Maesa Nielson just finished seventh grade student at
St. Elizabeth Seton School here in Rapid City. She
enjoys reading, swimming, gymnastics, listening to music
and many other things. She loves history and learning
about stories of the past. Maesa lives in Rapid City
with her parents, Lester and Andrea, her sisters, Leah &
Isabel and her brother, Luther. She was honored and
presented with a certificate at her school on May 27 for
being the Runner-Up winner in our Black Hills Chapter
youth essay contest for 2009 in the Middle School
Division.
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Germans from Russia Story
This is a story that was told to me by my grandmother. She heard this story from her grandfather and has now passed it on to me.
Andresa, the father, and Esther, the mother, lived by the black Sea in the Caucasian Mountains. They were promised that if they left Germany and moved to Russia that their family would not have to fight in the war. After they got to Russia, their two oldest boys got taken to fight in the war. A short while later their father was taken to fight in the war.
To escape from the war, their father swam across a wide river. When he got to the other side there were people there who helped him up. When they pulled him up onto shore they asked him his name. Andresa replied "Full," meaning full of water. The people who pulled him up took it as "Voll" and that was his name after that.
We don't know how the other two boys escaped, but when they got home they and their family moved to the United States. We are not exactly sure how they got here, but when they came they moved to what is now Yankton, South Dakota. However, the city life was not for them, so they moved out into the country.
Times were usually tough, but they made do with what they had. One day Voll went to visit a relative and left his wife alone with the kids. While he was away, two Sioux Indians came to the door and the mother, Esther, got scared. She did not know what else to do, so she fed them and they went away laughing. She was so scared that she demanded to go back home to Russia.
They eventually moved back to Russia. Some years later they moved back to the United States, but, again, my family doesn't know how they got back to the United States. Ever since then their family has peacefully lived near Yankton, South Dakota working as farmers.