Germany/Russia/America…Giant Steppes Toward Freedom

Freedom to own land, freedom from high taxes, freedom to serve in an army for a country one respects, freedom to speak the language of choice, freedom to teach children as seen fit, and freedom of religion, are some of the reasons I am who I am and where I am today.

            My story starts back many generations.  Catherine the Great became Tsar of Russia in 1762.  She had been born a princess in Prussia, which is now part of Germany, and knew that there were successful farmers in that area.  She wanted good farmers to come to Russian to develop it.  Farmers were promised free land and told that they would not have to pay taxes to Russia for some years.  In addition they would be allowed to have their own schools and churches and their men would not have to serve in the army.  Not having to serve in the army appealed to many people in Germany at the time. There were many small monarchies and their rulers were fighting amongst each other for more land.  They would take the young men and force them to fight their wars.  The men would never return as they were either killed while fighting or died of lack of good food and poor treatment.

            The first German settlement in Russia was in the Volga River area where the climate was rather harsh.  Many people died in the first few years until they learned to deal with the climate.  The peasants in the area and corrupt Russian government officials became envious of their prosperity.  Government officials came and took food supplies in the name of government taxes and roving bands of peasants took cattle, horses, and other possessions.

            When Peter III came to power in 1762, he opened the Black Sea area to farmers with the same kind of deal.  My 4^th Great-Grandfather Jacob was one of the German farmers who migrated at the age of 12 from Wurttemberg, Germany, to the Black Sea area, to land near Odessa, Russia, in 1820.  The Germans were given blocks of land to start with but as the families grew the land had to be divided into smaller plots for sons to start their families.  Some farmers were able to buy land from aristocratic land owners who held large tracts of land.  The climate near the Black Sea was mild, much like our southern United States, and the German farmers prospered.  Because they were exempt from taxes and serving in the army, the German people had to build their own schools and churches.  The schools taught only German and the church services were in German.  For this reason the German people did not mix much with the Russian people so they kept their German heritage and customs.

            Jacob married in 1830 and had a son Friedrich in 1832.  Friedrich was my 3^rd great-grandfather.  Friedrich had a son, Adam, in 1864, who was my 2^nd great-grandfather.  Adam had nine sons and four daughters.  This family of 13 children included Karl, Friedrick, Martha, Barbara, Elizabeth, Friedrick, Lydia, Johannes, Christoph, Albert, my Great-Grandfather Heinrich (Henry), Ernest, and Adam.  Two of the daughters and one son died as infants and two other sons died at an early age.   The family were all born and lived in the village of Newfraudentahl near Odessa, Russia.       

            Adam became a well-to-do farmer.  He owned a large farm and the family hired a number of workers to help with the farm, boys for the field work and girls to milk the cows and work in the house.

From 1903-1906, Karl, the oldest son, attended a school in Odessa where he made his decision to leave his native land.  A student from the University of Odessa would occasionally visit in the home where Karl boarded.  From this student he learned that the Communists, working through the university students, were planning to overthrow the Tsar Government.  Karl’s friend was not in favor of the revolution and had avoided their meetings.  It was because of this friend’s warnings of what was ahead that Karl determined to immigrate to America.  It was not too long before those warnings proved all too accurate.  

Karl, realizing that he would probably inherit very little or no land, decided to go to America.  For Karl it was not because of an economic need, as it was with many immigrants, that he chose to leave his native land but a desire and an urge he could not deny.  The United States was advertising land to be homesteaded for free.  Karl was determined to go to America!  When he told his mother, she said, “You will starve to death over there!”  Karl answered with an old Russian proverb, “The honest hand will go through the land.”  Little did his mother dream that Karl’s determination to go to America would save her from starvation in the not-to-distant future.  When his mother told his father, his father tried to dissuade him and even offered Karl his share of the inheritance immediately if he would stay and farm.  He wanted his parents’ consent but he told them, “Voluntarily let me go, or I will go anyway.”   His parents yielded and his father bought a ticket for him.  The ticket included ship passage and train fair to Eureka, South Dakota.  Eureka was chosen as the destination because they knew some people there who had emigrated from Russia about two years earlier.

Before his voyage on the ocean, Karl asked an old fellow who had crossed the ocean several times what would prevent sea sickness.  The advice he received was, “Eat garlic or drink vodka.”  He didn’t try the vodka but ate garlic until he couldn’t eat any more as the ship plowed across the ocean.  Then he started eating lemon and hard sugar.  Whether this formula or something else was responsible for his lack of sea sickness, he was thankful he didn’t have a moment of it on the entire voyage.  He watched plenty of others who did have trouble.

Karl arrived in Boston in 1911, with just $25 to his name.  In Eureka he received a job offer right away from a farmer who wanted him to work two months at $50 a month.  With his financial condition as it was he didn’t hesitate to take the job.  He did make one stipulation; he would not milk cows.  In Russia milking was women’s work.  After Karl completed his work, he would take care of the horses and do the other barnyard chores.  He waited inside the fence where the cows were while his employer and wife did the milking.  Then he would turn the crank of the cream separator and feed the milk to the calves.  He had not worked there long until he felt guilty and began helping with the milking too.  He even got up earlier and would have three cows milked before the boss appeared in the morning.  After the two months of work were completed his employer rented out his land and told his renters, “We had thirteen hired men, but none as good as Karl” - the German Russian boy who learned to milk cows.

In the late 1800’s the Russian government began to take away the promises that they had made about not serving in the army, paying taxes, and not having to teach the Russian language.  Shortly after Karl left, two of the oldest boys were taken into the army. 

In 1917, just six years after Karl had left Russia, the warnings of his friend came true.  The Communists overthrew the government.  All private property was subject to seizure.  His father’s property was no exception.  Looters ran wild through the land, carrying off whatever they could get their hands on.   One of the looters was a boy who had worked for the family.  Adam called the boy by name and asked, “You know that belongs to me; why are you taking it?”  The boy replied, “But uncle, if I don’t take it someone else will.”  Adam recognized the inevitable and conceded, “You are right; go ahead and take it.”  The Communists had pitted the “have nots” against the “haves”.  Those who had not managed before could not or would not manage now with someone else’s property.  Food production dropped rapidly and by 1920 starvation was widespread-the new “haves” starving along with the dispossessed.

By the start of World War I, the peasants in Russia were becoming very upset because they could see that the Tsar and those who were born into the aristocracy were living lavishly while the average people were starving or at best barely surviving.  The war made it worse and even the soldiers were starving.  The people revolted in February of 1917.  They protested against food shortages, an end to the war against Germany, and against the undemocratic Tsar.  They demanded bread!  The Tsar’s army also mutinied.  The Duma (Russian parliament) was dissolved by the Tsar but informally reassembled and elected a provisional cabinet that ran the country along with the Soviets which were elected from workers councils in the factories.  Almost all of the Soviets supported the Menshevik or “minority party” which was not really the minority and were not controlled by the Communists.  The Tsar formally abdicated on March 2, 1917.  When Lenin returned to Russia from Germany in April of 1917, he redirected the Bolshevist or “majority party” to take control of the Soviets and wanted to capture power in the country as a whole.  His supporters were the Communists. 

Stalin became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee in 1922.  Stalin gradually gained power and became the de facto party leader and ruler of the Soviet Union.  Stalin launched a command economy, and forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture.  His philosophy was that the government owned all land and that everyone should share equally.  This, of course, meant that he would have to get rid of anyone who owned large tracts of land such as the aristocrats and any large well-to-do farmers.  The last group included Adam.  The Soviet Union was transformed from an agrarian society to a major industrial powerhouse but millions of people died from famine and hardships.  An estimated 25 million farmers were forced onto state farms.  About 14.5 million people died and agricultural production dropped about 25 percent at a time when food was really needed.  Stalin also began to ruthlessly rid himself of political rivals and intellectuals who would resist his Communist government.   He launched a campaign in the 1930’s called The Great Purge and had 1.2 million members of the Communist Party tortured, executed, or sent to Gulag labor camps in Siberia.   Russian people who resented the successful, whoever they were, trumped up charges to send people to Siberia.  The German people who were doing well but had kept to themselves were now hated by the Russian people.  The Russian government insisted that the Germans teach the Russian language in their schools and restricted church activities. Stalin eventually forbade all churches.  By the end of World War I, Stalin had taken power of the government as a total dictator.        

In 1920 Adam wrote to his son, Karl, in the United States, asking for help.  Karl was able to send food parcels to his parents through the American Food Administration.  Things were getting worse as time went on.  Adam had an oil press to get oils out of mustard and flax.  He had a large garden in summer.  He fed some of the excess produce from the garden to hogs which were then turned into sausages, hams, and bacon to be sold.  He farmed acres for wheat, barley, and oats.  He could grow grapes and other fruit.  People came with soldiers and took anything they wanted from Adam’s farm.  By 1920-1921, Karl heard reports of what was happening to the German people and that twice the army had come to take Albert and Henry into the service.  Each time the army had come, Adam was able to bribe the officer in charge by offering him hams, bacon, and sausages so they left alone.  Adam knew that if they were going to leave they would have to get out of Russia soon.  In 1923, Adam again wrote to his son asking him to help them get to America.  Because he had some money, he was able to get someone to forge papers for them to leave Russia.  They had to have sponsors in the United States in order to come.  Karl and his sister, Barbara, were in America so they would be able to enter the country.  Karl sent them tickets.  A third time the army came and took Albert and Henry but they were able to hide under a bridge and return home to leave with their parents.  Although they lived only about 30 miles from the Black Sea and could have left for America from there, they were afraid of being caught so they sneaked to Latvia.  At the border, the Latvians demanded $100 from them so they wrote to Karl again.  Once the bribe was paid and they were able to cross the border into free territory it was, as they described it, “like getting out of hell into paradise.”  They took a train across Russia to the Baltic Sea and boarded a ship to the United States.  They left behind a life’s work with no compensation and family and friends and children they would never see again.   They came with only a few photographs, some silverware, and the clothes they could carry in a bag to start over in a new land where they didn’t even know the language.  The horrors were behind them but they realized that multitudes, including many of their own family and kin, were not so fortunate.  Only Adam, his wife, Elizabeth, Albert, and Henry were able to come to America. They entered the United States in Boston in October of 1923.  Adam was almost 60 years old.  My Great-Grandfather Henry was 17.  Adam worked hard as a carpenter and he and his wife survived.  He died at the age of 91.

Karl heard from another brother who would have come but his wife was not yet ready to leave her parents and relatives.  That brother, his wife, and their children were sent to Siberia in box cars over 2,000 miles.  The women were settled in barracks “tall enough to stand upright, wide enough to stretch out.”  The men were taken 200 miles further to work in the woods.  They had to wear shoes of tree bark as they worked in snow crotch deep.  Within about 30 days more than 1,000 had died.  About 2 months later they were in south Russia- his wife and children just skin and bones.  The family was still in danger there so they crossed over the Aspic Sea into Kaukas for several years.  There was an American store there where he could buy things if he had American money.  Karl sent money but after several times the brother wrote telling him not to send any more money because people were getting jealous and making him suffer for it.  Karl and his family in America never heard from the rest of the family they left behind.  They praised the Lord that He had allowed them to reach freedom while freedom was still within reach.

After World War II, refugees from Russia streamed into Germany.  Karl and his wife began getting appeals for help.  They gladly supplied many dollars worth of food and clothing to those pleading for help.  Both cried over the letters of thanks which they received realizing that it was only through God’s help that they had been able to help others.  His parents were also very active in sending relief.  They had become naturalized citizens and had moved to Missoula, Montana.  Adam got a permit from Missoula city authorities to go from house to house to collect clothing and shoes for the destitute people in Russia.  He collected 1½ tons which he shipped to Germany for those who had fled Russia.  The shoes that were not in good shape he repaired.  A Missoula shoemaker donated the sewing he could not do himself, and one of the local stores gave him strings for the shoes.  All of this family (my relatives) were devoted to their churches in Russia and continued that tradition in America.  Karl was a charter member of the church in his new town in his new country and was instrumental in getting it started.

The family of my Great-Grandmother, Magdalena (Maggie), came from the same area as Great-Grandfather Henry in Russia near Odessa on the Black Sea.  Her great-great grandparents migrated from Sinschein Baden, Germany, to Russia in 1813.  They migrated there when Catherine the Great opened the land to foreigners to come and develop the country, especially agriculturally.  They had a son Friedrick who married Juliana.  Friedrick and Juliana had three boys one of whom was Johann who married Elizabeth.  Elizabeth and Johann had four children-one a son Johann who married Magdalena.  Johann and Magdalena were born in Russia.  They were married in 1906 and came to America that year.  They settled near Artis, South Dakota.  Great-Grandmother was born to them on a farm near Herried, South Dakota, in 1908.  Great-grandmother will celebrate her 100^th birthday in May. 

Great-Grandmother Maggie told me that her mother told her how she missed her parents and was very lonely the first few years.  They lived in a sod house when they first came here.  The railroad was built into Montana in 1904 and Great-Grandma’s family moved to the Plevna, Montana, area in 1910.  Her parents worked hard and built up a lovely farm there.  Two sisters were born then.  Her father died in 1918, during the flu epidemic that killed many in the United States and Europe.  He was only 34 and Great-Grandma was only 10.  After his death she moved to Plevna with her mother and sisters.  Great-Grandmother went to school and graduated form the 8^th grade.  Great-grandma said they did not have money for an allowance but often earned money to give to the parents to help out the family.  Her first job was housework and she was paid $3 per week for six ten hour days.  She liked Sundays because it was a day of rest and the only time she got to see her country friends.  Church was very much a part of her life.  She continued to attend church regularly until after she was 94.  Now she still listens to church services on the radio with her Bible and hymnal beside her.  When many schools began to drop baccalaureate services before graduation, Great-Grandma Maggie told me, “That is why we came to this country!”  She and her family have always felt blessed to have the freedoms available in this country, especially religious freedom.  Her father was very active in his church too.

Great-Grandma Maggie also did field work helping make hay etc. all done with horses yet.  Maggie met Henry shortly after he came to this country.  He was not a citizen until after they were married.  I have heard family telling how he was teased about his German accent.  Their first home was her mother’s farm.  They were married in1926.  She told me that they did not think of going to a grocery store to get their needs.  They had to raise and grow much of their own food.  They raised and butchered and even canned their meats.  They had setting hens to hatch and raise their own chickens for eating and eggs.  When the gardens produced they canned lots of vegetables and always baked their own bread.  Special holidays were Christmas, Easter, the 4th of July, and New Year’s Day.  They did not celebrate birthdays with presents or parties.  Great-Grandma Maggie has told us stories of the things that have happened in her lifetime.  She remembers the depression years in the 1930’s when there was no rain and the winds blew the soil dry and it seemed like the whole country was blowing away.  There were no crops for income, no grass for hay, no vegetables to can, and livestock sold for very low prices.  Even eggs sold for only six cents a dozen.  The grasshoppers were so bad that they ate everything in sight.  Maggie remembers that one time she had some small onions planted and the grasshoppers ate the onions leaving small holes in the hard soil.  Many people gave up and moved away.  Those that hung on with determination and hard work have been well rewarded.  Great-Grandma also remembers the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Transportation has gone from horses and buggies and sleds to Model T’s and cars you could drive without a driver’s license, to cars with heaters and air-conditioning, to jet airplanes.  Electricity, grocery stores with every food imaginable, bathrooms and indoor plumbing, washers and dryers, telephones, air-conditioners, and computers have changed the way we live. Great-Grandma Maggie is amazed at all the changes she has seen in her lifetime. 

 My great-grandparents had six children-five girls and one boy.  The boy, Carl, is my grandfather.  He is from a total German background and can understand and speak some German.  Many of the churches in our area had German services until even the 1970’s and our local nursing home still has German-English singing even today.  Grandfather has always been interested in history, especially German history, and likes to visit museums.  I think it has rubbed off a little as my mother and I enjoy museums also.  A couple of years ago he was able to go to the area in Russia, now the Ukraine, where his father and family had lived.  He saw the place where a school that his father attended had stood.  He saw the grave of his grandmother that had a Bible verse on the headstone.  He talked to an older woman that remembered the family and showed him where they had lived.  And he got to fulfill a lifelong dream to swim in the Black Sea where some of his ancestors had swum.

My ancestors gave up a lot to enjoy the freedoms we have here and took the responsibility to help others when they were able because of their blessings.  I want to protect and enjoy those freedoms also and hope that I take the responsibility to share those blessings with others.  I am a senior this year and I want to attend a baccalaureate service.  I am glad I live in a country where I can own property, speak the language I prefer (and even have the opportunity to learn more than one), teach my children what I want, worship freely as I please, have the choice to serve in the military for a country that lets me have a say in government, and don’t have to pay outrageously high taxes to a dictator who doesn’t care about the people.  My ancestors truly did take giant, costly steppes to freedom.        

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