THE BERRY MEADOW ARCHIVE - Mountain Light School

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VIII. Return to Berry Meadow and other Stories of Our People. Lincoln, Nebraska: Augstums Publishing, 1995. IX. “Schrabgeschiren and Silverware: The Sixteen Green Letters and One Brown Bible,” American Historical Society of Germans From Russia Work Paper (Winter 2003). X. “Historical Overview of the Original Acquisition of Records for AHSGR,” American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Newsletter, No. 118 (Fall 2005). PART ELEVEN Ùsu Leut vo Yagada Index 338 PART TWELVE Folk and Family Music 343 I. Volga German Volkslieder II. Russian Folk Pyesny III. German Festival Hymns IV. Memorial Songs V. “Songs of Long Ago” PART THIRTEEN Traditional Family Recipes 361 PART FOURTEEN Photographs and Document Facsimiles 375 (In progress) 14
PREFACE Berry Meadow Archive Origins by Richard Scheuerman In the summer of 1766, eighty intrepid families from the rolling Vogelsberg district north of Frankfurt, a. M. anxiously gathered in the city of Büdingen to begin a momentous and perilous journey eastward. They were fleeing poverty and oppressive conditions that had long prevailed in Hesse in hopes of finding new lives of opportunity in Russia in response to Tsarina Catherine the Great‟s famed 1763 “Manifesto of the Empress” inviting foreigners to colonize the vast untamed Volga region. These eighty families joined together for the year-long trek via St. Petersburg and Moscow and eventually reached their destination in August 1767 when they founded the village of Yagodnaya Polyana (Berry Meadow) in a wooded valley surrounded by rolling grasslands about forty miles north of Saratov on the hilly, western side (Bergseite) of the Volga. After several brutal years adjusting to conditions on the Russian frontier, these German families and others who established a hundred other Volga German villages in the region began to slowly prosper. In the 1850s the expanding colonists were given additional lands east of the Volga where the residents of Yagodnaya Polyana and neighboring Pobotschnoye established New Yagodnaya (1855), Schöntal (1856), Schöndorf (1857), and Schönfeld (1858) in the province of Samara along a tributary of the Volga, the Yeruslan River. In spite of their evocative names (Pleasant Valley, Pleasant Village, Pleasant Field), agricultural life in the drier Wiesenseite (Plains Side) of the Volga was challenging and remote from the mother colonies which explains why the first immigrants from these families to journey to America came from these daughter colonies. Unpopular policies undertaken by Tsar Alexander II‟s in the 1870s to Russify the colonists, religious persecution, and economic challenges led many Volga Germans to once again seek new opportunities. For these reasons they began immigrating to United States as early as 1876. Over the next four decades those with ties to Yagodnaya Polyana settled in Kansas, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin as well as in Alberta, Canada, and Argentina. The communities formed by “Yagaders” in these places continued to perpetuate cultural distinctions well into the twentieth century. Moreover, in the course of two centuries members of virtually all the original colonist families had extensively intermarried with each other. In the 1960s of my youth in Washington‟s rural Palouse, for example, our cousins and closest neighbors bore names like Lautenschlager, Repp, Lust, Schmick/Smick, Gerlitz, Kleweno, and Morasch—each descended from a single family that had gathered for the trek from Hesse to Russia that summer day in 1766. Persons interested in their heritage were challenged by these familial complexities, and the fact that access to Russian census records and other archival materials was denied throughout the Soviet period. Contact with Volga German families who had remained in Russia and subsequently deported to Central Asia and Siberia during World War II was also severely restricted. I became aware as a youth raised near the rural community of Endicott, Washington that a vast constellation of relatives safeguarded knowledge of our family‟s heritage. This awareness was preserved in stories handed down from generation to generation by individuals like my Grandfather Karl Scheuerman and our Great Aunt Lizzie Repp, in the writings of Great Aunt Mae Poffenroth Geier, through tape-recorded interviews of Endicott elders by historian Gordon Lindeen in the 1950s, and in the many old photograph scrapbooks featuring faded images of stolid, unsmiling relatives lined up around a 15
Page 1 and 2: THE BERRY MEADOW ARCHIVE A Selectio
Page 3 and 4: In Memory of family historians Evel
Page 5 and 6: VI. Johann George and maria (Hannem
Page 7 and 8: V. Marie Catherine (Scheuerman) Sch
Page 9 and 10: VII. Henry Rothe, Kansas? To Philli
Page 11 and 12: IV. Mae Geier, Endicott, Washington
Page 13: V. Richard Scheuerman, Frederickson
Page 17 and 18: Scheuerman family are dated “5/57
Page 19 and 20: and Northwest branches had never ac
Page 21 and 22: father‟s family collected money a
Page 23 and 24: formed the nucleus of a “Palouse
Page 25 and 26: By 1980 my time and correspondence
Page 27 and 28: three to four massive books. The ti
Page 29 and 30: society archivist and Russian lingu
Page 31 and 32: A Note on Nicknames, Spellings, and
Page 33 and 34: Glossary of Foreign Words The follo
Page 35 and 36: 67. The Scheuerman Family III (Conr
Page 37 and 38: PART ONE Colonist Families of Yagod
Page 39 and 40: and one blacksmith and there were t
Page 41 and 42: Appel? Brach Falk Keller Knak? Krom
Page 43 and 44: B. Christian Kleweno , Sr., 1843-19
Page 45 and 46: V. Johann Phillip, 1753-1817 m. Eva
Page 47 and 48: 5. Catherine Elizabeth, b. 1842 C.
Page 49 and 50: Moscow and the Grand Kremlin Palace
Page 51 and 52: VII. Johann Niclas, b/d. 1757 (Died
Page 53 and 54: 5. Maria Catherine, b. 1833 (1832?)
Page 55 and 56: 1. Conrad, b. 1850 2. Maria Elizabe
Page 57 and 58: children: David, Donald Poffenroth
Page 59 and 60: 3 According to notes by Evelyn Reic
Page 61 and 62: . Peggy (Lockwood) c. Hariette (Kof
Page 63 and 64: [Scheuerman] Repp), 1900-1971 a. El
Page 65 and 66:
3. Mary Lou, b. 1926 m. J. D. Bryan
Page 67 and 68:
II. David III. Phillip 2. Lee Litze
Page 69 and 70:
E. Marie Elizabeth (Mary), 1873-195
Page 71 and 72:
a. Teresa, b. 1961 m. John J. Fetch
Page 73 and 74:
. Staci E., b. 1976 m. Kelly O. Smi
Page 75 and 76:
e. Helena Mae, b. 1919 m. Charles E
Page 77 and 78:
a. Evelyn Repp b. Gary Repp c. Cody
Page 79 and 80:
3. Mary 4. Anna Marie 5. “Oneece
Page 81 and 82:
3. Albert Karl, b. 1907 m. Daisy Ha
Page 83 and 84:
E. Adam Sherman, 1884-1908 (2). Wil
Page 85 and 86:
for the Santa Fe Railroad. His wido
Page 87 and 88:
VI. Henry (B.) Scheuermann, 1853-19
Page 89 and 90:
c. John Hardin 5. Emilie M. (Amelia
Page 91 and 92:
d. Rocky Olson, b. 1957 e. Marlene
Page 93 and 94:
Found among Evelyn Reich‟s photog
Page 95 and 96:
3. Darlene J. m. George Phillips, C
Page 97 and 98:
III. David Schierman, b. 1892 (twin
Page 99 and 100:
daughter: Marlene m. George Weber 3
Page 101 and 102:
The Heinrich and anna Schmick Famil
Page 103 and 104:
a. Jerry b. Mark (5). Carolyn, 1908
Page 105 and 106:
c. Alma, 1915-2001 m. Leo Morasch (
Page 107 and 108:
e. Lydia m. Harry Troupe f. Peter (
Page 109 and 110:
to Portland via railroad to San Fra
Page 111 and 112:
2. Anna Elizabeth m. Kratz 3. Cathe
Page 113 and 114:
7. Francis m. Peter Konschu 8. Doro
Page 115 and 116:
a, 2 nd m. Janice Scheuerman m. (1
Page 117 and 118:
7. Anna Catherine, 1891-1899 8. Jac
Page 119 and 120:
c. Richard N. Bafus, 1925-1933 d. L
Page 121 and 122:
5. Efford C. (Everett) Kleweno, b.
Page 123 and 124:
The Henry and Anna Litzenberger Fam
Page 125 and 126:
D. Pauline Ochs m. Jacob Kammerzel
Page 127 and 128:
. Linda, b. 1942 m. Vince Rojas dau
Page 129 and 130:
4. Donna D. Iva, b. 1905 E. Ernest,
Page 131 and 132:
4. Edna Weitz 5. Robert Weitz B. He
Page 133:
XI. George Phillip (“Yevah”?),
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