1 PIONEER DAYS IN DAKOTA AND KANSAS: A DIFFERENCE This talk was presented at the Swiss (Volhynian) Mennonite Cultural and Historical Association meeting in the Eden Mennonite Church, Moundridge, Kansas, on the 31 October 2002 by James W. Krehbiel. Beginning on page 10 you will see some information on families who moved after they came to this country. This talk will concern itself principally with those persons who moved from Kansas to South Dakota and from South Dakota to Kansas and I’ll attempt to explain what the reasons may have been for the movements of families. This study was initiated by Dr. Harley Stucky who asked me several years ago if I could look through my data base and determine who those persons were who moved from South Dakota to Kansas. My data base isn’t set up to do that but I started making a list whenever I found someone who did move. I also included those who moved from Kansas to South Dakota. This list is confined to those persons who were born in Volhynia and their children. It does not include grandchildren of those born in Russia or great grandchildren. There are probably some persons you may know who moved to South Dakota or from South Dakota to here and who are not listed. That is probably the reason. They are not in my data base so they are not listed. Another reason for the omission of some people from this list is because I have been accumulating the list whenever I happened to run into someone and there are some I just missed. As you undoubtedly know all 4 congregations had agreed while in Russia to go to the Dakota Territory. The first 3 congregations did so. The Kutusovka-Hopefield congregation decided in New York to go to Kansas instead. 14 families of that congregation went immediately to South Dakota from New York. 3 families came to Kansas, then (within a month) went to South Dakota. On page 10 is the beginning of the list of persons who moved from Kansas to South Dakota. Included in this list are the 3 families who were members of the Kutusovka congregation in Volhynia who came to this country with that congregation, and came to Kansas, but then moved within 3 to 4 weeks to South Dakota. These were the families of Johann Gering [Ge3.355] and Maria (Graber) Gering [Gr3.824] with 3 children. You will see that family listed on the bottom of page 10. The other 2 families were those of Jacob Riess [Rs1.2] and Karolina (Tesmer) Riess [Ts0] with 6 of their children and Karl Riess [Rs2.25] and Freni (Kaufman) Riess [Ka4.2111] with 3 of their children. Those Riess families you will find listed from the middle of page 11 to the middle of page 12. If we subtract these 18 persons from the total list of those who moved from Kansas to South Dakota we are left with 15 persons who moved there. Nearly all of these 15 persons married someone from South Dakota and moved there to be with their spouse. There is one individual who merits some comment. She is Freni Schrag [Sg5.74222] listed on page 12 (towards the bottom of the page). Freni was born in South Dakota, had moved with her parents to Menno, Washington in Adams County in Eastern Washington and was living there when Karl Kauffman [Ka5.24232] came from South Dakota. Karl (who Americanized his name to Charles) had an avid interest in nature, he collected artifacts and had studied taxidermy and stuffed many animals. He was invited to Washington to teach a class in the Menno Mennonite Church in which Freni was a member. They were married. Subsequently Karl (or Charles, if 2 you prefer) was asked to come to Bethel College with his collection and establish a museum. This he and Freni did. He was curator of the Kauffman Museum for many years until his death. Freni became curator then and remained so until she married Henry Riess [Rs3.27d] who lived in South Dakota. She gave up her job as curator of the museum and moved to South Dakota to be with her husband. On page 13 begins the list of persons who moved from South Dakota to Kansas. I have listed here 158 of them. Compare that number with the 33 who moved from Kansas to South Dakota. It needs to be asked why so many persons left Dakota. What conditions prevailed there that prompted the exit? And I should mention that Kansas was not the only destination of persons who left Dakota. There were 14 families and 4 single persons who went to North Dakota in about 1898 and settled near Starkweather, North Dakota. They were 1 Albrecht family, 1 Gering family, 5 Graber families, 1 Holzworth family (who married a Senner), 2 Schrag families, a Senner family, a Waltner family, 1 Winsky family (who married a Graber) and the 4 single persons were 2 Gerings and 2 Senners. That made a total of 49 persons including the children. In 1904 they moved to Alsen in the same county (that is, Cavalier Co.) and established the Swiss Mennonite Church there. [the information was extracted from AlBo and SwMe] They could not have left South Dakota because of the severe winters. The north border of Cavalier County is the Canadian border. The wife of one of the Grabers was my great aunt (Elisabeth Gering [Ge4.3121] and 1 of the 2 single Gerings was her sister Karolina Gering [Ge4.3126]; the other single Gering was the father of the 2 sisters (Joseph Gering [Ge3.312], my great grandfather). 49 persons from Dakota: (ALBRECHT 1. Peter Albrecht Ac4.2396 ¥ Regina Senner Se3.437); (GERING 1. Peter C Gering [Ge4.3561] ¥ Karolina P Schrag Sg4.8525); (GRABERS 1. Peter J Graber Gr3.631 ¥ Elizabeth Gering Ge4.3121; 2. Jakob J Graber Gr4.6143 ¥ Anna P Graber Gr4.6311; 3. Joseph P Graber Gr4.6312 ¥ Katharina Schrag Sg4.7555; 4. Karl Graber Gr4.6147 ¥ Karolina Ries 3.278; 5. Christian Graber Gr4.6145 ¥ Freni Graber Gr4.8212), (HOLZWARTH Peter Holzwarth Hz0 ¥ Freni Senner Se3.432), (SENNER Peter W. Senner Se3.434 ¥ Anna Albrecht Ac4.2394), (SCHRAGS 1. Peter R. Schrag Sg4.8224 ¥ Elizabeth Graber Gr4.8132; 2. Ludwig J. Schrag Sg4.822a ¥ Lena Gering Ge4.3562), (WALTNER Jonathan Waltner Wa2.4d ¥ Anna Graber Gr3.843), (WINSKY August L Winsky ¥ Philipinna Graber Gr4.6315), (GERINGS 1. Karolina Gering Ge4.3126, 2. Joseph Gering Ge3.312), (SENNERS 1. John Senner Se?, 2. Katherina Schrag Senner Sg3.424) I found 12 families who moved from South Dakota to Bloomfield, Montana and established the Bethlehem Mennonite Church there in 1911. In that group there was 1 Albrecht family, 3 Graber families, 1 Ortman family, 2 Senner families, a Schrag family, 3 Schwartz families and 1 Zafft (Soft) family. The Soft family and 1 of the Graber families moved to Kansas before moving to Montana. [this information was extracted from BlBo] There were a total of 56 persons in that group. 56 persons from Dakota: (ALBRECHT 1. Jakob Albrecht Ac4.233b ¥ Anna Graber Gr3.858), (GRABERS 1. Peter J Graber Gr4.7511 ¥ Elisabeth Senner Se3.435; 2. Jonathan P Graber Gr3.56h ¥ Helena Soft Zf3.241; 3. Joseph J Graber Gr4.6146 ¥ Aganetha Goertz Gz1.7), (ORTMAN 1. Fred H Ortman Om3.355 ¥ Regina Senner Se3.429), (SENNERS 1. Jakob W Senner Se3.433 ¥ Katharina Schrag Sg4.4661; 2. Peter W Senner Se3.434 ¥ Anna Albrecht Ac4.2394), (SCHRAG 1. Ernest Schrag Sg4.8524 ¥ Regina Schrag Sg5.44171), (SCHWARTZ 1. Johan J Schwartz Sw4.1125 ¥ Karolina Kirschenmann; 2. Jonathan J Schwartz Sw4.112a ¥ Frances Graber Gr5.51181; 3. Bernhard Schwartz Sw4.1128 ¥ Anna Miller Mr5.21123), (ZAFFT 1. Wilhelm Soft Zf2.24 ¥ Maria Schwartz Sw4.1121). In 1882, 5 Schrag families moved from South Dakota to Oregon and established a country church near Dallas, Oregon. There were 2 Schrag families who came later making a total of 7 Schrag families in Oregon. They were joined by a 2 Gering families, 2 Graber families, 1 Kaufman and a Waltner family. After trying to subsist on fairly poor soil near Dallas, Oregon 3 for about 9 years they moved to Lane County, Oregon (near Eugene) and after 9 years of attempting to exist on rather poor soil there they moved to Adams County in eastern Washington. There they established the town of Menno and the Menno Mennonite Church and the town of Schrag, Washington which is about 10 miles southwest of Menno. Included in that Oregon group were 61 persons. [this information was extracted from ScMi and EmOr] 57 persons from Dakota: (SCHRAGS 1. Jacob R Schrag Sg3.746 ¥ Freni R Graber Gr3.825; 2. Daniel J Schrag Sg3.756 ¥ Freni Graber Gr3.773; 3. Jacob Joseph Schrag Sg3.753 ¥ Freni Riess Rs2.29; 4. Johann J Schrag Sg3.742 ¥ Freni Schrag Sg3.446; 5. Joseph Schrag Sg3.425 and Barbara Graber Gr3.564; 6. Christian Schrag Sg3.743 ¥ Katharina Schrag Sg3.447; 7. Andreas Schrag Sg3.757 ¥ Elisabeth Waltner Wa2.4f), (GERINGS 1. Peter Gering Ge3.358 ¥ Anna Waltner Wa2.4e, 2. Joseph Gering Ge4.3123 ¥ Freni Riess Rs2.2f), (GRABERS 1. Peter J Graber Gr4.7511 ¥ Elisabeth Sehner Se3.435, 2. J. C. Graber Gr3.813¥ Maria C Gering Ge4.3122), (KAUFMAN Christian C Kaufman Ka4.2112 ¥ Anna Riess Rs2.28), (WALTNER Johann J Waltner Wa3.453 ¥ Maria Schrag Sg4.7551). That makes a total of over 165 persons who left Dakota and settled in North Dakota, Montana and Oregon.