All at once, a strong wind came kerosene lamp on the table, we could hardly see each up; it sounded like a whirlwind. We jumped up and other. One was my uncle, and a cousin who came from looked out; we thought it would stop like the the south picked up another on the way. They had the whirlwinds do, but it didn't. Our visitors decided they house nice and warm for us when we got home; we had had better go; so to get to the car, they took each other plenty of cow chips there and they [the visitors] had it by the hand so the wind didn't take them up in the air. warm. And they started for home; we were so worried about them getting home. Mamma prayed loud. On their way Two years after moving to their first farmstead, Mr. and home, sometimes they saw the road, sometimes they Mrs., Binder moved a house onto another farmstead nearby. didn't. We had no way of knowing if they got home At the time of this move, Mrs. Binder recalled, there were safely; there was no telephone. All we smelted was the dust storms, which started 2 February and lasted until l0 dust; it smelled terrible. And we were worried about the May 1935. "It was unbelievable how a house in the process baby. Were we going to take him to bed with us or put of being moved could withstand such strong winds without him in his crib? We were young and inexperienced; being lifted from the trailer," The storms we didn't know what to do. So we put a sheet over the

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 top of the baby bed; it hung to the floor. We were necessities. Everybody came, your brothers and sisters worried about the baby getting enough air. came, and we went to visit them. This was one of the The next morning we had to clean up before few times of the year that we got to eat candy, nuts, and breakfast. That was a sight to see! Everything was oranges. Fruit was a big part of the Christmas tradition, dusty—the water bucket with the dipper in it, the we'd get to eat oranges once a year. Then we went dishes in the cupboard were dusty, the printed table- wensching on New Year's and got either candy or a cloth could not be seen for all the dust. And when you nickel or dime. Mom took some of this money, not all walked across the floor, you raised the dust. So we of it, and she paid the electricity bill. My dad had a started to wash dishes, clean out the water bucket and godchild who would come to the house at four o'clock dipper, and got the table cleaned up. We started to in the morning on New Year's, and shoot in the new sweep the floor with a broom, but we only raised more year. In German the saying was, Das Neue Jahr dust. It wouldn't sweep. We thought of the kerosene angeschossen. The godchildren did that as a rule, and lamps and poured some kerosene in a basin, dipped in Dad thought so much of that, he just felt so proud. the broom, and started sweeping. That was the only Easter was the same way. Mamma would say, "Put all way we could sweep up the dust. We swept it into your hats out there by the stove. Whoever doesn't do it, piles, which were scooped up with a shovel and carried won't get anything from the Easter Bunny. We put our outside. hats out by the stove, and Mamma left the door open so One Sunday afternoon it was Just beautiful, and he could get in, and we actually believed it! In the my husband said he needed to go check some cattle in morning we had colored eggs and plenty of candy. the pasture not far from the house. And it wasn't very long after he got over to the pasture; the dust was roll- These times were very special times because there was ing in from the northwest; it was rolling. Before too so much interaction among relatives and friends. It was long, I could not see the neighbors' homes around us, very important that people got their wensching done the My husband knew he had to get out of the pasture, so first week of the new year. It was something enjoyable, and he thought about following the fence line home. He it was also a practice taken very seriously. Mrs. Binder said walked a ways and it got dark, so dark that he could not that when one got started, he sometimes brought more see. He grabbed on to the fence to guide him on the people along as he went from house to house, and by the way, but it was so full of electricity, he could not keep time they got to the last house to wensch, it got to be a big a continuous hold on it. I was home with the baby, party. worried sick, wondering where he was. By the time he Much time was also spent attending church services; got home, the wind had died down and it seemed that it was a must to attend both 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. little pebbles were falling on our heads. It was red dirt; masses on Sundays. The only family member excused from where that came from I don't know. Then we had to one of these masses was the baby-sitter. There were also clean up again after the storm; we learned how to do it vespers at 1:00 p.m. Sunday afternoons, which were a must faster each time we cleaned. to attend. Religion was a very important part of daily life. Mrs. Binder said, "When the church bells rang, we had to In spite of the fact that they were poor and were coping be there." The church bells rang at different times of the with many hardships, these people found ways to lighten day, and Mrs. Binder said that when they rang at six their burdens. We spoke of some special occasions that o'clock, "we hightailed it home because we were expected were celebrated as family, including Christmas, New home to pray the Angelus every night when the bells rang." Year's, and Easter. Mrs. Binder said that these days were After prayers, there was studying to be done. observed in a very unique way. Christmas always included In describing the house she lived in as she was growing attending midnight mass, and there was a great apprecia- up, Mrs. Binder said that it was welt-kept, each child tion for the beautiful singing. There were the traditional contributing his special talents. She recalls her little sister visits to the grandparents, tables laden with varieties of stacking firewood very neatly, and no one else could do foods, and visits from relatives. that job as well as she could. Mrs. Binder's talent was raking the yard and keeping it clean. Each member of the We did not work the week between Christmas and New family worked hard, and the family took pride in their Year's; during that week we Just did the bare

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 work. As the family grew larger, her father added two bed- her family always had what they needed, and she said that rooms to the house. Four girls shared one bedroom, and two most people were poor during the depression. But that is boys shared the other. They did not have any extra how things were, and everyone had to make do with what furniture; they had what they needed to get along. They they had. Some may have had more than others, but they appreciated what they had, took good care of it, and en- did not show it, Mrs. Binder said that people thought noth- joyed being family. ing of being poor because that is just how it was; "you Basically, most of Mrs. Binder's siblings continued in could not change it. When you were fortunate to get even a farming after marrying and leaving home, except for two little something extra, you were grateful and held on to it." younger brothers, who went to the service and later took There were crop failures through the years, and Mrs. jobs in the city, and her youngest sister, who became a nun. Binder said that they had to wait ten years before they When asked about such things as a "shotgun wedding" made a little bit of money on the farm. They relied on the and divorce, Mrs. Binder said that, with regard to the "shot- cows and the chickens to keep them going. gun wedding," it happened then like it happens now. Not as Despite the hard times these people had to live through, often as now, but it did happen. It was a "hush-hush they were quite healthy. If an illness arose, it was taken situation." Divorce was unheard of, something that one did care of by Mamma, unless it was something requiring the not find out until later, after it was over. In most instances doctor. If one needed to call a doctor, Dr. Anderson seems the couples "stuck it out." There were not many single to be the name that almost everyone was familiar with. He parent families back then, and if a spouse died, a family made many house calls, and delivered many babies in the member would try to find another mate for the single home. There were also a few other individuals who could parent. set broken bones, not really trained doctors, but trusted just Political views and involvement were very limited for the same. One such person set Mr. Binder's broken arm Mrs. Binder. That was one subject that she knew little years ago. If someone came down with a cold, fever, about, nor did she ask. She did remember that President stepped in a nail, or had a sliver, there was someone who Roosevelt was well-liked by the family; however, outside knew how to take care of it, or share information acquired of a farm organization they were affiliated with, they did from experience. Although many practices were not get overly involved in politics, questionable, they were trusted just the same. Most of the finances of the family were handled by the The advice Mrs. Binder has for young people today is father, according to Mrs. Binder, She said she had the eggs, to save. Buy only what you need and be sure you have the cream, and milk to sell in exchange for groceries. She said money to pay for it. Appreciate what you have and take they have yet to borrow their first dollar from the bank. If responsibility for what you do. Believe in yourself and have the money was not there to buy something, the item was faith. Be proud of what you have and what you do. not purchased. She believes very strongly that interview by Clara Walters

* * * Georganna Johnson When asked what were the most important things she learned of avoiding poverty, Georganna also discussed the dilemma from the experience of living through the Great Depression, of a poor family in the community of Wilmore, Comanche Georganna Grass Johnson emphasized the need to conserve County, where her grandmother lived: and to make the most of what you have. To illustrate this "There was a poor family in that town that everybody point she described her experience with knitting. "I knitted a took care of and nobody could understand why they didn't lot, even in high school, and if I got tired of a sweater, I really try to help themselves more than they did. Because would rip it up and make a new sweater out of it. ... you every winter, the same thing, they had to gather up blankets know we did those things; and now I don't think they'd think for this family. ... In the summertime when they didn't need of ripping up a sweater and knitting it over, just to have a the blankets, they were out laying in the dirt with them." different style, But it's what we did." To emphasize the Although she found such behavior difficult to understand, significance of caring for one's belongings as a way she drew a lesson from what she saw as a child: "And that was really drilled home for me to take care of

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 what you have, don't waste and don't be careless.,.," We really had a wonderful school system here in Hays, Georganna was born on 12 October 1921 to George and lots of advantages.... we had music, good music Grass and Edith (Shearer) Grass at St. Anthony's Hospital, instructors and good teachers and I always just really Hays, Kansas. She was the older of two children; a sister enjoyed school. It seemed like school was very im- was born almost three years later. After the death of her portant, your life centered either on school, your church mother, when Georgarna was ten years old, her grand- or your friends.... what we did in school was a lot of fun. mother came to live with -he family. As she recalled, "we We had outside activities, band and orchestra. ... Girl always had a real nice home. It had two bedrooms, a base- Scouts was a big thing. We met once a week, we had ment that had two bedrooms for my sister and myself and good leaders there and I think it was just the value of Grandma lived in one bedroom, until she died." The house, having a good education with emphasis on education. located in Hays, had two bathrooms, with a bathtub up- Parents wanted their children in school, . . . And I think stairs and a shower downstairs. "A nice kitchen, I would now they are trying to get parents more involved in the say. It was just a typical bungalow that people had in those education of the kids, which is important. They need to days. Had a mortgage." know what's going on, but as far as the values of The payment of the mortgage was the responsibility of education, I think we were taught to learn and do our her father who, with his brother, operated Grass' Grocery best. . . . Some did better than others, but everybody Store in Hays. Not only did the store provide an income for tried. That stays with you always. the family, it also was Georganna's first place of I knew that I wanted to go to school. And . . , there employment: "And one of my early jobs was to take orders. was no way I wasn't going to finish high school. And . . . my first customer was my first grade teacher which was then go to school at the college because Fort Hays was really exciting, and I could write down her order on a pad right there [both Georganna's parents attended Fort and then we'd fill the order and then it would be delivered Hays] and so I knew I'd be going. ... or she could take it with her." Although the depression imposed hardships on ail Americans to some degree But Georganna's life included much more than going to (including her father who lost money when one bank in school. She also worked at her father's store for ten cents which he had an account failed), the store provided an an hour and, as she grew older, she worked part-time at the adequate income for the family and Georganna described A & V Drugstore, at Ann's Dress Shop, and at a doctor's her family as "middle class." office. As Georganna observed, she never "had trouble Georganna discussed her daily routine, prefacing it getting a job." with the statement that "we always walked everywhere and In addition to school and work, Georganna spent much of that was something kids don't do now": her time with friends with whom she still corresponds: "... we did a lot of going on picnics after school. We'd go . . . we'd ... get up in the morning and we'd go to school, out and cook steaks and really enjoyed being together as a and walked home for lunch and then we'd walk back to group. The group I grew up with graduated in 1939 and we school and were there until about four o'clock, And have been close friends ever since. We have had a 'Round then I would go to work at the grocery store, or, if we Robin' letter, this group, for fifty years. ... the real close were going on a picnic, we'd go about six o'clock for association probably started back in those days when we that. But we just really enjoyed just doing what we had made our own fun and did have picnics. We had 'potluck' to do. Going to the library was something that we did a suppers and enjoyed each other, I guess." Most of her lot and in the evening we did have radios, of course, friends were Georganna's classmates from grade school and we enjoyed the serials they had on WDAF, that was through high school. They appear to have played a central a Kansas City station. And [we] had a victrola and one role in her life during her days in public school in Hays. thing I remember [is that] we had some Marion Tally Although she mentioned family dinners, visits with records, and you probably don't know anything about relatives from Pennsylvania, and trips to visit her grand- her, but she was a Kansas girl who was an opera singer. mother in Wilmore, Kansas, she also noted that her father And we thought that was really something, to have "was gone a lot," involved in "a lot of community activi- Marion Tally's records. ties." He served on the Trinity Lutheran Church Council, the School Board, and the Library Board and later in life, Attending school was important to Georganna:

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 30 Depression Years after his retirement, he became a Republican Register of gave Georganna an opportunity to convey her impressions Deed, "which was most unusual because usually it's a of the "rules" that governed the employment of women Democrat that gets it in Ellis County." during the depression: speaking of teachers she indicated As might be expected, Georganna indicated that her that if a woman was married, she was not allowed to teach. family's political views were "very Republican and we'll And that appeared to apply to other jobs as well: probably be always. My father just didn't like the NRA [National Recovery Administration, a New Deal agency ... there was a rule that,.. two people in the family created in 1933 which was responsible for drafting and couldn't work. I mean, they wanted one person so that enforcing business codes; later declared unconstitutional by the jobs could be spread around.... I know when I visited the Supreme Court], he didn't like Roosevelt, he didn't like my grandmother in Wilmore, Kansas, she had neighbors restrictions they gave to business. ... I don't know that much that were extremely poor and... the mother got a job, the about it, to know what they were, but I know it upset him father worked on the railroad and the mother got a job terribly, "Although her father may not have liked New Deal carrying mail. Well, somehow that didn't work out legislation, Georganna had some good things to say about because he already had a job and they didn't need a two- the Works Progress Administration (created in 1935): job family. But they had a lot of children and it was wonderful, for a while, for them because they had these ... I think that was a good thing, because there were so two incomes, because they had just never had many things that were done here in Hays, that were anything.... I don't know if that was a rule, or just done with that labor that was good. I mean we have the something that happened there. But generally women courthouse, we have different things, but another thing, stayed home and didn't work, and if there was no man it really helped women,... Kathryn O'Louglin McCarthy provider, then the women worked. was from our area and she had a lot to do with this, putting people to work. And they [women] did weaving, Along the same topic, but in response to a question they did dolls, period dolls and just anything to keep about attitudes towards women working outside the home people busy and earning money in productive ways.,.. during the depression, Georganna observed: "Well, I don't when I went to the university [Fort Hays State] in 1939 know that very many of them did. I mean, a lot of people they had a student program where the kids made all the worked as maids.... we always had a farm girl who came dishes for the houses they [the federal government] had into town, worked for a hired girl, worked for maybe five set up for.... I don't know if it was WPA, I don't know dollars or so and if she did anything on the side, she got what it was called. But they had houses where the kids paid extra for that. But teaching was the primary thing ... lived as a group and they had work at the college and that [women] did. But I don't know there was any attitude got an education. But they made all the dishes for these about it. If you had to work, you had to work. My grand- group houses.... I worked at the ceramics department at mother always worked at the grocery store too. And reared that time and saw them doing it. And then another thing her family and .., our family always worked." I thought was real good about that was the [Civilian Although work was an important part of her life, dur- Conservation Corps (created to put young men aged ing the depression Georganna did enjoy a fairly typical eighteen to twenty-five to work on public projects)] small-town middle class life style as an adolescent. Her camps.... my uncle was an engineer for the dam in father's grocery business provided an income adequate to Nemaha County.... I'd go over and visit my aunt. And feed and clothe his family, as well as pay off a mortgage they kept those boys real busy. I knew one of the boys and allow the family to own a second-hand car. Few de- we had working at our grocery store, who had been mands were made on her at home so far as housekeeping through that, said it was one ... of the things that saved was concerned, since the family usually had a "hired girl" him because he did have that work experience ... he to do the basic cleaning. And Georganna had adequate didn't know what he would have done had it not been leisure time to spend with friends, to indulge in her passion for the ... camp. So Roosevelt wasn't all bad. for reading—she frequently read a book a day and "would hide the light underneath the blanket," so she could read A question about the low rate of divorce in the 1930s while making her parents think she was asleep—and to participate in school activities. Her father provided ad- equate medical and dental care, including braces which

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 cost $300, a luxury for many during the 1930s. She also had a car when we were growing up, we would walk. received encouragement to further her education and to And it was ... an entirely different thing. And I suppose attend Fort Hays when she graduated from Hays High advice I would give is straighten out your values ... a School. car isn't all that important. . . . everybody has But to say that the Grass family was middle class and everything. I mean, the kids have to have Walkmans, through that designation imply that Georganna was in- they have to have . . . things that weren't even invented sensitive to those who had less than she would be a mis- when I was [their age]... we would have had to ... make statement of the facts. Nor did she take for granted her our own amusements. . . I think sometimes kids are family's relative financial security. In fact, a theme which always making payments. They get something on lay- runs throughout her interview is that you make do with away . . . always got to make payments, or concerned what you have—practice thrift and economy—and trust about that. They had to work whereas . . . when I was that you too will not become impoverished. And there was growing up there weren't too many jobs for kids and a shortage of money on occasion. As Georganna discussed their school was important. When boys worked it was her father's business, she mentioned at several points in the helping their fathers work the farms. That was kind of a interview that there was on occasion a cash flow problem. rule at our house. ... we couldn't have it unless you Her father operated a "charge" business, which meant that could pay for it. You didn't buy stuff on time. I know I customers paid at the end of the month, if they were able. wanted a leather Jacket so bad, I had it all picked out. It He frequently bartered farm produce, including cattle, in cost twelve dollars. But I saved a long time and when I exchange for commodities from his store, and he even had got that jacket I really did enjoy it. But seems like the his house painted in exchange for credit at the grocery. kids have to have everything. Even in affluent times the lack of ready cash may make individuals with material resources feel somewhat This message seems to have guided Georganna impoverished or, at the least, insecure about their financial throughout her life: Practice thrift and save for the future. future. Make do with what you have and educate yourself to im- Life for Georganna during the depression was sad on prove your lot in the future. If these are the values which occasion; she lost both her mother and grandmother during were instilled in Georganna by her family and by the ex- this decade. But for the most part she appears to have perience of the depression, they have served her well dur- enjoyed herself. Her love of education and the compan- ing her lifetime. ionship of her friends created a positive environment. Georganna Grass graduated from Hays High School in When asked what advice she would give to young people 1939, attended Fort Hays Kansas State College for three today, she reflected an the values of today: and a half years, married Peter Johnson, raised a family, became an active participant in community and church ... I never could understand the kids' values.... one boy I affairs and pursued a successful career as a teacher from remember... bought a Trans Am and you know they eat which she retired only recently. a lot of gas and he never had any money for anything because he was always paying for that car, I said, "Why written by Ann E. Liston, based on an interview don't you get a bicycle?" "My girl wouldn't ride on a conducted by Jacqueline Grogan, March 1993 bicycle." You know . . . nobody

Blanche Maggard On 13 April 1918 Mrs. Blanche Maggard was born to The general impression of the depression is that the Frank and Rosa Petracek. As a teenager, growing up on a nation was rampant with poverty, misery, and malnutrition. farm, Mrs. Maggard experienced the impact of the Great However, this generalization of complete poverty did not Depression. Raised in Jennings, Kansas, she was the apply to the Petracek family. Although Mrs. Maggard youngest of the Petraceks' ten children. Her husband's recalled her family surviving through difficult economic name is Lloyd Maggard and they have two daughters and times she said the family never received public assistance one son. or considered leaving the area of Jennings to seek em"

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 32 Depression Years ployment elsewhere: "We lived on the farm and we all would drink beer and wine made by Frank Petracek. worked there." Mrs. Maggard's family income during the Mrs. Maggard recalled the challenge of finding enter- depression derived completely from the farm. She ex- tainment which did not cost much. She enjoyed watching plained that they sold eggs and cream, tomato plants, and live performance plays by the Ted North Players and silent cherries. To quote Mrs. Maggard, "We were almost self- movies. Another form of entertainment she recalled were sustaining because we had cattle and chickens and pigs..." the rabbit hunts on Sunday afternoons, where the Deprivation was real during the depression years but it community would chase the jack rabbits into an area and was a part of everyone's experience. Most people in a club them to death. This was done to reduce the rabbit community shared that deprived status. According to Mrs. population which was eating everything that was growing Maggard, "It seemed everybody was about the same. You on the farms. According to Mrs. Maggard, "The happiest were poor, but you didn't know it because everybody else memories, I guess would be having a loving family and just was poor," In Glenda Riley's book Inventing the American good clean fun." Woman: A Perspective on Women's History. (Arlington During the depression, Mrs. Maggard's daily routine Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, 1986), the following consisted of school and then work. In the morning she and adage was one which women quickly learned during the her siblings would cut across the pastures for their mile and Great Depression: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do a half walk to school. When the snow was deep during the without." To support this saying, Mrs. Maggard remem- winter months her brother would walk ahead to make bered how her family coped with hard times: "We learned tracks and the others would follow in his footsteps. If they to make use of anything we had." Confronted by the depres- got to school in time they could help the teacher carry in sion, Mrs. Maggard recalled making dresses out of flower firewood and water, which was considered an honor. Once printed flour sacks and underwear out of white flour sacks. inside the classroom, they took their seats according to their The depression was not the only force that affected grade level, Mrs. Maggard stated, "The little ones sat in Mrs. Maggard's life. Living through the dust bowl was a front and the eighth grade sat in back. But the little ones trying time according to Mrs. Maggard: "Dust would sift in really learned from the older ones because you recited." through every little crack and windows had to be taped and Mrs. Maggard recalled very few discipline problems at wet sheets were hung over them. Many times when we set school. To quote her, "And I think it was probably a lot due the table for a meal, we'd turn the plates over until we sat to the fact that if that child got in trouble in school, he got down to eat so they wouldn't have dust on them. But in trouble at home." After school, Mrs. Maggard and her everything was gritty. The chairs you sat, everything you siblings rushed home to eat a slice of their mother's touched, even your teeth." Mrs. Maggard recalled waking homemade bread before starting their chores: "That was up in the mornings and seeing a white spot on her pillow one of the nice things about comin' home from school, we where her head had been, Mrs. Maggard always knew when could usually get a slice of bread with butter on it. And you a dust storm was coming: ". . . when a dust storm rolled in were hungry because we had to walk to school, country the birds would fly in panic ahead of it.,," She recalled that school." during a bad storm car lights had to be turned on in the According to Mrs. Maggard there was not a division of daytime and many times their chickens went to roost at labor within her family. She explained that you did what- noon because they thought it was night. ever needed to be done. To quote Mrs. Maggard, "Whether Despite difficult economic times and mother nature, it was gathering eggs, working in the house, milking cows family holidays and celebrations were held. Mrs. Maggard .. ." One chore that Mrs. Maggard disliked was retrieving remembered her family always getting together every the cobs from the pig pen area so they could be burned in Sunday in the summertime to enjoy homemade ice cream. the stove. She recalled, "It was kind of a dirty job." A holiday, which is fading in significance today, that was Mrs. Maggard described her home on the farm as very celebrated by the Petracek family was Memorial Day. For family oriented. There were six rooms downstairs and one Mrs. Maggard this was one of the highlights of the year, large room upstairs, where the boys slept. Mrs. Maggard which always called for a new dress. Mrs. Maggard ex- had to share a bedroom with her sisters and besides arguing plained that her family and friends would have a picnic at about whose turn it was to wash the dishes, she said, "I the cemetery where her ancestors were buried. This celebra- think we got along just real well." People in the community tion was for anyone who had ancestors buried there. The appeared to be caring. According to Mrs. Maggard there Petraceks got together every holiday and occasionally they was not any competition to outdo your neighbors: “I

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 don't think keeping up with the Jones's was any problem. I quote Mrs. Maggard, "You could loan somebody a hundred don't think they could have cared about that." She felt that dollars and shake on it and you knew he was going to pay during this period "nobody needed very much in material it back." Mrs. Maggard felt her family taught her not to things," take things that belong to other people, and to be Mrs. Maggard described the closeness of the commu- respectful; "People didn't have money but they didn't go nity of Jennings during the depression: "Everybody in your out and steal from other people," neighborhood was your friend because you were all in the As a consequence of growing up during the depression, same situation and you helped each other when you could." Mrs. Maggard felt she had formed lasting attitudes She recalled being ill with scarlet fever and receiving home regarding education, money, saving, and waste. To quote visits and phone calls from their family doctor. Mrs. Mrs. Maggard,"... it's hard for me to throw away something Maggard remembered how many people in her community that I think somebody else can use, or can be used again." learned of news or gossip: "All telephones were on a party She felt that today we have a throw-away society and that line. And if something happened, if there was a fire or any our wants exceed our needs. news that everybody ought to know, the telephone would From her experiences of growing up during the de- give a party line ring." Mrs. Maggard could not recall if the pression, Mrs. Maggard felt the most important thing she party lines ever caused any problems. To quote Mrs. learned was the value of family and friends: "That you Maggard, "I guess people learned if they had secrets, not to don't have to have a lot of money to enjoy yourself and that tell 'em over the telephone." neighborliness is something to be cherished. And that your Although the thirties were a difficult time to grow up, family is real important." She felt that the depression Mrs. Maggard feels that in some ways this period could be period was positive in that it united the family: ".,. it was a considered the "good old days": "I'd hate to go back to time of growing closer together as I think any kind of a set having to live without electricity and things like that. But I back does to people." Although Mrs. Maggard would not don't know whether you would say spiritually ... it was want to relive the depression she said "... it has made me good, morally it was, I know." During this period, she also appreciate a lot of things that I probably wouldn't have if I felt that a handshake took the place of a contract. To was growing up now." interview by Claudia Nicholson

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Rose Schulte On 19 March 1993 I had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Mrs. Rose Schulte was born on 23 August 1927 in Rose Schulte at her country home just outside of Victoria, Victoria, Kansas, to Ed and Lydia (Staab) Brungardt. She Kansas. The purpose of the interview was to find out how has two brothers and two sisters. She graduated from her life was affected by the Great Depression, what Victoria High School in 1945, is married and has five chil- difficulties she faced, what her feelings of the "good old dren. She and her husband, Denis, operate a farm just east days" were, and what part she played during this trying of Victoria, and she is Spiritual Director of St. John's Rest time in our nation's history. These interviews took place on Home of Victoria. She is of Volga German descent and has two separate days and included many questions. This paper lived in the Victoria area most of her life, outside of six gives an overview of much of the information collected on months she spent working for a bank in Denver after being cassette tape. Prior to the interviews, I read several books graduated from high school, to become familiar with the events, policies, and Mrs. Schulte was a toddler at the onset of the depres- characteristics of this critical time in our history, which sion, and was a high school student by the time this diffi- included the years from 1929 until the early 1940s [see list cult period in history came to an end. Looking back to in Bertha Binder interview-Editor]. The information those days, she recalled that money was very tight and that contained in this report includes only information given by people could barely afford to buy the necessities to survive. Mrs. Schulte as she experienced the Great Depression, and Being in the grocery business her family felt this strain on does not include any added information from other sources. the family budget also, People helped each other out whenever they could. If people needed groceries or anything, they would come to

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 34 Depression Years the store and sometimes have no more than one box of eggs carry in a couple of buckets of water, and one kid after to sell in exchange for groceries. Well, that was not enough another would take his turn in the tub." to pay for the groceries, so they would always say, "Scribes Tuesday was the day for ironing, and there was house- drauf," which meant to put it on the bill. "Well, you put it work, as well as helping with the meals in the kitchen, jobs on the bill because you knew the people had hungry kids at shared solely by the females. Baby-sitting younger siblings home and they needed the groceries. And they wouldn't buy was also one of Mrs. Schulte's jobs, and she remembered things that they didn't need, just food that was needed. They baby-sitting for younger cousins on several occasions. would take care of the bill after harvest. If they didn't have Getting twenty-five cents for one day of caring for these a harvest, then you would just carry the bill over to the next children was a lot of money. However, more often than not year and hope that things would get better. And that was the payment came in the form of candy or some type of real stressful on Dad, especially after he started working at fruit. Mrs. Schulte felt that the females were expected to do the bank. People would come in and they would need more than the males, since the females were the older money; he felt so badly for them because they all tried so members of the family. hard. They just didn't have the money to pay off their debts; As the members of the family got older, they were so they paid off their bills in small payments, whenever expected to help in the grocery store, starting work in the they got enough money," basement, sacking potatoes, or packing pickles in jars Mrs. Schulte said that, besides the local people and among other things. After about a year or so, one could be farmers, there were the hobos that would come through by graduated to the main floor of the store to stack shelves, way of the train. They would work in exchange for some and then on to clerking. Mrs. Schulte functioned in this food and/or maybe even an article of clothing. She said that capacity at the store and also started working at the bank they were not looking for a handout, but wanted to earn during her sophomore year in high school. Eventually, whatever the family could offer them in exchange for Mrs. Schulte's uncles bought the grocery business, and her services. The jobs included such things as hoeing or doing family was involved only in the banking industry. some odd job around the house. When asked about the Despite the depressive economic condition, people possibility of crime or theft concerning the hobos, Mrs. living during the depression found ways to lighten their Schulte said that although they were cautious about these burdens. Mrs. Schulte remembered family reunions, card individuals, she doubted that there was any such problem playing, and games played by the children. She had some to worry about, nor was there a lot of vandalism in general, fond memories of her entertainment. When asked about responsibilities of the female and "The only forms of entertainment you had were walk- male members of the family, Mrs. Schulte said that she and ing the streets in the evening or going roller skating. We her siblings almost always had something to do either at usually played a lot of yard games with the neighbor kids, home or at the store. She recalled that there was a regular and as we got older, we went to the popular roller skating routine of doing things during the week, Monday being the rink in town. There were also outside dances, and some- washday. Having no running water, the water had to be times a movie. They used to bring movies to town. I think carried into the basement, where the washroom was the local businessmen sponsored these movies and they located. This was a job shared by both male and female were shown outside in the summer months. This was really members of the family. Detergent used in the laundry was a highlight of the summer, if we could go to one of those homemade soap, movies." "Mom made the homemade soap using lard and lye. Entertainment took on other forms as well for Mrs. She cooked and stirred this mixture. After several days, it Schulte, She said that listening to the radio was a real treat cooled down and hardened so that it could be cut into bars. for the family. A must was, of course, listening to the latest Mom spread a bunch of newspapers out on the floor and news, but there were also afternoon "soap operas" her put the cut bars of soap on them to dry. We packed them mother enjoyed listening to. There were afternoons that into boxes and put them under the stairway. She made a Mrs. Schulte and her friends would walk to the train sta- batch of soap every four or five months." tion, wait for the train to come, wave to the passengers and This all-purpose bar of soap was also used to do the conductor, and slide along the long shiny wooden benches dishes and was used for the weekly bath. "We had a wash inside the depot. They were intrigued by the messages tub in a little room upstairs that was the bathroom; it was which came in on the telegraph machine and talked to the just a little empty room. We'd put the tub in there and station master. On rare occasions, they would stop

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 at the ice cream parlor and get a double-dip cone of ice She said that she did not think it was a problem for most cream, providing they had the five cents needed to pay for people, since they indulged only on special occasions. it. There were also the paper dolls cut from the heavy shiny The feast of St. Nicholas, 6 December, was also an pages of the Sears Catalog. She and her friends played with important day for Mrs. Schulte's family. Stockings were the homemade paper dolls, fitted them with clothing cut hung the night of 5 December, in hopes that St. Nick would from the catalog, and dreamed of having beautiful clothes make a visit during the night and leave some special treat such as those featured in the catalog. for the children. In the morning when they checked the Another type of entertainment was a musical gathering. stockings, they would discover some type of candy or Mrs. Schulte took Hawaiian guitar lessons from her dad's cookie, but most often fruit was left by St. Nick. This was cousin. They would get together in the evenings and have also the only time of year her family's grocery store or- sessions. This would, at times, include up to eight people dered special candies and cookies, which were purchased playing various instruments, having a good time. very sparingly for gifts at Christmas. Their stock was very As for dating, Mrs. Schulte said that there was not a lot limited because most people could not afford to buy such of dating at a young age. Most often, a bunch of girls luxury gifts for Christmas. would get together, go to a dance, meet some guys there, Mrs. Schulte credited her family's good diet to the fact dance, and have a good time together. She said that she that they were involved in the grocery business. Any fruit, may have started dating when she was a senior in high vegetables, or produce that did not sell were brought home school. for cooking, canning, or baking. She felt they were much Many of the outside functions of the family were cel- more fortunate than many other families who could not ebrations involving the church. There were church picnics, afford to buy fruits and vegetables to feed their families. which required the cooperation of the parish members. The She said that soup was a big meal item and that her mother women did the cooking, the girls would serve food and baked the best banana cake, made great apple pies, and clear tables, and the men took care of the refreshments and apple butter. There was always homemade bread, and, of games. course, labeshka, which was a deep-fried bread dough. The Holidays were special times for families, according to lard used to fry this delicious bread was rendered from the Mrs. Schulte, fat left from butchering hogs at the grocery store. Her mother would cook this down, put it into jars and use it in I would say that the main holidays were Christmas and baking and cooking. Some of it was made available for New Year's. Easter was also a big day at our place all purchase at the store by those people who did not do their the time, the hidden Easter basket. I'll never forget one own butchering. time; Dad hid an Easter basket in the oven for Mom. When asked about divorce, single-parent families, and She didn't know it was in the oven and she was going to the phrase "shotgun wedding," Mrs. Schulte said that there pre-heat the oven. Well, she roasted her marshmallow were very few divorces. Although she knew that conflicts eggs. And at Christmas we had family gatherings. Mom did exist and would oftentimes involve abuse of some kind usually made the turkey and the dressing, and others on the part of the husband, "the woman stuck it out." brought the salads, desserts, and other things. New "They did not divorce unless there was a lot of abuse, Year's Day was always a big day with all thewenschers, Then I would assume the woman's father would probably and since we lived right across the street from the have stepped in and said something, I know of several church, people came to our house after services to women that got a separation and moved back to live with wensch. Mom always baked the special Herwn, their folks. But there was seldom a legal divorce; they just Spitzbuben, and Zwiebach, which were favorite cookies separated. Maybe that was because most women were not for the visitors. Of course, there was also the working at the time and had no other means of support; so Schappsche, a swig of schnapps, to go along with they stuck it out. As far as single-parent families, I re- bringing in the new year. member there were some due to the death of a spouse. If a woman was widowed and had two, three, four kids, some- Mrs. Schulte remembered that there was always some one in the family would try to find somebody for her. form of alcoholic beverage served even during the days of Sometimes there was a brother, uncle, or someone who prohibition. She did not know how it was obtained, but she was looking for a wife. There was a lot of matchmaking recalled lots of singing and laughing, as she said that going on." visitors became quite comical with the added beverage.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 So it seems that the families basically took care of their stressed that the farmers' hardships were far greater than own back then, including older family members. In the case anyone else's. of Mrs. Schulte's grandmother, this was the case as well. As Whenever possible, her father would hire a farmer to her grandmother grew older, she needed to be taken care of help with some project around the house, like putting in a by the family because of her loss of hearing and vision. She sidewalk or repairing something. Her mother always fixed moved in with Mrs. Schulte's family, had her own room, meals for whoever happened to help on the projects. There and was cared for daily by family members. were also times that farm girls were hired to help with the As far as the phrase "shotgun wedding" is concerned, housework and laundry, Mrs. Schulte said it was something kept very quiet. It "was In response to the question concerning her happiest probably really embarrassing for the family; so it was kept memory of this period, Mrs. Schulte included activities under wrap until the baby came. Then people would say shared by family: that the baby came too soon or they weren't married long enough. Then after the child was born, it was no big deal. It The happiest times would be the special occasion days, was just one of those things." like First Communion Day; even with the depression, Although Mrs. Schulte was only two years old at the we always had a get-together with the relatives, the onset of the depression, she said she believes that her fam- same thing with the birthdays. Birthdays were always ily was a supporter of the Roosevelt administration. Her celebrated. All the little neighbor kids and cousins most vivid memories were those of the customers coming would come. You didn't have a whole lot; maybe you into the grocery store and expressing their excitement about just got a cookie, and then there were games to play. My the Roosevelt policies. Her mother was especially im- grandparents' Golden Wedding Anniversary, I remember pressed with Eleanor Roosevelt. She said that her family very well; that was a special time. for us. All the aunts was Republican for a while because her dad ran for the sat on chairs around the outside of the dance floor while office of Ellis County Sheriff on the Republican ticket. He the young ones danced. And there were the visits from lost the election, and although the defeat bothered him, it the two nuns in the Staab family. They were allowed to turned out for the better because he was offered a job at the come home once every five years, and there was always bank shortly after the election. He accepted the job at the a celebration for this. The relatives would get together; Farmers National Bank and worked his way up to bank each family would bring food, and Grandma would president. This is how her family got started m the banking make that special drink called matee, a special drink; it business, and, later, other members of the family, including was so good. In those days when the nuns came home, Mrs. Schulte, were employed by the bank. She said that she according to the rules of the convent, they were not remembered her father switching to the Democratic Party allowed to come into the homes of the brothers and after he lost the election and that she was happy he did, sisters, I remember we'd go inside, open the shades, maybe more so because he had lost the election as a curtains, and windows so that they could look in and see Republican candidate. Her father, a community leader, various rooms of the house. Then after they looked at continued to show an interest in local government at the house, lunch was served out on the porch. Victoria, but did not get involved in state or national politics. Mrs. Schulte said that their home was comfortable and During the depression, members of families oftentimes neatly furnished. There were two bedrooms upstairs, a liv- shared part of their earnings with their parents for expenses ing room, dining room, kitchen, and a small pantry/storage in order to make ends meet. This was also true of Mrs. room. This room also served as the sewing room. The Schulte's family. She said she was expected to pay room washing machine and wash tubs were stored under the and board to her parents to help defray household expenses. stairway in the basement, which had two more bedrooms. As everyone was hurting financially at this time, she said Their kitchen had old-fashioned white cabinets, which had that income from the bank and grocery store suffered, re- a special storage area for flour. There was no need for flecting the poor economic situation as well. Comparing her much cabinet space because there were few dishes. Dishes family's economic status with others in the community, she included five or six cups, glasses, plates, and a few pots, felt that most people were basically "on an even keel." It pans, and a large frying pan. There was a round table, some seemed that nobody had anything extra compared to anyone chairs, and a heating stove in the dining room. The else; and if someone happened to be a little better off, they would hide it. So who would know? She

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 dining room had a built-in china closet, couch, floor lamps, way. In general the doctor was called only in emergency a mantel clock, and radio. The bedrooms were furnished situations, Mrs. Schulte remembered having sinus prob- with beds and maybe a table or dresser. Of course, there lems for which she had to visit the doctor's office. Dr. was no indoor bathroom. Anderson used some kind of machine to clear the nasal Mrs. Schulte's mother sewed almost all the things passages. That was one of the few times she had to visit his needed in the house and for the children. She made the office; he usually made house calls. curtains from feed sacks or flour sacks. She also used the So what was the force behind these people as they flour sacks to make clothes for her family. She sewed the experienced year after year of trying times? Mrs. Schulte boys' shirts, pants, girls' dresses, and aprons using flour said that there definitely was a strong faith instilled in the sacks. Each child had two sets of clothes for school and family early on. There were many services, novenas, church, and one everyday set. Nothing went to waste, not masses, and special services held during the year. In the even the leftover scraps. These were sewn together, spring there were the Rogation days where people would braided, rolled into a ball, and either crocheted or sewn into pray for rain. Corpus Christ! was celebrated also, and at rugs for the floors. Many summer hours were spent putting this time the young girls dressed very specially in white things together for rugs, another job for Mrs. Schulte when dresses. They dropped flowers as they marched down the she was growing up. Better pieces of material were used for streets, stopping in front of certain homes decorated with making quilts. Mrs. Schulte said she still finds it very small altars, Mrs. Schulte recalled that they dropped the difficult to throw anything away. little pink flowers that grow wild in the spring, as not very Unfavorable memories at this time were the dust storms many people grew flower plants. There were also the pro- of (he thirties. "There was no way of predicting when they cessions to the cemetery to remember loved ones who had would come, anytime of day. The dust and dirt were died. The rosary was always prayed as the parishioners everywhere, and sometimes you'd think that you just walked to the cemetery. It was always prayed in German, couldn't take another breath for all the dust. But somehow which was the language spoken by most people living in you just kept on going." In spite of efforts to seal off Victoria at that time. The rosary was a daily prayer recited windows and doors and to keep the fine dust from entering by the family, the house, it seemed there was no way to stop it. The baby's When asked to compare the thirties with the eighties, crib was draped with dampened sheets in an effort to keep Mrs. Schulte said that a sense of appreciation, values, con- the dust from entering and creating breathing problems. cern, and kindness shown for others, and neighborliness are The family would often wake up to dust-covered sheets. characteristics which stand out in her mind during the Cabinets, tables, dishes, and the stove had to be cleaned depression years. She felt that the poor of the depression before preparing breakfast or any meal. There was always may have been better off because they knew how to sur- the fear of people getting caught in a dust storm and not vive and could be self-sufficient. She felt that people ap- finding their way back home. preciate things more when they have to work for and earn Through all these struggles, there was the question of them. Although she did not recall any of her family mem- how these people kept healthy and met any medical needs, bers working in the WPA or CCC programs, she remem- Mrs. Schulte said that those needs were met by "Dr. Mom" bered her family supporting these government projects or Dr. Anderson. If "Dr. Mom" could not fix it, she would which put people to work in order to get the economy consult friends, neighbors, or other family members to going. She felt that people receiving welfare payments share and compare various remedies for the situation. should be required to earn their payments in some way Baking soda was used quite a bit, and there was the old other than getting a handout. Her advice to young people is reliable bunsch made with whiskey, water, and a bit of to save for a rainy day. "Make do, stick things out, reuse, sugar. This was almost always the cure-all for the common and have faith." To quote Mrs. Schulte, "Everybody should cold. If someone had a sliver, bacon was put on the area. have a chance to go through a few of those years in their The salt from the bacon was helpful in this situation. Most lifetime, just to appreciate the little things," people treated colds, bruises, and burns the same interview by Clara Walters

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AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 38 Depression Years

Wilda M. Smith Does this country need another good depression to teach the housework] primarily, except that during harvest time, tots younger generation how to make do with very little and to of times my mother helped with the milking and I helped appreciate what they have? Wilda Smith would say "no." with the milking when I was big enough because the men Nonetheless, she believes that growing up during the would usually be working so late. They would be going to depression left a lasting impact on her attitude toward work so early and coming in so late. So sometimes we did spending and saving. When asked if she had any advice to that besides doing house tasks." give to young people, based on her experiences growing up Her typical day, after she was old enough to help her during the depression, she said: "... I would urge young mother, was to "get up and help get breakfast." After break- people not to go so much in debt so easily.... it seems to me fast it was time to "do the dishes and make the beds and do that a lot of young people think nothing of buying a hundred washing and ironing and cooking and then time for dinner, thousand dollar house when they don't have secure employ- which we called the noon meal on the farm, and supper was ment, They ought to start a little lower on the ladder, it the evening meal." When asked who worked harder, Wilda would seem to me, and, of course, that's one of the lessons I observed: learned from the depression." There is no doubt that this attitude toward money helped Dr. Smith become a Of course, I always thought I did, but I don't really think successful and highly respected teacher, a prize-winning there would have been too much difference, although in author, and an international traveler. Plan for the future, a way I think during those years women's work is a lot save for the future, and make your dreams become reality, harder than men's because.., part of the time [you] had she would say. to scrub clothes on the board, and cook meals in a Wilda Maxine Smith was born in Gove County, Kan- kitchen with an old-fashioned range which threw out an sas, on 17 May 1924, the second daughter and the seventh awful lot of heat while you were cooking. I remember child of Corwin Leroy and Mabel Luzelle (Roberts) Smith, one summer, from that kind of heat I had sort of a heat Her father was a farmer and her mother had taught school strike and sort of laid me out for the rest of the before her marriage. There were eventually to be ten chil- summer.,.. I had a headache from the time the sun dren, eight boys and two girls. For all practical purposes, would come up until it would go down. And ever since however, Wilda was the only daughter at home during the then, I'd be very susceptible to getting "overheated." depression years, since her only sister married when Wilda was five years old. The family lived in a two-story house on Although the work was hard, her parents never thought the farm. On the first floor were "the front room," kitchen, seriously about leaving the area. Wilda did note that occa- dining room, and two bedrooms. The second floor sionally "when things were really bad during the dust contained three bedrooms. As the only girl at home, Wilda storms and when we weren't having any crops" or when had a room of her own, "but the boys were really piled in prices were low for the crops, "they [her parents] talked upstairs." Indoor bathroom facilities were virtually non- about it just sort of vaguely," but her impression was that it existent, as was commonly the case during the era. "We did was never a serious option. not have running water and we had a bathtub but you had to Family finances were handled in the "old-fashioned" heat water on the stove and then carry it in and pour it in the way, by her father, although Wilda realizes now that "it bathtub. And then we did have a pipe that stuck outside and was a big mistake, because my mother was not kept in- the water was just drained out on the ground. Not a sewer formed on what things were and so forth." When her father system or septic tank or anything like that. But most of the filled out the income tax return, he asked his wife to sign it, baths that I remember as a child were in an old galvanized "He was a little patriarchal." tub; that was usually put on top of the furnace in winter Although Wilda remembers little about the early years time, on the grate." of the depression (she was five years old when the stock Work responsibilities were determined largely by gen- market crashed in 1929), her impression is that the family der: "Most of the boys helped with the farming and they was not "poverty stricken . . . because living on a farm and helped milk the cows and feed the pigs and all this type of producing a great amount of food" meant that the family thing, feed the chickens. And of course, females [did the did not have to go on welfare or take government hand-

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 outs. "And so, we were a lot better off than some people a thing to guide it around with. Those were our toys that and we would hear on the radio and read in the paper about we created for ourselves, or made ourselves a sled or people in bread lines and soup lines and so forth in the something like this. I remember my older brothers made cities. And of course, we were far above that." There were, my two younger brothers each a sled. But they didn't however, limitations: ". . . the cream and the eggs were make me one 'cause I was a girl, see? So my mother got supposed to buy the necessities that we didn't produce out the saw and the lumber and made me a sled. It ourselves and my mother would write a grocery list and she wasn't that we'd go to town and buy a sled, because that would write in order usually of priority. And my dad would was , .. out of the question. take that list and the cream and the eggs and when he had gotten down as far as the cream and the eggs would go, Not only did Wilda play ball marbles and "school" with unless it was something that was absolutely essential, why, her brothers, she also visited school friends, sometimes there was a line drawn there and that's where he stopped riding her bicycle two or three miles. And the family for that time. But my mother used to chide him about the visited neighbors and relatives: they regularly visited her fact that he never knocked off his tobacco. He smoked a mother's "brother who had a very large family," and her pipe." mother's sister who lived "just a mile to the west of us. ... Although money might have been in short supply, And there were family picnics, . . . community picnics, Wilda remembered the family diet as "fairly balanced" Fourth of July celebrations, that type of thing." Wilda's because mother "almost always" baked a birthday cake for that special occasion. She remembered "my birthday was 17 ... we raised our own meat, we had our own milk, and May.... by the time of my birthday we made the first fried cream and butter and eggs and fruit was one thing that, chicken of the season." perhaps, we didn't have as much of as would be good When asked whether alcoholic beverages were used on for us. At least, according to what they say today, we "festive occasions," Wilda responded: had plenty of vegetables, because we raised a garden in the summertime, and my mother canned lots of No. My parents were teetotalers, I guess you would say. vegetables so they could be utilized in the winter. But My mother grew up in a very strict family and I think Dad was always very fond of apples, so he would buy before my parents were married my dad drank beer, at those, buy several bushels at a time, kept them down in least, and maybe stronger, but after he married her, that the basement, so we had that kind of fruit. And my came to an end. And I remember one time my mother mother canned fruit every summer. But things like was not very well. Of course, someone has a child every oranges or bananas, something like that, those were two years, they're sort of run down, and she was very more in the form of a treat, although we did have them. run down, very thin and had no appetite and the doctor But, as I said, I would say that we had a balanced diet. prescribed beer. Said, "you just drink a bottle of beer We ate lots of bread. We all grew up loving bread every day and with your meal or whatever," so Dad because mom baked bread. bought a case of beer and brought it home. And that was Mom's medicine. I think she drank about half a glass of In Wilda's words, the Smith family "coped [with the that beer and she said, "I just can't do it." She just hated depression] just the way everybody else did. . . . everybody the taste of it. And I think part of it was her Methodist else was in the same boat." She did not remember dwelling background; she stubbed her toe on that and she couldn't "too much on the fact that there were lots of things we make herself think it was just medicine. But in later couldn't afford." As she emphasized, with so many children years my dad drank beer and enjoyed it and my mother in the family, "there was never a dull moment. There were didn't make heavy weather. Oh, but we did not grow up all sorts of games to be played and reading to do, which with any kind of alcoholic beverage in the house. was my favorite pastime." Although her mother did consult a doctor about her We did not... [sit around saying] "I'm bored, I don't rundown condition on this occasion, Wilda recalled that have anything to do," because we could always think of members of the family only went to the doctor "if it was something to do. I mean, concoct some sort of part out something very, very serious." Her father was reluctant to of cultivator wheels or make ourselves a hoop with

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 cater to doctors, because he would always say, "Oh, it will about the first two weeks we had them. And I read every get well. It'll heal." However, serious conditions such as book we had at home and I remember one book my broken bones warranted a doctor's treatment. As Wilda mother forbade me to read.... it was The Sheik. ... it recalled, "I remember my oldest brother had a broken leg belonged to my brother, and she said, I was not to read and the doctor came all the way from Dighton ['those were it. But when I was about fourteen, he was married and the days the doctors made house calls, even out in the lived west of us and he had a little flock of sheep that country...'] out to the farm, which was about fifteen miles. needed to be herded while he was working the field, ,.." Their economic status may have had something to do harvesting. So I agreed to go over and they had a with her father's reluctance to "cater" to doctors, since horse.... I didn't have to stay out there with them [the Wilda mentioned that "Some of our neighbors were more sheep] all the time, but I was to watch them and if they affluent than we were, so I think they went to doctors more started wandering off where he had them, I was often than we did." She was quick to point out, however, supposed to jump on the horse and go out there and herd that her mother "was a pretty good doctor for most things them back where they belonged. And sometimes they we had." sort of got away from me because I was reading, and One significant effect of the depression on Wilda's one book that I read was The Sheik... the forbidden parents, and ultimately Wilda herself, was the political book, affiliation of her parents. Although both parents came from Republican backgrounds, Herbert Hoover's handling of the Her passion for reading coincided with her desire for an economy caused them to become converts to the Demo- education. As she discussed the encouragement she cratic party. When the price of wheat sank to twenty-five received from her mother, she reflected that cents a bushel during Hoover's administration, Wilda's father held the president responsible. As Wilda recalled, "I ... my mother's attitude was always that education was used to tell my students when I was teaching that I was very important. She had been a school teacher before grown up before I realized that his name wasn't 'that damn she married my dad and she always wanted us to go to Hoover,' because that's how my dad referred to him." As a school, at least to graduate from high school. ... I result, "... after the depression and then FDR and the New remember how she cried when one of my older brothers Deal, they both became staunch Democrats, So this is what quit high school, and my dad wouldn't, as she put it, we grew up hearing at home, was Roosevelt and the "make him go back." My dad's attitude was, "he's just Democrats. And I know one of my older brothers said one been frittering his time away and the teachers say he time ... after we were all grown and everything .,. we doesn't come to school. He isn't doing anything, it's just wouldn't have dared say anything about FDR and the a waste of time and effort. You may as well let him get Democrats in our home and that was... about the truth. a job." And that was about when he was sixteen, so he Because as I said, my dad felt it was Hoover's fault that the did not finish high school. My sister married before she farmers were having such a hard time of it." was fifteen, she was a junior in high school. My oldest Wilda remembered not only that her parents were brother went a couple of years to high school and we Democrats but that they "talked politics quite actively and lived eleven miles from the school. He decided one day listened to political speeches." The family "always listened he'd had enough and he just packed up his things and to FDR's fireside chats. And we listened to every speech he walked home. Walked home. He was staying in town made on the radio." She added that "you didn't talk while with somebody to go to school. And then another they were listening to one of those speeches!" brother, older brother,,.. quit. But there were seven out Wilda's passion for reading and her desire for an edu- of the ten graduated from high school. cation were undoubtedly fostered to some degree by both I was the first to get a college degree. And then a parents* interest in politics. More significant, however, was Master's and then a Ph.D. I was the only one of our her mother's attitude toward education. Of her reading family to get a Ph.D. My youngest brother went to habits Wilda recollected that she read engineering school. He works for a television station and he got an Associate Degree, which is all that was ... just about anything I could get my hands on, because required for what he was going to do. We're the only we had a traveling library that came to the grade school ones that went to college. and I would usually read through those books

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Although her desire for education was ultimately to poor during the depression. She responded by saying: lead to a Ph.D. and a professorship at her alma mater, Fort Hays State University, her goal as an adolescent during the Well, I suppose they were worse off because although depression was much more modest: there [were the] WPA and PWA and all of those other public works kinds of things, work and so forth, there To be a teacher.... As I said, my mother was a teacher were lots of people who could not get it and today, even before she married my father, and I always loved young people trying to go to college and so forth can school. I loved to go to school and I admired my teach- qualify for food stamps and for some sort of public ers, most of them, and there were of a couple of them assistance. And so in a way I think they're better off. that inspired me to be like them, ... so I think I always There's more help available and of course a lot of that had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to be a came from the New Deal reform legislation, with things teacher. The first year I taught school was with just a like Social Security because even Social Security, as high school education. It was 1943, during the war you know, provides for the children of deceased people when they issued what they called "special emergency who were qualified for it... .And if they don't have certificates" if they couldn't find someone who had the enough income then they can draw on their parents' college training and so forth and they had to have a Social Security, so that kind of thing was not available. teacher to keep the school open. That was how I got it. ... it seems very obvious to me that the reform The school board signed this little paper and the County legislation, the social legislation that was put into effect Superintendent signed it and I signed it and so I taught has made it a lot better... and I think that has helped my first years of school. And once I had lived through change people's attitudes [toward the role of the first year, I think I was hooked for life. government in assisting the less fortunate].

In addition to reminiscing about what led her into a And finally, were the thirties the "good old days"? career in teaching that was to include not only her first Wilda obviously felt that there were some good things position in a country school, but also teaching history at about the thirties. She mentioned specifically that people Hays High School and Fort Hays State University, Wilda helped other people get through their troubles, when they reflected on the employment status of women during the could. "There were people who, for example, gave milk depression: and eggs and this type of thing to other people in the neigh- borhood who didn't have any." There also seemed to be less .,. during the depression the attitude was [that] married criminal activity. "I suppose there were people who stole, women were not supposed to be teaching school. Lots in order to have something to eat or whatever, but not the of times a single woman would start teaching and if she kind of problems that we have today." People seemed got married, she was fired. That was it. Her place was at willing to be more neighborly and sharing, traits home then, with her husband, and if she had children, encouraged by the depression. "I think it's always [like that] with the children. And girls did not have the during any disaster or catastrophe. People become more opportunities. They could maybe be a teacher or a nurse neighborly and help each other and open their pocket or a secretary and that was about it. And if, during the books." On the whole, however, Wilda has no desire to thirties, there was a woman who was a lawyer or a return to the 1930s: "From the standpoint of modern con- doctor, for example, it was unique.... nowadays I would veniences and comfort and so forth,... I certainly don't look call this the "new days," when the sky is the limit for on them as 'good old days.' I have fond memories of them, women. The opportunities are there and as far as their but when I look back, going back to live at a time when we ambitions and abilities will take them, seems to me. did not have running water, we did not have electricity,... This is the "good old days," the "good new days," I we got by, but... that part of it I.... don't see as the 'good old guess you could say. days.'"

In the closing minutes of the interview, Wilda was written by Ann E. Listen, based on an interview asked whether poor people today are better off man the conducted by Jacqueline Grogan, September 1993

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AHSGR Journal/Summer W4 Irene Wolfe Mrs. Irene Wolfe was born 28 September 1908 to Joseph would go out to eat, play cards, and visit once a month on a and Anna Basgall. At the onset of the Great Depression, Friday. These friendships lasted a lifetime. Mrs. Wolfe lived in the city of Hays, Kansas, with her Mrs. Wolfe recalled what her daily routine was like parents and her four sisters and four brothers. In 1937 she during the depression. After she was graduated from high married Henry Wolfe and gave birth to one son. school, she stayed home to take care of her ill mother. She The image that many have of the depression years is utilized her time by washing, cooking, and cleaning. Al- one of deprivation, malnutrition, and poverty. While this though cleaning was not much fun during the dust bowl, image may be accurate for some, such was not the case for Mrs. Wolfe said she enjoyed doing housework. Mrs. Irene Wolfe, The Basgall family never considered Within the Basgall home, Mrs. Wolfe felt that there was leaving the area of Hays during the depression years to seek a division of labor. To quote Mrs. Wolfe ".. .we did our work elsewhere, Mrs. Wolfe's parents owned Basgall work and the boys did theirs." She felt that the girls within Grocery Store, which employed most of her family her family did more work. According to Mrs. Wolfe, her members. Not only did the family-owned grocery store brothers were not expected to help around the house provide employment for her family members, but it also because they had enough girls to do the work. allowed them unlimited access to food. Mrs. Wolfe recalled Mrs. Wolfe was raised Catholic. She described her that when fruit produce began to spoil at the store, steps father as being very tolerant of persons of other faiths and were taken to consume or preserve it for later consumption. different ethnic backgrounds. To quote Mrs. Wolfe ".. .Dad Because the family owned the local grocery store, life was a pallbearer for many non-Catholics. And we'd go to during the depression, according to Mrs. Wolfe, did not their churches and their bazaars and he wanted us to." She change too much. Charity or public assistance did not pro- recalled that her father would trade or give away items at vide any part of the family income. Instead, her family the store with many non-Catholics that were in need. members worked together to combat difficult economic Within Mrs. Wolfe's family, and many other families times. she knew, problems or difficulties were considered private The notion that the dust bowl and the Great Depression matters. In fact, she could never recall tier parents having a were synonymous may, in fact, contribute to the grim im- marital dispute in front of her and her siblings. Private ages that prevail about this period. According to Mrs. concerns today were strictly private matters then. Mrs. Wolfe, the dust storms were grim. Mrs. Wolfe recalled her Wolfe could not recall ever hearing about child or spouse memories of the dust bowl: "It would kind of subside in the abuse in the city of Hays. According to Mrs. Wolfe, U was moming, but by noon or afternoon it would just roll like a also left up to the family to care for orphans and the elderly. cloud. It would just come rolling in and there was nothing The impact of the depression did not have any effect on you could do. You just had to take it." A memory which the Basgalls' political views. Mrs. Wolfe explained that her still brings sadness to Mrs. Wolfe's heart was attending the family always took an active role in politics. Joseph Basgall funeral of her future mother-in-law. The dust was so bad always encouraged his children to vote and, even today, the casket had to remain closed at the wake and funeral Mrs. Wolfe feels that it is a privilege, services. Because of technological advancement, many material During this time of adversity, Mrs. Wolfe recalled items today are taken for granted. Mrs. Wolfe described many happy memories. Holidays and special occasions growing up in the thirties by saying, "We didn't have TV's, were celebrated despite mother nature and trying economic maybe just a little radio. And that's about all we had. Ev- times. To quote Mrs. Wolfe, "Christmas, the house was full. eryone did not have a car. We just thought that was a privi- Everyone came home. We had twenty-five sometimes for lege, to even get a ride.'* Christmas." Mrs. Wolfe recalled how much her father From her experiences, Mrs. Wolfe provided some ad- enjoyed his big family and how warm holidays were. Also, vice to young people today: "The advice I'd give is to save Mrs. Wolfe remembered many forms of entertainment more than what they're saving." Mrs. Wolfe feels that the which lightened her burdens and lifted her spirit during the most important thing she learned through growing up depression years. Playing cards, dancing in Ellis at the during the Great Depression was learning to get along with Mulvey Hall, and watching movies were only a few of Mrs. what she had. Wolfe's favorite social activities. Through these activities interview by Claudia Nichoison came many significant friendships. For Mrs. Wolfe's friendships were maintained through a club membership where the women

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 RETRACING THE SCHMIDTKE TRAIL IN POLAND Edward Reimer Brandt

This article deals with the multiple migrations of the When one considers that the records in question per- ancestors of my Lutheran father-in-law, Ed(uard) tained to a German-speaking family in a predominantly Schmidtke (1905-1975). He was born in Volhynia (in or Polish-speaking area but were written in the Russian lan- near Vladymir Volynskiy) and came to Canada as a two- guage by an official of unknown ethnicity, the occurrence year-old. of errors becomes more readily understandable. His father, Adolf Schmidtke (1876-1957), was said to In any event, I did not have the opportunity to get all of have been born in Radom, Poland. For a dozen years I these documents translated before my departure for Europe, sought unsuccessfully to obtain pertinent Polish records. but I did obtain a translation of those most pertinent to But once I found the key, I received dozens of documents tracing ancestors, that is, the earlier ones, some of which during the two years prior to my 1991 trip to Poland. were in Polish. The key to obtaining records is to write in English to The Radom census document indicated that Adolf the national directorate of the Polish archives, enclosing Schmidtke was born in Kalinowka, I still have not ascer- $20 in U.S. funds (money order or bank check) to ensure an tained which of the many villages bearing this name (which initial search and reply (which will be in Polish). means "birchwood") is the correct one. However, Adolf The first document I received from the Radom archives clearly grew up in Radom. was a census-type document which listed my wife's The genealogically critical data indicated that Adolf *s grandfather, some of his siblings (presumably those still father, Johann Schmidtke, had been born in L6dz and his living at home), his parents, the dates and places of birth of mother in Wiskitno in the district of Lentschutz (Leczyca in each, and some additional information, including a notation Polish), later called the Lodz district. Lodz is sometimes that the family had moved its permanent residence to the spelled "Lodsch" in German and was known as village or district of Werba (Verbsk), immediately to the "Litzmannstadt" during the Nazi occupation.) north of Vladymir Volynskiy, in 1902. From the Lodz archives (via Warsaw) I obtained both There were inconsistencies, uncertainties and omis- the 1839 birth record of Johann Schmidtke (Adolf's father) sions of known family members in this record, so I wrote to and the 1834 marriage record of Johann's parents, Martin Warsaw again to seek clarification. Schmidtke and Anna Marianna Weinkauf. In due time I received information that a more com- It turned out that both Johann Schmidtke and his father, prehensive search had turned up over thirty pages of public Martin, had been born in the village of Dabrowa, just documents, which I could obtain for $10 per page! When southeast of Lodz. This village had been settled by the records arrived, the vast majority of them were in the Germans in 1789 and was one of the first German settle- Russian language (and many were very faded). The reason ments in Central Poland. The area was still under Polish for this is that the Russian government ordered that all rule at the time, since only the first of the three partitions of public documents (including parish registers) be kept in Poland had taken place before then and it had not touched Russian after the Second Polish Revolt of 1863-64, the Polish heartland. presumably to facilitate keeping control over the restless Of particular significance was the fact that Anna Maria Polish population. Weinkauf had been born in Kolonie Lindenwerder (now Lipia G6ra) in the Netze (Notec) River valley in north- Dr. Edward R. Brandt spent seven weeks in Europe, chiefly in Po- western Posen (Poznan). land and Germany, during the summer of 1991. Part of this trip was I already had reason to believe that the Schmidtke devoted to retracing the footsteps of his ancestors and those of his father-in-law in Poland. Dr. Brands has been engaged in German- family might have come from this area. American genealogical research since 1966. The author has Some time earlier I had helped a genealogical client published and lectured widely on genealogical subjects. In recent read some old parish registers (in the German Gothic years he has concentrated on the migration history and genealogy script) and had happened to notice that there was a of Germans from Eastern Europe.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 Schmidtke entry for the Samotschiner Holland. Samotschin My multilingual interpreter-guide-driver, Henryk (Szamocin) is the town nearest to the village of Skrzypinski of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), had already urged Lindenwerder. me to spend some time in his home area. Since the now first Later I reviewed some of the books on the Germans in known ancestral hometown(s) lay less than an hour's drive Central Poland written by Dr. Oskar Kossmann, the leading west of Bydgoszcz, I decided to do so. German authority on this subject, as a result of a brief book When we reached Lipia G6ra (Lindenwerder), ser- review in Wandering Volhynians; A Magazine for the endipity struck again (as it has so often in my ancestor Descendants of Germans from Volhynia and Po' land. (I hunting). We first went to the church, my customary ap- also had the privilege of spending several hours with him in proach. The priest was absent. However, we met Edyta 1991.) Lochinska, an eighth-grader, who knew all about the Kossmann's major work. Die Deutschen in Polen seit church: when it had been built, where the altar had come der Reformation: historisch-geographische Skizzen from and when, and where the German Lutherans had (Marburg/Lahn: J. G. Herder-Institut, 1978) has a pocket of worshipped before the church had been built. maps, one of which shows the known places of origin of It also turned out that she was the lead singer in the settlers in several German villages near L6dz. church (which had no organist at the moment), a Sunday Lo and behold! One of the places he listed (for several School teacher, and a member of the women's fire brigade! families) was Samotschin. All of a sudden, what had been The pre-1907 Lutheran prayer house was across the just an item of curiosity became a vital piece of genealogical street from the church. When we went there, we discovered information, suggesting a possible ancestral link. that the oldest member of the three-generation family living The firm Weinkauf connection to the Netze River there, Gertrud Pawlowska, spoke German. (We soon found valley came to my attention only weeks before my departure out that if we asked for the oldest person in any given for Europe and altered my travel plans. I decided to begin village, she/he was likely to know German^ although this portion of my trip in the Netze River valley. hardly anyone else did.) Mrs. Pawlowska (Pani in Polish) told me that a Weinkauf family had lived in the village until 1945 (when nearly all Germans fled from Poland) and later sent me quite a bit of information about the family, including the name of the last family member born in Lipia G6ra (Werner), who had visited the village with his eighty-year- old mother the month before I was there. Since the Weinkauf name is a rare one, it is a virtual certainty that these were relatives. I happened to receive the address of Werner Weinkauf from Erwin Krause, the head of the Heimatkreisgemeinschaft Kolmar, when I wrote there to ask for a copy of the county history, Antlitz und Geschichte des Kreises Kolmar/Posen, by Paul Kruger, which was published in 1970. Unfortunately, the address turned out to be outdated. Fortunately, I knew that people in Germany had to register at the Einwohnermeldeamt [residents' registration office] whenever they moved permanently, so I wrote to the pertinent office and received a new address. The letter came back, marked "unknown," so I wrote to the registration office and I received a third address. This last letter has not been returned to me, but neither have I received an answer yet, Eighth-grade Lipia G6ra church and town historian, Edyta Our next stop was intended to be Szamocin. However, Lochinska, and her brother, holding a baptismal bowl, with a the one village between Lipia G6ra and Szamocin is German Gothic engraving summarizing Gal. 5:27. Heliodorowo (German: Helldorf), I decided to go there

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 because I had reason to believe I would find more infor- Central Poland to Pomerania, whereas my father-in-law's mation on the Schmidtkes. ancestors moved eastward. The Wollin Lutheran church Earlier during my trip, I had spent one day in the St. records have not been microfilmed by the Family History Nicholas church archives in Berlin-Spandau to try to locate Library. Perhaps a forthcoming book on Pomeranian records of cousins with whom my father-in-law had records by Klaus-Dieter Kreplin will shed some light on corresponded in the 1930s and whom I had sought since whether they survived. 1966. I finally found a pertinent baptismal record for Meanwhile, in my review of the parish registers, I had Anneliese Waltraud, born in 1936 to Paul Richard encountered a 1924 marriage record for an Otto Julius Schmidtke, a potter, and Berta Adelheid, nee Otte. She was Schmidtke who had been born in Heliodorowo in 1894, a baptized in 1942 in Rohrbeck near Doberitz, where there son of farmer Gustav Schmidtke. was a military base. At the time, I did not know where Heliodorowo was, I was unable to get any information about Paul Richard but I thought it possibly might be in Volhynia, where few Schmidtke from the German military archives, since they German settlements had German names (contrary to the required various items of detailed information which I did practice in many German "colonies" farther to the west). not have. Thus I wrote down the information. I wrote to the Einwohnermeldeamt in Berlin. The body Later I checked the maps I had copied at the Borchert of their reply indicated a negative search, but a postscript Map Room of the University of Minnesota's Wilson Li- gave me the address of Anneliese Waltraud Pflanz, nee brary and found the village in the Netze River region. Schmidtke. I have since corresponded with her. Her family Thus, when we saw the directional pointer, indicating came from Wollin, Pomerania. If the connection, based on that Heliodorowo was just half a kilometer from the road information in my deceased father-in-law's letter of the we were traveling, I decided on this brief detour. 1960s is correct, the Schmidtke family may have migrated Here, too, there was an eighty-four-year-old woman— from Pomerania to Posen and moved onward to Central but she was working in the fields! Nevertheless, we found Poland within a generation or two. This means the out that a Schmidtke family had lived in the village until correspondents of the 1930s must have been fairly remote 1945. We arrived at the house. No. 15, which had been cousins, or that Mrs. Pflanz's ancestors moved (back?) built in 1937, although the other buildings in the square from the Samotschin area or from farmyard were much older.

The former Schmidtke house, built in 1937, and the much older farmyard at Heliodorowo, No. 15.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 When we knocked on the door, Mr. and Mrs. Wladyslaw Konzassa invited us in for tea, despite our un- announced arrival on a Saturday afternoon. The house was very wellkept, even though both host and hostess had off- the-farmjobs: he in the forestry-lumber field, she in a sau- sage factory. The hospitality here (like every place else in Poland, except in the Orbis tourist hotels) was superb. Then on to Szamocin, the seat of the consolidated municipality (gmina in Polish, Gemeinde in German) of that name, which included both of the other localities we had visited. This is where the civil registry office and the public library are located. It is likely that local public (es- pecially land and tax) records could determine whether the Dabrowa Schmidtkes came from here, and they might also make it possible to trace the Weinkaufs and Schmidtkes farther back, I am now having some research done. 1 found no Schmidtkes in the Samotschin parish regis- ters, which date back only to 1790, the year after Dabrowa Liberty Circle in L6dz, with St. Trinity Church (left). City Hall was founded. I likewise checked the Lutheran registers of (center) and the Kosciuszko statue (right). Margonin, which had jurisdiction over this area prior to that, and the Jaktorowo Catholic parish register, where We were told that all the parish registers in the L6dz early German settlers may have been recorded. Alas! thus archives had been microfilmed by the Utah Genealogical far in vain. Society. By now, they are all listed in the LDS locality After I returned to the United States and examined vari- index. ous maps, I first came to the conclusion that the L6dz, despite its reputation as a relatively unattractive Samotschiner Holland and Heliodorowo (formerly known industrial city, offered many highlights. as Helldorf) were the same, but later I discovered that I visited St. Trinity Church, the Lutheran mother Samotschiner Holland must have been Freundstal, which is church in L6dz built in 1828, and also have a copy of key in the same general area. portions of its centennial booklet, Eben-Ezer: Eine The term Holland or Holldnderei (Oledry in Polish) Jahrhundertgeschichte der evang. St. Trinitatsgemeinde zu originally denoted the farms of sixteenth-century Dutch Lodz, published by Pastor Gustav Schedler in 1929. religious refugees to northern Poland, but later it came to be It became a military garrison church after World War used for German settlements. II and is now a Catholic church, but its exterior still makes Still later, it was replaced by the term Kolonie which it one of the most impressive buildings in town. nearly always meant a German settlement in Poland and Across the street is the L6dz City Hall of comparable Russia. This designation in the fifteen-volume Polish gaz- vintage. The two are located on Liberty Circle, formerly etteer, Stownik geogrqficzny Krolestwa Polskiego i innych known as the New Ring. In the center is an imposing statue kraj6\v slowianskich, edited by Filipa Sulimerskiego, of General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who was a hero in the Bronislawa Chlebowskiego et al, and published in 1880- American War of Independence and battled equally val- 1902, is proof of a German settlement. iantly, but in vain. in the 1790s to preserve the indepen- From the Szamocin area we went to L6dz, where we dence of Poland. visited the archives. The records in L6dz were in Polish, We then visited St. Matthew's, the one remaining both in the case of the first German Lutheran parish, St. Lutheran church in Lodz. Although its exterior is relatively Trinity, established in 1828, and in the case of the Mileszki traditional, the interior, shown to me by the senior minister, Catholic parish, where German births, marriages, and Rev. Mariusz Werner, was the most impressive of any I deaths had been registered before then. saw on my trip. (Incidentally, this church recently built a However, since Polish, unlike Russian, uses the same guesthouse and welcomes visitors. Since nearly all hotels script as ours, I could identify the names, even if I had to in Poland are either in the luxury class or antiquated by rely on my interpreter to tell me what the entries meant, American standards, comfortable places to stay which are economical are a real treat.)

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 I also visited the old German Lutheran cemetery in was an error resulting from miscommunication, because Lodz, Although I searched in vain for a Schmidtke grave- Wiskitno is two kilometers farther from L6dz than stone, the tomb of Rev. Friedrich Metzner, the first minister Dabrowa. of St. Trinity (1828-52), who married my wife's great-great- I learned from the Radom records that Johann grandparents, is located close to the gate. It has an Schmidtke had been a sexton (Sakristan in German, with impressive memorial stone for him and his son. In Western Kusterlehrer used in Volhynia). In the eastern areas, a min- Germany, where grave plots are normally reused after thirty ister often had to serve a large number of churches. On years, I have seen nothing like this massive cemetery. those Sundays when he was elsewhere on the circuit, a It was massive with good reason, because the L6dz area layman would lead worship services by reading from the had by far the largest number of Germans in Central Poland. Bible. This same person served as the teacher and later, The earliest German farmers went there when the area was when organs were introduced, usually as the organist. still under Polish rule. Others, particularly "Swabians," This fits the Schmidtke legend that the family had been were settled there during the period of Prussian rule (1795- known for its ministers and teachers. I had learned quite 1806), but most of the Germans came after the 1815 some time ago that there had never been an ordained min- Congress of Vienna, when the Russian Czar became the ister by the name of Schmidtke in Russia, so the "minis- supreme ruler. In the early 1860s, many Germans began to ters" were actually sextons or lay ministers. It is probable move eastward, that at least one of Johann's sons was also a sexton. We visited Dabrowa, now on the outskirts of the city of That Johann Schmidtke was a teacher (although re- Lodz and therefore hardly the typical rural village it once ferred to in the records by the more prestigious status as was. We also saw what we were told was Wiskitno, now a "sexton") is interesting, in view of the fact that his parents high-rise complex in the city. However, this identification were illiterate day laborers. However, it is not surprising, once one learns a little about the social history of the German Lutherans in Poland, Teachers were extremely poorly paid, so that the sons of relatively well-to-do parents (that is, farm owners) would not usually be attracted to this "occupation." Furthermore, Johann Schmidtke must have been among the first teachers, because German schools began to increase rapidly in Poland only in the 1860s, when he began teaching. But the position of sexton was accorded great respect, so it offered upward social (even if not economic) mobility for bright, industrious children of the poor. To get back to the ancestral hometowns in Poland, I had obtained the places and dates of birth of all of Johann Schmidtke's known children (that is, at least all who sur- vived infancy). By virtue of this, I was able to trace at least some of the places where he had lived and served as a sexton and teacher. To begin with, Johann's grandparents had moved to Kolonie Grombach (Laznowska Wola) by 1834, when Johann's parents got married. Grombach was settled in 1800 by Swabians, at least some of whom came from the Grombach district of the Black Forest, west of Freudenstadt in what is now Baden-Württemberg. When Napoleon's armies unexpectedly marched this far east, quite a few of them moved onward, primarily to Bessarabia. Some of their farmsteads were apparently sold to "Pomeranians" or "Kashubians," as the migrants from Northeastern Germany were known (although rather inaccurately). Gateway to the original Lutheran cemetery in Lodz.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 The second child was born in Maksymilian6w, just a few miles farther to the southeast. The school appears to have been in nearby Jank6w, at least according to ninety- year-old Gottlieb Scheffler (one of the few Germans who stayed in the area). Mr. and Mrs. Scheffler also showed us where the church and cemetery had been in a rural area somewhat east of Maksymilian6w. Such an out-of-town location was unusual, but may have been decided upon in order to serve parishioners from two or three villages so as to minimize the distance any of them had to walk. In Laznowska Wola (which preceded Albert6w and Maksymilian6w on our itinerary), the German Lutheran Church was still standing, a sizeable concrete structure now used to store films, or so we were told. In the other two villages, there was no longer any church building, but a building in Jank6w, which had once housed a German school, is now a residence. In Albert6w there was a Ger- man cemetery. Former German Lutheran Church in Laznowska Wola The next stops were in the area west of Opoczno. The (Kolonie Grombach). Radom census indicated that the family had moved there from Groszowice. Ewald Wuschke, the publisher of Wan- A Martin Schmidtke, who was probably Johann's fa- dering Volhynians, whose ancestors had followed a rather ther, died in L6dz in 1854, when Johann would have been similar trail, suggested to me that this might be Grazowice, fifteen years old. It is quite possible that Johann might have west of Opoczno. I also found a Kalin6wka not too far from gone to his grandparents, because his oldest son was born here, so we visited both places. The local people did not in Albert6w, which is close to Grombach, but somewhat know of a German church or school having been at these farther from L6dz. places, although there had been German settlements several Unfortunately, the Brzeziny Lutheran (unlike the villages from there. Catholic) parish registers, which cover this area and which might provide additional genealogical data, possibly in- cluding Johann's marriage, are known to have been de- stroyed,

Former German school in Jank6w, next to Maksymilian6w, where the great-grandfather of the author's wife may have taught.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 There is a village by the name of Groszowice, some- We also spent some time at the Radom public archives, what east-northeast of Radom, which we also visited. The housed in a magnificent, modem-style City Hall on the city archivist in Radom insisted that this was the locality in square. question. The census document supports this, but we found Between City Hall and the church, however, I saw the no evidence that there had ever been any German presence most complete and extensive section of original housing in this vicinity. In view of the fact that the same document that I have seen in any East European city. It must date gave three different maiden names for Theophilia, the wife back at least two hundred years. If you really want to see ofJohann Schmidtke, it seems quite possible that the how your immigrant ancestors and their parents lived, recorder misinterpreted the information given him by the Radom is a perfect microcosm, not yet destroyed by the family concerning its origins. bulldozer or drastically changed by external renovation, Radom was, in some ways, the most significant stop, (At least that was true in 1991.) since it represented not just an ancestral hometown, but a My last stop was at Warsaw, but I found all the ar- place where someone whom I had personally known had chives closed on Saturday (in contrast to what I had found lived. in Bydgoszcz), so this turned out to be primarily a tourist We visited the parsonage, a fourplex in which both the stop. minister's and the sextons' families had lived, and which I wondered whether there might be some animosity, or still served as both residence and church office. I saw the at least reserve, toward someone who was researching actual parish register, not a government document or a German ancestors in Poland, but I found none. Virtually microfilm. I confirmed that two of Adolf Schmidtke's without exception, people were very friendly and helpful. I siblings, but not Adolf himself, had been born there and am still corresponding with several of them. obtained copies of the original entries. I gained a tremendous amount of information, but this Across the street stood the tall-spired Lutheran church, gain would have been much smaller without the services of still known colloquially as the "German church," even my very knowledgeable interpreter-guide-driver, whom I though it had been almost half a century since any signifi- heartily recommend to any one contemplating a similar cant number of its parishioners had been German. trip.

The Lutheran parsonage in Radom in which the Johann Schmidtke family lived during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994 However, the more carefully I analyzed the information of permanent residents, but showed up with a wife born in I had gathered, the more questions arose in my mind, Volhynia and a son when he registered in Werba in 1902? Resolving them all, at least to the extent of following all According to the family, he supposedly was sent to a semi- leads, will take a great deal of time and money. nary and expelled, but I found no record of him being at the I cite only two examples of the kinds of questions that Warsaw seminary, illustrate the never-ending process of further genealogical I have written a Polish archive which has the 1890- research; 1945 vital records for Western Volhynia, in the hope of (1) Places: (a) Which Kalin6wka was my wife's clarifying the questions about Adolf Schmidtke, his wife, grandfather's birthplace? (b) Did the family live in and his three Volhynian-born sons (only one of whom sur- Groszowice or Grazowice? (c) Did the Schmidtke ancestors vived). actually come from the Netze River area? (d) Where did the Despite the unresolved questions, retracing the family Weinkauf, and possibly the Schmidtke, ancestors live migrations (which various writers suggest parallel the before they moved to the Netze district? movement of many other Germans from the Posen-Pome- (2) People: (a) Who was Theophilia, the wife of ranian-West Prussian area to Eastern Poland and Volhynia Johann Schmidtke? Ewald Wuschke suggests that her via Central Poland) was clearly one of the most stimulating maiden name was Ristock, which was polonized as experiences of my life. Grodzinski. This seems plausible, since both surnames I encourage you to take a similar trip. You, too, will appear in the L6dz registers. Two of the maiden names in find it highly rewarding. And Poland is one of the best the Radom census record appear to be corruptions of these travel bargains in Europe today. names. I have not been able to find any birth or baptismal entry for her, although I checked both the L6dz Lutheran and the Mileszki Catholic parish registers (which covered Addresses: Wiskitno). However, Theophilia's mother's name was Krystyna; I found a record of an Anna Krystyna Rijstock, National Directorate of the Polish State Archives who would have been of the right age. The Ristocks came Naczelna DyrekcjaArchiw6w Paristwowych ul. Dluga from Holendry Dombogorach in Posen, according to 6 — skrytka pocztowa Nr. 1005 PL 00-950 Warszawa Wuschke. For several years, I thought this must be a Poland (Polska) mangled spelling, since no such locality is listed in Meyers Ons- und Verkehrs-Lexikon (1912-13), which mentions English-German-Polish-speaking guide/interpreter/driver even the tiniest hamlet in what was then Germany, Henryk Skrzypinski including Posen. However, I recently found Dembogora ul. Grunwaldzka l0a/68 Holland listed in a book by Walter Maas, It is now called PL 85-236 Bydgoszcz Swoboda and is just a few kilometers southeast of Lipia Poland (Polska) G6ra. Maas states that the Dutch from the VistuIa-Nogat (Tel.) 011-48-110-427921 (from the United States) delta to the northeast met the Pomeranians from the northwest as Germans settled here in the mid-1700s. My Archives with 1890-1945 West Volhynian parish records father-in-law believed that his ancestors had been religious Urzad Stanu Cywilnego refugees from the Spanish Netherlands. The Dutch Warszawa-Sr6dmiescie "Rijstock" spelling is consistent with this. And who would ul. Jezuicka 1/3 have been more likely to marry the illegitimate Theophilia skr.poczt. P-18 than a lay minister, especially if their ancestors had come 00-950 Warszawa from neighboring villages? Poland (b) Where was Adolf Schmidtke from about 1898 to 1902, since he was listed as single in the Radom register

AHSGR Journal/Summer 1994