At the least, they had to pay to ride the train from Hochstädt (across the Molochnaya River to the west of the colony) to Antwerp, Belgium, then for passage across the Atlantic on the Vaderland of the Red Star Line, then finally for the train ride from Philadelphia to York, Nebraska. Then, as soon as the family arrived, Peter D bought 80 acres of farmland on the east edge of Hamilton County. All this raises the question: How was the family able to afford not only the expenses of traveling from one continent to another but also the cost of buying 80 acres of land?
Our family history does not explain this mystery, but archival documents from Molotschna provide a plausible explanation. As noted in a Mennonite Life article from 1946 (to read the entire article online, see here), when some Mennonites decided to leave New Russia for North America, others determined to form an aid society that would provide the financial resources necessary for such an expensive undertaking. The name of that society, in English, was The Corporation of Emigrants to America.
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| Pages from the Alexanderwohl Schnubruch held by the Bethel College Mennonite Library and Archives. |
The CEA first formulated general articles of organization, then wrote regulations for how money was to be collected, disbursed, and repaid, including the necessity of recording all transactions. One tool for record keeping was a Schnurbuch, or “cord book.” The Schnurbuch was a regular ledger with a special feature: all the pages were bound together by an extra cord (see above), which was then sealed with wax on the outside. As Melvin Gingerich writes, “This made it difficult to tamper with the records of the book and marked the book as an official record of the church” (1946, 46).
A Schnurbuch included several sections, including one recording how much the wealthier individuals in the community agreed to loan to the fund (see photograph below), one listing the amount that was loaned to each individual needing funding, and one recording any repayments of the amount loaned (photograph above.
It is important to note that those making the loans may well have been moving to the U.S. as well. For example, nearly the entire village of Alexanderwohl (whose Schnurbuch is pictured here) left New Russia for the U.S. in 1874, meaning that those who loaned financed not only their own move but also that of their Mennonite brothers and sisters.
Three final observations:
- the Alexanderwohl Schnurbuch lists both lenders and borrowers from a number of villages, so this was a colony-wide endeavor, not simply a village-based measure;
- funding for travel was given in the form of a loan, not a gift, which speaks volumes about the mentality and values of the community;
- early hardships on the plains of the American midwest limited the ability of some to repay their loans as quickly as had been expected; the fact that the CEA and those who funded it granted grace to those behind on their loans also speaks volumes about the mentality and values of the community.
Is this sort of arrangement how Peter D was able to move his family of eight to Nebraska in 1879? We may never know with certainty, but it seems as plausible explanation as any. Perhaps somewhere, maybe in a library archive or in a box in the corner of a dusty church attic, there is a book with Peter D’s name and loan amount and repayment in it. Wouldn’t that be a great find!
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The Bethel College Mennonite Library and Archives graciously offers scans of all the pages in the Alexanderwohl Schnurbuch here. Gingerich (1946, 47) notes that Bethel College also possesses a second copy of “the Schnurbuch” (presumably a second copy of the Alexanderwohl one), given to it by J. J. Friesen of Henderson. Further details about how the two copies compare are not available.
Source
Gingerich, Melvin. 1946. The Alexanderwohl “Schnurbuch.” Mennonite Life 1.1:45–47. See here.
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