Four sisters

The kids in the photograph are likely familiar even to their grandchildren by now (L to R): Matilda and Esther in the back, Darlene and Ruth in the front. Given Ruth’s apparent age and the fact that Alma isn't standing in the picture, one might plausibly date this photo to sometime in 1939.

The location of the photo is a place that we have not seen before: the farm of Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz, Grandma’s parents. If you recall (see here and scroll down to the plat map), the Franz family farm was less than a mile down the road west of Peter P and Margaretha’s place (section 15). It was roughly a five-mile drive from Grandpa and Grandma’s Lushton farm.

Part of the fun of looking at these old photographs is exploring the background, seeing what was in the daily lives of the people who are pictured here. This particular photo is busy: the barn appears to be well-built and well-kept; one wonders whether the windmill in front of it was just for livestock or also provided water for the house; the flower garden to the right of the girls is watched over by two wooden figurines, what appear to be young girls in sun dresses and bonnets; the utility pole behind the girls presumably brought electricity to the Franz house. (When did electricity come to Grandpa and Grandma’s Lushton farm?)

What else do you see? I notice that all four girls part their hair on their left and comb it to the right, that a chicken-wire fence appears to enclose the farmyard, and that there is a faint outline of a single rod at the left tip of the roof, likely a lightning rod to protect the structure from strikes. Take time to explore the photograph with your eyes, to enter that time and place where four sisters stood together one sunny day. It is the best way to get to know not only the people—our family—pictured there but also their lives back in 1939.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 6

It always comes as a surprise when an occasionally mentioned, barely remembered, and never truly understood historical event pops up in our family history. More remarkable is when a single ancestor of ours perseveres through several of those events during his or her lifetime.

Heinrich Bühler, for example, experienced the persecution of the Swiss Reformed Church first-hand when in mid-1614 he spent fourteen weeks (or at least some time) in Zurich’s Wellenberg tower. Just a few years later, Heinrich’s life was upset and uprooted again by a more wide-ranging development: the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–1648.

This is neither the place nor the time to attempt to summarize such a complex historical period and series of events. Those who wish to dig deeper may consult the abbreviated Encyclopaedia Britannica article here or the History Channel summary here.

Instead of trying to teach about the Thirty Years’ War, the rest of this post will rather step into, as it were, the events of that time by allowing the anonymous Hutterite Chroniclers recount what they, or at least their co-religionists, went through during the early years of the war. We begin in 1618 with the outbreak of the war.

[633] This same year, 1618, fierce agitation and revolt broke out in the kingdom of Bohemia, developing into terrible war and bloodshed between the [Roman Catholic] emperor and the Lutheran Estates in Bohemia. [The Bohemian Revolt of May 1618, which was to develop into the Thirty Years War. Count Heinrich von Thurn (1567–1640), a prominent leader of the Protestant Estates, had succeeded in forcing Emperor Rudolf II in 1609 to issue the Letter of Majesty granting religious freedom in Bohemia. In May 1618 Count von Thurn called a meeting of Protestant Estates at Prague University to discuss threats to that freedom. … Complaints made to Emperor Matthias were denounced as rebellion. The meetings ended on May 23 with the famous Defenestration of Prague, when von Thurn himself threw two Catholic councillors, Jaroslav of Martinitz and William of Slavata, and their secretary, Fabricius, from a window of the Hradschin [Bohemian Chancellery] into the moat. This act of violence marks the beginning of the Thirty Years War. Under the leadership of Count Matthias von Thurn, the Bohemian Protestants (by far the majority in the country) set up their own council and appointed thirty Directors.] Because of this, on John the Baptist’s Day [June 24], the Provincial Diet at Olmütz decided to recruit 5,000 men—cavalry and foot soldiers—for the defense of Moravia. … As a consequence, on top of the heavy annual tax of one hundred gulden on each community, a tax of fifty gulden was added on every house. … [634] In many places livestock, grain, wine, and other goods were taken in lieu of the tax at a much lower valuation than our selling price. In addition, several communities had to quarter soldiers for many weeks in summer and winter. On their marches back and forth, the soldiers often overran our communities, and we had to give them food—as much as they wanted. … Through this heavy consumption, our food supply was greatly diminished.

The area of the Thirty Years’s War. Bohemia and Moravia are underlined in red, as are Prague just below Bohemia
and Vienna somewhat south of Moravia. Heinrich’s city of residence, Wessely, is marked by a small x.

In the year 1619 we still had the hope and the great longing that the war between the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias and the Bohemian Protestants would come to an end, not only to save the church community and the whole country from further harm, but also to bring relief from the heavy taxes which … were imposed on us in the year 1618. On March 20, 1619, however, the emperor Matthias I died, and King Ferdinand continued the Bohemian War that had started under Emperor Matthias. Through his generals … he acted with a brutality never known before in the kingdom of Bohemia—the war only continued all the more intense and widespread—and the Bohemian Estates tried to get the Moravians to support their side (while the king thought Moravia was on his side).

[635] As a consequence, Count Heinrich Matthias von Thurn, lieutenant general to the Crown of Bohemia, marched into Moravia in early spring with a large number of cavalry and infantry. He succeeded—although not without opposition—in convincing the Moravian Estates to support Bohemia as allies. … The Catholic lords, who held the power and the chief positions in Moravia at that time, were deposed from office, and the most important ones were imprisoned. Just as in Bohemia at that time, directors or provincial governors were elected from the three remaining Estates.… All of this gave rise to Ferdinand’s hatred toward this country.

Now Count von Thurn…, who had marched from Moravia to Vienna in Austria with his Bohemian troops and a good number of Moravian forces, had to leave Vienna and return to Bohemia because enemies were vandalizing his country. As Moravia was now without soldiers, King Ferdinand sent in several thousand men under General Dampierre to force Moravia to submit to his rule again.

This terrible and remorseless punishment … fell most heavily on the church communities of the Lord, although they were innocent of all that was going on. They suffered incalculable damage and unspeakably great sorrow, trouble, and anxiety from robbery, murder, and fire at the hands of Dampierre’s soldiers, and even more from the ungodly Hungarians. …

[646] In the year 1620 the terrible war continued to spread. … [I]t grew worse and worse until nearly all kingdoms and countries were in revolt. The emperor Ferdinand II, who had come to power on the death of Emperor Matthias, grew more and more hostile because the Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians, Upper and Lower Lusatians, with the help of the Hungarians, had chosen and crowned Frederick, the elector palatine of the Rhine, as king of Bohemia. In order to crush this rebellion, Emperor Ferdinand II recruited bands of cruel men from distant countries: Poles, Croatians, Frenchmen, Walloons, Spaniards, and Italians. He enlisted them to fight against Frederick and his allies, who were relying too heavily on their own strength and good fortune. …

In 1620, because of this terrible war, the communities again suffered incalculable grief and misery—worse than anything the church had endured before.

[657] The distress and misery already described continued into the year 1621. It was an evil year, full of anguish. … On January 23, as the imperial army reached the Hungarian frontier and the Hungarian army made its way over the Little Carpathians, our two coummunities at Wessely and Neudorf were burned to the ground. There were a few at Wessely who [658] were too sick to flee, and with no one able to help them, they died an agonizing death in the fire.

Wessely was rebuilt several decades later, but Heinrich and family were not part of that rebuilding. We do not know where they fled before the fury of the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. We know that many Hutterites fled east to Hungary, while others tried to stay out of sight in Moravia. In time they were impelled by more than the ravages of war to leave Moravia, for 1622 saw the proclamation of an imperial decree:

Neither they nor their fellows in faith were to be tolerated any longer, not only in Moravia but in any country under the emperor’s power. Even in Transylvania [to the east of of Moravia] they would not be safe but would be a people marked for death. (Hutterian Brethren 1987, 670)

If Heinrich had not already left Moravia by this point (I suspect that he left after the 1621 razing of Wessely), he most certainly did so now. Interestingly, however, the next we know of Heinrich, he is no longer in a Hutterite Bruderhof (allow that to sink in for a moment: Heinrich left both his home and his community of faith). Rather, he is now living in a Mennonite community on the banks of another river 400 miles to the north of Wessely. That journey will be the subject of our next post in the series From Brüttisellen to Lushton

Source

Hutterian Brethren. 1987. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Vol. 1. Rifton, N.Y.: Plough.

Kids and their critters

One last photograph from that day in 1940. From left to right we see Alma, Ruth, and Wayne. Each one is holding a puppy (at least I think all three are dogs, not rabbits): Alma’s is completely white; Ruth’s, white with a dark face and head but a white stripe down the middle; Wayne’s, dark all over.

Does anyone remember the names of these puppies (or if they are puppies)?

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 5

We have already learned that in 1602 Heinrich Bühler emigrated from his homeland Switzerland to Moravia, specifically, to a Hutterite Bruderhof near Wessely, on the east bank of the Marava River. Apart from four missionary journeys back to Zurich, Heinrich lived at least the next twelve years (probably more), until 1614, in the Wessely Bruderhof. So what can we discover about this Hutterite farm colony and the surrounding area?

Sudomír’s original castle was converted to a
Renaissance palace in the mid-1500s.

According to the Czechoslovakian blogger referenced earlier (see here), the town got its start with the building of a castle (one of at least three erected to provide a defensive perimeter against attacks from the east) by a nobleman named Sudomír during the 1250s. Over time, an actual town grew up around the fortifications.

The Hutterites first entered Moravia in large numbers during the 1520s; their numbers only continued to increase, which led them to to found new Bruderhofs where they could practice their communal lifestyle. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren includes the following record for the year 1545:

At Martinmas [Nov. 11] Jakob Säckler bought a house on our behalf from a nobleman at Wessely. We moved in, but on June 2, 1546, it burned down, and we made a contract with the owner for the burned-out site.
     On St. Catherine’s Day [Apr. 30] Michael Matschidel, our servant of the Lord’s Word at that time, bought another house on our behalf in Wessely. This house, too, burned down in the fire of 1546. The lord at Wessely gave us another burned-out site in exchange, situated by the upper gate near the March River. This location was more convenient for us, and we built a new house there in 1547. (Hutterian Brethren 1987, 244)

The translator of The Chronicle adds: “The Hutterites occupied a house adjoining the seigneurial zoological gardens in the Wessely suburb of Břeh” (Hutterian Brethren 1987, 244 n. 1). Where this zoological garden was located remains unclear, although Beck (1883, 165 n. 3) indicates that it was located on the southwest corner of town, opposite the Milokošt neighborhood or, perhaps better, suburb.

The Milokošt area today, facing southwest and thus looking toward the Morava River in the distance

In any event, this is in all likelihood the colony, or commune, where Heinrich and family lived when they joined this Bruderhof in 1602. (Recall that a Bruderhof was usually a collection of several communal houses organized around a common square.)

Although we have been associating Heinrich and family with the town Wessely, we need to keep in mind the fact that Heinrich was not a city-dweller per se. Rather, as we learned earlier, Heinrich was a vinedresser (see here), one who prunes and cares for grape vines. Whether he brought these skills with him from Switzerland or acquired them later, they certainly were appropriate for his Moravian home.

Modern vineyard in the Veselí nad Moravou area

According to the Tourist Centre of the Veselsko Region, viticulture and wine-making first began in this area in the mid-1500s (i.e., roughly when the Hutterites established a Bruderhof here) but expanded significantly during the 1600s and 1700s (see here). Grapes were grown only on the manors, it seems, so we should probably imagine Heinrich working for one of the lords of the manors, caring for the lord’s grapes to be used in the lord’s wine-making operations.

Much more could be written about the history of the town and the beauty of the area, but those interested in exploring further are better off going directly to the Tourist Centre website here. There you will find a complete discussion of the area’s history of vine-growing and wine-making, gorgeous photographs of the palace park and the Morava River, and much more.

After exploring the town and the area, you may wonder why Heinrich and family ever left. That part of the story must wait for another post on another day, as we work our way forward on the road from Brüttisellen to Lushton.

Sources

Beck, Josef, ed. 1883. Die Geschichts-Bücher der Wiedertäufer in Oesterreich-Ungarn, … 1526–1785. Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn. Available online here.

Hutterian Brethren. 1987. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Vol. 1. Rifton, N.Y.: Plough.

Zeman, Jarold K. 1967. Historical Topography of Moravian Anabaptism. MQR 41:116–60. See no. 171 for Wessely.

Mennonite history

Exploring and learning about our family history, especially within the context of Mennonite and even world history, has never been more convenient than it is today. In addition to resources such as the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online and the Grandma database, many websites and webpages offering both primary historical records and guides to accessing those records (see, e.g., here).

Even those of us who prefer a traditional book format are well served these days. For example, all those reading this post have easy access to one of the standard histories of the Mennonites, C. Henry Smith’s The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development in Both Europe and America (1920).

The book is old enough that it has entered the public domain (i.e., it is no longer under copyright), so the Internet Archive has scanned it and made it available for free to anyone who wants to read it. You can read it online in a page-flip format as shown above (go ahead and click on the right page to turn it to the next page) or download it to your computer, tablet, or phone to read it whenever you want (see further below).

Although the work is now nearly a hundred years old, it remains a reliable, informative, and engaging guide to the birth of the Anabaptists and then Mennonites and their journey through and spread across Europe and North America.

I especially recommend chapters 1 and 2, on the Anabaptists and Menno Simons; chapter 6.1, on Moravia; chapter 7, on Russia; and chapter 16, on immigration from Russia. York County makes a brief appearance in this last chapter.

To read the book online in a page-flip format, go here.

To download the book as a PDF, EPUB, or Kindle file, go here. (The EPUB and Kindle files offer uncorrected text created by optical character recognition, I assume, so they may be typographically “messy.”)

As I find them, I will alert you to other online books of interest. Happy reading!


Source

Smith, C. Henry. 1920. The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development in Both Europe and America. Berne, IN: Mennonite Book Concern.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 4

It’s time to get back on track with Heinrich Bühler and his offspring (our family) on the road from Brüttisellen to Lushton. To recap …

1. We began in a small village named Brüttisellen just outside of Zurich, Switzerland (see here), the original home of Heinrich Bühler and who knows how many generations of ancestors before him.

2. At some point Heinrich adopted the Anabaptist faith, and in 1602, no doubt fearing for his and his family’s safety, he fled more than 500 miles east to Moravia, where he joined a Hutterite Bruderhof (see further here).

3. According to the Mennonitisches Lexikon, Heinrich returned to Zurich at least four times, the last time in 1614, when he was imprisoned and then threatened with more severe punishment if ever he showed his face in Zurich again (see here; so also The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren).

4. The Mennonitisches Lexikon also identifies Heinrich’s place of residence in Moravia: a Hutterite Bruderhof known as Weselen, which is where we pick up the story now.

Obviously, the first questions that come to mind are: Where is Weselen? Does it still exist, or is it, like Kleefeld our later home, nothing more than a spot in a field? Answering these questions is not as simple as one would think, since Google knows of no such city or village today. As luck would have it, however, a Czechoslovakian blogger with an interest in genealogy discusses a town in Moravia Veselí nad Moravou that probably is our ancestor’s home (see here). He writes:

We know a few versions of the name Veselí: Wessele, Weseli, Wessely, and from 1437 on also a German form Wessels. The phrase “nad Moravou” was added in 1883 to distinguish this town from another homonymic towns [sic].

All the forms bear a strong resemblance to the name given in the Menninitisches Lexicon, the main difference being an -n at the end of Weselen, which is most likely a case ending, not part of the basic stem or root Wesel-.

Although the mention of at least one town with a similar-sounding name (it is unclear if the blogger means “another homonymic town” or “other homonymic towns”) should caution us against jumping to conclusions, a map of Hutterite Bruderhofs during this period seems to cinch the case.

As noted earlier, Nikolsburg was the center of Hutterite life in Moravia, but around a hundred Bruderhofs populated the area. According to the key to the map above, number 82 (far right and just north of center) was a Bruderhof named Wessely. This Bruderhof was located just east of the March River, which is now known as the Maravou or, more commonly, Marava River. The correspondence between Wessely, Weselen, and Veselí nad Maravou seems conclusive.

Assuming that all this is correct, we can now sketch Heinrich and his family’s journey a little more accurately, a journey that took them over 500 miles from Zurich to a town on the border between Moravia and Hungary.

The next post will finally take a look around the area of Veselí nad Maravou, which will offer further evidence that our ancestor Heinrich Bühler did call this town home four centuries ago.

In the meantime, I leave you with a comment from our Czechoslovakian blogger that is at least a little intriguing:

Most common among the oldest surnames [in Veselí nad Maravou] are: Bílek, Brumovský, Buráň, Cigánek, Čambala, Čech, Čermáček, Čermák, Černoch, Černý, Červenka, Dobrozemský, Doubrava, Fiala, Gazda, Gregůrek, Groš, Hanák, Heinrich, Horký, Húska, Chmelařík, Jalubský, Kadlček, Karas, Kočí, Kolář, Komoň, Královský, Kratochvíl, Krejčí, Krušina, Kučera, Kůrka, Kutalík, Kuželka, Macháček, Maršálek, Menšík, Novák, Pleva, Pokorný, Polášek, Příborský, Scholtz, Skupina, Slanina, Smutný, Spěváček, Springer, Švec, Vadovský, Vojtík, Všetula, Zámečník, Zbořil, Žilka.

Maybe it is mere coincidence, but I am struck by the similarity of the last name listed with a last name that we have already encountered, way back here.

A photographic rabbit trail

The full or partial family photographs shown earlier were not the only pictures taken on that day in 1940 (?). The two shown below apparently stem from the same day, since the clothes are once again the same as in the others.

The first picture is of nine-year-old Daniel (possibly ten) squatted down on the cement landing just outside the gate and trellis. If you look closely, you can see that he is holding something on his lap, since parts of his tie and leg are hidden, and his right hand seems to be cupped around some object. Look more closely and you can see a black spot above Daniel’s left leg and the outline of a long ear just under his chin.

The photograph of two-year-old Alma shows more clearly what Daniel is holding: a nice-sized white rabbit. As you may recall, the family had rabbit hutches in the area of buildings 9, 10, and 11 in the farmstead photo one post down. If any of the kids would like to fill in more details, answers would be welcome to the following questions:

• On average, how many rabbits did they raise at one time?


• Were they raised for food or fun or sale or all of the above?


• Are the hutches visible in the (later) farmstead photograph?

Oops … plus Grandpa and the boys

Unlike books, which after they are printed cannot be fixed without destroying a lot of inventory and printing new copies, a blog can be corrected at any point and in a matter of minutes.

For example, the statement in the previous post about the photograph of Grandma and the girls being taken at the Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz farm was a mistake based on a misunderstanding. In fact, the photo in that post and the one below were both taken at Grandpa and Grandma’s Lushton farm, on the south side of the house (actually, facing the southeast corner). The approximate (!) location is marked with an x in the numbered photo farther below.

Now that we are clear on the location from which the photo was taken, a few observations:

1. The trellis in the background of the Grandma–girls and Grandpa–boys photos is not the same as in the full family picture, since it is far too small for any adult to walk through. Presumably it was a trellis for some sort of climbing vine.


2. Behind and between Matilda and Grandma one can see what appears to be a cellar entrance. Assuming I understand correctly, this is where one entered the cellar before Grandpa excavated the full basement.


3. The covered porch visible in the color farmstead photograph had not yet been added by 1940, when the three family photos were taken. Does anyone know when Grandpa added that porch?

All that the earlier post wrote about the location of Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz’s farm was correct, irrelevant for these photos but nonetheless correct. We will return to that farm in the near future, as there are several old photographs that actually were taken on the Franz family farm.

Grandma and the girls

I am told that the photograph below was taken at the farm of Grandma’s parents: Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz. One might further suggest that it was taken the same day as the photo from the last post (see here), since everyone in the photograph is wearing exactly the same clothes (even socks) as in the prior photo. Maltilda and Grandma are in back, of course, with Alma, Ruth, Darlene, and Esther in front (left to right).

Speaking of Isaac and Sarah Franz’s farm, where exactly was it? I trust those who actually know to correct the following as needed, but I believe it was a mile east of Peter P and Margaretha’s farm, which would mean that it was roughly a 4.5-mile drive from Grandpa and Grandma’s farm south of Lushton.

The 1911 plat map below indicates that Jacob Epp, Grandma’s grandfather (see here) owned most of the north half of section 15 in Henderson township; note that Peter P owned the southeast quarter of section 11 at that time (in other words, Grandpa and Grandma lived relatively close growing up).

Thirteen years later, in 1924, some of the Jacob Epp farm was owned by Isaac Franz, Grandma’s father (see map below).

The simplest explanation is that after Jacob and Margaretha Epp died (1921 and 1922, respectively), the farm passed to or was purchased by Grandma’s parents: Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz—and some years later, in 1940 and Grandpa and Grandma and their eight kids drove up the rode to take several family photographs on Grandma’s family farm.

Now if I only knew exactly what the building in the background is …

And we’re back …

Sorry for the hiatus. It’s annoying when too much work gets in the way of the really important things in life, namely, Buller Time. A brief photograph-based post to get us back on track …

The photo shows, of course, the entire family (left to right): Grandpa and Grandma in back; Matilda, Daniel, and Esther in front of them; then Wayne, Carl, and Darlene; and, finally, Alma and Ruth in front. Looking closely a little behind Darlene, you can also see either the back end of a fluffy-tailed white dog or perhaps a chicken bent over eating. Even further in the background is a white dog with a dark face standing and looking at the family.

The photograph was taken in front of the Lushton farmhouse, probably in 1940 (since Alma looks to be two or so). Referring to the photograph below, the picture was taken roughly where the arrow starts and faces the direction of the arrow.

Thanks to Dad and Suely for providing a scan of the family photo above, as well as a number of others that will make their way to Buller Time over the coming days.