Jacob Nachtigal

Buller Time was recently contacted by a reader of the blog asking for help in tracing the family line for his ancestor Jacob Nachtigal. Jacob, his wife Katharine, and their six children immigrated to the U.S. in 1874 on the S.S. Teutonia, Jacob’s brother Benjamin and his family joined them on the same voyage. Based on this basic information—matching the known names of the children against the ship’s passenger list—one can find Jacob and Benjamin in the GM database: Jacob is GM 70260; Benjamin is 70253.

The information provided in the two GM entries is sparse: their father’s first name is unknown, and their mother’s name is a mystery. Other information given is suspect: the brothers were presumably not born in Molotschna, since neither name appears on the 1835 census, well after the brothers had been born. Tracing the family line back will require further time and resources, but with this post we look forward to Jacob’s death, or so it appears.

The GM entry for Jacob includes this note: “Could his obituary be in Mennonitische Rundschau, 10 Feb 1892, p1?” Thanks to the online availability of all issues of Die Mennonitische Rundschau, we can check for ourselves. For the issue in question, see here. 

The report (pictured to the right) was sent from Kirk, a village in western Colorado. Dated to 27 January 1892, it was written by J. Bergthold. It reads: 

The Mennonite community here has grown somewhat since the Bergthold and Esau families moved here last fall. They like it here and are now setting themselves up at home. Last Thursday we were at A. Fast’s to attend the funeral of her father, Jacob Nachtigal. The deceased reached the age of seventy-two years. He leaves behind a few grown-up children and a widow in poor circumstances; she fell four years ago and turned both her feet off. She also suffers from what is known as a serious illness and must be cared for like a small child, which is extremely difficult for A. Fast’s children.

The winter has been somewhat harsh so far, but today it is quite mild, the snow is melting, and we are talking about going to the field.

A few details are fuzzy (What does it meant to turn both feet off?, but the gist of the report is clear enough.

For our purposes, we note that the deceased Jacob Nachtigal had a daughter whose married name was A. Fast. According to GM, our Jacob Nachtigal had three daughters: Helen, Katherine, and Anna. However, Anna, whom one would assume is the A of A. Fast, was actually married to Johann Buller. This casts doubt on the identification of this Jacob Nachtigal with the one who interests us.

However, the GM entry for Katherine (70258) states that “one record calls her Anna.” Why she would be called Anna when she had a younger sister of the same name is hard to imagine. However, it is interesting to see that Katherine/Anna was, in fact, married to one Isaac Fast, and they raised a family in Henderson, Nebraska, at least through 1892.

One final note: the notice above states that Jacob Nachtigal died in 1892 at the age seventy-two. The Jacob Nachtigal who interests us was born, as far as we know, in 1820. The dates match perfectly.

Is the Jacob Nachtigal in the Mennonitische Rundschau report the same person who immigrated with his family and brother to the U.S. in 1874? If we stopped at this point and did not explore further, we might judge it probable that the two are one and the same. However …

GM also enables us to look for other women named Anna Nachtigal who married someone named Fast; in fact, there is only one other: Anna Nachtigal 82504. Importantly, although she lived in Henderson early on, by 1888 she and her husband and family had relocated to Kirk, Colorado. Later on it appears that they moved on to Kansas and eventually to Oklahoma. We can say that, if the birth locations of her children are given correctly in GM, she and her family lived in Kirk in through all of 1892.

Given J. Bergthold’s passing statement that he (or she) went to the Nachtigal funeral “on Thursday,” the most natural conclusion is that this was a local affair and did not require a trip of 300+ miles from Kirk to Henderson, where Katherine/Anna Nachtigal Fast lived.

In the end, we did not learn anything about the Jacob Nachtigal whose life we are investigating. We did, however, fill in a puzzle piece of another Mennonite’s life: the name of Anna Nachtigal 82504’s father. GM does not know or include either parent’s name, but now we know that her father was named Jacob. We also found reason to correct an erroneous suggestion in the entry for Jacob GM 70260. He is not the person referenced in the Mennonitische Rundschau report; that is a different Jacob Nachtigal who is apparently not listed at al in the GM database.

Die Mennonitische Rundschau

Those researching Mennonite history frequently have cause to consult primary sources such as the weekly paper Die Mennonitische Rundschau. Indeed, even Buller Time has uncovered items of historical interest and importance within this serial publication. For example, earlier we were able to correct the Buller Family Record concerning David Buller’s death by drawing upon letters published in Die Mennonitische Rundschau (see here, here, and here).

The point of this post is not, however, to examine a particular story or letter from this valuable resource; rather, this post seeks to alert readers that nearly the entire run of Die Mennonitische Rundschau is now available for anyone to view on the Archive.org website. Issues from 1880 through 1993 have been added from a Serials in Microform collection, supplemented by scans of some issues from that date forward to 2006. In all, 5,490 issues are available for amateur and professional historians to view and download.

But that’s not all. Die Mennonitische Rundschau was preceded by the monthly publication known as Der Nebraska Ansiedler, and all three years of its output (twenty-five issues across 1878–1880) are likewise available at Archive.org.

The easiest way to access Die Mennonitische Rundschau is to go here, then click on the More link at the bottom of the Year column that you will find on the left. In the popup box that appears, select the year you wish to view. When you locate the issue that you want to consult, simply click on the cover, which will take you to the the entire issue.

In addition to viewing the issue in a page-flip format, you can download a PDF or other file format of the entire issue (see the Download Options column on the right side of the page).

To access the issues of Der Nebraska Ansiedler, begin here and follow the same process as described above.

Future posts will explore other print resources available from Archive.org, as well as draw from the site’s archive of Die Mennonitische Rundschau.

Birthday Wishes

Today as we focus on celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, let us not forget that this is also the birthday of one Cornelius “Chris” P Buller. Grandpa was born on this day in 1906 to Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller. As recounted in a 2018 post (here), Grandpa first lived in the house pictured below (roughly 4 miles east-southeast of Henderson), which had been built the prior year. Remarkably, although it has been expanded considerably, the original house still stands today (see here). 

Grandpa is not immediately visible, but if we zoom in closer he can be seen in the baby carriage or bassinet just to the right of his mother, who is holding the umbrella. Grandpa was probably less than six months old when this picture was taken.

That was 116 years ago. The Wright brothers had made their first powered flight only three years earlier. When Grandpa was born, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the US, which included forty-give states (Oklahoma was not granted statehood until the following year). Two days after his birth, San Francisco suffered its most devastating earthquake ever (see photos here). 

Nicholas II was tsar of the Russian Empire, although the 1905 revolution had weakened his autocratic rule, and he was now forced to share power (at least in theory) with a parliamentary body known as the Duma. Before Grandpa turned nine, the world would be thrust into the brutal and deadly stalemate of World War I. Before Grandpa reached his teen years, Nicholas would abdicate in the face of the 1917 revolution, and by the following year he and his wife and children would all be dead.

Although Grandpa was born during an exciting time, he was probably sheltered from most of the good and bad that rocked the broader world. In that he was fortunate, I think. His early life was by no means easy, but it was safer and more secure than the lives of those closer to the action. Grandpa’s simpler life contributed to who he turned out to be, someone to remember and celebrate 116 years later.

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Molotschna

Bullertime has been quiet for the past two years, though I have continued to read and research and reflect on all things Buller and Mennonite as often as possible. My current reading is Orlando Figes’s A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924, which offers a detailed and fair account of the forces that led first to the February 1917 revolution and then, in October, to the Bolshevik coup d’état that resulted in the eventual formation of the Soviet Union.

Fascinating as that history may be, current events demand even greater attention. As everyone knows by now, Russian forces have invaded and taken possession of certain areas of the Ukraine, the country in which two large colonies of Mennonites—Chortitza and Molotschna—lived throughout the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth centuries. Of course, the larger Ukrainian region was part of the Russian Empire at that time, having been added to Russia’s holdings during the reign of Catherine.

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes reading this blog knows that our family came from the Molotschna colony, which was located in the steppe region north of the Sea of Azov. Watching the news tonight, I wondered: Have Russian forces taken control of our family’s former home, or is it still under Ukrainian control?

The map immediately below outlines in red the rough (!) boundaries of the former Molotschna colony. Note particularly that the city of Tokmak was just outside of the colony, toward the northwest corner; the town of Chernihivka was on the northeastern boundary.

Major cities in the general region include Zaporizhia (site of the nuclear power plant where fighting took place), which is approximately 47 miles north-northwest of Alexanderwohl/Svitle, where some of our family settled. Mariupol' is 77 miles east of Alexanderwohl/Svitle, and Berdyans'k is 49 miles to the southwest; both cities have featured in reports of the invasion. Finally, Melitopol' is a mere 28 miles to the southwest of Alexanderwohl/Svitle.

A map published by USA Today indicates that the area of Molotschna colony could be under Russian control. The pink area around Melitopol' (indicating Russian-controlled territory) appears to extend far enough north and east to include Molotschna.

The Institute for the Study of War’s 26 February update lends further credence to this conclusion, as it reports that “ Russian forces in Crimea are advancing directly north towards Zaprozhia, entering Velyka Bilozerka and Tokmak—approximately 80km south of Zaprozhia—as of 3pm local time on February 26.” The fact that Russian forces had entered (and presumably occupied) Tokmak would strongly imply that they likely control the surrounding territory, which would include the area of the Molotschna colony.

I do not mean to suggest that Russian soldiers are present within the boundaries of the former Mennonite colony, only that the area of is presently under Russian control as Putin’s forces push north.