JOURNAL of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
Volume 20, No. 4 , Winter 1997
Editor CHRISTINE ClAYTON AHSGR Headquarters, Lincoln, Nebraska
Editorial Board
IRMGARD HEIN ELUNGSON Bukovina Society, Ellis, KS ARTHUR E.FLEGEL Certified Genealogist, Menio Park, CA ADAMGIESINGER University of Manitoba, Canada, emeritus NANCY BERNHARDTHOLLAND Trinity College, Burlington, VT WILLIAM KEEL University of Kansas, Lawrence PETER J.KLASSEN te UniveCalifornia Starsity, Fresno TIMOTHY KLOBERDANZ North Dakota State University, Fargo GEORGE KUFELDT Anderson University, Indiana, emeritus LEONAPFEIFER Fort Hays State University, Kansas, emeritus
On the cover: Sod house in South Dakota, built and owned by Germans from Russia. Photo The Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is published quarterly by AHSGR. courtesy of Reuben Goertz. Members of the Society receive a quarterly Journal, Newsletter, and an annual genealogical publication, For an account of the lives of female Clues. Members qualify for discounts on material available for purchase from AHSGR. Membership pioneers on the Plains see Irene M. categories are: Individual, $50; Family, $50; Contributing, $75; Sustaining, $100; Life, $750. Memberships are based on a calendar year, due each January 1. Dues in excess of $50 may be tax-deductible as allowed by Rader's article, starting on page 31. law. Applications for membership should be sent to AHSGR, 631 D Street, Lincoln. NE 68502-11 W. The Journal welcomes the submission of articles, essays, family histories, anecdotes, folklore, book reviews, and items regarding all aspectsofthe lives of Germans in/from Russia. All submissions are subject to review by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts should be typed double spaced with endnotes. Computer fan-fold paper should be separated before mailing. If written on 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 Manualof'Style, 14(h ed. revised (Chicago: 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 adequated postage. Unless you instruct us otherwise, submissions not published in the./OMraa/will be added to the AHSGR Archives.
The International Foundation of AHSGR is a non-profit organization which seeks funds 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 a promoting the work of the Aiissiedier Project gathering information from German-Russian emigrants recently arrived in Germany, the AHSGR/CIS Project for research in Russia, or supporting the Society's library or genalogical work; gifts may also be designated for use where most needed. All contrihutions 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. E-mail: [email protected]. 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 • Fax 402-474-7229 • E-mail [email protected] €> Copyright 1997 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. 1SSN 0162-8283 $10.00 U.S. CONTENTS
THE DUMB FARMER Jacob D. Samler ...... 1
CONVERSATIONS WITH GERMANS IN RUSSIA Sister Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA, with Sister Mary Elise Leiker, CSA...... 12
VOLGA-GERMAN SISTERS LOCATE FAMILY Avery Fischer ...... 19
DURING THE STALIN REGIME Eugen N. Miller Translated by Ursula Moessner and edited by Irma E. Eichhorn...... 21
GERMAN WRITERS IN RUSSIA TODAY Eugen N. Miller Translated by Ursula Moessner and edited by Irma E. Eichhorn ...... 26
THE EXPERIENCE OF THE GERMAN-RUSSIAN PIONEER WOMEN Irene M. Rader...... 31
NEW ADDITIONS TO THE AHSGR LIBRARY Jan Tract Roth, AHSGR Librarian...... 38
LEAVING A LEGACY, FOR GENERATIONS TO COME...... ……………...... 42
1997 AHSGR Journal/Winter Jacob Samler's parents, Christian and Elizabeth (Knorr) Samler, on their wedding day in 1913. (AH photos courtesy of the author.)
Wilhelm Samler (left), one of Christian Samler's brothers, in the Russian Army.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 THE DUMB FARMER
Jacob D. Samler The Great Depression had begun two years earlier when on men. She kept a clean and neat house even though the a cold January day in 1931 a fourth living son of Chris nearest water was carried in buckets into the kitchen after (Christian) and Lizzie (Elizabeth) Samler (Semmler) took being pumped by hand from an underground cistern that was his first squalling breath. Chris had arrived in northwest in front of the small house with four rooms, kitchen, dining Kansas as a nineteen-year-old German from Arzis, room, and two bedrooms. Hot water was heated on top of Bessarabia, in 1907. Lizzie (Elizabeth Knorr) had arrived in the kitchen stove or in the "reservoir" built into the end of the same part of Kansas with her parents when she was four the stove. The stove was usually fueled with corn cobs that years old in 1894. Her family had lived in Bergdorf, South were obtained from the debris left from machine-shelled Russia. Chris and Lizzie were married in 1913 and lived on corn or cobs that were gathered from the pig pen after the a treeless, desert-like, dry-land farm eleven miles from the pigs had eaten the corn from the ears. Occasionally the pigs nearest town (Haigter, Nebraska) for the rest of their lives deposited used corn on the cobs. Dried cow chips were also except for Chris' three years in Haigler before his death in sometimes used for fuel. There was a peculiar odor in the air 1952. Like most immigrants they clung to their old world at those times. ways including language patterns, religious affiliation and The laundry was done on a washboard or in a hand- practices, admiration and respect for hard-working people powered wooden washing machine with an attached hand- even if the people were otherwise scoundrels. They also cranked wringer. There were a number of forty-feet-long retained their hardheaded rigidity and tendency to persevere wires on sturdy posts for drying clothes in the area behind in their undertakings, both good and those that were less the house. In winter the clothes froze stiff instead of drying. desirable, for example holding grudges, drinking sometimes Although Lizzie probably got a few days rest after giving to excess, and a tendency to want to settle differences with birth, it was not very long. An often repeated story was that physical techniques ("Ich verschlag dir den Kopf— I'll beat Lizzie's paternal aunt (Christina Knorr Zweygardt) gave up your head). birth one day and either the same day or the following day Chris and Lizzie had lost an infant son and an infant pitched wheat bundles into the threshing machine feeder to daughter many years before Jake was born but still had help the men who were doing the job. enough older children so that the birth of Jake was probably One story about how Jake got his name follows. Lizzie ambivalently accepted. There was already enough work for had decided on something like August or Gottlieb. When everyone without another infant who needed care. One Chris went to Haigler to talk to Dr. Armitage, the local child, Bill, was three years old at the time, another son. doctor, about the birth certificate, Chris decided on the name Otto, was age eight, a girl, Anita, was ten, and the oldest Jacob David. Lizzie had an uncle named David and an uncle son, Oscar, was fifteen. named Jacob. Chris had a brother David and his father's Lizzie regularly did the farm chores twice a day, in- name was David. Besides, every German family in the cluding milking five to ten cows, running the milk through community had at least one Jacob. a hand-cranked cream separator, feeding chickens, gath- Bertha Kamla, the closest neighbor (living two miles ering eggs, and sometimes feeding and slopping the pigs. away) had been summoned to attend Lizzie during the birth She no longer helped with field work as some of the other of Jake. Bertha had never been able to bear a child, but she women of the German immigrant community did. She did, and her husband, John, had adopted three children, including however, in addition to the chores and childcare, bake a lot Berdean, an infant girl who was born to Chris' brother John of bread and pastry, kill, dress, and fry chickens, can fruits and his wife, Elizabeth nee Harsch. John's wife died and vegetables in season, cook three hearty meals a day for sometime around Berdean's birth. John Kamla happened to a family of hungry children and physically active be Chris' first cousin. Jake was called "Jackoble" (a term denoting affection in Dr. Jacob D. Samler, anAHSGR member, lives in Bakersfield, Cali- the German language) and even when he was in his early fornia. His autobiographical account of growing up in Kansas in the forties, his aunt Minnie still called him Jakie. That same 1930s and 1940s reflects experiences probably common fo many aunt Minnie was one of the sponsors when Jake was first and second generation German Russians in the United States. baptized on 8 February 1931 at Hope Valley Lutheran Church seventeen days after he was born. It was customary for the sponsors to assume responsibility for the child's
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 2 The Dumb Farmer occasionally read German language newspapers. He seemed upbringing and religious education in case the child's par- to consider reading to be a waste of time unless one read the ents died before the child was able to care for himself. Bible. "Storybooks" were essentially forbidden and Sunday Jake's sponsors also provided him with annual Christmas funnies were barely tolerated as reading material for the presents and with a German hymnal and a Bible at the time children in that household. of his confirmation. Chris enjoyed visiting with other German-speaking Jake's brother Bill was probably one of the most in- friends, and he was especially close to his brother Dave. fluential persons in Jake's education and social develop- However, they sometimes had bitter falling-out episodes ment—or maldevelopment. Since he was only three years that lasted for months if not a year or two. During those older than Jake, he served as playmate, instructor, and difficult episodes they strongly discouraged the other mem- mentor. More about him later, bers of the families from interacting with each other. This Mother was always kind, quiet, and busy with house- made for awkward situations since the other family mem- work and outdoor chores. She seemed to Jake to be usually bers often met in the small community and had no enmity discouraged and to get little joy out of life except through toward each other. Also during those times Chris and Dave her children. She devoted herself to activities that were did not go to Abendmahl [Holy Communion]. Each of the designed to make others comfortable and happy. She brothers seemed to believe that the other should apologize seemed rather uneasy and appeared to feel awkward socially and admit he had done wrong. Chris, it seemed to Jake, when outside her German-speaking friends and relatives. almost never saw himself in a favorable light, although he She was able to read German and to read and write in seemed to have some pride in his ability to do hard physical English on perhaps the fifth grade level. tasks without complaining. He rarely wore gloves even in Father was perceived by Jake as an unreasonable, au- winter or when working with barbed wire. His hands were tocratic tyrant. He was always the dominant figure in regard broad, thick, and calloused. His spankings were quite to the farm work, the home, and in setting behavioral meaningful. On one occasion Jake had misbehaved and standards. He tolerated no criticism or explanation about knew that a spanking was inevitable. With some why bad things happened on the farm. He conveyed an encouragement from his brother Bill, Jake decided to fill the attitude of strength both in terms of protection of those back pockets of the inner pair of overalls—two pairs of under his care and also in his capacity to punish and control. overalls were usually worn in the winter for additional He said, "Ich bin Herr, und was ich sag' geht" [I am the protection against the cold—with corn cobs in the hope that master and what I say goes], Jake has some pleasant it would moderate the discomfort caused by the spanking memories of times with his father. During the catastrophic and perhaps even inflict some discomfort on the spanker. flood that occurred in 1935, the bridge that connected the When Chris saw how "clever" his youngest son was, he had northwest corner of Kansas to the county seat, St. Francis, some difficulty in controlling his amusement, but Kansas, had been washed away. The farmers drove to the administered the spanking anyway. north or west side of the river then went on foot on some Chris always clung to old and familiar ways. Thus, he planks that had been laid on the remnants of the bridge to persisted in the use of horse-drawn farm machinery in the cross over the river. Jake recalls his father carrying him with 1930s when other farmers in the area were converting to a strong, dependable hand across those raging waters. Since tractor-drawn equipment. He built a large, sturdy barn for the strong dad was in charge, there was no fear in a situation twenty horses out of native rock in 1933. The walls are two that could have been frightening. feet thick and will still be standing for several more Father was unable to read or write English. He always generations. Although Chris worked very hard he seemed had someone else do things like write his checks. Shortly quite adept at arranging a trip to town or to the local after his arrival in the United States he tried attending one of blacksmith shop at chore time. There he could visit and the country schools to learn to read and write English. perhaps gossip a while. When he was a young boy, Jake Because he was nineteen years old and the other students frequently accompanied Chris to the blacksmith shop about were grade school age he felt too self-conscious to continue four miles from their farm. The shop was on another farm very long. He was able to read and write German, at least that belonged to Jake Stasser. Mr. Stasser was considered by enough to write personal fetters and to read the German many a genius at building or repairing machinery. He devotional book aloud to the family after breakfast and usually had a cud of Red Man chewing tobacco in his "supper." The evening meal was never referred to as dinner. mouth, and he would spit a large mouthful of tobacco juice The term "dinner" meant the noon meal. Whenever anyone on the dusty floor of his shop before saying anything. He was invited to come for dinner it always meant the noon was an interesting person, a bit of a philosopher, honest, meal. Sundays were frequently spent eating "dinner" with kind, and straightforward. The loud pounding of the trip- relatives and families of friends, usually right after church hammer, the sizzle of white hot iron being services. Father also
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 The Dumb Farmer 3 dipped in a tub of cold water to temper the metal, and other born. Uncle John always treated Jake very well, and Jake sights and sounds in that shop made it a fascinating place for was always very fond of him. When Jake was growing up, a boy to visit. On one visit to the shop Mr. Stasser said to John was a junk dealer, who made his living by going from Jake, "Come here, I want to show you something pretty." He farm to farm and buying copper, zinc, cast iron, and animal led Jake to the shady north side of the shop where a huge— hides. in Jake's memory the spider was several inches in As a small boy, Jake was sometimes allowed to go with diameter—spider was spinning a large and nearly perfect Uncle John on those buying trips in John's Model-T Ford web. truck. It was fascinating at night to see the sparks from the Chris regularly bought pint bottles of grain alcohol from coils that were mounted inside the cab of the truck. Uncle the liquor store. Lizzie would heat some sugar in a small John usually arranged his trips so he would be able to stop skillet till it was dark brown and caramelized. She would for refreshments at the local beer joint in Haigler. He dissolve that in about a pint of water and then mix it with the usually took a few punches on the punchboard and on one grain alcohol. Chris took a jiggerful of that before lunch and occasion won a huge chunk of peppermint candy, which he before supper. He sometimes emitted a satisfied "aaah" after gave to Jake's family. He always bought Jake a treat and the shot. When either of Chris' brothers shared in a drink sometimes gave Jake a few sips of his beer. and one of them gave out the "aaah," the other person Jake's older sister, Anita, was always indulgent and kind frequently said, "So gehen's die Siefer alle" [That's the to her younger siblings. One day, when Jake was one or two sound all drinkers make], years of age, the children were left atone and were playing Chris' brother Dave was fond of fishing and story- inside the house. Jake had a wooden riding toy. Anita sat on telling. He was more adventuresome than some and enjoyed the Kiddie Kar and broke it in two. Jake recalls crying about life greatly. Chris seemed to have no hobbies or interests. it and desperately wanting to stop crying but was unable to He conveyed the idea that not being properly occupied in stop. He knew that if he cried it would upset Anita and he doing something productive or useful was, if not sinful, at did not want her to feel badly. He knew that she would least a waste of time. Dave, on the other hand, had a good never do anything to hurt him or to deliberately break his battery-operated radio in his home for entertainment, played toy. Anita left the farm at the age of twenty-two to attend cards in town, and arranged to frequently go fishing. When high school in another state. She later completed a course asked why he went fishing instead of going to church on for registered nurses and had successful careers in the Sunday morning, Dave replied, "Die Kirch isch keine Grott military and as a civilian. und hopft net von dem Hof [The church is not a frog and Jake shared his early years on the farm with three older won't hop out of the yard]. Dave, when relaxing, would brothers as well as the older sister. The winters were cold, open a can of Budweiser, and drink it down fairly quickly. and the four boys slept in one, usually unheated, room of the Then he would use the empty beer can as a spittoon. He "bunkhouse" that was about forty feet from the main chewed snuff, Copenhagen brand. He then opened a second residence. There was a stove in the room, but someone had can of beer and would sip on it for some time- Jake once to get out from under the thick warm homemade quilts and asked his uncle Dave if he ever made a mistake and drank flannel sheet to light a fire. Much of the time a quart can of out of the wrong can. Dave gave a chuckle and said that he kerosene with cobs soaking in it was on the floor next to the never had, but that once when he was playing poker in town, stove- Several soaked cobs were put in the stove first and the man sitting next to him did. lighted, then other cobs were added. By the time there was Chris' brother John was considered the black sheep of noticeable heating in the room everyone had pulled on his the brothers. He was the oldest and lived a less stable life shirt, socks, overalls, and shoes and was ready to go outside than the others. His wife died around the birth of their last and start doing chores. Fire was started regularly only when child (Berdean) and left him with older twin girls in a lonely the room would be used to dress for church later or if it was farm environment. After his wife's death he spent some time a winter holiday and the boys planned to play for some time in a Kansas state prison. Jake knew his uncle had been in in the bunkhouse. Younger boys played at such things as prison but had not asked about it or thought about it much standing on the metal support at the foot of the bed and till Jake's last year in medical school. During a fraternity letting themselves fall backwards onto the bed. Sometimes party Jake was shooting pool with a classmate, Al Knosp, the slats gave way and the whole spring and corn husk who was a son of a pastor who had served a church for mattress arrangement had to be redone. Since Jake was the many years in the St. Francis community. Al at that time youngest he slept in a double bed between the next two told Jake the reason Jake's uncle John had been in prison. He older brothers. That usually worked out well except when had been convicted of molesting his daughters. That had Jake emptied his bladder in bed during the occurred some years before Jake was
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 was happening, saved the horse, and of course told Oscar what had happened. Jake learned a lesson, but recalls no consequences other than feeling thankful and reinforcing his belief in a benevolent guardian angel. One other incident indicating that Jake had a good guardian angel occurred when he was about thirteen years old. A calf had died on the farmstead in Kansas, and Chris told Jake to take a horse and drag the calf to a nearby "canyon" that was probably thirty feet deep. Jake decided he would use his head instead of his muscles to get the calf, which probably weighed about 150 pounds, over the edge of the ravine. The end of the ravine, the deepest point, pointed southward. Jake tied the lariat rope to the saddle horn and placed the loop around the calf's neck. He guided the horse so that the calf was dragged to the east side of the Jake Samler in front of the farmhouse in Kansas, where he ravine, then rode on around to the west side so the calf grew up. 1934. would be dragged into the ravine and would drop in night. The older brothers did not like that. The oldest without having to be pushed. Unfortunately the entire brother, Oscar, slept in a double bed by himself in the same length of rope was used up before the calf hit bottom so bunkhouse room. He left the family farm to work a farm there was a sudden hard tug on the saddle. The poor horse about twenty-six miles north in the "sandhills," which Chris staggered a few steps and fought for his life— and regained rented for him. Chris also helped Oscar make decisions control about three feet from the edge of the ravine. Jake about how the place was to be farmed. Jake was about only much later told anyone about the incident. seven or eight years old when Oscar moved away. Oscar married when Jake was age nine. Oscar's wife, Jake and his brother Bill took turns staying with Oscar Marcella, took over many of the summer sandhills farm for a week at a time during the summer months. Home- duties that Jake and Bill had performed before. More time sickness developed, but Jake believed he needed to main- was spent counting cattle in large pastures, checking the tain an image of being "tough" so he sometimes volun- water supplies for the cattle, and so forth. It often took teered to stay an extra week. He recalls feeling very de- several hours to check all the areas, and the count was pressed in the evenings, but in the mornings and during the almost never exactly right. Sometimes Jake would start day he felt fine. During those stays, the boys did things over and get a different wrong count, and sometimes he such as cooking meals. They also went into the pasture and lied about the count to Oscar when it was too hot to con- drove the workhorses that were to be used to pull tinue or if he was too tired to do a recount. It was a mis- machinery that day into the corral, brought the milk cows erable, lonely task that could sometimes be interrupted by out of the pasture morning and evening, and fed pigs and stopping at a neighbor's place. Those neighbors lived a mile turkeys or chickens. Then there was milking to do twice a or two off the main road, and their farms were connected to day, and the dishes and cream separator had to be washed. the main road only by the trails made by horse-drawn Sometimes the boys were assigned to hoe weeds out of the wagons or an occasional car. The neighbor boys welcomed row crops that had been planted with a machine called a someone to play with, and those families followed the lister. country custom of always making room at the table for a Once Jake had been in the pasture counting cattle on visitor if it was near mealtime. Not to have stayed for a Oscar's favorite riding horse. Pat. On the way back from meal was likely to be interpreted as an insult, in which the the pasture Jake stopped to hoe the weeds out of several host would conclude that the visitor did not believe the rows of corn in a field by the main road past Oscar's farm. offered meal would be good enough. Jake had used the saddle that day and did not want Pat to Since nearly all of the farming was done with horses, wander on home, so Jake placed the loop of the lariat rope Jake also had the experience of driving a team of four large around Pat's neck and tied the other end to a large horses pulling a cultivator on corn or cane planted in cottonwood tree. He then went into the field to hoe. Pat furrows. The horses were gentle and knew what to do. It grazed around the tree and tangled himself in the rope. He was only necessary for the driver to start them down the would have strangled to death if the rural mail carrier, correct rows, they would then walk on the tops of the ridges Claude Martin, had not happened to pass by. He saw what of the furrows to the other end of the rows. One morning after Oscar and Marcella were married, soul-satisfying "splat" as the glob of mucus hit the ground. Then one still had to deal with the remaining AHSGR Journal/Winter. 1997 wetness around the nose. The logical thing to do was to wipe on one's mackinaw or denim jacket sleeve. The result Jake was riding Pat, the same horse he had almost was a shiny, mirrorlike area on the sleeve. Jake's mother strangled. His task was to drive the work horses into the sometimes called Jake a Spiegel Schwab [mirror Swabian] barn so they could be fed, harnessed, and used in the field because of the "mirror" on his sleeves. that day. In the pasture one of the large mares that had Jake and his older brother Bill usually rode double on a recently had a colt decided she did not like Pat. She tried pony to school. A barn had been built on the school ground to take a bite out of Pat's rump. Since Jake was riding that sheltered the horse during the school hours. There was bareback and because the mare's aim was a bit high, she a small hayloft in the upper part of the barn. During the bit into Jake's right buttock instead of Pat's. Jake managed pony rides to and from school Bill told fantastic stories and to keep from being dragged off Pat and trampled under the tried to convince Jake of their truthfulness. A fire burns in mare. the human stomach and consumes the food the person eats. The grade school Jake attended (German Plains The heat warms the person and also somehow provides the School) was about three miles from the Samler farm. energy for moving about. Another one: Jake's older siblings spoke only German when they started The telephone works because the telephone lines are school. One of the older brothers on his first day of school hollow tubes that contain miniature motorcycle riders that remained in his seat at the end of the day. The teacher did listen by each phone and when someone speaks into the not speak German. She told Otto that he could go home. phone, the motorcycle rider dashes to the phone of the He must have looked at her with a puzzled expression. He receiving person and relays the message. Jake never began continued to sit there after all the other students had gone. to believe that one. The teacher had a booklet that listed some German words. On coming home from school Jake and Bill were usu- After some time, she put together: "Otto, geh Heim" [Otto, ally hungry. Lunch had been carried to school in a Karo go home], at which time he went home. By the time Jake, syrup can and had usually consisted of jelly bread, a the youngest in the family, started school the older siblings chicken leg or thigh, or a piece of sausage: Fleischwurst, had spoken enough English in the home so that Jake was Leberwurst, Blutwurst, or Pressmage. There was usually bilingual and had no problem with the English language. also an apple or other fruit in season. When lunch con- Because it was very cold in windy western Kansas tained a bologna sandwich it was considered a special oc- heavy mittens were often needed. Also the cold weather casion. The kitchen or pantry was the first stop after the causes the nose to run. The runny nose was most effi- pony was put into the barn and fed. A slice of homemade ciently handled not by removing the mittens and using a handkerchief, but by holding one side of the nose shut with a thumb and giving a robust blow that resulted in a
The author and his siblings. Top row from left to right: Oscar, Anita, and Otto. Bottom row from left to right: Bill and Jake.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 6 The Dumb Farmer bread, one inch thick, covered with Jam, in one hand and a long green pickled hot pepper in the other hand made a nice snack. A piece of bread covered with Griewe [cracklings] was also very good. A piece of Schmalzbrot—bread smeared with lard in which bacon and other meats had been fried and salt and pepper sprinkled on top—would settle even the hungriest appetite. The cracklings were made by pressing the liquefied fat out of small chunks of fat that had been heated very hot. The fibrous remnants were salted and placed in a crock in the cellar. They were tasty like modern pork rinds and required no refrigeration. Once Bill and Jake had a disagreement about something while playing in the yard. Bill must have reneged on something or failed to carry out a dare. At any rate, Jake called Bill a chicken then decided he was a bigger transgressor than a chicken, so he called Bill a turkey. It so happened that Jake was on his way to the outdoor toilet at the time he was repeatedly calling Bill "turkey, turkey, turkey." When almost at the door of the toilet their father spoke up from inside the toilet, "Ich geb dir doah," which was interpreted as, "If you come any closer, you're in trouble."
Bill always was Jake's best friend and confidant in the Jacob Samler's brother Bill in 1946. family. On one occasion he kept Jake from striking Jake's best childhood and adolescent buddy, his cousin Alfred, learned much from hearing the upper classes recite in the with a two-by-four. Jake has no recollection of why he was one room school. He usually had little difficulty learning and so murderously angry at his favorite playmate. The country memorizing the assigned material so he usually got good school near Alfred's parents' farm closed when Alfred was grades except in handwriting. Jake was convinced that in the fifth or sixth grade. He then stayed with his older school and learning was a breeze till he got into his high brother on a farm near German Plains School. A third boy, school freshman class of six or seven students. He found it a several years younger than Jake and Alfred, made up the bit disheartening that a girl in the class was clearly brighter entire male component of the twelve to fifteen children in than he was and that she could get better grades more easily the one room school. After school Jake sometimes went to than he could. the home of Alfred and his brother. They feasted on such Box suppers stand out as highlights of the early years of things as waffle syrup poured on bread heavily smeared with Jake's grade school career. The boxes were elaborately peanut butter. One unpleasant incident occurred in the designed and decorated and filled with carefully made good school. Alfred, Stanley, and Jake were playing in the hayloft food by the single women in the community. The boxes of the barn. Jake or Alfred— Jake prefers to believe it was were then sold at auction. Whoever paid the highest price Alfred—made the suggestion in Jest that it would be nice if would get to share the food in the box and spend time with one of the pretty girls in the school would Join them in the the woman who had made the box. Who had made each box hayloft. Stanley carried the message and somehow the was supposed to be a closely guarded secret. The young teacher found out. She interpreted the situation as a serious men went to elaborate lengths to find out which box matter and brought it up in no uncertain terms after the belonged to the special girl with whom he wanted to spend recess in front of the entire school. She was really a very time. They would do such things as try to bribe the girl's competent, reasonable, and pleasant person, and Jake called younger brother or sister to tell the lovesick swain how to on her many years later after he had started medical school. identify the box he wanted to buy. Box suppers pretty much School was usually a more pleasant place to be than at stopped during the World War II days, probably because of home, where there was always work to do and sometimes a shortage of materials for making the attractive boxes or the people at home were hard to please. At school there was because many of the eligible young single males, who had a friendly adult who was supportive and helpful. There were previously bid on the boxes, were serving in the armed also other children with whom one could play. Jake forces. The only male teacher in Jake's grade school career was a young man, Dalton Cody, who had taken a summer
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 school course in education immediately after high school he stayed in Haigler at the cousin's home (John and Bertha graduation. He taught the German Plains children for two years. He Kamla's home) during the school days. Jake was most pleased. was a bright and conscientious person, who still enjoyed playing Working in the grocery store was like play compared with the himself. He had probably played football in high school and usual farm work adolescent boys were expected to do. An older organized a football team at German Plains School, There was no brother. Otto, was stil! living on the home place at that time. Bill equipment, but our school played tackle football anyway. He was in the army part of that era. On weekends and summers Jake arranged for his team to play against other country schools in the and Otto often worked together doing such things as hauling cane area. The others all had women as teachers so the other teams had bundles, fixing fences, and so forth. During those times together little or no coaching in football. German Plains beat all the other they argued incessantly about whether education is valuable or if teams with little effort. Jake and his brother Bill frequently played it is destructive and teaches students how to be more clever as a team within the team. Bill passed to Jake and Jake would often scoundrels, who may later prey on hard-working, honest people score a touchdown. It was fun. Mr. Cody joined the Navy in 1942 like Otto. Clearly, Otto resented the fact that he had been denied and was killed in the line of duty shortly after joining. His death the opportunity to go to high school while Jake had been allowed was a great loss to the community and to society. to go. When Jake was about sixty-two years old, he asked Otto if The yearly end-of-school picnics were anticipated as a really he still carried bad feelings about that situation. Otto said, "You're good time. Jake first tasted potato chips on such a an occasion at damned right I do." the age of nine or ten. He still enjoys them almost as much as he Although education was valued by Jake's family and did on first exposure to that ambrosia. German Plains School community only if it led to a respectable occupation, religious closed its doors for the last time in 1956, one of the last country education, in German, was considered an essential part of growing schools in the area. up. It ranked just below the work ethic in social value. In Jake's It gave Jake a great deal of pride to graduate from the eighth family one gave respect to a hard worker even if he was an grade with the other country school eighth graders in the county. outlaw, a wife-beater, an occasional thief, or other kind of The children from the town schools had a separate graduation reprobate. exercise. The event was held in the high school auditorium in St. Church services were in German in the small white country Francis, Kansas, During the rehearsal for the graduation exercise, church on the top of a hill. Hope Valley Lutheran Church. The the county superintendent met with the graduates and their cemetery was in the churchyard, and there were the "Men" and the teachers. She asked for the students to come up with a class motto. "Women" outhouses. The larger country church in the area had a Jake suggested: "Prepare for the battle of life." It was voted on and parsonage by the church with a barn, garage, and chicken house accepted, perhaps because no-one else wanted to think that hard or with a small acreage for some milk cows and horses. Because because it sounded quite profound even though a bit hokey. there was no electricity, the lighting was from gasoline mantle When Jake graduated from grade school, whether or not he lamps that hung from the ceiling. The annual Christmas tree was would go to high school became a burning issue. None of the older decorated with shiny glass balls and with real candles that were lit siblings had been allowed to go to high school, but things were during the Christmas services. A program of music and recitations different with Jake. There were older brothers to help Chris on the was usually done on or near Christmas Eve, Jake recalls being part farm, and Jake was considered by his teachers to be an of the group singing and that he sang a solo when he was about exceptionally good student. By 1944, when Jake had graduated four or five years old. He also recalls "speaking a piece." After the from grade school, the war had come along and farmers had program each child, on the way out of the church, was given a become more affluent. On the other hand, Chris would have had Saeckle, a small brown bag of treats consisting of nuts, candy, and less conflict if Jake were treated like all the other children in the usually an orange or apple. family and not allowed to go to high school. Influential family Religious education was done in German on Saturdays during friends, Jake's teacher and others tried to influence Chris' decision the winter and usually for two weeks during the mornings in the regarding the matter. He finally decided in Jake's favor, but then summer. There was usually a reading assignment from a book had to make another decision: Should he send Jake to the high called Biblische Geschichten [Bible Stories], a hymn verse and a school in St. Francis, or should he go to the closer school in section of Luther's Catechism to be memorized before the next Haigler? Finally, arrangements were made for Jake to attend session. Memorization was stressed because there was always the Haigler High School and work in Chris' cousin's grocery store fear that there would someday be persecutions of Christians and before and after school to earn his room and board while their books would be taken away. If much of the inspirational and doctrinal aspects was committed to
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 memory, it would not be lost by loss of the books. thought of killing the animals very unpleasant, especially if Jake was confirmed in German in 1945 along with four the animals were long-time acquaintances. However, when other persons about his age. It was customary for the the delicious sausage and other delicacies were being shared confirmands to be examined in front of the whole congre- with family and friends, the unpleasantness was essentially gation several days before the confirmation service. During forgotten. The animals were killed painlessly by shooting at the examination, the minister asked the confirmands the close range into the head or by use of a heavy sledge questions contained in Luther's Catechism, and the hammer blow to the head that instantly rendered the animal confirmands were expected to present aloud the memorized unconscious. The animal was then drained of its blood. answers from the Catechism, including the supporting Bible Sometimes the blood was caught in a dishpan and prepared verses. Instruction for confirmation in German ended with by Aunt Sophie for making Blulwurst. The pig carcass was Jake's class. The minister recognized that most of the dipped in a barrel of boiling water, and the hair was then students had by then become more proficient in English and scraped off before the entrails were removed and used. The would have an easier time understanding doctrine in carcass was then covered with a sheet and suspended in the English. The pastor, 0. H. Zeilinger, was an exceptionally granary overnight to cool. A steer was also usually wise man with outstanding teaching and preaching skills. butchered on the same day, skinned, and allowed to cool Some years after his confirmation Jake visited Pastor overnight. The large stomach of the steer was saved along Zeilinger and his wife in Hildreth, Nebraska, where they had with the intestines, to be cleaned and stuffed with sausage. moved. Jake remembers the visit and vividly recalls Mrs. Cleaning was accomplished by repeated rinsing and by Zeilinger's admonition as Jake was leaving: "Vergessen Sie scraping till the intestines were virtually transparent. The auch nicht Ihren Gott" [Don't forget your God]. cleaned stomach was filled with cooked small pieces of meat During Jake's childhood the family rigidly followed the cut from the outside of the head and with other meat scraps practice of praying before and after each meal. That was that had been cooked. It was placed in a cool room with a consistent with a poem Pastor Zeilinger taught; "Wer ohne board on top of it and a heavy rock on the board to make Gebet zu Tische gehf und ohne Gebet vom Tisch aufsteht, Pressmage [pressed stomach] that was later cut off in slices der ist clem Ochs und Esel gleich und hat kein Teil am to be eaten cold or fried. It was a rich and delicious snack or Himmelreich" [Whoever goes to table without praying and meat dish, usually for breakfast when fried. The cleaned gets up from the table without a prayer, He is like the ox and intestines were, later in the second day of the butchering the donkey and does not have a share in the Heavenly routine, stuffed with Blutwurst, Leberwurst, and Kingdom], In Jake's family, the father prayed first, then the Fleischwurst. The portions of meat that were to become oldest child, then in order by age through the youngest. The bacon were soaked in brine and later smoked along with the father or mother read from the German devotional book sausage and the hams. The livers, hearts, and brains were after the morning and evening meals, and the Lord's Prayer usually cooked and eaten on one of the butchering days by was recited aloud by everyone after the morning and the people helping with the butchering or made into sausage, evening devotional reading. Smoking the meats was done in the one-car garage, Jake's family attended the annual Mission Festival at Some farms had a separate smokehouse. An old galvanized several churches. They were usually held in the fall of the washtub, which had also served as the family bathtub, was year. They were all-day affairs with memorable pot luck placed in the middle of the garage. The tub was filled with meals at noon. A missionary or a visiting pastor would help dampened wheat straw and was lighted so that it only conduct the services. At that time there seemed to be an smouldered for hours and did not flame. The smoke was emphasis on mission work in New Guinea. The missionaries thick in the garage and it was kept that way for many days. It sometimes showed artifacts and souvenirs from the country effected a kind of preservative process as well as giving the in which they had been working. For a child the play with sausage, bacon, and ham a most delightful smoky flavor. other children was an important and anticipated part of the Since the sausage was hung over pipes that were suspended day. The food was always outstanding, and Jake recalls from the roof with wires, the meat was safe from cats, rats, having been very hungry by noon so he was inclined to take mice, dogs, and since it was cured and cool, there was no more than he could eat, then eat till he almost felt ill. A spoilage unless it was still there when the weather got hot in common conflict was between stuffed bell peppers and June the following year. When needed, someone went to the cabbage rolls. To solve the conflict he took one of each as garage and reached above the car and pulled down the well as sausage, chicken, Jell-o with whipped cream and sausage and took it into the house. marshmallows and fruit in it. Butchering days were usually also social times with After the summer heat had passed, probably in late other people around to help with the sausage making and September, it was usually time to procure the meat for the family for the next year. Jake, like most people, found the
AHSGRJournalfWinter J997 meat cutting. They probably took a share of meat for their trouble while in high school in Haigler was, compared with the farm or someone from Jake's family helped when the others did their chores, a real breeze, almost fun. To a boy who had never seen a butchering. Meat that was not cured by smoking or as sausage was much larger place, the store seemed massive and complicated. preserved either by canning in fruit jars or in a large crock in the During the winter months the ashes had to be scooped out of the cellar and covered with boiling fat. in either case it was well store furnace and carried outside. That was dusty work and the ash preserved and tasted fresh for many months, even without dust always got all over one's clothes, one's hair and up the nose. refrigeration. The best sausage maker in the community was John After the first few months of his freshman year Jake also began to Landenberger, an older, quiet farmer. While mixing the work as a clerk in the store. There were no shopping carts and no Fleischwurst, he tasted the raw meat to check to see if it was checkout stand. The shopping was done by the clerk accompanying seasoned properly. He had a generous moustache and usually bits the customer around the store and writing down what the customer of raw ground meat could be seen sticking to his moustache. wanted. The clerk then went around and gathered the requested Jake always looked forward to threshing time when for a day items, tallied the cost either manually or on a hand-operated adding or more there was a lot of activity on the farm with a number of machine. He then bagged the groceries for that person, put the other farmers around to help. Threshing was a community affair. customer's name on them and carried them to the back room. Many hands were required to feed bundles of wheat, oats, or Meanwhile, the customer was free to visit, gossip, go to the cafe, barley into the machine's long feeder that carried the bundles into hardware store, or pool hall till he or she was ready to go home. the hungry, loud, chopping mouth of the thresher. Straw blew out Jake would then offer to carry the groceries to the customer's car. of the other end of the machine and made a massive cone-shaped Tipping was not a word in the vocabulary of that community. straw stack. The straw would later be used for bedding and floor Once when Jake was working as a clerk, Mr. McCoy, the rural covering in barns and the chicken house. The grain came out of the mail carrier who brought the mail to Jake's family's farm, came to machine, and was fed into a horse-drawn wagon or into a farm buy some round steak and he wanted it tenderized. That was done truck, then hauled into town to be sold at the grain elevator or by pounding with a special mallet. Since Jake was dating Mr. hauled to the granary on the farm and shoveled into a grain bin. On McCoy's daughter on whom Jake had a serious crush, he wanted to threshing days there was usually much jollity and horseplay among do an exceptionally good job to impress Mr. McCoy. So he the young and vigorous farmers who were on the threshing crew. pounded the steak a little more than usual. On seeing the steak, Mr. The food had to be the best with farmwives not wanting to be McCoy said something like, "I wanted steak, not hamburger." He, outdone by neighbor farmwives. There was usually fried chicken, however, did accept the slightly over-tender-ized steak. Jake was sausage, roast, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, canned fruit, and pies chagrined. or cakes for ten to twenty physically active and hungry men. Some In his three years in Haigler High School, Jake focused most farmers furnished a glass of wine or a bottle of beer to those on the of his efforts on doing well in school. He also developed some crew who wanted it. How the women prepared so much food and lifelong friendships. One such friend was Evan Samples, who was at the same time did the outdoor chores, cared for the small a bright, popular, athletic, and socially successful person in Jake's children, and everything else they regularly did is indeed a high school class. His father and mother printed the local weekly mystery. newspaper, the Haigler News. Jake sometimes watched them work In high school, Jake often felt he embodied the characteristics late on Thursday night to get the paper ready for delivery on of a clod or hick. He believed if someone looked closely they Friday, An impressive machine turned out the papers and folded might find cow manure on his shoes or other clear manifestations them once the typesetting had been done on a linotype machine of his second-class social standing. On the other hand, he believed that used hot lead and made a lot of noise. Jake and Evan also did the "town kids" were socially sophisticated and capable and knew some adventuring for the thrill of "living on the edge." One such how to behave and what to say in order to be popular. One of experience was to play hooky one day and spend much of the day Jake's good friends in the first three years of high school, Milton along the Arikari River that flowed on the north side of Haigler. King, often in good-humor called Jake a "dumb farmer," especially One even more nefarious incident occurred when they— it must when Jake did not know what to do or say in a social situation, have been Evan's idea—tried to pry open the warehouse in which Milton was not much more socially adept than his peers, but the local liquor store kept its stocks. Fortunately, they were not because he had lived in a large city, Denver, he maintained an caught and were not successful. attitude of superior social confidence, which, on hindsight, was Jake had just turned sixteen and was in the latter part of the probably a facade. junior year of high school. His mother slipped and broke her hip Working in the grocery store before and after school while standing on an icy step and shaking
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 fer to his father. Father grunted and said nothing. Jake concluded that was the end of the matter. Perhaps a week or two later, Chris asked Jake when the Samples family were leaving for Peru. Father then went and discussed the matter with Mr. Samples and agreed to have Jake go to Peru for his last year in high school, It was a rather intense summer with Mother's recent death, Father's grief and perhaps some guilt because he had not done more to make his wife's life more pleasant. Jake worried constantly that something would go wrong and the dream of leaving the dreary farm life behind may not come true. However, on 25 August 1947, Jake and his father went roaring across the length of Nebraska with "One-armed Johnson" (Ray Johnson), who was a friend of his father's. He was a horse and cattle dealer about whom there were some rumors regarding his dealing and trading ethics. He had a 1939 Ford with a large hole in the muffler. Mr, Johnson insisted on making the trip at night because he was
The author and his mother several months before her death afraid his car would overheat in the warm August days. He in 1947. also insisted on driving in the middle of Highway 34 instead of on his side of the road because the normal slope out a throw rug. She was hospitalized and the local general of the road made his car want to go toward the ditch, and he practice physician. Dr. Peck, performed the hip pinning did not want to fight the wheel all night. Jake took one surgery. While she was still in the St. Francis hospital, Jake suitcase and slept part of the way in the backseat. When took delivery of his 1948 Haigler High School class ring. He they reached Lincoln, Nebraska, Jake for the first time saw showed it to his mother and she was truly proud and a real city and his first traffic light. They arrived in pleased. A few days later she died suddenly as a result of a Nebraska City, a town about twenty-two miles from Peru in pulmonary embolus. time for breakfast, which they ate at a white and chrome, A month or two later, the Samples family sold their railroad-car-size diner of a type that sprung up in the late newspaper business and announced their plan to move to 1940s and early 1950s. At Peru, Chris had a brief chat with Peru, Nebraska, where Mr. Samples was given a position as Mr. and Mrs. Samples, Jake took his suitcase to a college Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds at Peru State dormitory room he was to share with Evan, and a new era Teacher's College. Mr. Samples had been trained as a had begun. Chris and Mr. Johnson left and began their drive teacher and had also functioned as a school administrator back to Haigler. before becoming a newspaper publisher. He had been per- The Samples family made themselves available to Jake suaded to fill in as a teacher at Haigler High School because for guidance and advice, but they offered no supervision, of the severe shortage of teachers in the World War II years rules, or restraints. Mr, Samples did use his influence to and for several years after the war. He was an interesting help Jake get jobs on the campus. Jake for his three years at teacher in that he was able to use a lot of common sense and Peru worked in the college cafeteria. Pay was at the rate of humor even if he was not always much ahead of the students fifty cents per hour for the first two years, then jumped to in the didactic aspects of the courses he taught. In March or sixty cents per hour, Jake also hauled coal from the railroad April of 1947, a couple of months after Lizzie's death, Mr, yard to the college. The coal was shovelled from the Samples was supervising the study hall to which Jake was railroad car into the dump truck and driven to the college assigned. He asked Jake to come to Mr. Samples' desk in the and dumped. The pay was twenty dollars per railroad car study hall. Jake went and Mr. Samples asked Jake if he load. There probably were eight or ten dump truck loads in would like to live with the Samples family in Peru. He each railroad car. Gardening jobs, painting dormitory pointed out that Jake would be more likely to get better rooms, clerking in a grocery store, working in a dry- preparation for college in a bigger high school. Besides, he cleaning business, and working as a short order cook in the could start taking some college courses there, too, Jake in little cafe in the college dormitory were all part-time his wildest dreams never believed such a thing could activities during the school year. The work produced happen. What the real motivation for such a generous offer enough money for dating and other recreational activities. was has never been clarified, Some days later, Jake was Father willingly provided money for tuition, books, clothes, washing the breakfast dishes on the farm, and Chris was room rent, and any necessities. drying the dishes. Jake decided there was no harm in mentioning Mr. Samples' of
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Jake's father remarried about a year later, and he and his new for military service in that war. wife attended Jake's graduation ceremony in Peru in the spring of One summer Jake worked on a hay baling crew for several 1948. Besides receiving some honors for scholastic achievement, weeks. The young man who owned the baler and was doing custom Jake played in a trumpet duet, and Chris was visibly proud of him. baling had a drivable 1932 Chevrolet that he used to haul fuel and Enduring friendships developed from the Peru High School and supplies to his tractor and baler in the field where the crew was Peru College experience. It seems to Jake to have been a much working. After the baling season ended Jake bought the car for bigger chunk of life than three years would ordinarily contain. fifty dollars, That was Jake's first car, which he drove in the Peru In the college, Jake started a premedical course of study area as well as to Omaha, Kansas City, and Lincoln. It had lousy during the second semester of his senior year in high school. It was brakes and on the trip to Kansas City, Jake and Otto Rath, who was a five-unit course in German. It was Jake's good fortune that the with Jake, nearly got killed at a country railroad crossing because language professor at the college was an ethnic German, George they were unable to stop when they discovered a train coming. Rath, who also had relatives in the St. Francis, Kansas, area. He Speeding up to beat the train saved them. had two sons with whom Jake became friends: Hans, who was in During the summer after Jake's second year in medical school medical school, and Otto, who was in Jake's high school class. The Chris developed heart problems and died at age sixty-three. Jake's Rath family members were all most gracious and generous. They share of the inheritance was sufficient to pay for the remainder of often invited Jake to family dinners and even took him to church his medical school program. He graduated in 1954 then served an with them in Nebraska City where Professor Rath sometimes internship for one year in Indianapolis, Indiana. He then got his functioned as a fill-in pastor. Professor Rath was probably one of notice from his draft board indicating that his deferment was the most educated persons Jake was ever to meet. He had been finished. His two-year tour in the Air Force as a flight surgeon in educated in some of the best universities in Germany and had been the Philippines and Japan convinced him he would like to become a fully qualified minister for a number of years. He was well versed a specialist. He then completed a three year residency training in the many languages he taught at the college level and he was program in psychiatry in Omaha, Nebraska. There he met the love well versed in theology, philosophy, and history. Near the time of of his life. They married and two years later their first child was his death, when he was in his eighties, he was studying Sanskrit. At born. He practiced his specialty in Reedley, California, and in the time of the first moon landings he voiced strong support for the Bakersfield, California, until 1978 at which time he went on active idea of our country's efforts to explore space because he wanted to duty in the Air Force and served—along with his family—in share in the knowledge that would be gained as the result of space Guam, Alaska, Germany, and Florida, before returning to Cali- exploration. He recognized his own mortality and that he would not fornia. live to see many of the things learned from those efforts. He said," While in grade school, Jake was convinced that if only he It is sad but we must all die." This was certainly an expression of could go to high school then he would finally feel adequate and his regret that knowledge would be gained and he would not be socially sophisticated like the "town kids" seemed to be. In high able to share in it. Mrs. Rath was an exceptionally gracious and school he was certain that if he could go to college he would surely proper lady in every sense of the word. She was effusive in her learn to be like the teachers, doctors, and preachers whom he saw praise of others and capable of making her guests feel fully as being smarter, smoother, and fully socially adequate. In college welcome and at ease. he thought that being accepted into a medical school would confer Jake remained in the Peru area from August 1947 until the confidence and status that he wanted. Then in medical school September 1950 except to visit several times a.year in the Haigler there was no question in his mind that completing the training and area. When he was nineteen years old, he was accepted into both being called "Doctor" would dispel any remaining concern about the University of Kansas School of Medicine and into the his "Dumb Farmer" identity. That didn't work either. University of Nebraska College of Medicine. He chose the In spite of some personal and professional successes and University of Nebraska because he could enter there in September satisfactions that have come his way, Jake never achieved the goal 1950 while the Kansas school accepted him for the class to begin in of constant social comfort and self confidence he thought he June 1951. The dean of the medical school helped arrange a draft needed. He did, however, recognize that being a "Dumb Farmer" is deferment for Jake. The Korean War was going on during the first really quite okay and perhaps worthy of at least a modest amount three years Jake was in medical school, and had he not been of pride. It's as good as it gets. deferred, he would have surely been drafted
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 12 CONVERSATIONS WITH GERMANS IN RUSSIA
Sister Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA with Sister Mary EUse Leiker, CSA
The following two articles continue the series of "Conversations" with the Germans of Chelyabinsk. Sr. Alice Ann Pfeifer, CSA, a native of Hays and graduate of Thomas More Prep-Marian, wrote the articles with the help of Sr. Mary Elise Leiker, CSA, a native of Munjor, who served as interviewer and interpreter.
A Conversation with Agatha (Albert) Moor In 1930, with the kulaks liquidated and collectivization times, a good nachalnik might prove more important to a beginning in earnest, Michael Albert wanted no part of the family's survival than many people could yet imagine. changes sweeping across the lands of the Volga. Michael made his decision and moved his family. He was not a farmer or a skilled laborer; rather, all his In Penza, the Alberts were no longer part of a German life he had made his living with his mind. An educated man, ethnic majority, as they had been while residing in Gattung, he had been a government clerk involved in the preparation Only two or three German families lived there, and if those of official documents. Already forty-eight years old, he had families were overheard speaking their ancestral language become prosperous enough to have a home of his own and among themselves, they were denounced as fascisti. Yet, to have begun construction on a second home for Peter, his even today, it remains a point of pride for the Albert eldest son by a previous marriage, Besides Peter, he also had couple's third daughter that she was not born there. Instead, three young children by his present marriage; Maria, born in Agatha Albert was born in the village of her ancestors while 1924; Emma, born in 1925; and Anton, born in 1927. He her expectant mother was there on a short business trip. had lived in the German Catholic village of Gattung While visiting Gattung to clear up some documentation (originally known as Zug) ever since his birth in 1882. So questions, her mother gave birth to Agatha on 10 February had his second wife, Kunigunda Mai, born in 1893. Yet with 1933. The newborn was given the same name as the Albert the collectivization being imposed on the people of Gattung family's previous infant daughter, who had been born in by the Soviet government, his own hometown no longer felt 1930 but had not survived. like home to him. He was faced with a decision, but what decision? A Child Laborer at Eight Then Michael heard about a sovkhoz that had been "The times were so very hard," Agatha says. "You formed in the city of Penza, northwest of Gattung. To his know, my mother had nine children altogether, but only five way of thinking, life on a sovkhoz would be preferable by of them lived." More than once, it had happened that her far to life on a kolkhoz, for at least the sovkhoz workers mother had given birth to a thin, sickly child already would receive salaries twice a month. True, these would be malnourished in the womb. In fact, Agatha herself was small salaries that would be noticeably taxed, but the chance fortunate to have survived infancy, and it was the nachalnik to receive a regular salary was not Michael's only reason for on their sovkhoz who saved her life. After Mrs. Albert considering a move to the sovkhoz in Penza. He had also returned to Penza with her newborn infant, one day the heard that its nachalnik (supervisor) was a man of integrity nachalnik visited the family and noticed tiny Agatha's and compassion. In those unpredictable starved appearance. When he asked Mrs. Albert about it, she broke into tears and said that she was unable to give her Sr. Alice Aim Pfeifer and Sr. Mary Elise Leiker, members of the Congregation of Sl. Agnes, are currently working in Russia, in child milk. The nachalnik immediately sat down and wrote Chelyabinsk, an area which is heavily populated by Russian Ger- an order for her to take to the head of the local dairy. It mans. These conversations with Germans in Russia were originally stipulated that Mrs. Albert should be given, free of charge, published in a slightly different version hy the Ellis County Star, one liter of milk per day. The order remained in effect for Hays, Kansas. Previous conversations with Germans in Russia the following three years. conducted by Sr. Alice Ann Pfeifer and Sr. Mary Elise Leiker were When Agatha reached the age of eight, she, too, was reprinted in earlier 1996 and 1997 issues of the AHSGR Journal. expected to work on the sovkhoz. Every day from eight Reprinted with permission of the Ellis County Star. Copyright l996, Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes, Fond o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, du Lac, Wisconsin. she helped with planting, weeding, and harvesting potatoes, beets, and carrots. How did school fit into the picture? In the summer-
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997
Seated in her cheerful little kitchen, Agatha {Albert) Moor readily shows her delight at having Sister Mary Elise Leiker, CSA, as a guest for tea. Kopeisk, November 1996. time Agatha attended classes, but not in the wintertime. The any other canine illness, a few days later Anton developed severe schoolhouse was three kilometers away, and she did not own the difficulty breathing. His father took him to a hospital eight warm clothes and felt boots that would have been necessary for the kilometers away. When Anton learned that he was to stay overnight long, freezing walk. She stayed in school through four grades and there, he begged his father not to leave him alone in the hospital. quit when it would have been time to enter the fifth grade. The Mr. Albert, however, felt he had no choice. The boy's breathing was intermediate school was fifteen kilometers away and quite so labored that it seemed certain he would die if left untreated. The impossible to reach on foot. Among the Albert girls, only Agatha's father's decision to have the boy hospitalized, however, would oldest sister, Maria, attained more than a fourth-grade level of edu- haunt the man for the rest of his life, for the next day Anton was cation, and she accomplished that by boarding with a schoolteacher dead. When the boy's body was turned over to the family, Mrs. upon advancing to the fifth grade. Albert noticed a strange blue mark where Anton apparently had Well before World War II changed the lives of everyone, received an injection. The suspicion that the doctor deliberately had misfortune fell upon the Albert sons. When Peter was only twenty- killed the boy has never quite left the family. The tragic fact of their four years old, he broke his back while performing the routine task times was that anti-German sentiment consumed the hearts of some of helping to unload a wagon full of potatoes. The accident people, and they would not have shrunk from committing murder, permanently paralyzed him, and three years later he died as he lay especially if confronted with a good opportunity. in his bed. Strangely, Agatha's brother Anton also met with tragedy while Homeless at Ten doing a deed he had done countless times before. It was his daily In 1942 Agatha's two older sisters shared the fate of countless task to feed the family dog. One day after the dog had borne able-bodied German-Russian citizens who were ordered into the puppies and was tending her litter in a space beneath the family trudarmiya, the dreaded Soviet forced labor corps. Maria and home, seventeen-year-old Anton crawled into the space to feed the Emma were sent to a labor camp on the Volga River, near the city dog. Perhaps feeling frightened at the way he moved—and of Saratov, where they joined a crew that had to chop ice on the overprotec-tive of her puppies— she snapped at him, piercing his river. Conditions flesh. Although the dog displayed no sign of rabies or of
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 were so bad and deprivations so severe that their Soviet supervisors soon ran away, leaving all the women prisoners alone with no food to eat and no orders to follow. So they followed the example of their supervisors and drifted back to their homes. Agatha says she still vividly remembers how her sisters looked when they returned to Penza—thin, ragged, and covered with the telltale open sores that are found on victims of untreated frostbite. Maria and Emma had done what they had needed to do in order to survive, but suddenly discovered that now they were criminals. They were formally charged with desertion, then sent to prison. Meanwhile, life in Penza became unbearable for Mr. and Mrs. Albert and ten-year-old Agatha. People saw the entire family as traitors to the Soviet cause and treated them accordingly. Objects of universal hatred and derision, friendless and alone, they abandoned their home and spent the rest of the war years wandering about from place to place, begging various Russian families to give them temporary shelter. In the summertime, the best housing they could usually obtain was space in the stable with people's animals. Even that form of help was given grudgingly, and they heard the derisive term "fascisti" so often that their ears burned with it. Although Michael and Kunigunda Albert had been honest and pious people all their lives, they were /; is a busy Sunday with many guests arriving/or the house reduced to stealing in order to stay alive, which only Mass, but Agatha (Albert) Moor andJohannes Moor take time deepened their shame. for a quick snapshot in their kitchen. Agatha always gives the priest a home-cooked meal after Mass. "Go Build Your Own House Now" When the war finally ended, the Russian family then providing the Alberts with shelter turned them out, saying, for the five of them to share. The room was heated with a "Go build your own house now!" By that time, Agatha's coal stove. There were few pieces of furniture and no beds, father was more than sixty years old, penniless, and ill with Everyone slept on the floor. asthma and bronchitis. The only shelter he could manage to By this time, the young women's parents were quite old build for his family was a dugout in the earth, with a little and sick, but Maria and Emma supported them with their roof placed over it. The family lived there for two or three earnings. The two sisters were considered old enough and years, then finally obtained an apartment. Their life, strong enough to work in the nearby coal mines, which they however, remained rugged and hard scrabble. did. Every day they descended underground to tabor like As early as 1946, Mrs. Albert had received a letter from large-muscled men, hacking away at the stubborn earth with her sister in Chelyabinsk, stating that life in that city was at their iron pickaxes, loading wagons with the chunks of coal least a little better than it was in other parts of the postwar they had managed to wrest from it- Soviet Union. This woman had moved to Chelyabinsk to be Meanwhile, Agatha fulfilled the daily task of rising reunited with her husband, who had been sent there to live every morning at four o'clock to hike into Chelyabinsk for and work in a trudarmiya labor camp during the war. Her bread, then reporting to the mine for the part-time duties she words sounded inviting, but Agatha's parents were not performed above ground. However, as soon as Agatha immediately able to put together the resources for a move. turned eighteen and was allowed to do the heavier Finally, in 1949, Mr. and Mrs. Albert, with their three underground work, she did so, remaining a coal miner for grown daughters, moved to Kopeisk, a small village near the following six years of her life. Chelyabinsk. They found a one-room apartment with fifteen When she was twenty-three years old, there at last came square meters of space a time in Agatha's life for something besides work, work, and more work. For that was the year she met a pleasant, responsible man named Johannes Moor.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 A Couple with Much in Common derground Church. As Agatha's parents and sisters had been doing, Ironically, Johannes Moor had been born in a town only they attended the secret Masses of the Polish priest. Father a short distance away from Gattung, the village of Agatha's Alexander, whenever he came to town for a visit. At their earliest birth. Johannes was one of six sons and two daughters born opportunity, the couple asked Father Alexander to pronounce the to Anton Moor, son of Igor Moor, and Rosa Gornung, Church's blessing upon their marriage. daughter of Ignatz Gornung. The family had lived in Although most years passed by uneventfully, the year 1977 Remmler, previously called Luzern, until the fall of 1941, brought a significant new improvement to the lives of the Moor when all the German-Russian residents of the town were family. The state recognized Johannes' skill and industry as a exiled to Siberia. "The train stood more than it ran," Agatha blacksmith by awarding him a new apartment. In that place the says, explaining why the displaced villagers did not arrive couple continues to live today, every Sunday hosting all of the in Novosibirsk until the following March. Because it was nearby Catholics for an hour of community prayer. In the past wartime, the military strictly dictated when the train could and could not pass through the various stops and couple of years, they have known the added Joy of having a priest checkpoints that dotted the route to Novosibirsk, In the for Mass two Sundays each month. The German priests from meantime, the freight train's human cargo passed their time nearby Chelyabinsk have adopted the Catholic community of like so many head of cattle being shipped to market for Kopeisk as one of their mission churches, and the four men take slaughter. They stepped outside their boxcars for fresh air turns driving to Kopeisk every other Sunday, no matter what the and exercise if the guards said they could; otherwise, they weather or the season. Agatha shows her gratitude by preparing the remained crowded together inside, restlessly shifting their visiting priest a home-cooked meal. Other church members bestow weight from one foot to the other. Johannes was six years on him baked goods and fresh garden produce. This little twice- old then. monthly routine represents a big change from the old days, when Fifteen years later, in the fall of 1956, twenty-one-year- Masses were far less frequent— and the Catholics of Kopeisk had old Johannes retraced a part of that route into exile when he to worry about attracting the attention of the government whenever accompanied his grandmother on a two-day train trip to they gathered. Chelyabinsk. This time, however, the trip was for a Agatha still has her worries, though. She worries about a pleasurable purpose. His grandmother wanted to visit her granddaughter and her unwell husband, who pay an exorbitant old friend Kunigunda Albert—Agatha's mother. amount of monthly rent, but who cannot afford to buy a house of Soon after Johannes and Agatha met, they discovered their own just now. Agatha wonders how she and Johannes will how much they had in common. By the time Johannes was continue to make ends meet. Months pass by without any payment to return to Novosibirsk with his grandmother, the two of their pensions from the government. (To get some idea of what young people had agreed to begin exchanging letters. From Russian pensioners are facing, try to imagine the reaction of a re- September to December of that year, they wrote back and tired sixty-five-year-old American—one too poor to have a^ forth, then Johannes returned to Kopeisk for a second visit, this time to accomplish a purpose of his own. On 26 savings account—to an announcement from the government, four December 1956, the couple signed their marriage papers or five months in a row, "Sorry, but you won't be receiving your and began their life together as man and wife. social security this month; we just don't have the money right The newlyweds lived in Kopeisk for six months, then now.") Agatha also worries about the chronic pain in her leg. She tried life in Novosibirsk for six months. But they ended up has sought treatment for it, but she still has pain, especially when returning to Kopeisk and making the village their she has to climb the stairs to her upper-story apartment. No doctor permanent home. They lived in one room in a barracks, seems to know what is wrong. eventually expanding into a second room, and they began But despite all of her concerns, life goes on. And as Agatha raising their family of three sons: Michael, born 18 herself will tell you, she's been through worse— and she's September 1957; Alexander, born 12 February 1959; and survived. Johannes, born 30 April 1961. Like-minded in their commitment to the Catholic faith, Johannes and Agatha became active members of the un-
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 A Conversation with Maria (Haverkand) Lang "Maybe if my grandparents hadn't changed their minds, I hear those hymns sung in our church. I feel sorry I can't today I, too, would be an American," Maria said as she Join in. The hymnals are printed in German, and all I can gazed at us thoughtfully across her kitchen table. At first she read is Russian," had been surprised to learn about our Volga-German roots— Maria's mother was a woman who prayed constantly especially about mine, because I do not speak the German and who diligently taught her children to pray. Although the dialect that Sister Mary Elise knows so well. But Maria was communist government had turned Goebel's large Catholic better able to "place us" upon hearing the stories of our church into a social club and had forbidden people ever ancestors' emigration to the United States in the 1870s. She again to assemble for prayer, that did not stop families from then asked us the same question posed by so many German continuing to pray within the privacy of their own homes, Russians after they have learned about the great number of Maria is not sure how many families in Goebel continued to American "cousins" they have: "But if your great- pray after the restrictions on religious practice were grandparents wanted to leave Russia, why didn't they Just go introduced, but she knows of at least four families, besides to Germany?" After Maria heard our explanation, she fell hers, who did, "Those who had prayed before there was into the short reverie that resulted into her announcement atheism still prayed after that, and those who had never that she, too, might have been born an American. prayed before did not suddenly start praying," she recalls. It seems that while her mother had still been a very Maria's mother made sure that all the Haverkand children young child—before the outbreak of World War I— her knew the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, the Apostles' grandparents had migrated to the United States. Within six Creed, and, of course, the Sign of the Cross. The children months, however, homesickness overwhelmed them and were instructed to make the Sign of the Cross often they returned to their native village on the hilly side of the throughout the day—upon arising in the morning, before Volga River. Mathias Reising had been one of the richest leaving the house to play, before going to bed at night. men in Goebel in those days. Had he lived longer, he In the fall of 1941, however, all of their peaceful perhaps would have seen the day he would have been routines were suddenly disrupted. Like all of the other persecuted as a kulak. As it was, however, no one in the German-Russian families of Goebel, the Haverkands were Reising family experienced exile until all of the German given twenty-four hours to pack, and under the cover of Russians of Goebel were sent to Siberia at the start of World darkness a horse-drawn wagon came to their house to take War II. That included all five of Mathias' children who had them away. As they boarded the wagon with all they could lived into adulthood. (Two of them are still living today, in carry, they asked their driver, also a German Russian, the same part of western Siberia where they were sent more "Where are you taking us?" He snarled, "To the Volga— than fifty years ago: Rosa Reising, age eighty-two, and where all of you will be thrown into the river!" The next Anna Reising Goct, age eighty-five. Their sister, Maria's morning they arrived at the riverbank, but no one tried to mother, died fourteen years ago and is buried in a well- drown them. In fact, nothing happened to them for three tended grave in the village of Novoyeh Derevneh.) days. They just sat and waited for a boat to come, and when it did, they boarded it and chugged upriver to a place where From the Banks of the Volga to the Forests of Siberia they could be herded onto a freight train headed east. In Born on 26 May 1936, Maria was only five years old Tyumen Oblast in western Siberia, trucks met them at the when the people of Goebel received their order into exile. railroad station and transported them on the final eighteen She had a brother three years older than her, Johannes; a kilometers of their long Journey into exile. Their final brother two years younger, Jacob; and a little sister on the destination, the settlement of Okenyuka, was nothing like way—Anna, who would be born in Tyumen Oblast on 17 home, A dense growth of tall birches surrounded them on June 1942. Her parents were Johannes and Maria every side. They soon learned that they were to work on a Haverkand, both born in Goebel, her father in 1911 and her Soviet sovkhoz, different from a kolkhoz because they would mother in 1908. receive small salaries in return for their labors. In time Tears come to Maria's eyes when she remembers her Maria's brothers became tractor drivers and she, a milkmaid. mother. "She could sing so beautifully," Maria says. "All the In May of 1942, Maria's father was ordered to report to old hymns. Songs like Grofier Gott. I felt like crying Sverdlosk for service in the trudarmiya. The industrial city whenever I heard her sing. I still cry today when of Sverdlosk lay to the west of them, in
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 the Ural Mountains that divide the more temperate lands of avoidable discomforts and deprivations. Family members slept European Russia from the frozen forests of Siberia. The following on straw mattresses. Sometimes they had shoes to wear, sometimes month, Maria's little sister, Anna, was born, but her father didn't they didn't. There was little meat to eat, mostly bread and potatoes, live long enough ever to lay eyes on his youngest child. The and sometimes not even that. When staples ran low, Maria's mother hunger and deprivations of life in exile had been taking a slow, made soup from boiled grass and from different kinds of plants that steady toll on him. Six days after arriving in Sverdlosk, he died. grew in the forest. Maria recalls that one plant, in particular, made them break out with an itchy rash whenever they consumed it—but Simple Pleasures and Sharp Deprivations putting up with [he bothersome rash was better than feeling the Despite her eight-hours-a-day job on the sovkhoz, Maria's pangs of unsatisfied hunger. Despite all of Mrs. Haverkand's best mother did all she could to provide her children with a childhood efforts, however, Maria nearly starved to death when she was as happy as possible under the circumstances. Just as they had done twelve. "I can still remember how white my skin was," she says on the Volga, they continued to celebrate Christian holidays such pensively, stroking her arms, an expression of pain stealing over as Christmas and Easter. "I was so afraid of the Christkind," Maria her face like a dark shadow— discouraging us from inquiring any says with a chuckle, "that I hid under the bed when he came!" She further. was always happy, however, to sample the Christmas candy and cookies that he had brought. For the Easter holiday, her mother "Everything I Could Have Wanted" always fashioned a beautiful lamb out of butter, and the children Years passed. Almost before she knew it, Maria was twenty- surrounded the lamb with eggs they had colored. They kept the six years old and still unmarried. An older woman on the sovkhoz, lamb and the eggs on display throughout Easter Sunday, while they however, began thinking that Maria would be the perfect match for feasted on rivvelkuchen and other baked treats. her twenty-four-year-old nephew in Chelyabinsk. So the woman ar- Although Mrs. Haverkand worked hard to make holidays ranged for a meeting to take place between the young people. special and bright, other days brought un "He wasn't anything like any of the men in my own village," Maria exclaims almost girlishly, her eyes
Squinting in the bright winter sunshine of the Urals, Maria (Haverkand) Lang pauses before a pine tree in the church yard of Immaculate Conception Parish in Chelyabinsk. November 1996.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 18 Conversations with Germans in Russia dancing, as she recalls her first meeting with Leo in 1963. the parish. In those days, there was no resident pastor, but "He was tall, strong, handsome—everything I could have Mass was regularly offered by the traveling priest whom wanted." Siberian Catholics have fondly nicknamed "the Iron Monk" Leo Lang had been born into a German Lutheran family for the great courage of his spirit and the strength of his near the city of Saratov on the Volga River. His family had physical endurance. He is Father Joseph Swidnicki, as also been exiled during the war, but to Kazakhstan instead energetic and as active as ever, but now living in the city of of Siberia. Eventually the Langs ended up in the city of Omsk and leaving the care of the Chelyabinsk parish to four Chelyabinsk—like Sverdtosk a short distance north of it, a missionary priests from Germany. major industrial city that was heavily populated with Lately, Maria's husband has been expressing an interest trudarmiya workers during the 1940s and with their in becoming a Catholic. "But he doesn't even know the Our descendants during the subsequent years. Leo's parents were Father yet!" she says with a laugh, " I told him he must go Karl Franzovitch Lang and Maria Fyodorovna (Rutz) Lang, see our priests. He says that he will when our new church is and he was their only child. built." In the meantime, whenever he rises in the morning The attraction between Maria and Leo was instant and for work, he gives her a nudge and reminds her that she, too, mutual. Well before Leo's ten-day visit to Okenyuka was must rise— to be on time for Mass, over, Maria had agreed to return to Chelyabinsk with him. {"When the new church is built" is becoming a phrase Although Maria's mother objected that everything was frequently heard these days. Ask an elderly couple when happening too fast, Maria did as she had decided and soon they will seek a religious blessing for their civil marriage, and was in Chelyabinsk, the bride of Leo Lang, they say, "When the new church is built." Ask a man when "How could you have been so sure of someone you he will begin accompanying his wife to Mass, and he says, hardly knew?" we asked—innocently enough, we had "When the new church is built." thought—but Maria's face suddenly turned as red as that of In the Metallurgical Region of Chelyabinsk, the skyline is a child caught stealing from a cookie jar. "Such questions taking on a distinct new appearance as the Gothic spire of you ask!" she humorously scolded as her face reddened the new church slowly rises above all the other shapes and even more. Then she offered us another cup of coffee and forms surrounding it, sharply contrasting them in ifs solemn told us about her first years in Chelyabinsk. slaleliness and its singular beauty. The new church rises like They weren't entirely wonderful and easy years, but the a monument to the power of one man's dreams, for Father passage of time did prove her right about Leo, He was and Wilhelm Palesch saw the need for a larger worship space for remains an excellent husband and companion. The challenge of the first nine years together, however, came in the city's Catholics long before everyone else did. The new the form of having to share an apartment with Leo's parents. church testifies to the skill of its German architect as well as His mother was "immer bose"—always angry, always to the Russian and German workers who are following the scolding. She didn't hide her dislike for anyone, not even architect's plan. The new church stands like a big "Danke her obvious dislike for her own grandchildren, Ira and schon" to the many foreign donors who have agreed with the Andrei, born in 1965 and 1968. By 1972, thankfully, Leo worthiness of Father Wilhelm's dream. and Maria were able to move into an apartment of their Not to be forgotten, either, is the fact that it stands on own. It is the same seventh-floor, two-bedroom apartment the very spot where barracks once housed hundreds of where they continue to live today. By Russian standards, it German-Russian exiles who had been torn from their homes is quite comfortable and spacious. in European Russia during the crudest war of this war- ravaged century. It stands there where the barracks once " When the New Church is Built" stood, shining like a promise, a strong and silent symbol of Maria has been a member of Immaculate Conception what endures when all else has been lost.) Parish ever since it was first organized in the early 1980s. Her cousin Maria Frick had acquainted her with
AHSGR Journal/Winter.1997 19
VOLGA-GERMAN SISTERS LOCATE FAMILY
Avery Fischer "Ami" Hoffman, had a sister who immigrated here before they were born. The name of the fifteen-year-old girl was Rosa Miller. She later became a Legleiter. Weigel, who translates for the two sisters, showed that name to Bernadette (Legleiter) Oelkers in Hays. "I said, 'That's my grandmother!'" Oelkers said. Actually, Weigel said, there may be about one hundred relatives here—far more than the sisters knew. Hansen and Schamne were born in Urbach, Russia, before World War II. Their ancestors had immigrated to that area in the 1760s. Catherine the Great had promised the group religious freedom and exemption from military Weige/, left, helped Hansen, second from left, and her sister, Julia Schamne, second duty. from right, find their relatives Bernadette Oelkers, center, and Gene Legleiter, both of Many Volga Germans became Hays, Kansas. dissatisfied, though, and immigrated Surnames like Legleiter, Herrman, Werth, Ruder and here [to Kansas] in the 1870s. They Dechant are familiar here—they occupy columns in the established Schoenchen, Pfeifer, Munjor, Catherine, Herzog, phone book, and in the history book, too. They're Volga- and Liebenthal. German names, belonging to the descendants of Germans Rosa Miller came after them, in 1892. Ami Hoffman who came from Russia in the 1870s. was the only one in her family who didn't come, too. Two Hays visitors know those names, too—they belong With the rise of the Soviet Union came a campaign of to relatives they couldn't contact for sixty years. Rosa abuse against the immigrants. In 1931, during the rule of Hansen and Julia Schamne, residents of Brilon in north- Joseph Stalin, Hansen and Schamne's family was deported central Germany, arrived in Kansas Thursday. The sisters to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. They had to travel in boxcars, are meeting relatives who have been lost to them their taking just their clothes on their backs. It was wintertime. whole lives—that is, until Hansen wrote to the Ellis County "I was five, and Julia was ten," Hansen remembered. Volga German Society three years ago. Hansen said she For sixty years, Hansen and Schamne and their family could wrote to the Society after spying notices in German news- not contact relatives here. All correspondence had been cut papers. The ads led her to inquire of a German man who's off. The sisters didn't know who there was to contact. visited here—his name was Pfannenstiel—and he gave her But their family remembered. "In the 1980s, her the address of the Ellis County group. (Rosa's) older brother told her about relatives in America," Lawrence Weigel, an award-winning area historian, said Gene Legleiter, Oelkers' brother, "He felt someday translated Hansen's letter. "It was a shot in the dark, (but) someone might want to seek the relatives, (though) they she wrote to the right place," Weigel said. She mentioned a didn't want to talk about it at all in Russia." few names,.. I looked in (a) Liebenthal book and found a After the Iron Curtain fell in 1991, the sisters immi- picture of her grandparents." grated to Germany and thought seriously about finding Schamne and Hansen's grandmother, Anna Maria family. In 1994 Hansen's letter reached Weigel. After that, Oelkers wrote to her second cousins and helped arrange their visit. This article was originally published on 24 July 1997 in The Hays Daily News. Reprinted with permission,
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Emma (Herrman) Moeder, LaCrosse, went with her great. . . We were laughing, we were crying—they are such husband. Bill, to pick them up at the Wichita airport. She, nice people," Dechant said. "It was a big surprise." like Oelkers, is their second cousin. She talked to the sisters While here, Oelkers said, the sisters will try to catch in German. up. Their impression of the place? "Very nice. . . here there Amazingly, they speak the same dialect. "When I is lots of space," Schamne said. started school I knew no English at all. . . It didn't take long Hansen agreed, but also betrayed her love of Germany, to pick (Volga German) back up," Moeder said. where the sisters will return to live. "Each in its own way is Ursula Dechant, Hays, is the sisters' great aunt. She beautiful," she said. attended a reception for them last weekend, "It was
Lawrence Weigel, Hays, and Rosa Hansen, a resident of Briton, in north-central Germany, embrace as Hansen visits the Volga German House at the Ellis County Historical Society, Hansen wrote to the Volga German Society searching for her lost relatives. Weigel translated Hansen's letter and soon found her missing relatives. Photograph by Steven Hausler, Hays Daily News.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 21
DURING THE STALIN REGIME
Consideration of the Problem from the Viewpoint of Belles-lettres Eugen N. Miller Translated by Ursula Moessner and edited by Irma E. Eichhorn In the history of the Russian Germans there are periods and guests were amused. events that are unique and unusual. The more distant time It was a joke then, but several decades later it became a grows the clearer one can remember them. Meaningless, dramatic reality for our German people, almost two million petty incidents pass into the shadows, and much sharper into of them. According to the census of 1979, about 33 percent the light move those important episodes and especially those of the Soviet Germans named Russian as their mother events that proved fateful for the future. tongue. I do not know if my father envisioned such I experienced the Second World War and deportation developments. In 1937, however, he transferred Albin, who during my childhood, a time when one is still small and had completed the sixth grade in the German school, to the awkward but also a time when one perceives events sharply sixth grade in a Russian school so he could become more and clearly. ... fluent in the Russian language. A Childhood on the Volga My father had graduated from the German school, and During my childhood I was a quiet, thoughtful boy. I then he had graduated with honors from the German peda- read a lot and remembered what I read, often for the rest of gogical institute [in Engels]. He was an expert in his field my life. Imagination was my characteristic quality. In my and regularly wrote articles for the German newspapers. He thoughts I played the games of heroes, carried out daring, spoke Russian fluently but with a noticeable German accent. unbelievable, usually reasonable, magnanimous actions, The love I felt for my father possibly has given me the such as children normally do,! sympathized with the victims sympathy I feel for those of my countrymen who know the and severely punished the guilty. German language better than any other. I gave the impression of a somewhat reserved, absent- It was my father's opinion that in the existing social minded, sensitive young boy. Perhaps that is how I was. My conditions the possibility for a graduate of the German younger sister Lilja loved to dance; my older brother Albin school to be accepted at a university was limited. Only a announced that he wanted to attend the university to study few years later this surmise should prove correct. mining. I, however, showed no special talents. My family lived in Engels when I was born. I was not My mother worried about my future, but my father even six years old when we had to leave-1 remember, possi- calmed her fears. "It will pass," he said and added, "when bly because my mother told me, how father took me and children grow up, their character develops." Albin to the Volga where I played in the river. His words had a soothing effect on me. I was a good The clearest memories of my childhood begin with student but equally good in all subjects. I showed no special Pallasovka. 1 am six years old, and here I learned to swim interest in any specific one. In the summer I grew pumpkins in the river. The school—once in a while I went there. and onions in the backyard. Maybe I would become an Director—my father, Nikolai Nikolaevich Miller, It was agronomist. said of him that he was a teacher upon whom God looked Time passed. The year 1941, which was especially fate- kindly. I did not understand what that meant but guessed ful for us Russian Germans, drew ever closer. that it had to be something good. I do not remember if in my childhood I concerned Then everything changed very quickly. We were sitting myself with thoughts about nationalities. We lived among on packed luggage. We slept on the floor. Father and Russians. At home we spoke Russian; only my parents Mother were silent. We were waiting for something. It was sometimes exchanged a few German words with each other. the year 1937. A train came and took us north for what When guests came who would ask me questions about this seemed an eternity. We lived in Saratov for a brief time and that, I liked to tell them, "Mama and Papa are German, with Aunt Xenia, Mama's sister. but I am Russian!" 1 liked that Joke because the Father had a hard time finding a new position. Then we went by ship to Solotoe [Wittmann] on the Volga. Father Professor Eugen N. Miller is the Editor-in-Chief of the weekly news- became a teacher. We lived in cramped quarters in a small paper Nachrichten in Ulyanovsk, Volga region, Russia. He was a private house. Soon father again was director of the school. featured speaker at this year's AHSGR Convention in San Jose, We now moved to a spacious, three-room apartment on the California, where this article was one of his presentations. first floor of a house where formerly a priest had lived. The
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 address was Stalin Street 39. Next to it was a heap ... of Meanwhile—disturbing news about arrests and worries broken red bricks—the remains of the former church. We about a knock on the door during the night. We children children used that space to play war. slept without cares. In school, however, we learned who was In Solotoe I had two close friends among the neighbor- an enemy of the people and whom we should avoid. There hood children, Yegorka Tarasov and Volod'ka Alyasov. I were all kinds of rumors, such as, that if an arrested person also remember Gena Kalinin; he was a bit older, and I later did not confess to being an enemy of the people, he would heard that he had died at the front. have needles pushed under his fingernails. Oh God! Hearing We loved to ice-skate on the bay of the Volga and to that one had cold chills running up and down one's spine. play ball and hide-and-seek. During summers we swam in War the Volga, fished, and enjoyed boating. In the courtyard of For all of us, this devastating news struck like a bolt of our house was a large shed, and in it we discovered some lighting out of the clear sky. The neighbors came running, old carriages and sleighs. This was the place where on bad- "Nikolai Nikolaevich, Germany has declared war on us!" weather days we played the hero of the civil war, Vassili Father disagreed. "That can't be. We have a ten-year Ivanovich Chapayev, on the machine-gun wagon and heroes non-aggression pact with Germany." Father was a decent of written fantasy. person and believed in the decency of others. TheAlyasovs had rented a room next to our apartment We boys spent the rest of the day outside, as if war did on the first floor, and the Tarasovs had rented the whole not concern us at all. Nobody paid any attention to us. War ground floor. They had six or seven children. Our families was happening somewhere else far away. As a matter of got on well together. We bought milk from Aunt Lena and fact, the older boys remarked that the heroic Red Army Uncle Zakharov, our neighbors on the right side towards the quickly would defeat the German troops. Volga. At that time many people in Solotoe kept cows. At Days passed, weeks. One day when I came home for the end of the street close to the canyon was a water lunch I saw Mama ironingAlbin's shirt. She had tears in her fountain from which I daily carried drinking water. That was eyes. I sat down. Mama said, "Albin has been called to the my regular duty, and I was pleased when we had enough war commissariat." water in the house, From that time on we lived under tremendous tension. In 1941, I completed the four-grade Russian grammar Father already worked in Balzer as director of the fifth Rus- school in Solotoe. My grades were "excellent." Albin's sian middle school. We had sent off all our goods, and grades in the middle school were "very good" and "good." Mama and Lilja had departed [for Balzer]. Albin and I left His friend Nadya Nikolenko and his classmate Victor Solotoe at the end of August and walked twenty-five Kozlov had "good" grades as well. kilometers. I almost did not make it and felt sick for several Once more, however, father was in someone's way. The days. situation was explained to him vaguely but nevertheless I loved everything in Balzer: the apartment with its two with determination. He was supposed to quit his job large rooms, the beautiful, well-cared-for houses, and the "voluntarily." For that he was to have a choice of teaching in school 1 was supposed to attend. But at home we were any one of the ten cantons of the Volga-German republic. depressed, because we feared another call to the war My parents'choice was Balzer, Mama'ssister,AuntAngelika, commissariat. lived there with her family. Father often said, "We shall raise you and give you a The Decree of Lies good education. And my pension will be enough for Mama But something totally unbelievable happened. Around and me to live peacefully for the rest of our lives." Father's noon, Albin, first from the German newspaper Nachrichten pension age at that time was after twenty-five years of ser- and then from the Russian newspaper Bolshevik, cut out vice. Today these words of my father... sound almost melo- excerpts with the decree of 28 August 1941 of the Presidium dramatic, but they represented the reality of that time in the of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The decree announced USSR. The German people had a small Heimat—the au- that all of us would be deported, because among us were tonomous republic of the Volga Germans. The Germans be- thousands and thousands of spies and dissidents. Father, lieved in a happy future for their children and in a peaceful Mama, and Albin read the decree several times. They retirement for their elders. Yet the hope for a peaceful re- showed me the excerpts, and we talked about them for a tirement was not to be. long time. I was born on the Volga in the capital [Engels].. .[1929]. Father always had taught us logical thinking, although Four years later a horrible famine swept through our coun- by now he knew that this could be fallacious, as the case of try. Hundreds and thousands of people died of starvation. his belief in the non-aggression pact. But at fault was not People ate dogs, cats, rats. Mama told us that it was a logic, but man's depravity. ... miracle that we had survived. Father spoke softly; Albin sometimes interrupted him. I Then came an eight-year period of increasing recovery. listened with my mouth wide open. Much of it I could not understand, but I understood the crux of the matter. It seemed that the decree was illogical. A father should not be responsible
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 for the son and vice-versa. In the decree everyone was Volga. And weeks later the same happened in other Euro- responsible for everyone else. If there had been that many pean regions of our country. But this time without the ex- spies and dissidents, they all would have been behind bars cuse of lies about spies and dissidents. Without any explana- by now. tion. Under guard, even though nobody had any intention of Again, no trace of logic. The enemies of the Soviet escaping. Even those Germans who at the beginning of the Union supposedly were to get help from just that power. war were in the army and fought against the fascist invaders Thousands and thousands of spies on the Volga, and the were arrested without explanation and sent to the "labor Volga-German population consisted of only 380,000 front" in groups that also included those who had distin- Germans. Traitors would be swarming all over, like an ant guished themselves and received decorations or medals. hill. ... Sheer nonsense! Insanity! Idiocy! Our entire nation was resettled,... old and young, infants Father stopped; he remained silent for a long time. and elders. In contrast to 1937, vengeance now was wreaked Then sadly he said that our situation was miserable. ... It on the whole nation. I was among those in exile on the could lead to a bad end. Much worse than in the eighteenth charge of hiding spies and dissidents. I was not even twelve century. It could lead to complete assimilation. years old. Then they talked about something relating to Siberia Kiichelbecker, Delwig, and others. I could not comprehend Our train arrived in Biysk on 30 September. The town is the rest of the conversation. Only many years later, with located in the Altai region of west Siberia. For two days and Albin's help, I recalled and understood some of it, but by nights we lived on the street- Even that I enjoyed. When I then father was no longer alive. awoke in the morning everything around me was covered in Exile a frosty white. Albin said that they did not know where to On 11 September 1941 they came for us. We left many take us. A few days later our nomadic lifestyle came to an things, such as furniture and books, in the attics of our Rus- end. We arrived at the little village of Kokshi in the foothills sian acquaintances. Our family got a wagon with two strong, of the Altai mountains. With us arrived about twenty to well-fed horses. The driver was a Russian. He sat up front thirty German families. with Father. They conversed softly the entire way, The local people received us with reservations. Rumors I now am ashamed to say that in the beginning I enjoyed circulated that we had foreign customs, a different religion, the ride to uncertainty. Ahead and behind us one- and two- and loved different food and drink. Yet some also showed horse wagons stretched as far as the eye could see. A gentle, compassion. We received neither land nor the promised help soft wind. Silence, Only the dull sound of the wheels. Here from the government. We were moved into private houses. and there one heard a well-sung German song. A radiant, Five of us lived in two extremely small rooms. Father found friendly sun. I am lying comfortably in the wagon, and the employment as German teacher in the local school. I do not pleasant, warm, soft rays of the sun are shining on my face. know what Albin did. During the day he was gone. I at- Beautiful, wonderful weather! tended the fifth grade. Towards evening we arrived at the bank of the Volga. Then came the order to report for duty. Papa and Albin At the dock in Akhmat we waited for a large barge. were called to serve in the "labor front," They left in a Thousands of camp fires. The noon and evening meals were sleigh. Mama and Lilja stayed at home. I went with Papa prepared simultaneously. An immense camp extended along and Albin. When we came to the hill where formerly the the shore of the Volga. Thousands of homeless people who church had stood, I jumped off the sleigh. Papa looked at me in the coming weeks would become travelers in cramped, in a strange way and softly said, "Farewell" (Lebe wohl). overfilled cattle cars. This "farewell" I never have forgotten. Many took the opportunity to swim, especially the chil- In school I had no friends, Maria Filipovna, the Russian dren. And then on this evening the first tragedy happened. A teacher, praised me for my ability to write well, as did the boy drowned. Divers searched for him without success. The mathematician Katasonov for my ability to grasp ideas mother cried heartrendingly! She looked horrible. She lost quickly. The blind history teacher (I have forgotten his consciousness and had to be carried away. name) invited me to his home several times to play a game For the first time I felt anxious. My heart stopped. Later of chess. We drank tea and discussed this and that. He gave that happened quite frequently. This time, however, new me candy for Lilja. He had lost his eyesight in 1939 in the impressions dispersed the depressing fear. Disturbing pre- Russo-Finnish war. sentiments came and went rather quickly- But my inner fear One day when the blind history teacher came to class led me to my parents, to Mama and Papa. and started the lesson with the question, "Who is my assis- At that time during the war, the depth and scope of the tant today," a boy rather loudly screamed, "Hitler!" On that tragedy of the Soviet Germans were difficult to fathom. day I was the class assistant. My nerves broke, and I cried Nobody knew then that a simultaneous, massive resettle- out loud, ment was taking place of some 380,000 people from the
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Why did I not get up and leave? Maybe Father's predic- tances, without father and mother. tion came to take hold; the development of character had When we got home, the room was cold and empty. We started. Maybe it is man's nature to fight to survive. both began to cry bitterly. Our neighbor, the old Mrs. An oppressive silence hung over the room. After this Amalie Kaiser, cooked potato soup for us and fed us like incident the lesson could not proceed. Only slowly did I small children. The hot food felt good. Grandma Kaiser regain my composure. The history teacher was silent for a tried to comfort us. She put us to bed and sat praying at our long time, for half an eternity. I looked at him through my bedside late into the night. .,. tear-swollen eyes. He seemed to be in deep thought. Then From now on we were orphans although we still had a he looked up over our heads and with obvious pain said, mother. I was thirteen years old, Ulja was six. The follow- "Children, you are insulting Miller unjustly. To me it seems ing months were a nightmare. I exchanged all of Albin's and that they [the Volga Germans] are not responsible for this my parents' possessions for foodstuff, mostly potatoes. We war. In time perhaps the truth will come to light." barely survived to the summer of 1943. During the summer of 1942 and late into fail I worked I joined the collective farm "Lenin's Army." The greater on the collective farm. I had to earn potatoes and wheat for part of the farmland, the hay-fields, and the dairy were lo- the coming winter months. I had managed to save some cated about twelve kilometers from the village Kokshi. We potatoes. But we only got about thirty-seven grams of wheat worked on the farm from early in the morning to late into per labor unit. My total wage for the entire summer was the night without a day off or holidays. I took Lilja with me about half a sack. Today this sounds quite unbelievable. to the fields. Other children were there as well. The com- One day I met the new teacher while walking along a passionate cook kept her eye on the small orphans. street, "Zhenya," she said, "you are capable of learning at Mama wrote often. We never received a single letter home, even in the Russian language. You will have to study, from Father or Albin, Mama became ill and ended up in the and then you can catch up with all your fellow students in vegetable shed where she had to sort out rotten cabbages, two or three weeks," Once more I went to school. onions, potatoes, and carrots. At least she did not have to starve. She worried about us, Albin, and Papa. She wrote Mother and Father Yet again inhuman tragedy struck our people. Now that when she returned I would have to continue with my even women had to join the "labor front," even those with studies. small children. Only those women who had children under Papa was a tall, strong man. But in the "labor camp" three years of age could remain at home. The shame! The food was scarce and bad, and he suffered terribly from hun- inhumanity! The tyranny! ger. The people in the "labor camp" had to fell trees in the Since Lilja was already six years old, our dear mother region of the northern Ural mountains in the district of had to leave. They came and took the women away forcibly. Nyrob. The region was surrounded by swamps, forests, and Hardly anybody resisted; they seem paralyzed. The eternal dampness. Warm food was rare. Father became ill departure from the village administrative center was pitiful quite often, Because of his illness he could not achieve his and heartbreaking. The women screamed, the children day's quota of work, and because of that his miserable food lamented in German and Russian, "Mutti, Mamoshka, rations became even smaller. Father was a man who valued please stay, don't go away! Don't leave us alone!" This did logic, an intellectual who prided himself on finding solu- not last long. The perpetrators of this dirty business tions in the most unfortunate situation. He suffered unbear- understood their work well. ably, because he realized sooner than the others that the Outside it was icy December. A cutting, northwest wind situation was hopeless. The people were treated like numbed my face. The hard snow crunched under my feet. criminals. Everywhere guards and barbed wire. The guards My whole body shook-1 hardly could see the blinding, were rabble, the dregs of society—they tried to score points white way in front of me, and the piercing wind made my with their boss so they would not be sent to the front. eyes fill with tears. I carried my little sister, Lilja, in my It happened at the end of April. Grandma Kaiser had arms. She cried softly, bitterly, her little face expressing received a letter from her son and asked me to read it to her. deep pain. It seemed that she did not understand why our I perused some lines quickly and then stopped in shock. The ever-loving mama had to leave. I felt unbearably sorry for letter contained words which took my breath away. My Lilja. I was terribly depressed and utterly confused to see heart was pounding, I read, "Last week our neighbor my helpless little sister so forlorn. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miller died." Somewhere in the turmoil we had lost our gloves, I Impulsively I tore the letter. For a brief moment I tried to protect her little hands with my frozen hand and to thought hopefully that if the letter disappeared Papa still warm her fingers by blowing on them. She still was crying. would be alive. My world started to unravel. Emptiness I held her closer to protect her from the icy wind. We now filled my stupefied consciousness. All my hopes collapsed were alone in this foreign, merciless, dangerous, desolate into dark nothingness. Grandma Kaiser meanwhile with world. Without relatives, without friends, without acquain annoyance scolded me for tearing up the letter. 1 felt at once guilty and dis-
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 gusted. What does that accursed letter concern me. It's just a scrap families in one house. On holidays I dared to join in the singing of of paper. I now am alone in this accursed world. My most loyal beautiful German songs. father has died. I was confused, helpless, miserable, And then I From childhood I loved music. Since those times during the fainted. war, I learned to love German songs. Some are in my heart. In A letter arrived from Mama. Albin has been in the hospital Solotoe my father used to say: "The time of youth is beautiful, and for a long time. He can't move. Papa is about twenty kilometers this time never will return." (Schoen ist die Jugend, Sie kommt from Albin. No visits are allowed. I haven't received any letters nicht mehr.) He usually added a joke, such as for instance, "Of for a long time. course that time can't come back; it is absolutely absurd!" I have a Many years have passed since then. I know that my father special affection for this song, because it reminds me of my father. was born 15 May 1896 and grew up on the Volga. His parents and As I already have mentioned, I had no adversaries. Still, the grandparents lived on the Volga as well. But I do not know the enemies of our unfortunate people, who knowingly and on purpose day of his death; I do not know where he is buried; and I can not persecuted us, not infrequently persecuted me to scare the others ..., place flowers on his grave, or because they were convinced that they would not be punished. ... Often the perpetrators [of pain] were unknown. Between Life and Death In the summer of 1944,1 became critically ill. I lay on the The day came when Lilja and I had no food left. We had stove all day long and slept almost constantly. I could not eat; my absolutely nothing to eat. After the long period of malnutrition we body rejected the dry porridge of millet and bran. Eight days were already skinny and weak. And now for three days no bread, passed. Three families lived in one large room, among them older not even one small potato. women and children. When I awoke. Grandma Kaiser gave me I took Lilja and went to the village to find something to eat, warm water. I no longer could get up. The doctor's assistant without success. Lilja cried an almost soundless cry and begged me remarked that I was going to die and suggested looking for a for food. I became desperate and started to pray. Not like the coffin, because wood was scarce, I heard all that, but I did not believers, skilled and fluent, but simply like one would ask a dear care. friend for something to eat when hunger becomes intolerable. I Grandma Kaiser sold my vegetable garden for a sack of almost believed that God would help us because we were innocent potatoes and ten liters of milk. The potatoes were for herself, for children. We wanted to eat and were afraid to die of starvation. Lilja, and for her four-year-old grandson. She boiled the milk and To no avail. God did not help; he remained indifferent to our tried to give it to me. I swallowed something warm. It seemed to misfortune. Apparently our pain did not matter to him, or so I smell of medicine. thought. Suddenly I had a change of attitude, probably because I The milk was good for me. Grandma Kaiser was experienced was in the grip of complete hopelessness and dejection. But the wilt in taking care of sick people. During the day she gave me a little to to live was stronger .... From hunger and anger I became enraged drink. She did this frequently but only in small doses. Her care was and started to curse loudly. I yelled ail the expletives I knew in the not in vain. The miracle happened. After ten or twelve days I asked German dialect. I raised my head up to heaven and yelled, yelled, for assistance to climb down from the stove. Grandma Kaiser yelled. looked at me quietly for a long time. Then she kneeled and recited Lilja stopped crying and also looked up to the heavens. Then I a religious song: "Let God do his work and trust in him forever. ..." became afraid of him. I stopped yelling and became fearful. [ (Wer nur den Ueben Gott Idsst walten und hoffet aufihn alte Zeit. expected thunder and lightning. But nothing happened. Nothing ...) Then she added, "Great Savior, allow me, oh Almighty, to around me changed. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the thank you that you have saved this innocent child from a certain wind was warm. Nature exuded kindness. and horrible death." Since that day I never have asked God for anything. I lost my At that time 1 already understood some German, I understood belief in him forever. But I never shall forget that moment of that she thanked God for his mercy and compassion. My young desperation. ... I never, though, have derided or insulted believers. body completed God's kind work. Already the next month I went It seems to me that everyone has a good star somewhere, but to the fields and pulled weeds. Since that time, however, I no everyone also has moments of weakness and guilt. And in addition, longer like boiled milk. My hair turned gray at the age of fourteen I already for a long time have acknowledged that the organized and remained so until I was about thirty years old. church has dedicated its efforts to helping people treat each other with kindness.... Folksongs and Starvation I never had any adversaries, not at the beginning of the war and not afterwards. Sometimes I was praised for my good work. ... I learned the German dialect from the local Germans with whom we lived, two, three, or even four
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 26 GERMAN WRITERS IN RUSSIA TODAY
About the Union of Russian-German Writers and the Anthology Morgenstern Eugen N. Miller (Ulyanovsk), Jakob Schmal (Ufa), Alexander Schmidt Translated by Ursula Moessner (Almaty), Robert Weber (Moscow), Waldemar Weber and edited by Irma E. Eichhorn (Munich). Eugen N. Miller was elected chairman. (In the The Preparation meantime the organization has received its articles of Before the establishment of the regional Union of incorporation.) The participants of the conference also Russian-German Writers on 4-6 July 1995, we attempted to decided to issue an annual literary anthology (Afmanach) make an inventory of Russian-German writers who still entitled Morgenstern, utilizing the technological apparatus lived in the Commonwealth of Independent States, but of the newspaper Nachrichten and to elect the editor-in- especially in Russia. Naturally the Russian-German writers, chief of this newspaper as the editor-in-chief of the just like all Russian Germans, live widely dispersed. Robert anthology Morgenstern. Weber lives in Moscow, Robert Kessler in Rostov, Heinrich According to the articles of registration the writers' Liitz on the Crimea, Leo Marx in Novosibirsk (West organization includes only two areas, Saratov and Siberia), Alex Rembes in Bugulma (Tatarstan), Jakob Ulyanovsk. The board, though, decided to invite all Russian- Schmal in Ufa (Bashkiriya), Vladimir Eisner in the village German writers to participate in the project of Morgenstern Khatanga (Far East of Russia). One can understand that it is regardless where they lived—Russia, the new states of the difficult for these writers to meet to discuss literary works. former Soviet Union, Germany, Austria, Canada, the United After the collapse of the Soviet Union the establishment States, and other countries. The first issue of Morgenstern, of new national boundaries separated the Russian-German consequently, includes works of writers not only from writers even more. The well-known prose writer, literary Russia but several other countries. critic, and journalist Herold Belger lives inAlmaty The Project Morgenstern (Kazakhstan), the prose writer Arthur Hohrmann in Ukraine, The newspaper Nachrichten immediately informed its the writer Alexei Strauss in Bishkek (Kyrgystan), Brigitta readers about the project. In addition every writer in Russia Brettschneider in Sumgait (Azerbaidzhan), Vladimir (sixty-four), Germany (forty-eight), and the Commonwealth Wasenmiller in Riga (Latvia), Willi Lochmann of Independent States on a list of names available to the (Uzbekistan), Heinrich Liitz on the Crimea, among others. board received a letter. By the end of January 1996, the In view of this situation the establishment of a writers' editor had received many manuscripts from which selections organization was a risky step. for the first Morgenstern were made with the assistance of At the same time we prepared a list of writers who the advisor (Professor Dr. Ilja N. Gorelow of Saratov already had left for Germany. Through telephone calls, University). letters, and personal contacts we were able to find the names The emigration in recent years of more than half the and addresses of about fifty Russian-German writers. Russian Germans to Germany—among them many Among them were such well-known writers as Agnes professional and free-lance Russian-German writers of rank Giesbrecht (Bonn), Lore Schmidt-Reimer (Espelkamp), Elsa and reputation—has made the editor's work considerably Ulmer-Waga (Bad Ems), Ilona Walger (Bielefeld), more difficult. In order to shape the contents of the Waldemar Weber (Munich), Rosa Pflug (Berlin), Boris anthology's first edition under these circumstances, and in Brainin (Vienna, Austria), and Erwin Stossel in Canada, order to create a solid and marketable publication, the Naturally, many deliberations prolonged the prepa- publisher... made a decision not only to publish works of rations. The writers, nevertheless, who remained in Russia writers of Russian-German descent but to include also met in Saratov and at the beginning of July 1995 founded classical and contemporary works from Germany and to the Union of Russian-German Writers. As board members reserve a section for informal, conversational pieces. In this were elected: Konstantin Ehrlich (Almaty), Herold Belger way the editor hoped to avoid monotony in the book and the (Almaty), Larissa Knoll (Omsk), Dawyd Kunz (Saratov), isolation of German-Russian literature from the literary Eugen N. Miller tradition of Germans in other countries, as well as to secure the marketability of the project.
AHSGR Journal/Winter I997 The Ancestors an idea of modern German literature and on the other hand The anthology Morgenstern, of course, had its literary provides teaching material for students and for all who are ancestors in Russia. After the death of Stalin when interested in German culture. In addition Belger analyzed Khrushchev and later Brezhnev came to power—although the works of Valeri Kremer, Sergei Bendt, and Lore Reimer the Russian Germans still remained without legal rights— and expressed the hope that the first edition will not be the the government publishing office for foreign literature last. The editor of the anthology Phoenix, though, ended his located in Moscow nevertheless began publishing the Ger- review on a sad note. He was an optimist, to be sure, but he man anthology Hand in Hand during the 1960s. In it did not think that Kazakhstan's anthology Phoenix and appeared poems by Dominik Hollmann, Ewald Katzenstein, Russia's Morgenstern would long survive. Victor Klein, Sepp Osterreicher, and others; In 1994 in Moscow the government publisher Raduga adaptations by Sergei Jessenin (in German by F. Bolger), by brought out the book Wo bist du, Voter? (Father, where are Samuil Marschak (in German by S. Ellenberg), by you?), with 364 pages, fourteen authors, all in the German Alexander Twardowski (in German by V. Horvath), and language. Splendid! Yet the project had an Achilles heel, for others; stories by Dominik Hollmann, Victor Klein, the Verein fur das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA) with Alexander Reimgen, Johannes Weininger, among others, funds from Germany's ministry of foreign affairs also had and humorous anecdotes C&chwdnke) by Friedrich Bolger, supported the publication of the book. In other words, since Edmund Giinter, Klara Oberst, and others. World War II the Russian Germans never have had their Then Hand in Hand ceased and in Moscow in 1981 the own publishing house and never independently could publisher of the communist party paper, Pravda, started the publish their literature. Not surprisingly the German section anthology Heimatliche Weiten that was to appear twice a of the publisher Raduga closed soon afterwards. We do not year. One was allowed to increase the content slightly: even know why. In addition to light, entertaining literature, the censorship allowed patriotic-soviet-colored writing. At the same time Den Kelch bis zur Neige geleert Naturally, the Russian Germans since the war have new names appeared in poetry (Lia Frank, Reinhold Leis, produced more than the previously mentioned anthologies. and others), also in journalism (Arvid Lange, Hermann Occasionally a Russian-German writer publishes a book of Kolojarski), and in historical writings about the Russian prose or poetry. Jakob Schmal, who was announcer of the Germans (Lew Malinowski, Helena Druzhinina, and others). radio station in Engels in the Volga republic before World In March of 1993, the literary-artistic and social-po- War 11, published his book. Den Kelch bis zur Neige geleert litical anthology Phoenix came to life in Almaty. Two (To Empty the Cup Completely) in German (Moscow, attributes distinguish this book. First, it is financed by the 1995,222 pages). Here is the author's brief sketch of its government and therefore strongly is influenced by contents: governmental politics. Second, in a book that contains about 320 pages, only 143 pages are in the German lan- The ruthless decree of 28 August 1941 in one moment guage. The other 177 pages, that is the majority, are in the transformed not only the Volga Germans but all Germans Russian language. This reflects not only the fact that some in the Soviet Union to traitors, spies, and accomplices of Russian-German writers do not know the German language, Hitler and to enemies of the Soviet people. Within days but even more the fact that the German writers understand more than 400,000 Volga Germans were expelled to far- the reality in Russia. Most Russian-German readers no distant regions of Siberia and Kazakhstan, alt their longer have a command of the German language. worldly goods forcibly taken from them, and their In a personal letter, the editor-in-chief of the anthology autonomy destroyed, Phoenix., Herold Belger, wrote: "In Kazakhstan hardly anybody is left who can write German, but there is also a lack of readers. For a number of years I have had about two The author in his account describes his village Grimm thousand readers, and I have given up hope that the number on the Volga and its people, everything that had been will increase. I hope it won't decrease." Belger was pleased accomplished during the first years of the five-year plans, about the publication of Morgenstern and wrote a long but also the atrocious misery in Grimm and the whole Volga critique entitled, "Russian-German works not only are being Republic, the sorrow and misery of its people after written but also published." Among other points the author deportation to the concentration camps behind barbed wire, praised the conception of Morgenstern as logical, well- all of which he shared. Fifty years have passed since the end conceived, and well-tested. According to Belger, on the one of World War II. May his account be a memorial to all our hand the anthology gives sacrifices that we had to bring to the altar of victory, but also to all those
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 who survived, as well as to the selfless work of all for of energy, joy, and love. Many pages of prose are permeated victory over the perfidious enemy. with lyricism, and some prose writers simultaneously represent poetry. Content and Language In 1991, Eugen N, Miller published his autobiographi- One has to admit the situation in Russia has not im- cal narrative, Wind ins Gesicht (Wind in the Face). One proved much, even though for almost six years we have could list other additional works by Russian-German writ- lived in a post-communist country, and since 1992 we no ers, but in recent times the works appear mainly in Russian. longer have to submit our writings to censors. Now one This raises the question whether these works even belong to even can establish one's own publishing firm. Nobody Russian-German literature, or whether these works created forbids this. Yet a publishing firm only can function nor- by Russian-German writers belong to Russian literature, mally if one has money. We have tried and have founded especially when the content has nothing to do with Russian the private firm Sprache und Literatur (Language and Germans, as for example, poems about love, nature, and so Literature). For the time being we have succeeded in pub- forth. lishing the previously mentioned book Wind ins Gesicht, This problem was a topic of discussion during the three German textbooks, and the anthology Morgenstern. founding conference [of the writers' organization]. We Our publishing firm is independent, nobody dictates to finally decided to include in the anthology [Morgenstern} us today (July 1997) what we can publish. Still, we are a about 75 percent of the works of Russian Germans in the long ways from being completely independent. Even the German language and about 25 percent in Russian. On the anthology [Morgenstern} received support from the Verein one hand there are Russian Germans, as is well known, who fur das Deutschlum im Ausland (VDA) through means from understand no German, and on the other hand there are Germany's ministry of foreign affairs. Because of a lack of Russian-German writers who only write in Russian. money, we had to reduce the edition, and we also had no Probably nobody today can prove or dispute whether our funds to pay the authors an honorarium or to guarantee a decision and the proportion (75 percent to 25 percent) were good payment to the publishing staff who completed the the right ones. The previously mentioned book Voter, wo book. We had to forego, therefore, the help of editors, bist du? includes fourteen prose writers (all in the German reviewers, advisors, and proofreaders, because the language), and the anthology Morgenstern includes sixteen publishing staff had no money to pay these experts. In short, poets and fourteen prose writers, in keeping with the 75 the staff of the newspaper Nachrichten did most of the work percent to 25 percent proportion. without compensation. These diligent and dedicated people Before I say a few more words about the writers' brought the anthology to life. organization and the anthology Morgenstern, I also should Proposal: About the Formation of the Anthology like to point out that at the moment collected works are Morgenstern, Second Edition especially important for us in Russia, because many writers Because the Union of Russian-German Writers has no can appear in them. For example, in 1993 the previously financial resources, we had to combine the annual board mentioned publisher Raduga released a collection of poems meeting, required by our statutes, with the Third Congress for children, Goldkdfer, which included eight poets, among of the Landsmannschaft der Wolgadeutschen (Society of them Hermann Arnhold, Woldemar Spaar, Ewald Volga Germans) in April 1997. Only four board members Katzenstein, and others, attended, that is, less than 50 percent. Our resolutions, Regarding the content of Morgenstern, the poetic theme therefore, could only take the form of recommendations. of Russian-German writers, regardless of age, experience, Among these was the decision to work out a conception of or genre, is ... closely connected with Russia. The poetic or the anthology through the exchange of letters and formal capabilities and the contents of sentences and furthermore to publish the anthology corresponding to this phrases vary. Yet all authors search for individual conception. ... expression and this promises a development with If we publish some of the works in Russian .. . then perspective. Sad memories of the anti-kulak terrors, de- only those wherein an author writes about problems of the portation, exile, and the so-called forced labor camps Russian Germans or German themes. We do not want to (Heinrich Epp, Angelika Strauss, llona Walger)—from produce a canonized piece of work. Life is diverse, one can personal experiences or fortunately only from oral ac- not include everything. Yet one should keep the counts—remain indelible in the memory of the Russian- connections. We know that the Russian Germans are and German people. Their literature, therefore, as reflection and always have been strongly connected with their original echo often is sad and reflective rather than carefree and home, just like the Russians in Ukraine, for example, have happy. The prose, nevertheless, of Vladimir Eisner, Agnes close connections today with Russia. They read Giesbrecht, Alexei Rembes, among others, is full
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Russia's newspapers, journals, listen to Radio Moscow, and ogy Das Wort. . . . People are biding their time. If the so forth. Because literature in poetic form describes human anthology appears, they will come forward. Actually, an life, we must pay tribute to objectivity. We conclude, annual edition, even if successful, is only a drop in the therefore, that the conception of the first edition of bucket. An anthology should appear two or three times a Morgenslern is one of several possible conceptions and has year, or even more often. Very little Russian-German lit- the right to exist. erature appears otherwise in the German language. Such a conception, of course, cannot be too strict. The During the years 1990-1996, the German government fact is that Russian Germans study in Russian schools and supported the Russian Germans with significant sums of know Russian literature better than German literature. This money. These funds provided houses, schools, cheese fac- could occasion our inclusion of some works of Russian tories, bakeries, and other economic installations. Germany literature in German translation in the second edition of the has sent an enormous number of German books, calendars, anthology. Not only students, but adults as well could read prints, newspapers, journals, technical equipment, and so with delight the masterpieces of world literature in German, forth to dozens of cultural centers. Yet not one building for a for instance, Dubrowski by A.S. Pushkin, Der lebende Russian-German newspaper has been built. Not one printing Leichnam by L.N. Tolstoi, Die Lebenden und die Toten by shop for a Russian-German publishing firm. The German Simonov, and so forth. newspapers and the German publishing houses in Russia, One also should keep in mind the present book market. therefore, remain stepchildren as before. They are dependent Throughout Russia translations from American literature are upon others, the owners of the buildings that house the selling briskly, especially crime, love, and fantasy stories. editorial staff and the printing shops. Our editorial staff The anthology could include some of this literature in covers the rent and the printing costs. We can be closed German translation. down at any time without the violation of any laws by Again, as last year, we confront the problem of fi- simply a raise in costs until we go bankrupt. nancing the anthology. Work on the anthology already has A New Collected Work begun. In the newspaper Nachfichten we previously have In conclusion, I should like to report the good news that published works by Ilona Walger, Henry Lewenstein, a few months ago a volume of collected works appeared in Tatyana Basalayeva, Woldemar Spaar, Alexei Rembes, Moscow. The Moscow literary agency Warager has Heinrich Epp, and others who have submitted these works published a collection of Russian-German poetry entitled for publication in the second edition of Morgenstern. As is Die Giocken in der Erde (The Bells in the Soil), Moscow, obvious, the names repeat. This means the authors do 1997, 312 pages, compiled by Hugo Wormsbecher. The believe that we shall make it. On the other hand, we do not editor's own words perhaps best can provide a brief invite the writers too eagerly, because we do not know if we introduction to the work: can find the necessary funds for printing costs. We shall try, however. On previous occasions I already have mentioned that Where are the German Publishers? literature and life of the Russian Germans are closely Since the establishment of the Union of Russian-Ger- connected. To treat their literature apart from their lives man Writers, here and there opinions were expressed (Rus- is impossible. This book once again confirms this. sian-German newspapers, conversations during meetings, A volume of poetry of this range in two languages Deutsche Welle) that "Russian-German writers no longer appears for the first time in our long history. For the first existed in Russia," the anthology Morgenstern has no future, time appears a book of poetry on themes that until fairly and so forth. This is not surprising, for the situation is truly recently simply were forbidden: prison, concentration miserable. camps, forced deportation, forced labor camps, forced Although the staff of Nachrichten has more than sixty registration, restricted rights of domicile, discrimination addresses of Russian-German writers and personally notified on the basis of nationality, betrayed hopes and prevention all of them about the intended publication of the anthology of the re-establishment: Morgenslern in 1996, only about one quarter of them of an autonomous state, massive emigration and again responded with a manuscript. Is that good or bad? That is disappointment. For the first time in this book the normal for the situation in Russia. People did not believe Russian translation to a large extent is congruent with the that the anthology would appear and rightly so. In Moscow German original. manuscripts have been lying around for years with the Collected in this volume are poems from the 1920s former editorial staff of the anthology Heimatliche Weiten. and 1930s which, like a miracle, have survived among In Barnaul manuscripts have piled up for years with theJormer editorial staff of the anthol
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 the official documents of former political prisoners or in The volume contains not only poems of our well- face of all anxieties and fears in family archives. Some lines known writers but also numerous works of lesser- were created behind the barbed wire of the Gulag, despite known or unknown authors whose names are lost and strictest prohibition; some reflect the shattered hopes of the who often had only a vague notion about the rules of the years following World War II; some express the naked grief art of poetry. All the more completely this volume caused by the impossibility for fifty years of returning to the presents for today's reader the still-alive soul of the homeland on the Volga, in Ukraine, Crimea, or the people. Caucasus from where all Germans, accused of treason in One has the desire to bow humbly to all the authors, 1941, were exiled to Kazakhstan and Siberia, The volume to those still alive and to those already dead, because also contains poems that are filled with sadness over the they did not break under the heavy burden of injustice fading mother tongue and the national culture, The entire and accusations to which their people were subjected. collection is a cry of pain. On the contrary, they believed it their duty to protest At the same time this volume of poetry is a protest, a against the injustice in unmistakable terms, rejection of every injustice committed against the Russian Germans. Its poems are high points of courage and feelings We believe the book reviewers will have a kind word of duty and responsibility for the people's culture. They are for this volume, and here is a gratifying observation about a concentrated expression of the soul of the Russian the appearance of this unique book. The Russian-German Germans who in the past seventy years had to endure writers again have received a sign of hope—Russian-Ger- inconceivable pain and misery and yet fought to survive. man literature will continue. On this happy note I should like to end my presentation. Life does not stand still. It requires new efforts.
From left to right: Eugen N, Miller; his son, EugenE. Miller; and Dr. I gor Pleve at the AHSGR Convention in San Jose, California.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 31 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE GERMAN-RUSSIAN PIONEER WOMEN
Irene M. Rader On a June day in 1890, my great-grandparents Michael When we contemplate the lives of the German-Russian Buechler, Sr. and his wife, Katherine (nee Strobel), their women who came to America as immigrants, we often focus married sons and their families completed the final leg of on a grandmother whose image stares out from a cherished their Journey from Russia to their homestead claim on the family photo. We try to imagine what kind of life she led South Dakota plains. Having spent the first few weeks with and what events in her life led her and her family to make Katherine's brother and family in Eureka, they traveled to a the long journey to a new home in a foreign land. In spot close to the eastern border ofWalworth County, near answering some of the questions we have about our the new town of Bowdle. Only four years earlier this little German-Russian women ancestors, 1 will talk about the will, town had been established at the end of the Chicago, determination, and hopes that prompted them to make such a Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, They rejoiced and great change in their lives. In my research 1 wanted to find thanked God for bringing them from Neu-Glueckstal, out if their experiences were different from or similar to Russia, to their new home, a small valley that they also those of other pioneer women of various ethnic named Neu-Glueckstal or New Lucky Valley as it would be backgrounds. called in English. First I had to define which of the German-Russian After unloading their wagons, the men returned to town women fit the definition of pioneer women. Webster's a few miles away to buy the lumber and supplies they would Dictionary defines a "pioneer" as "one who goes before, need to build their sod home and tools and implements for preparing the way for others," in most cases thought of as farming their claims. The women and children were left by those being the first to settle a new territory. However, in themselves while the men were gone. Before long the many cases they moved to areas that had been settled by women noticed a figure in the distance coming toward them. others before them, so for this paper we wilt define them in Having heard stories of Indian uprisings, they were visibly the broader sense of the first of the German-Russian women shaken and frightened, not knowing what to expect. As the from each family that were newly arrived in this country, for figure drew nearer, they saw that it was a woman with a they truly did prepare the way for others. The times of their young child in tow. Much to their relief and surprise, it was arrivals spanned almost a century, ranging from about the Mrs, Schick from a neighboring claim, coming to welcome mid-l800s up to and including the times after World War II. them and to invite them to spend the night with her family. However, the bulk of the arrivals in the United States and The Schicks, also recent arrivals from Russia, were willing Canada were during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Not to share what they had with newcomers. very much writing about the life and times of pioneer The Buechler family knew that they would like their women was done by the women themselves. Rather, what new home. we can learn about women comes from the writings by men You may have heard similar stories in your families. of that era or from oral histories or interviews given by the The names, dates, and places may differ but our women German-Russian women to later generations of writers. ancestors shared common experiences like the one I just The expansion of North American agriculture into the related to you. It was a story that my grandmother told her grasslands of central Canada and the United States turned daughter who was born some years after that eventful day, roughly 860,300,000 acres of virgin grassland into plowed and my aunt in turn told the story to me when I interviewed cropland in a little more than half a century. This area is her a few years ago. She has since died, but I am happy to divided into three types of vegetation called tall grass, mixed have this part of the family history to pass on to my children grass, and parkland. This area stretched west and north from and my granddaughter. Indiana to the vicinity of Edmonton, Alberta, and all the way west to the Rocky Mountains. The southern border follows a Irene Rader lives in San Jose, California, where she presented this diagonal line from central Illinois to north central Texas. paper at this year's AHSGR Convention. The vegetation, climate, and soils of the prairie environment were some of the factors that determined
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 the success of the prairie farmers and in turn this dictated the all social classes, bringing with them a variety of values and beliefs kinds of lives that our German-Russian women lived. from many economic and religious backgrounds. The German-Russian farmer adapted to the grasslands better A case in point is my own paternal great-great-grandmother, than other farmers in the westward movement because the land Barbara (Krauter) Buechler. She immigrated from Glueckstal in was similar to the steppes of Russia that our German ancestors 1873 as a seventy-three-year-old widow, accompanying two married settled a century earlier. They knew how to survive on treeless sons and their families. Instead of coming by covered wagon to the plains, how to build sod houses, use cow dung for fuel, and how Dakota Territory, she traveled first by wagon and train, then by ship, to dig wells for a water supply, while others had always depended next by train and then again by wagon (not a covered one) until they on wood from forests for buildings and fuel, water from rivers, reached their destination in the southern part of what is now South lakes, and streams, and protection from the forests from the harsh Dakota. She lived first with her son Friedrich and his family and climate. The only big difference between life on the prairies and then with the family of the other son, Christian, who became a life in Russia was the isolation of families on their own successful businessman and member of the state legislature in 1889 homestead instead of life in the Russian villages with the fields when South Dakota became a state. Friedrich died at age forty-six, surrounding those villages. This isolation was especially hard on so his widow, Christina, moved to North Dakota with two sons the women used to village life. Furthermore, the women were where she and her sons started a general merchandise store. often the last to learn the English language, so they could not On the other hand, one of Barbara's other sons, my great- communicate with others when they did go to town. Often the grandfather Michael at age sixty-two and his wife, Katherina mothers would learn English from their children once they went (Strobel) Buechler, then age fifty-eight, did not come to the United to school, But all prairie women, in the first years, had to adjust States until 1890. They settled in the north central part of South to an existence without basic community services and support. Dakota where there was still land available for homesteading. They Many women had to assume nontraditional roles and were came with their married sons and their young wives and families, required to do outside work as well as responsibilities within the who also established homesteads. An unmarried son also came in home. this group to escape conscription into the Russian army. So it was a In telling some of these stories, we should get a better combination of greater opportunities and freedoms, free land, and understanding of their daily lives, their homes and families and the hope of not serving in the military that brought my ancestors to make these women real for us. Some of the information will be America. While the reasons for leaving Russia were male-oriented, general in nature and applies to the group as a whole, while other women of that era went where their men went, although sometimes information will be revealed through the stories of individual very reluctantly, as some of my later examples will illustrate. women from different parts of the United States and Canada and It has been only recently that women's contributions were from different times in history. considered both important and complex. The lives of all pioneer For the most part, the frontierswomen appeared in history women displayed fairly consistent patterns, which transcended books as one-dimensional stereotypes, or usually they were not ethnic roots or geographic sections of the frontier.' mentioned at all. The pioneers were almost always defined as Their life-styles, responsibilities, and sensibilities were shaped men, those who crossed the plains, prairies, and mountains from more by their gender than by any other factor. While men's lives the Atlantic to the Pacific. When a woman was mentioned, she took form from their physical setting and its resources and the work was usually portrayed as a sad-faced, young, slender woman they did (such as mining, farming, ranching, railroading, preaching, wearing a long calico dress and a sunbonnet, clasping a small or storekeeping) the women's lives focused on the domestic scene in child with one hand and holding a baby against her breast, sitting the home, such as cooking and cleaning, childbirth and childcare, on the front seat of a covered wagon, following her man family relationships, and other female tasks. Because gender was the wherever he might lead her. These depictions are still with us at key factor in determining their duties and interests, the women the present time in pictures, movies, and television. They would pursued a similar list of activities in every frontier setting. Even have us believe that the women were all young, married, and of factors such as social class, ethnicity, race, religion, education, and no particular social class, marital status did not substantially alter the gender roles and the In reality, the women were a highly diverse lot, whose ranks expectations of women. In other words, generally, pioneer women's included the married, the single, the widowed of lives were more alike than they were different.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 The lives of these women were affected only secondarily by work was begun to lay track and she was the only woman in the the occupation of the men in the family. There is no doubt that the area, she soon found herself cooking meals for the crew. (The story farm women worked in the fields or helped raise the farm animals, does not tell if she got paid for this work.) Later they lost their and the women living in towns and cities may have helped run the homestead site and so in true pioneering spirit they moved to find store or worked in the family business, but in almost every case, land where they could farm. This led them through North Dakota the woman's primary role was caretaker of the home and family. and on into Canada following the course of the Red River, which Pioneer women were also touched less by progress than were provided fish for food. the men. Technology affected men's and women's lives to different Mrs. Bitz and her family lived for a while in Canada where her degrees. As financial situations improved, ranchers, farmers, and husband died. She returned with five of her youngest children, the storekeepers turned to new inventions such as reapers, threshing oldest four having married and settled in Canada. She returned to machines, gas and electric-powered motors and machines, cash Eureka where her husband's brother lived. There she had a small registers, and other labor-saving devices, Similar new household grocery store. Later she married Mr. Orth of Mound City, who had labor-saving inventions were slow to make their way into the been widowed two years earlier and had some motherless children. home. While men were planting and harvesting with new She made the sacrifice of taking on new children after bringing up machines, the women were still cooking on a wood-burning (or in nine of her own. Women of that era often remarried after having the case of the German-Russians, cow-chips or twisted hay) stoves been widowed and raised another family. or carrying buckets of water into the house. Clearly, region and era Women homesteaders comprised a group of women who were created some differences in women's lives. Before 1900, they divided on the question of singlehood versus marriage. Encouraged probably had a harder job of getting water to wash clothes from a to take up farm claims by the Homestead Act of 1862, which well where water had to be pulled out with a bucket or pumped out offered 160 acres to unmarried adults and to heads of households, by hand, when later a windmill eased that job somewhat. The and later the Kinkaid Act of 1904, which increased the stakes to washboard slowly gave way to some type of washing machine, but 640 acres, some women homesteaders retained their single status, the point is that women— whether on the plains or prairies, city or whereas others combined their lives and claims with those of men.2 farm, early or late—were in charge of doing the laundry or seeing Wondering if many German-Russian women filed claims, I to it that it was done. In any case it involved a lot of backbreaking found some information in Land in Her Own Name—Women as labor. Homesteaders in North Dakota by H. Elaine Lindgren. Listed in While men were considered the breadwinners, women were this book were the names of women and the locations of their land, the maintainers and protectors of the home, family, and society. dates of the initial and final land transaction, birth dates, and They were helpmates to men. In addition, they were charged with marital status. Of those listed, 120 claims were filed by women of preserving family, religious, and ethnic traditions. They served as Norwegian ancestry. The other 184 were Anglo-American, Irish, family historians, recording family history in the Bible, in charge Swedish, German, English, Scottish, Black American, French, of wedding and funeral preparations, the makers of quilts, Danish, Bohemian, Polish, New England Yankee, Pennsylvania needlework and other handcrafts and artwork. Those who did work Dutch, French-Canadian, Austrian-Hungarian, Italian, and Jewish. outside the home or family business were typically limited to such Only two were listed as German-Russian. Since a very large share "acceptable" female occupations as seamstresses, shop clerks, do- of the immigrants to North Dakota were German-Russians during mestic servants, nursemaids, or teachers. Women's leisure time was this period in history, I wondered why so few German-Russian dictated by gender as well in that they could attend "appropriate" women who fit the criteria for filing claims were included in this school and church activities, Join women's organizations and survey. I discovered that the author based her information on only participate in family-centered social activities. 306 case studies of women who had homesteaded. The author is of Ella Orth tells the story about her stepmother, Huether Bitz a Scandinavian background so that may be the reason the German- Orth, in Daughters of the Dakotas. Mr. and Mrs. Bitz came with Russian women were not as well represented in this survey as those six children to the future site of Eureka, South Dakota, before the of other nationalities. railroad was to be built. When In reality, many German-Russian women filed homestead claims throughout the plains states. Most of
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 the women in the list were single, a good number were listed (some would say decadent) divorce codes. In Wisconsin in as widowed, two were listed as separated, and only one gave 1836, more divorces were granted to women than to men. divorced as her marital status. Some of the restrictions By the tatter parts of the century. North Dakota and against married women for filing claims were changed over Oklahoma had become the nationally known centers for time, although most of those were related to the rights of divorce,7 Because family, church, and religion played such women who married after making an entry on land, and an important part in the lives of the German-Russian many of the changes occurred after most of the public land women, divorce was seldom resorted to, but it was not was taken. Married women never had the homestead unknown. privilege unless they had been deserted or were considered In my search for material for this presentation, I re- for some reason to be the head of the households.•1 ceived a letter from Bonnie Van Campen of Reedpoint, Decisions in the early 1900s favoring married women Montana. She wrote a short history about her grandmother reflected attempts to bring the law in line with reality. Many Elizabeth Yost Schlitt, who was born in Norka, Russia, in women married before the claim was proved up. Having in- 1887. vested time and effort, it was difficult for them to give up Shortly after her grandmother's birth, her mother died. title to the land, so at times the rules were bent, which often Elizabeth's maternal grandparents, Johann and Magdelena resulted in contested cases against the homesteader.4 Brehm Schlitt, adopted her and brought her to Nebraska in One of those cases was a German-Russian woman the early 1890s. Later, on 1 September 1906, her homesteader named Juliana Hagel. She was accused of grandmother married Frank Nathan Hicks in Sutton, being absent from her claim, but a report of the Department Nebraska, To this union, six children were born, one of of Interior showed that she was the sole support of her which was Earl, Bonnie's father. mother and three younger siblings. The reason she was often Her grandmother could be considered a pioneer because absent from her claim was to make extra money for the she left her husband to become a single mom in an era when family at whatever jobs she could find. Her challenger failed it was not common. She secured a divorce in June 1923, but to prove lack of good faith. Here is part of that report: did come back to the marriage only to see her oldest son die of a ruptured appendix because he was not allowed to go to The fact that a girl built two sod shanties and a frame the doctor. She left the marriage again in April 1926 with shanty on said land during the four and one half years the two girls and the baby. She had a friend in Montana who which she had it, had sixty-five acres broken and arranged a job for her cooking on a ranch for a widowed cropped, twenty-five of which were broken by her, cut man with two daughters. She cooked on various ranches and hay on the land every year, helped in threshing, dug gave relief to new mothers and in this way provided for her stones every year and for the last four years has farmed it children. She had no help from her ex-husband who was with the help of her brother, a boy now only fifteen years supposed to pay fifteen dollars a month child support. of age, and in addition has slept and cooked and spent Some years later the oldest daughter accidentally set the what time she could on the land, in fact all the time when house on fire and it burned to the ground, destroying all the she was not helping her widowed mother, shows earthly possessions the family owned except the cook stove. conclusively her good faith and honest intent to comply They lived in a granary and cooked on the stove, which was 5 with the homestead law. now out in the open. These were very difficult times with very little to eat except what people gave them. Eventually Another German-Russian homesteader was Anna times got better and she saved enough money and was able Hensel, who was sixty-seven when she came to the United to buy some property. She bought a piano which she learned States from Bessarabia. A year later she declared her intent to play, wrote poetry, and studied the Bible. In her old age to become a citizen and applied for a homestead. She stayed she was able to purchase a modest home in Big Timber near on the homestead for eleven years, making a home for her her grown children. She was able to pay cash for the home, daughter and son-in-law and their children," which attests to her diligence and good management skills The nineteenth century is often viewed today as an which she learned during her lifetime. idyllic age of happy families and virtually no divorce. This Sometimes pioneer women had to become "head" of the picture is not accurate. Territorial and state legislatures family on a temporary basis when the husband went on trips regularly granted divorces. Trans-Mississippi regions gained to locate better land or to work another job to earn money to a widespread reputation for their broad-minded tide the family over the hard times. In The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma Douglas Hale tells the following story about the David Martin family, who
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 German-Russian Pioneer Women 35 had come from the Volga area and settled in the Oklahoma men hardly knew their wives at the time of the marriages. Territory shortly after the turn of the century. Later they This could have contributed to some of the difficulties they moved to Ashland, Kansas, because there was still land encountered. available there. He bought a cow for ten dollars and some Conscription into the Russian army convinced many hens to provide food for the family, as well as obtaining German-Russians like the Martins and Nehers to leave, even credit from a storekeeper in the nearby town of Brule. To though they were relatively late in joining the large numbers pay for all this, David was forced to leave his wife and who had left the previous twenty to thirty years. American children alone on the prairie while he returned to Osage City railroad companies, expanding into the Dakotas were to mine coal during the winter. actively advertising in Russia to entice families to come to With her accustomed courageous serenity, Maria Martin this region. met the challenge. She had to haul water a quarter of a mile Leaving Grossliebental, Russia, was not an easy de- from a spring and gather cow chips for fuel. It was a nuid cision for the Martin family. It meant leaving a relatively winter, and the children remained healthy. That was the prosperous community, where Fred Martin's wife, Sophie, beginning of a long and fruitful life for the Martins. came from a well-to-do family and where church and school Census data shows that female settlers ranged in age meant educational opportunities for the children. Sophie from the newborn to those in their sixties and seventies. We was reluctant to give up these advantages, but Mr, Martin, have to keep in mind that the life-span of females was not as who had grown up poor, felt it would mean greater security long then as it is today, so finding women pioneers in their for his boys, and it was a way of avoiding conscription into seventies was extraordinary, but they did exist in significant the Russian army, and so he felt it was reason enough to numbers. However, the bulk of the women fell into the ignore his wife's opposition, even though he had little cash "under 20" or "20 to 39" age groups." and seven children." There was tremendous ethnic diversity of non-American The journey occurred in several stages and took several born women in the prairie and plains territories. Scan- weeks, first by horse-drawn wagon from Grossliebental to dinavian, Irish, Scotch and Welsh, and Germans were the Odessa, by train from Odessa to Hamburg, Germany; by most significant groups, but there were also those from ship to Montreal (rather than to New York where most Holland, Belgium, the Czechs, the Hungarians, the Swiss, German Russians landed), by train to Chicago and then to and the Russians,'' North Dakota, and finally by horse-drawn wagon to the final The German-Russians were heavily concentrated in destination. This odyssey, so typical of thousands before and Nebraska and the Dakotas. They tended to settle in enclaves after them, now seems astonishing in its audacity and where they clung to their own ways and ideas. Of the many fragility: German groups to come to the Plains, the Germans from large families arrived with small children, little money, little Russia are especially notable both because of the or no knowledge of the language, geography, or customs of introduction of Turkey-red wheat, a hard winter wheat, and the new country and no experience outside of the villages their ongoing efforts to retain their cultural heritage. These where they grew up in. Many times the women had grave Germans tended to use their own language and to build misgivings about the steps their husbands had taken. distinctive homes in their customary style, while the women Of the trip between Odessa and Hamburg, Mr. Martin continued to wear their long black woolen dresses and says, "The train was crowded, as bad as a stock car of hogs. kerchiefs on their heads.'" Children were perched atop sacks and bundles so closely One of the accounts of a German-Russian family that they hardly had elbowroom, and they set up a howl. The has been published details some of the hardships of pioneer palms of their hands were saucers into which was thrown a women's lives and roles. The author of the book The Female piece of bread and 'speck' (salt-brined pork). No toilet Frontier, Glenda Riley, is referring to the stories written by facilities except at train stations. Children rebelled, cried Pauline Neher Diede. She wrote the story of the Ludwig and were shoved, shouted at, and slapped, even more by Neher (her parents) and the Fred Martin (her uncle) families' train conductors than by parents. I even felt like slapping migration from Bessarabia to America and the first few my wife because she constantly scolded me for choosing years of their lives near the Knife River in North Dakota. this ordeal for the family."12 Fred Martin's infant daughter The story is told by Pauline from conversations she had with Mathilda became ill, and when she became weaker he her father and uncle. relates this story. "A good elderly immigrating mother who Both men admitted that their marriages had been "ar- wore Russian clothes came to our assistance; at least we ranged" as was the custom in those days in Russia, so the thought she could help. She gave our little Mathilda a good smear with homemade ointment that she had brought from Russia, and she uttered a
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 meditation and exercised the child's opposing legs and arms reaching out to protect another.15 together, releasing bodily tensions. Then she wound a wide Although the production of children was one of the cloth around her abdomen, admonishing us to cover her well most important social and economic functions of pioneer for a sweat. It did Mathilda some good, as well as the rest of women, it taxed women physically and left women's bodies us, for she fell asleep and slept and slept."11 This incident with evidence of its difficulties. Yet, birth-control in- illustrates the fact that pioneer women often took care of the formation was not widely available. Any problems related to medical needs of their families as well as others in the reproduction, female ailments, complaints, weaknesses, and community when there was no doctor available. diseases were widely accepted as part of a woman's lot in With no one in the group able to speak English, they life.'" missed getting off at their destination of Eureka, South Many women complained that their time was taken up Dakota, which had been written on an envelope. They had with the work of childcare, but other women delighted with reached Medina, North Dakota, before the conductor large families and described them as great blessings. remembered to let them off. They had no idea where they Women did not take the loss of a child easily. Women spoke were or what they should do. Finally someone helped them of their children's deaths as trials, seasons of sorrow, and a find lodging for the night and the next day someone took source of great loneliness.17 them as far south as Ashley, still short of their destination, Sally Roesch Wagner tells the story of her grandmother but here they were moved into a train boxcar. having to leave behind a four-year-old son in a fresh grave. After a winter living in the boxcar, land near the Knife He had died of encephalitis just three days before their River was the only land available to them, but by that time it departure for America. She never recovered from the shock was late in the season and they could not plant a crop, so and would weep openly whenever she spoke of it as though there was no money and very little food. To add to their she had left part of her spirit buried along with the little distress, little Mathilda died. Much of the children's care coffin. rested on the eldest of the girls, which was a great The homes they lived in were often inadequate at first. responsibility for a teenager. One evening when the eldest Fred Martin recalled that when the sod shanty he built sat in girl was lifting her sick little sister from one arm to the a pond of water after a rain, his wife screamed at him and other, the child's body went limp and died in her sister's said she loathed everything about America and never arms. This was hard on the teenager, who herself was living stopped thinking about the better life she had in Russia. The through the anxiety and distress of puberty without any constant pressure of daily emergencies, coupled with explanation because the practice at the time was to keep crowded living, alienated family members from one another children in ignorance, rather than explain the stages of rather than bringing them closer together.'" However, they human development to her. Neither could they give her the persevered because they had no other choice. They moved privacy or reassurance that she needed. the house to higher ground and constructed a dam to keep During a fierce evening thunderstorm, the following water away. When they dug a well, they found water at only spring after they had moved into an abandoned house on twelve feet. That was one time he saw Sophie smile. It was a their homestead, a new daughter was born to the Nehers. A day he would never forget.14 Sophie did not smite often. Her neighbor, Mrs. Jaeger who was the local midwife, came to sadness made Fred Martin aware he had made decisions she help with the birth. Fred Martin described the harrowing was obliged to agree to whether she wanted to or not, such event this way to his niece Pauline. "The older children were were the customs of their culture. In rare moments, they crowded into the wagon box at night, and I paced around came together in shared sympathy. Pauline Diede retells one outside telling the boys to go to sleep. The two littlest of her uncle's stories: children were in the shack, along with Sophie, Ludwig, and Frau Jaeger. Your mother, Christina, was screaming in pain, One early morning in late May, Martin took a stroll and thunder and lightning squalled with an occasional crack. around the hill and up the high flat where Nature greeted We could not go into the shack, so Lena, the boys, and I him with a good feeling. The sun had barely risen and huddled together under the wagon and sat on a Strohsack cast a golden glow over the hills and valleys. Ample (straw sack). Luckily we had the old horse blanket the showers had made everything green. Wild flowers were Walths had thrown in when we left them and now it blooming. He picked a bouquet of showy golden peas sheltered us in that downpour."14 and added several stalks of blue beardstongue, an After the baby's birth, Mrs. Jaeger took Christina away attractive bouquet. to live in her summer kitchen, hoping to give her a brief Perhaps this god-forsaken country held more respite from her husband lest he make her pregnant again. It blessings than one realized. He felt newly hopeful as he was social control, and it was one woman's means of presented the fresh wild flowers to his moody wife,
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 and she too showed an early morning exaltation of spirit. too. She had always been fond of flowers. Martin fetched The American frontier was built by a constant wave of water from the dam in an empty syrup pail, arranged the people coming from other countries and the German- flowers in a can, and set them on a flat stone close to the Russian people played a large part in making this country garden. It added color to the whole place, and Martin felt what it is today. Had it not been for the women who worked elated. 20 tirelessly alongside the men, giving them moral support, bearing and rearing their children, our country's cities and So you see, even in the bleakest of situations, the farms, churches and schools, clubs and governments would underlying component of their lives was a sense of hope, not have had that all important "woman's touch." Although finding something good in an otherwise difficult life. at times it remained hidden, it was always there. While the Women, like Sophie, whose only adult companion was a first years in their new country were filled with husband, who was half a stranger, had no one except her homesickness and loneliness for many of the women, as sister Christina to confide in. Yet the family's survival soon as the churches and schools were established, they depended not only on the men, but also the labor of women became active workers in their communities. and their never-ending capacities to give their families "Keeping things together" has always been the special something to hope for when times were bad. Fortunately, charge of women. They were the keepers of the family Mrs. Jaeger, the midwife, helped Christina by keeping history, pictures, and traditions. If we are truly going to Ludwig away from her after the birth of Ottilia and told him remember our female ancestors we must continue what they to abstain to prevent another pregnancy so soon after the have begun. We must also become "keepers" of all that birth. She also ordered Christina to keep nursing the baby as went before us and preserve it for future generations. Only a means of birth-control. However, seventeen months later, then will the sacrifices the pioneer women made and the Pauline, the author of these recollections, was born. Just hardships they endured have been worth their efforts. D hours before the birth, their home was threatened by a prairie fire. Babies came often because it was considered Notes necessary to have a large family to help with the work, even 1. Glenda Riley, The Female Frontier, (Lawrence, Kansas: University of though the mothers could have used more time between Kansas Press, 1988), 2. 2. ibid., 19. births. The women also missed the security of dor/life in 3. H. Elaine Lindgren, Land in Her Own Name, (Fargo, North Dakota: The Russia, where there was always an old grandmother or two North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies/North Dakota State 21 around to go to for advice. University), 74. The women helped organize religious services, which 4. Ibid., 76. were often held in the homes. The German Russians loved 5. Ibid., 80-81. 6. Ibid., 18. to sing the songs they had memorized in Russia and this 7. Riley.21-22. gave the women a respite from homesickness for their 8. Ibid.. 23 families they had left in Russia. Being with others of their 9. Ibid., 34 own kind kept loneliness at bay. Their faith in God and their 10. Ibid. hope that he was looking after them gave them strength and 11. Lillian Schissel; Byrd Gihbens; Elizabeth Hampsten, Far From Home, (New York and Toronto; Schockcn Books Inc., 1989), 183. kept them going for another week. 12. Ibid., 184. There are thousands of stories of pioneer women left 13. Ibid., 186. untold. We have all heard about the women who helped 14. Ibid., 194. their families by working in the beet fields. We have heard 15. [bid., 195. 16. Riley, 50. of those whose families lost everything during times of 17. Ibid., 52. droughts and other natural disasters, when they had to pull 18. Schissel. Gibbens, Hampsten, 197. up stakes and move because of financial ruin. Many moved 19. Ibid. farther west to the states of Washington, Oregon, or 20. Ibid., 198. 21. Ibid., 207. California. There are also the stories of those women who fled Russia during or after World War II and came to Canada and the United States. They were pioneers,
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 38 New Additions to AHSGR Library
NEW ADDITIONS TO AHSGR LIBRARY Jan Traci Roth, AHSGR Librarian
The titles listed below and other library materials are Dilvies, Nancy Millicliup. Gateway to America: Liberty available for borrowing according to the AHSGR library Island and Ellis Island. F 128.7-D38 1992 policies. Most of the titles listed here are not available for purchase from AHSGR. Please consult your current Order De Villiers, Marq. Down the Volga: A Journey Through Form for books available for sale. Mother Russia in a Time of Troubles. DK511 -V65D421993
Bamesberger, Dale. History of Trinity Lutheran Church, De Zayas, Alfred M. A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic School Creek Community, Bartley, Nebraska, 1885-1951. Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950. BX8076.B37T741996 DJK28.C4D413 1994
Bartholomew, Mary A. Sabina 's Dream: A Story of a Girl Dinkel, Marvin, compiler. Andreas and Katharina (Kuhn) with Volga German Heritage. E 184 .S23 .B37 1996 Dinkel Genealogy. CS71 .0564 1996
Beilman, Vern. Beilman History. CS 71 .B436 1996 Dorscher, George, compiler. Germans from Russia Passenger Ship Arrivals at Halifax, NovaScotia, Canada, Benson, Orpha, E. Joyce Miller, and Jani.s Dobler, 1906 & 1907 & 1908 & 1909. F 1040 .R85 D67 1994 compilers. Descendants of the Zumbaum Family from Germany 1740-1997. CS 71 .Z86 1997 Dorscher, George, compiler. Germans from Russia Passenger Ship Arrivals at Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, Berenbaum, Michael, editor. A Mosaic of Victims: Non- 1905, 1906, 1907. F 1055 .R85 D67 1996 Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. D 804 .04 M63 1990 Dorscher, George, compiler. Germans from Russia Passenger Ship Arrivals at St. John, New Brunswick, Berend, Nina. Wolgadeutscher Sprachatlas (WDSA). PF Canada, 1906 & 1907. F 1045 .R85 D67 1993 5876 .B474 1997 Dorscher, George, compiler. Germans from Russia Bettcher, Gary D. The History and Genealogy of the Niklaus Passenger Ship Arrivals at St. John, New Brunswick, Beutler and Rosina Andres family of Moniteau County, Canada, 1908 & 1909. F 1045 .R85 D67 1994 Missouri and Tuscarawas County, Ohio. CS 71 .B5734 1994 Eckman, Josephine Welder. The Eckman-Harr Heritage Bruncken. Ernest. German Political Refugees in the United Book. CS 71 .E321982 States during the Period from 1815-1860. E 184 .03 B7 1970. Egbert. Edna M. Dirks Family History. CS 71 .057 1996
Burde, Tamara. Zum Leben und Schaffen des Eichstaedt, Helen. Alia Lizzie. E 184 .R85 E38 1995 Komponisten Alfred Schnittke. ML410.S276B871993 Eisenbeiss, Albert. Familien und Sippenbuch Hoffnungstal Bessarabien. DK 508.95 .H64 E57 1996 A Century of Living: 1988-1988 St. Anthony's Parish and School. BX 4603 ,S73 S68 1989x Family Record of John Wahl and Margaret Engelhardt. CS71 ,W34 1900zx Church Records of Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, Fifth and Pierce, Loveland, Colorado 80538, 1913-1967. BX 8076 Family Reunion of George Adam and Margaret Karst, June .L68S25 1995 9, 1996. CS 71 .K377 1996 Claassen, Henry W. J.K. Penner: From Revolution to Revelation. CS 71 .P465 1994
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Fischer, Robert J., compiler. Fischer Family Information Johnsoii, Robert L. The Turiansky Legacy: A Family 1817-1996. CS 71 .F57 1996 History. CT 274 ,T87 J64 1995
Fischer, Robert J., and Irene A.L. Johnson, compilers. Keller, Conrad. Deutschen Kolonien in Sudrussland. Heinie Descendancy Chart 1652-1996: Descendants of DK34.G3 K4413 1980 Johann Jacob Heinlen 1652-1733. CS 71 .H457 1996 Kerber, George, Leroy, and Leonard, compilers. Foos, Lee D. Foos Born in Russia (Also Foose, Fose, Voos Kerber Family History. CS 71 .K46 1997 etc.). CS 71 .F669 1996 Kerbs, Emma. Papa, How Did You Say Goodbye? The Friesen, Rudy P. Into the Past: Buildings of the Mennonite Story of Escape from Russia During the Bolshevik Commonwealth. NA 1455 W F74 1996 Revolution. CS 71 .K47 1997
Guenthcr, Robert G. Passionate Possessions of Faith: Krieger, Marie, compiler. Genealogy of Conrad the Jacob Guenther Family, 1725-1994, CS Giebelhaus I ofNorka. CS 71 .G532 1985 71 .0962 1994 Kulturtgang der Deutschen aus Russland. DK 34.G3 K842 Gulland, Peggy A., compiler. [Heinbigner Family History]. 1990. CS 71 .H456 1996 Lee, Donna, compiler. Feiock. CS 71 .F445 1996 Hacker, Werner. Eighteenth Century Register of Emigrants from Southwest Germany (to America and Other Countries). Lehr, Rudolf. Sandhaiser Lett: Mundartliches aus CS 614 .H33 1994 Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. PF 3835 .L44 1983
Hays, Elizabeth and Mary Mills, compilers. Funeral Liebrecht, Gary, compiler. The Damm Family History. CS Records. UP .F86 1997 71 .D32 1996
Hershfeldt, Peggy, Dolly Huss and Carol Lauer, MacArthur, Mildred Sherwood. History of the German compilers. Generations of Cooking from the Descendants of Element in the State of Colorado. F 785 .G3 M2 1972 Albert and Mollie Lauer. TX721 .L38 1991 Mader, Mike and Kathy. Mader Family History. CS71 ,M33 History and Records of Immanuel Evangelical and Reformed 1997 Church, Remington and Olive, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1912- 1962. BX 7474 .F67 146 1996 Mai, Brent Alan. The Expropriation of Land from the Germans of Volhynia 1915. K3511 .M3 1997
History and Church Records of Zion Lutheran Church, 1400 Mai, Brent Alan. Meanwhile, Back in Russia, Letters from Skeel, Brighton, Colorado 80601, 1900-1967. BX 8076 .B75 the Old Country. CS 71 .M32 1996 Z56 1994 Maldonado, Sigrid. Estonian Experience and Roots: Hyde, Jack and Elsa. Elfrieda: A Remarkable Life. CS 71 Ethnic Estonian Genealogy with Historical Perspective, .H93 1997 Social Influences, and Possible Family History Resources.
Ivashkin, Alexander. Alfred Schnittke. ML 410 ,S276 193 Marzolf, Arnold H. Prairie Poems Revisited. PS 3563 .A775 1996 P75 1997 Janke, Leona S., compiler. Place Names of Volhynia. DK511 .V7K361997 Miller, Delores. A Journey through Life with Alex Born. CS 71 .B676 1997 Jahresheft...des Heimatmuseums der Deutschen and Bessa- rabien. DD 901.S963 M87
Jerusalem Nachrichten. Periodical edited by Sue Kottwitz. CS 840 J47
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Miller, Donald N. My Son, My Son: One Man's Arduous Regier, Katharina. Our Heritage: Remembrances of My Life Journey from the Old Country to a Brave New World. CS 71 in Russia. CS 71 .R44 1997 .M544 1997 Reichert Family Tree. CS 71 .R443 1996 Miller, Teresa, compiler. The Kildaus. CS 71 .K55 1976a Renner, Linda K., compiler. The Descendants of George Morgenstern: Literarisch-kunsllerischer und Gesellschaft-lich- Bitterman, Sr., 1845-1928. CS71 .B57721996 Politischer Almanach. PT 1105 ,M67 1996 Renz, Curt, compiler. Obituary Indexes: Selections from der Moser, Leiand, compiler. Stebens, A Family History. CS71 Kirchenbote, Dakota Freie Presse, and Eureka Rundschau. .S7321996 UF .025
Nickerson, Dorothy, compiler. Old Letters from Russia, Rutherford, Edward. Russka: The Novel ofRussia. PR 6068 1909-1933. CS 71 ,K66 1992 .U88R8 1991
Nickel, John P., translator. Hope Beyond the Horizon. Sandahl, Delia Fischer, compiler. Tena: Recollections BX8119.H67N531997 about Tena Weisshaar Fischer and her Family as Told by her Brothers and Sisters and 8 of her Children to Tena's Oberlander, Paul S., compiler. Thirteen Generations of the Daughter, Delia Fischer Sandahl. CS 71 .W4556 1994 Oberlander Family: die Oberlander Vorfahren. CS 71 .023 1997 Sander, Anneva. Herbel Heffley Descendants. CS 71 .H47 1994 Ott, Gerald J., compiler. Passenger Manifest Information by Index. E 184 .R85 088 1993 Schamber, Bob. The Schamber Family: A Journey Through Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, and Crimea, Russia (1690- Pages of the Past. F 1074.5 .L43 P37 1973 1900). CS 71 .S343 1996 Pfeifer, Leona. Eine Hochzeit in Ellis County 1881. F 687 Schick, Paul, and Rudolf Lehr, editors. Kurpfaelzer .E3P44 1991 Sagenschatz. GR 166 .S3 1987 Pleve, Igor R. Frank: A German Colony on the Volga. DK Schmaltz, Eric J. Soviet-German "Rehabilitation " and the 508.95 .F73P53 1997 Ethnic German Nationalist Wiedergeburt in the USSR and C!S, 1987-1995. DK 34 .03 S347 1993 Proulx, Annie. Accordion Crimes. PS 3566 .R697 A63 1996 Schmidt, Chester H., compiler. Descendants ofJohann Rath, George. The Black Sea Germans in the Dakotas. Gottfried. CS 71 .S354 1997 F645.R85 R37 Schuh, Robert P., indexer. Name Index to Homesteaders Raus 1851-1983, Europe to America. CS 71 ,R33 1983 on the Steppe by Joseph S. Height. DK 34 .G3 H45x Index Records of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Whedbee and Olive Schultz, Dave Robert, compiler. Family History of Fred Street, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1904-1957. BX 8076.F67B48 (Got/fried) and Anna Ellis Schultz, Residents of Volga Village 1996 Kraft and Denver Settlement Globeville. CS 71 .S377 1996 The Records of Immanuel German Congregational Church, Rocky Ford, Colorado. BX 7255 .R63 146 1996 Seher, Dennis, and George Dorschcr, compilers. Germans from Russia Passenger Ship Arrivals at Quebec The Records of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, City, Quebec, Canada, 1908. F 1055 .R85 D67 1993 Rocky Ford, Colorado. BX 8076.R63 S25 1996 Shapiro, Mary J. Ellis Island: An illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience. JV 6484 .C46 1997
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 Shea, Karen Hcinrich, compiler. Heinrich Family Wahl, Dale Lee, compiler. German Russian Families of St. Favorites. TX 721 ,H45 1996 Francis, Cheyenne County, Kansas: Family Group Charts. F 680 .S25 W34 1997 Siebenburgisch-sachsischer Hauskalender. DD 497 .J34 Walth, Richard H. Flotsam of World History, the Germans Siegfried, Harold. The Fabrizius Family: Past and Present. from Russia Between Stalin and Hitler. DK 34 .03 W35 1996 CS 71 -F33 1979a Weigel, Lawrence. From the Rhein to the Volga to Kansas, Sittner, Jean. Sittner Family History. CS 71 .S58 1997 1763-1996: the Story of My Volga German Ancestors and their Descendants. CS 71 .W4253 1996 Suess, Jared H. Handy Guide to Swiss Genealogical Records. CS983 .S93 Weigel, Lawrence. Volga German Traditions. DK 34 .03 .W44 1997 Suppes, Courtney Mervin, compiler. Family Suppes. CS 71 .S87 1997 Wesley, LE. Junior Classic German Dictionary. PP 3640 .W37 1929 Thompson, Robert A. The Russian Settlement in California, FortRoss, Sonoma County. F 864 .T46 1896 Wolf, Waldemar. Voldemar Davidovich Wolf: The Story of One's Life. CS 71 .W65 1996 Toews, Jacob J. The Mennonite Brethren Mission in Latin Yost-Griess, Gloria E. Memories. CS 71 .075 1996 America. BX 8119 .L37 T63x
Vodicka, Mary J., compiler. Diebert-Keller. CS 71 .D53 Young, Marie Frick. Lisja. CS 71 .Y68 1997D 1996
Volz, Viktor. Historischer Ruckblick. DK 511 .V65 V64x
Please plan to attend the 29th International Convention
June 14-21,1998
Broadview Hotel 400 West Douglas Avenue Wichita. KS 67202
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997 LEAVING A LEGACY, FOR GENERATIONS TO COME Your Legacy Six Ways For You to Give
What Do I Want to Be Remembered For? Write a Check Today Have you ever asked yourself the question: What can I Writing a check for your tax deductible gift is the do that is special, that will be for future generations, and will easiest, and most frequently used means of supporting the be appreciated for years to come? Our parents, our Endowment Fund. Write your check to the Endowment grandparents, our ancestral families, by coming to America Fund today. and Canada, from Russia, from western Europe, from everywhere in the world, that was something really special. A Bequest by Will They have left us their priceless legacies. Now we must look Gifts by will often enable a person to make a significant to the future, to a legacy for our children, grandchildren, and gift which may not have been possible during life. Update generations beyond. Will a part of our legacy be to help your will, and remember the Endowment Fund as a legacy preserve those ethnic qualities of the German-Russian to your loved-ones. people, of which we are so justifiably proud? Can we reach out to those of German-Russian heritage throughout the As a Life Insurance Policy Beneficiary world and say we accepted the challenge? Because of what A gift of life insurance is appealing to some donors, as it we have done, all that is German Russian will live on? allows them to make a gift of a previously acquired policy that is no longer needed. It is easy to make the Endowment Fund both owner and beneficiary of that "no longer needed" policy. Call your agent and do it now while you are thinking The AHSGR Endowment Fund about it.
Planning For the Future Charitable Gift Fund Investment Pools Since it’s founding in 1968, the members and friends of AHSGR has made arrangements with Fidelity Invest- the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, ments so that you can donate cash or securities into any one AHSGR, have supported the tradition of generous giving to of four mutual fund investment pools where assets can grow support the every-day activities of the Society. Because of tax free, thus allowing your gift to grow, while taking this generosity, AHSGR has become the most extensive advantage of the charitable gift benefits today. The repository of German-Russian information in the world. The minimum initial gift is $ 10,000. Your initial gift plus earn- Society's bookshelves, microfilm, card files, and archives ings comes to the Endowment Fund at the time of your have become an invaluable resource for both the scholarly death. historical researcher, and the dedicated family history buff. But the surface has barely been scratched. Rich and valuable Invest in a Pooled Income Fund treasures of information are yet to be tapped. And we Fidelity Investments also offers a Pooled Income Fund, wonder what we can be remembered for? which allows you to continue to receive the earnings of your The Endowment Fund was established by the Inter- donation, while taking partial advantage of the charitable tax national Foundation for the sole purpose of assuring that benefits now. Your gift comes to the Endowment Fund at these accomplishments continue into the future. The the time of your death. AHSGR Endowment Fund can become the pathway to your legacy. Real Estate Donations by Bequest or Lifetime Transfer Ask your attorney or financial advisor about the several ways you can donate real property to the Endowment Fund. You will be surprised how both you and AHSGR can benefit from the several plans that are available.
Send your contribution, or write for information or call AHSGR (at 1-800-843-7314) for information today. Endowment Fund, International Foundation, AHSGR, 631 D Street, Lincoln, NE 68502-1199.
AHSGR Journal/Winter 1997