R: This Is Kenneth Rock, and I'm Visiting Today with Mr. and Mrs

R: This is Kenneth Rock, and I'm visiting today with Mr. and Mrs. Harold Henkel. Their home, 15 Burlington, Longmont, Colorado. This is 21st of March, 1977, and we're talking about some of their experiences. So, which one of you would like to go first? Mrs. Henkel? KH: To start in, my name is Katherine Rudy (Rudi) Henkel. My mother--my dad's name was Peter Rudy, and he came from Pobotschnaja, Russia. R: Could you spell that if you have it there? KH: Pobotschnaja, Russia? R: Mm-hmm. KH: That would, let's see- R: Okay, we have it on that other-- KH: There it is, okay, the colony was, um, it's called in German [inaudible], its colony, and then Pobotschnaja is spelled P-o-b-o-t-s-c-h-n-a-j-a. That is Russian. That's when the Russian people who wouldn't let the German people name their colonies after German names anymore. My dad left Russia ahead of my mother two years, and he went to South America first. And he spent quite some time in Argentina looking for a home there, and he didn't like it, and he worked his way into America. In other words, he had to earn money, and he would go step by step. He came to the port of San Francisco. He was on the vessel the S.S. San Jose on July 24, 1913. R: That was after he was in Latin America? KH: That's right, after he was in Latin America, yes. And of course, he had his [inaudible] that he had to go to, and in Sugar City, Idaho, which was Mr. David Weimer, and he also lived in Sugar City, Idaho. R: How do you spell Weimer? KH: W-e-i-m-e-r. R: I say this just to help out our secretary. KH: Okay. The Weimers were a great lot of people; there were a lot of Weimers. They're like the Schlegels, the Waggeners, and, you know, there's no end to that name. That's the way it is, was, with the Weimers, too. R: Do you know if your father was in contact with this Mr. Weimer when he was still in Russia? KH: Yes, very much so, because they knew each other. R: I see. KH: They knew each other already in the old country. R: He was from the same village? KH: Well, that I don't know. The only thing I know is our dialect from Russia, that Mom and Dad brought, changed when they moved again to live among the Weimer people. R: Hmmm. KH: We got a very distinct German speaking language, and where our folks came from, when we moved to Longmont, the dialect was just out of this world. I'm, telling you I had to learn, I had to laugh a lot of times when the people would talk. Because the dialect where my parents came from. So while they were living among these people, that came, these Weimers, why they lost that dialect that they brought from Russia. R: Oh, I see. KH: There's quite a difference in it. For example, in German they would say [inaudible]. That was the dialect of the Weimers. But our dialect, it was [inaudible]. See the difference, the difference in the words. So, as long as they lived in Idaho and in the southern part of Colorado, is when they lost that Pobotschnaja dialect. R: Um-hmm, um-hmm. KH: So, which I'm not sorry about [laughs]. And I thought it was these other people had a plainer German, and you could understand them much better than you could the dialect-that the Pobotschnaja people brought with them. R: I see. KH: And beings that Dad came via South America, that, too, helped him lose that dialect to a certain degree, he was mixed with so many different people over there. R: Do you know what year he left Russia? KH: Well, according to . R: He was in South America for some time, you say. KH: According to the exact date, now I have a spot right there, when my dad docked the ship to go to South America, between that time and when he docked America, it's lost, I cannot find it, unless I will write to somebody in South America and try to get that information. I cannot find it here. R: Um-hmm, I see. KH: And I did not ask may dad. There's nothing on paper. It's not recorded. Only what is on his citizenship papers--here, and he got into Mexico, evidently, and docked the, beings that it's a Mexican ship, and docked at San Francisco, California, you see. R: I see. KH: But he did tell me, he had, that he made five stops. R: From Argentina to San Francisco. KH: To, no, well, yeah, to San Francisco and then came on in, and that meant earned money to take and get a ticket again to go so far and then work and then get another ticket and go so far, and I never did see ray dad's visa in all the days that I can remember. R: Do you recall, did he know any Spanish, too? KH: Yes, very much so. He could speak Spanish. He learned the Spanish in Latin America. R: Surely. KH: Yes, he knew, he could speak to the people here that he worked with. They couldn't fool him in any way. (Laughing) R: [Laughing] That's good. Now, your mother did not come with him, then? KH: No, Mama was back in Russia. He had left her with her two sons, which I recorded, that were not, you know, there were no papers on them, and she was out there for two years until he had made this circle. That took him two years to do this. R: I see. KH: According to his story, that according to the citizenship papers which I have before me here, it must have been two years from the time that he left until he seen her again. Now, that’s the only way I can figure it out, because it should have been shorter. My mother left on, let's see, when did she, according to her, she left, well, what would the date be? She was on the steamship in Germany, the S S. Breslau, and she came into the United States, according to this, "I arrived at the United States through the port of Galveston, Texas, under the name of Anna Marie Rudy, April 6, 1914." R: I see. KH: But the paper from Russia is 1912. See, so he must have left immediately. And that is that lapse I'm talking about, that I haven't got. R: I see. Okay. KH: And again, she, too, had to come to Sugar City, Idaho, but she had a lot of trouble down at the Galveston port, because her two boys were so terribly sick. R: Oh. KH: The ship came to New York first, and all the way down the coast they would drop freight, pick up freight, and all. She had to go along. And then when she got down there, and they wouldn't let her off of the ship. And she thought she was-- they were already loading the ship and getting it ready to go back into Russia. And she thought she was being returned. Until the captain came in and asked why she was there on the ship, and that she had such a strong visa that she'd have to go if her two boys died en route. And her boys were still that sick, too. So, she said they put her on the train, and started her for Idaho. R: From Texas? KH: From Texas. R: To Idaho. KH: Houston, Texas--Galveston, R: Uh-huh, Galveston-Houston area, and she went directly there with the two boys, these are your two older brothers, I suppose? KH: My two older brothers, yes. And Dad was working in the sugar mill, and Mom they put up a white tent for her and a block stove, and a bed which had just one of those little flat springs on it, no mattress, no nothing, and he got some canvases from the sugar factory, which probably had little teeny hole in it, that couldn't be used, they were afraid to use it for accidents, and she said it didn't take her long to clean up some of those and make themselves a mattress out of corn and straw. And then she finally had her few things that she could put on her bed, and she had the earthen floor, she patted it down with water and made it as slick as glass, she said. And her cupboards were orange crates, and she used flour sacks for curtains. And she said that's the way they spent their first summer i n America, and she worked beets by herself. She thinned beets and Daddy was working in the sugar mill, and by fall, she says we were able to find us a little home to; a little house. R: In Idaho. KH: In Idaho. Then, that first year, that was when I came along, that was when they lost that first son, Henry. He was the one that drowned in that small ditch of water which probably wasn't any higher than this. It was one of those little tributary ditches that ran off, that's where they lost their first son that they brought out of Russia.

Load more