Vol 6 Issue 3 - GRHS Home Page

Note: Reprinted from the December 1976 Heritage Review
with permission from GRHS.
Walworth County, Java, South Dakota
On April 27, 1889 I arrived with my wife at Eureka.
My home colony was Landau in the district of Odessa; my
wife's was Klein-Neudorf. When we arrived there, Eureka
was the chief target of German-Russian immigration. We
met no acquaintances but found many good people who
were glad to help their fellow countrymen in any way they
could. I came to America to acquire land, so my first
question was where could I get it. We were told that there
should be good land about 20 to 24 miles southwest of
Eureka and so we set out immediately with Schumacher's
black horses. At that time it was rare for a farmer to have
horses. Most had only oxen. We met a man who for a
dollar was willing to seek out a claim for us. A gentle
valley cut through the land that we examined and we liked
that very much. However, we had no knowledge of the
endless prairie and thus accepted what our leader pointed
out. He showed us only land that was not rolling and thus
we believed that the hilly land around us would always
remain open pasture and hay land. But in a few years all
the land had been taken, for the most part, by German-
Russians. The hilly land is just as good as ours. All the
land here is undulating, has about two to three feet of
black soil, and is underlain with yellow clay.
Among those who homesteaded land here with me some
20 years ago I would mention the following: Jacob J.
Aman, Jacob Stiegelmeier, Peter Hartman Jr., F. Hartman,
Wilhelm Moser, Jakob Wolf, John Fiechtner, Karl Krause,
and Johanas Krause.
I used to be a Russian soldier but got tired of it.
Although I had a good position I decided to emigrate to
Beresan District Odessa Newsletter - Volume 6 Issue 3: February 2002
Contributions Toward a History of the German-Russian Settlements in North America
Collected and edited for the Dakota Freie Presse October 21, 1909, F.W. Sallet
Translated by La Vern J. Rippley, St. Olaf College
Page 8
America, for my father and brothers were also going to
America. Since I departed for America straight from the
military I had no time to earn money for the trip. So I took
a portion of my father's money and set out. I arrived in
America as good as broke. There was no way to make any
money here. I asked myself what I should do with my
land? I could not get rid of it, not even for a minimal price,
because at that time we were paying the same price for a
claim as we had to pay for a team of horses. But now I'm
happy that nobody bought the land from me.
I had to endure some hard times. Only those who have
experienced a similar situation, trying to get established on
the wild prairies without money, earnings and without any
help can understand how we had to live at the outset.
But the bad times had their good side. People pulled
together and became better friends. Worship services had
to be conducted in the small sod houses in which we
ourselves lived and our prayers were more earnest than
they are today. Men and animals became so used to living
with each other that when a farmer drove to church on
Sunday, his cow wanted to come along and on occasion it
happened that a pig or a dog followed the wagon to
church.
It took a year before I could get a cat, two years to get
a dog. On the wide open prairies there was nothing but
buffalo paths, worn down four or five inches, and the
bones of destroyed buffaloes, some antelope, and
occasionally a rabbit. Because the prairie burned so often,
there was very little wildlife. Today there are plenty of
rabbits and prairie dogs. Back then each farmer had two or
three horses, about the same number of cows, and there
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