Preservings $20 Issue No. 26, 2006 - Home at Plett Foundation

at 6:00. We laid over in Moorehead on Sunday
and did some fishing but did not catch much.
In Moorehead I bought 15 pounds of apples
at 11 cents per pound. That was on Tuesday,
July 30.
Wednesday, July 31 at 10:00 we left this
city down the Red River. Today, Friday, it is
seven weeks that we have been on the trip.
The Red River has bush on both sides, but it
is sparse, so that in some places we can see
through it. The Dakota side has even less than
the Minnesota side. On Friday, August 2 our
mother became seriously ill in the morning but
became somewhat better in the afternoon. On
the Dakota side we met several farmers and
we saw very nice cattle. All America has German
cattle, but only red cattle and black and
white cattle but more red than black and white
and no Russian greys. I have seen few sheep.
Horses are very expensive. Today, Saturday,
we had a thunderstorm with rain so that almost
all our possessions became wet. Our mother
is worse today than she was yesterday but
she still ate something at noon and is peaceful.
From Friday to Saturday, August 10 our
mother died. Monday, August 12 we viewed
our land. We had some rain. It is very hot.
Tuesday the 13th it is even hotter today than
it was yesterday. It is clouding over; perhaps
it will rain for the water supply is low. On the
14th I wrote home to Russia.
On June 14, 1874 we left our home in
Russia and on August 3 we arrived at the Red
River. (End of the journey)
The above my father wrote on the ship
and I have copied it here for my children for
a remembrance.
Reflections.
Yes, that is the journey of my parents
on the ship from Russia to America. What
hardships this will have caused them! What
troubled thoughts will have been stirred up in
many feeble hearts, how many concerns and
thoughtful hours they will have experienced
on the ship. Eight weeks on the journey, all
their possessions left behind, just following
the voice of their conscience in order to give
their children a new home, where they themselves
did not know what to expect.
Of course, several men had travelled
through the area and examined it before they
emigrated but how can a few men select for
such a large number of people? One does not
like this, and another objects to that, and there
were different dispositions. But it was permitted
only to go forward; it was impossible to
turn back. First, because there was no money
and second, they had become tired and weak
from the long journey.
Many travellers will have built castlesin-the-air
about their new home on the long
journey. Yes, it is as if I can feel my father’s
emotions when he writes, “Oh, how lonesome
it is without all my dear family members.” I
feel that I understand his emotions and his
frame of mind he wrote those lines. Yes, he
had his closest family members, his wife and
children, with him but how barren and lonely
it must have seemed. Yes, only one ship on
the great ocean, as he wrote - no land in sight,
only heaven and water. They must have felt
like Noah in the Ark.
However, since they travelled with faith
in God, they will also have experienced many
joyous hours. But there were also some tests,
as the instance where father writes that they
have buried the body of Peter Friesen’s daughter
in the ocean. Since their own daughter,
Agatha, also took sick, they will no doubt have
considered that this could also happen in their
family. But our dear Lord stood by them and
it did not happen to them.
East Reserve.
I remember very well how my mother
spoke about their joy that they could bury
her mother in the earth. But that must also
have been hard for them; after they had safely
completed the journey their mother was taken
from them.
Now they had to apply their energies to
making their living; now it was time to work.
No home, no land, winter at the door, seasonal
expectations uncertain, not knowing just when
to expect winter. Weak and exhausted from the
long journey, food was very scarce. I remember
the stories my parents told.
While they were in the immigration
houses, mother had dough ready for baking,
when an Indian from the half-breed settlement
(hohe Britten Stap) arrived with an ox (and a
cart) and said they should get on board and he
would take them to their land. They loaded all
their possessions, including the bowl with the
dough and drove away. After what seemed like
a long ride the Indian stopped the wagon and
said they should unload, this was their home.
Here on the wild prairie, without a house,
they unloaded and under the clear skies was
their new home.
The men immediately started cutting down
trees and cutting reeds to build houses. The
men prepared lumber and the women tied the
reeds in small bundles and from this a house?
The parents said they just built a Sarrai. We
would think of it as just a roof because that is
all it really was. Father found this work very
hard because he was not used to it, since he
had been a miller in Russia, but he always
worked alongside the others.
Mother told us how father walked to
Winnipeg several times, since nobody had
a vehicle, and brought a small pail of lard,
a small side of bacon and some flour. The
lard and bacon lasted one year. He had also
brought some potatoes but they had been
frozen and were sweet. The flour had been
badly infested. So mother made potatoes one
day and noodles, sprinkled with bacon fat, the
next and that was all the variety they had in
their diet. For breakfast they had coffee made
with grain (prips) and bread. Father used to
say when he came home hungry and tired,
“Potatoes and noodles one day, and noodles
and potatoes the next.”
What would our response to such a diet be
today? Today we are dissatisfied if the bread
does not turn out just as we expected and we
feed it to our dogs and cats. Well, the animals
have to eat, too, but when I think about those
days or the hungry people in Russia—with
what an appetite they would eat if only they
had bread—then even the bread that did not
turn out well tastes good.
When we kill pigs in fall we set the big
table with assorted foods: cookies, pies,
bread, meat, soup and more. Do we thank God
enough for his goodness? Could he not take
this away from us as well? Are we any better
than those people? Certainly not. I believe that
we are living in a time of grace through which
our dear Lord would draw us closer to Him.
We do not know how close we are to the end
but the parents withstood those difficult times
and later enjoyed good times.
Bergthal, East Reserve.
At that time several families banded
together and settled where they had built
their first Sarrai and started a village which
they called Bergthal. That was 30 miles from
Winnipeg and the men frequently walked
that distance. They bought oxen and wagons,
sometimes several families acquired one
vehicle and a cow together. They cultivated
the land and seeded it, but in the first years
the grasshoppers took everything. Frequently
their crop froze because the frost came earlier
in those years and seeding was started later.
The times were difficult. Roads were almost
impossible to travel and if they went with
a small load they frequently got stuck. Then
they would carry the bags on their shoulders
through the swamp, go back to get the cart,
then reloaded the bags and continue until
the next bog. This would be repeated many
times so that it would sometimes take a week
and more to make a return trip to Winnipeg.
Today we have such nice roads and travel so
fast! How times change and how the vehicles
have changed!
They did not have drills in those days.
I can remember when father took a blanket
filled with wheat over his shoulder, with a
smaller portion in front of him, from which
he would seed by hand. Then the field was
harrowed and seeding was finished. Neither
were there any binders, when the crop was
ready for harvest it was cut by hand with a
scythe, the women followed and bound it into
sheaves. Then they stood it upright for drying.
When it was dry it was brought home where
it was piled.
There were no threshing machines; the
grain was threshed with horses or oxen around
a threshing stone and then cleaned. Neither
were there any baggers; the grain was bagged
by hand and carried on the shoulder into the
granary. How the time has flown and in what
kind of a time are we living today? Everything
is done by machines and we do almost
everything sitting down: seeding, harrowing,
cutting, threshing ploughing.
The times improved for the parents, too.
The climate turned milder. Crops brought a
56 - Preservings No. 26, 2006