Bea’s Story

I mentioned several posts ago that Carolyn (Peters) Stucky has shared a box of items from our family history. One of those items is a three-page, typewritten manuscript labeled Beatrice Buller’s Story. Since the last post discussed Henry and Bea’s experience as MCC relief workers, now seems an appropriate time to share Bea’s story as recounted in her own words.

WALLS AND WINDOWS: I Was a Stranger and You Took Me in

Ask most teen-agers today what the word “Holocaust” means and you’ll be met with a blank stare or shrugging shoulders. Ask most young people what they know about World War II and you’ll receive similar reactions. Except for a few movies and television programs, some as inane as Hogan’s Heroes, our children are learning very little about those war times, the persecution of the Jews, the death camps. Some kooks even pretend the Holocaust never happened. That’s why my pastor in Beaumont reminded me of the importance of telling and re-telling my life story and of explaining how the living testimony of Mennonite relief workers in France helped me to find Christ and His peace and how I felt safe and sheltered in the caring community of the Mennonite church.

Yes, the theme “WALLS and WINDOWS” seems very fitting for my experiences as a German-Jewish refugee, a holocaust survivor, who found in the midst of war and strife the small redemptive community of Mennonite and Quaker relief workers serving war sufferers “in the Name of Christ.”

I was born in a German-Jewish family in Duisburg on the Rhine. My father, an attorney, was put into prison during the first few months of the Hitler regime. His crime: being Jewish. My parents were non-practicing Jews but, under Hitler, religion did not count, he declared us racially inferior and so at age 12 I soon learned what it meant to be rejected, undesirable, even an enemy of the people. After 6 weeks, my father was released from prison and decided to leave Germany and start a new life in Belgium. The rest of our family joined him one year later, except for my older brother who had to stay in Germany to complete an apprenticeship in the shoe industry. My parents had decided to take him out of an academic high school and place him in a trade that promised more immediate earning possibilities … an important consideration for refugees. When he finished his training, he could not live with us in Belgium, because it was impossible to get a work permit at that time and so he emigrated to the United States. From that time on, our wish to be reunited as a family led us to apply for a US visa as well. But the mills of legal US Immigration grind exceedingly slowly and the German troops invaded various parts of Europe and thus our hopes for a new life in the US were cancelled twice. It took my parents 8 years from the time they first applied for a visa, till they finally stepped on American soil. I cannot tell you all the details today except that in December 1941, when we thought we were well on our way to the US, we were stranded in Lyon, France when Pearl Harbor was attacked and America entered the war. Confused, worried and disheartened we found our way to the MCC office where Joe Byler and Henry Buller received us very kindly. But they did not know themselves whether they would be allowed to stay in France, now that the US had entered the war. Our US visas were cancelled because the US now was at war with Germany and considered us Germans (which meant enemies), even though the Germans had taken our citizenship away for leaving Germany. We were their enemies, too, they felt.

I’ve had a lot of practice being considered “enemy” or at least undesirable. When Hitler came to power in 1932, we became enemies because we were Jews. When we fled to Belgium, we lost our German nationality, they called it “ausgebuergert” [expatriated, denaturalized]. It was strange, Hitler did not want Jews to leave Germany, even though they were “enemies,” so Germany revoked our nationality and we were stateless. In Belgium we were treated kindly for seven years, but when the Germans overran and occupied Belgium, we were enemies again. We fled to Unoccupied France with the help of the French underground, arrived in Lyon, France five days before Pearl Harbor and automatically became enemies again, this time to the Americans. Later in 1944, when I came to the US, even though I was married to Henry Buller by then..... (that’s a whole other story) I was classified as an enemy alien. I could not own a gun, a short wave radio set and every time I wanted to travel more than 10 miles from Akron, PA I had to apply for permission in writing to the Attorney General in Philadelphia. (I was working at MCC Headquarters for 18 months while Henry had gone overseas again on his second 3-year term of relief work in England, Germany and France.)

I did not mind too much being considered an enemy alien in the US, because I lived in the nurturing community of the MCC Headquarters family. This is another time when I experienced the sheltering and shielding walls of a vibrant faith community. From the C.P.S. men and their families, from Irving Horst, my boss in the Publications Section and from all my new Mennonite friends, I learned a great deal to help my new faith grow and also to become acquainted with my new country. This is where windows were opened to me. I learned to look out at the world with a new vision of love and compassion and with a desire to serve God and His children. I cannot emphasize enough how formative those 18 months in Akron were for me. That is where I received an important part of my education, both spiritual and temporal … Within those sheltering walls of that MCC community, I felt safe even though the war was not over, I felt loved even though my husband could not be with me and my family was still in danger in Europe and I learned to look out through large, clear windows upon a world that needs Christ’s message of peace, forgiveness and servanthood.

P.S. Oh, so you want to hear a bit more about that “whole other story” and what happened to my family? Well, in 1941 when we had asked Joe Byler and Henry Buller for advice, I mentioned that I could type and do shorthand in German, French and English … so they hired me. Joe Byler soon returned to the US and Henry and I worked in the Lyon MCC office together. We also discussed all the problems of the world. It was the first time that I realized that the Christian religion is more than going to church every Sunday and singing and praying … that it is a life-changing belief which makes people leave their homes and serve in dangerous places without a thought for their own comfort or safety. I read the Bible for the first time and soon wanted to be baptized and join the Mennonite church too … but WWII developments complicated that a bit too. Nov. 10, 1942 German troops occupied all of France and the city of Lyon, too. The Swiss Mennonite minister who had planned to come to baptize me and marry us, could not enter France but Henry and I were legally married at the city hall on November 11, 1942, the day the Germans occupied Lyon. Three weeks later we were interned in Baden-Baden, Germany for a year and 6 days with US diplomats and in March ‘44 we were exchanged against a group of Germans who had been interned in the US. My parents remained in France and lived under an assumed name, narrowly escaping being sent to concentration camp twice. My older brother had joined the US Army, my younger brother the French Resistance, (and I had become a conscientious objector). My family was finally able to come to the States at the end of the war in 1945. My older brother is Jewish, my younger brother became Catholic and with my Anabaptist-Mennonite faith, we are a very ecumenical, loving family.

Although Bea did not set out to write a history of her life, we can gather several details from her story and then supplement them from other sources to fill out her biography.

Bea reports that she was born in Duisburg, Germany, where her father was an attorney. She recounts that several months after Hitler came to power, her father was imprisoned. Since Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933, we can date her father’s imprisonment to sometime in the first half of 1933. Bea indicates that she was twelve at the time.

Bea’s father was released from prison in mid-1933, after which he moved to Belgium. We are not told where in Belgium he lived, but it was presumably reasonably close, since the Belgium border was only 50 miles southwest of Duisburg. The rest of the family except Bea’s older brother joined him in Belgium the following year, that is, 1934.

Bea’s older brother, we are told, emigrated to the U.S. after finishing his training in the shoe industry; the date of his emigration is not given, although several hints help us to narrow down the time frame. Bea reports toward the end of her story that her family finally made it to the U.S. in 1945, eight years after they had first applied for a visa in order to be reunited with Bea’s older brother. This means that he had emigrated sometime between 1934 and 1937.

The next signpost on the way is the report that, after living in Belgium for seven years, Bea, her parents, and her younger brother fled, with the assistance of the French underground, to the unoccupied zone of France. They arrived in Lyon, France, on 2 December 1941, five days before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. That attack, of course, brought the U.S. into the war against the Axis powers (most notably, Japan, Germany, and Italy). Unable to proceed further due to their identity as German-born persons, the family was stranded in Lyon. 

Providentially, Bea’s family went to the MCC office in Lyon, where she met and then worked alongside Henry Buller and eventually married him on 11 November 1942. As has been already reported (see here and here), Bea and Henry were interned for a little more than a year—a year and six days, Bea reports here—then were released as part of a prisoner exchange and traveled to the safety of the U.S. First Henry and then, after at least eighteen months, Bea returned to Europe to continue their work with the MCC.

What of the rest of the family? According to Bea, her parents remained in France living under assumed identities until they were finally allowed to emigrate to the U.S. in 1945. Bea’s older brother, who had emigrated in the mid-1930s, had in the meantime joined the U.S. Army. Her younger brother had joined the French underground. It was only sometime after the end of the European conflict on 8 May 1945 that Bea’s parents (and brother?) finally made it to the U.S.

Such is the account that we can reconstruct from Bea’s story. Remarkably, neither her parents nor her two brothers are named. Fortunately, other sources fill in the blanks somewhat. 

For example, we learn from Bea’s obituaries (several are posted online) that she was born 25 September 1920 and passed away on  12 October 2008 (see, e.g., here). We are also told that she was survived by her brother Gerard. Presumably that statement also signals that her other brother and both parents had passed away before her. None of the obituaries gives their names.

Thankfully, other sources fill in those blanks. According to the GRANDMA database, Bea’s father was Richard A. Rosenthal, and her mother’s maiden name was Marie Neumark. An entry at Ancestry.com (here) supports and supplements this identification, listing her other brother as Kenneth L. Rosenthal. To be honest, the name Kenneth does not sound particularly Jewish or German. Another source (here) gives his name as Kurt Lutz Rosenthal, and yet another listing at Ancestry.com (here) gives his name first as Kurt Lutz Rosenthal and lists Kenneth L. Rosenthal as an alternate form (presumably the name he used in the U.S.). In the end, it is safe to conclude that Bea’s older brother (the sources agree that he was born in 1917) was originally named Kurt and probably later went by Kenneth. According to most records, he died in 2002, six years before Bea.

Remarkably enough, Bea’s younger brother Gerard, who was born in 1923, appears to still be alive at age one hundred. One cannot be certain about this, but there is no trace of an obituary, and several sources list a current address. Again, the name Gerard sounds more French than German or Jewish, which raises the possibility that this was not his birth name. A listing at Ancestry.com (here) fills in the blank, noting that Gerard was also (previously?) known as Gerd Ernest Felix Rosenthal. Even more interesting is the fact that Gerard’s testimony was taken and recorded by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (here).

One final tantalizing note: like the name Gerard, Beatrice is generally considered a French name, not a German or Jewish one. Thus it is not surprising to see that one source (here) indicates that Beatrice was also (previously?) known as Berta. Could it be that some members of the family adopted new names (recall that Bea’s parents lived under assumed identities) during their French sojourn? A name change would help to explain how Berta/Beatrice’s Jewish identity went undetected by the Nazis. It seems that there is much more to Bea’s story than we will ever come to know.

Henry and Bea

Another online treasure recently discovered (see earlier “Arrival from Russia” here) is the full run of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin (1940–2012), a publication of the Historical Committee of the Mennonite General Conference (see here). The April 1984 issue (here) includes an article that will interest many readers of this blog: Rachel Shenk’s “Mennonite Central Committee in Europe, 1940–70.”

As many of you know, Grandpa Chris’s younger brother Henry and Henry’s wife Bea were active in the MCC’s relief work in Europe during the 1940s. Not surprisingly, Henry and Bea are mentioned several times in the letters that constitute the bulk of the article. Although the entire article is well worth reading, I highlight here the references to Henry and Bea.

Henry first appears in a letter written by Henry Wiens on 12 June 1941 that describes the nature and the location of their relief work: 

Here in Lyon our milk distribution in the schools ceased about May 1, as the Red Cross program commenced. We have, however, been conducting a school feeding program through the cantines scolaires [school canteens]. … we have been furnishing about 2500 meals a day to the neediest school children in Lyon. The poor children suffer especially during these times, for their parents are not able to buy the nonrationed and much more expensive foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. They are confined almost exclusively to the very lean rations of bread, macaroni, and other staples. Moreover, we have distributed here in Lyon some 540,000 squares of vitamin A chocolate candies for the Quakers. This made a tremendous impression upon the local population and upon the school children. …

We are also distributing five tons of rice and five tons of pois chiches [chick peas] among the school children in the nearby industrial city of Saint Etienne, a city about forty miles south-west of Lyons. Being chiefly a coal mining region, the people are very poor and consequently suffer intensely. Either Mr. Buller or I have been going to Saint Etienne about once or twice a week to administer this project for the Quakers, as they are furnishing everything in the way of funds. Although we represent the Quakers there, we indicate that we are Mennonites and so the Mennonites also get considerable credit for this. … Moreover, we have also been distributing vitamins for the Quakers at Saint Etienne. We are distributing a total of 1,200,000 doses of vitamins for the Quakers there. As far as I know, the Mennonite office in Lyon has been responsible for the largest single distribution of vitamins in France by a non-French organization, and possibly we have distributed more vitamins than even any single branch of a French relief organization. (Shenk 1984, 3)

From this extract we learn that Henry and other members of the MCC relief team were distributing food and vitamins, among other staples, to the poor and needy people of Lyon and the surrounding area. The mention of Lyon is important, since it not only tells us where Henry and Bea were located but also provides insight into their situation.

As noted above, the letter was written in June 1941. By then, France had surrendered to Germany and the other Axis powers, and the nation had been divided into two regions: a northern zone occupied by German troops and a southern zone governed by the French Vichy government, which had been set up to collaborate with the Germans. As seen in the map below, Lyon was in Vichy France.

In other words, during this time Henry and his MCC colleagues were distributing supplies in the zone governed by French authorities, although under the ultimate authority of the Germans. This information helps us understand better the situation described in a second letter by Wiens, this one dated 28 June 1941:

I should like to add to what I have said before, namely, that the Mennonites were always much more conservative toward a possible evacuation than most of the other delegates. When the crisis broke about May 15, I happened to be in Marseilles. People talked as though we would all have to leave within ten days. When I suggested that we would still be here for the fourth of July, I was roundly laughed at. It is hard to imagine the hysteria that prevailed there then, and even more afterwards. There were many reasons for this, including the fact that the Marseilles consulate was apparently unusually nervous. In fact, about two weeks ago, the American Consulate at Marseilles was making it a regular policy to telephone the Quaker office every other day, asking them how many had left for America, and warning the rest to leave as soon as possible. About June 15, Brother Hoover was definitely notified by the Quaker office that it would be best for him, since he had a wife and obliga­tions at home, to leave within a week. Upon Brother Hoover’s request, Brother Buller and I went to Marseilles immediately for a conference. We all agreed that there was no immediate danger, and that as long as telegraphic communications were open with America, we did not intend to leave without first com­municating with you. We also ab­solved the Quakers of all responsibility for the evacuation of the Mennonite delegation, except that we hoped we would be kept informed of the general situation. At the same time, the Quakers received a reassur­ing telegram from Afserco, Phila­delphia. At a general meeting of the delegate, we indicated that we believ­ed that the work could continue rather indefinitely, and that the Mennonite work would go ahead as usual. (Shenk 1984, 4)

The crisis mentioned in the letter, dated to about 15 May, was presumably the negotiations (to use the term loosely) before and the signing of the Paris Protocols between Germany and the Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain. That is the agreement that led to the division of France into an occupied zone and an unoccupied zone. Clearly, some non-French residents of the unoccupied zone feared that they would lose their freedom.

So it was that, six months later, on 22 December 1941, another MCC worker, Joseph N. Byler, wrote:

I have just been to see Mr. Vance and he informs me that, while they will do all they can to help us leave with them, if and when they leave, they can give us no guarantee that it will be possible. So the situa­tion is not at all as easy as I have hoped. It seems to me that it is up to us to decide definitely what we want to do. I am writing Mr. Kirshner to find out if the Quakers are leaving at this time. I also want to know what he thinks are the chances of getting both money and supplies for the continua­tion of relief. Buller has decided to stay for the time being. For myself, I am still undecided. I may wait and chance going with the consular staff. … I think we will have to face the facts. If you decide to stay, it may mean considerable hardship and a long duration. Of course, we may be able to leave with the Consulate, but we cannot bank on that too much. It is my personal feeling that it might be best for you to leave if the Quakers are leaving. I should know what they are doing in a few days.… (Shenk 1984, 4)

In November 1942, less than a year after Byler’s letter, German forces occupied the southern zone where the MCC relief work was located. Henry and Bea, along with Lois Gunden, continued the work to the best of their ability until they were taken into German custody in early 1943 (Shenk erroneously gives the year as 1944). They were then interned in a hotel-prison in Baden-Baden, Germany, 260 miles to the northeast of Lyon.

A July 1946 MCC report offers additional details:

On the morning of November 11, 1942, the German armies crossed over the demarcation line and totally occupied France. This date became a turning point of our French relief program which had been started in the summer of 1940 by Ernest Bennett. We were at this moment carry­ing on two major projects: the con­valescent home at Canet-Plage, where Lois Gunden was stationed, and the boys home of Tourvielle; this latter in cooperation with the city of Lyon. The next two months before going into internment, we spent look­ing about for someone to carry on our program and placing our funds in such a manner that general requisi­tioning would not reach them. 

Through our friend, Mr. Samuel Ybargoyen, counsul of Uruguay at Lyon, we found Mr. Roger Georges, who carried on the work of the Secours Mennonites throughout the war period. Mr. Roger Georges car­ried on with the funds that were left him and kept the home of Canet­-Plage going, as well as opening up other homes as the demands for evacuating children from the bomb­menaced cities increased. The money that we left Mr. Georges, of course, was not sufficient to keep the pro­gram going indefinitely, but Mr. Georges was able to secure subsidies from French organizations, official and otherwise, so that children could be maintained away from the danger of warfare. It was thus that at the end of March, 1945, when Bros. Sam Goering and Henry Buller arrived in France, they found a larger program in operation than the interned workers had left. (Shenk 1984, 5)

Although the general outline of events is clear, some details remain fuzzy. For example, Shenk (1984, 5) writes that the Mennonite workers were interned for a year and a half, but Bea’s Mennonite Weekly Review obituary (here) states simply that is was “more than a year.” Henry’s obituary (here) supports the shorter time frame, dating the internment from January 1943 to February 1944. 

Another discrepancy concerns Henry and Bea’s return to France after being released. According to Shenk (1984, 5), all three detainees returned to the United States after their release, then after the war ended (8 May 1945) Henry and Bea returned to their MCC work in France. Bea’s obituary offers a different story, reporting that Henry returned to France “soon after their release in February 1944.” The MCC report, for its part, dates Henry’s return to late March 1945, which was not only nine months after D-Day but also within weeks after Allied forces had pushed the Germans entirely out of France and back into Germany. In this case, it seems best to accept the MCC report’s precise and entirely reasonable dating rather than the ambiguous “soon after” of Bea’s obituary. According to Bea’s obituary, she joined Henry in France only after the war. 

Although this post has filled in some details of our family history, there is so much more waiting to be discovered and remembered. For example, research for this post uncovered an article titled “Guests of the Gestapo,” which includes interviews of U.S. diplomatic personnel originally stationed in Vichy France who had been interned in a hotel in Baden-Baden, Germany (see here). Although it is possible that this was a different hotel than the one in which Henry and Bea were interned, their respective accounts share striking details in common, which leads me to think that the interviewees were interned together with Henry and Bea. The intereviews are freely available online and well worth reading. In addition, to learn more about Henry, Bea, and their experiences, see the 2014 Buller Time post titled “Uncle Henry, Aunt Bea, and the Nazis” (here). 

Works Cited

“Guests of the Gestapo.” 2013. 9 July post on the website of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Available online here.

Shenk, Rachel. 1984. “Mennonite Central Committee in Europe, 1940–70.” Mennonite Historical Bulletin 45.2:1–9. Available online here.

Sheep and Feather Grass

My recent nighttime reading has been in volume 2 of Johann Cornies’s letters (Epp 2020). On several occasions Cornies mentions feather grass and the danger that it posed to sheep. For example, in his 17 November 1837 letter to the governor of the Taurida governate, Matvey Matveyevich Muromtsyov (Muromtsev), Cornies wrote:

In this region, sheep are often very thin during the summer, even with experienced owners. I would also mention that feather grass is very abundant on the local steppes and many sheep have died from it in several places. I have heard that in the region where Fein grazes his sheep, there is a huge amount of such grass. If you therefore took over 1,000 ewes from Fein this autumn and kept them over the winter at your own risk, it could easily happen that one third of the flock, or more, could die. It is also advisable to ask Fein whether the herd he is selling is free of “Raende” [bloating]. (Epp 2020, 89)

It is possible, though doubtful, that the bloating mentioned is somehow related to the feather grass. Beyond that, there is no hint at what about feather grass poses such a danger.

The following year Cornies returns to the same issue, this time in his 4 August 1838 letter to Wilhelm Martens: 

The steppes are as green as in May. However, the feather grass is abundant and we are perplexed as to how to protect our sheep from it. I am having a machine built that would supposedly operate easily and could be sold cheaply. If this were to succeed, I believe firmly that very many sheep might be saved from death. (Epp 2020, 130)

As before, we learn nothing about the specific danger that feather grass poses, only that it killed so many that Cornies was devising a machine to address the problem.

Eleven days later, on 15 August 1838, in a letter to Andrei M. Fadeev (the previous chairman of the Ekaterinoslav Bureau of the Guardianship Committee), Cornies wrote:

Feather grass is an evil that has befallen our sheep herds. It grew abundantly because of our frequent rains and grows as thickly as if it were a field of grain. I am having a machine built to cut down the feather grass and reduce its evil effects that could result in the death of thousands of sheep. Should the machine work it will be of incalculable usefulness, saving many thousands of sheep from certain death. Once tests have been done, I will report their results. (Epp 2020, 135)

The specific danger that feather grass posed still remains unexplained. We read only that it threatened thousands of sheep within the Molotschna colony and that Cornies had commissioned construction of a machine to cut it down. Nearly a year later, in another letter to Fadeev (26 June 1839), Cornies reports that his machine had not worked as had hoped:

The implement that I had built last year to destroy feather grass has not proven itself. It was supposed to cut this grass, not uproot it. However, machine maker Dyck has now made a sketch of a different machine for this purpose that may well work. (Epp 2020, 182)

Nothing more is said of feather grass in Cornies’s letters and papers during this period. Still the question remains: Why was feather grass so dangerous to sheep? 

If the threat posed by feather grass was the same in the 1830s as it is today, which seems a reasonable assumption, then a recent article titled “Feather-Grass Disease of Agricultural Cattle: Diagnosis and Treatment” (Dovyd'ko 2023) may well hold the answer to our question. The article, which was published in Russian and in English (it appears that it was written in Russian and then machine-translated into English), is freely available online here. 

According to the article,

The disease occurs when animals are fed with feather grass hay, when they eat feather grass stems and grains, or when they graze in the steppe zones in areas where feather grass grows. The disease is common in sheep, cattle, and horses. (quotations from Dovyd'ko 2023 have been edited for clarity in English)

Cornies mentioned sheep grazing on the open steppe, which is one of the situations described here. The article then identifies two ways that feather grass seeds can damage livestock. First, “in sheep, the seeds and leaves of the feather grass are introduced into the wool and then work their way into the skin.” The skin may become infected and cause the animal discomfort, but the condition does not appear life-threatening. More serious is the ingestion of the feather grass seeds.

During the chewing process, the caryopsis [seed] and awn [bristle-like appendage] of the feather grass migrate from the oral cavity to the region of the parotid salivary gland, supraorbital cavity, jaw joint, intermaxillary space, and other parts of the head, where they cause the formation of fistulas, purulent-necrotic [pus-filled and tissue-killing] foci, the intensity of development of which depends on the level of their infections. … The injured tissue is edematous [swollen with an excessive accumulation of fluid], a limited inflammatory process is observed, followed by the formation of nonhealing fistulas, often pus-filled centers appear in the places where the awns are introduced, which gradually merge to form abscesses. Body temperature rises by 2–3 degrees Celsius. From constant anxiety and pain, animals become gradually exhausted. … With damage to the tissues of the intermaxillary space, chewing muscles, and tongue, the body temperature rises, and the animals quickly lose weight.

How might one diagnose feather grass disease? The article explains, “The most characteristic signs of feather grass disease are difficulty chewing food, salivation, coughing, and an unpleasant odor from the oral cavity.” It also outlines how to treat the disease: hydrogen peroxide, opening of abscesses, and use of antiseptic/antiobiotic therapy. 

These treatment options were not, of course, available to Cornies and the Mennonites of his day. Still, Cornies took the right approach in terms of prevention, since the article states that “the most effective means of dealing with feather grass is mowing the feather grass before it blooms.” This was precisely what Cornies intended with his machine, which “was supposed to cut this grass, not uproot it.” 

Cornies apparently understood that the problem was not with feather grass per se, which could be eaten by sheep and other animals, but rather with feather grass that had ripened and whose seeds posed a serious threat to the lives of any sheep who ate them.

Works Cited

Epp, Ingrid I., trans. 2020. 1836–1842. Vol. 2 of Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Available online here.

Dovyd'ko, Oleg. 2023. “Feather-Grass Disease of Agricultural Cattle: Diagnosis and Treatment.” Pioneer Produkt website. Available online here.

Ninety Years Ago Today

What can we say about 11 December 1933, ninety years ago today? Thanks to countless resources now available online, and with a little help from generative AI (Bard and ChatGPT), we can actually say quite a bit.

On 11 December 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the first year of his presidency. He would go on to serve three full terms before dying early in his fourth term (1933–1945). Fourteen presidents have since followed: Harry S. Truman (1945–1953), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961), John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969), Richard M. Nixon (1969–1974), Gerald R. Ford (1974–1977), Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), George Bush (1989–1993), Bill Clinton (1993–2001), George W. Bush (2001–2009), Barack Obama (2009–2017), Donald J. Trump (2017–2021), and Joseph R. Biden (2021–). Thus someone born on 11 December 1933 has seen exactly a third of all the U.S. presidents who have ever held office. To look at the matter differently, someone born on that date has been alive for 38.5 percent of our nation’s history since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 (i.e., 90 of 234 years).

In other parts of the world, the Nazis had seized control of the German government in 1932, and Adolf Hitler, appointed chancellor early in 1933, now exercised absolute control over the nation. The Soviet Union, just as firmly in the grip of a dictatorial leader, Joseph Stalin, had just passed through a severe multiyear famine (1930–1933) that had led to the deaths of millions, including, in all likelihood, some from our broader Molotschna family. Since then, both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, along with their tyrannical leaders, have ceased to exist, cast onto the proverbial dust heap of history (Trotsky).

On 11 December 1933, almost the entire world was in the throes of the Great Depression, whose start is typically dated to 1929. By 1933, the gross domestic product in the United States had decreased from its 1929 levels by 30 percent. Prices of goods produced fell dramatically, and the unemployment rate increased to nearly a quarter of the working population. This economic collapse extended across all classes and sectors of society, including America’s farms. Wheat, for example, sold for $1.50 a bushel in 1922 but only 57¢ on 11 December 1933. Likewise, corn fetched 85¢ a bushel in 1923 but only 30¢ in 1933. Not surprisingly, many farm families, unable to pay their mortgages or feed their children, were forced to walk away from the land into which they had poured their lives.

This is the world that someone born on 11 December 1933 entered. Of course, our world never stands still, and someone born that day has witnessed significant changes, challenges, and developments. Major world events include the establishment of Social Security (1934), Jesse Owens winning four gold medals (1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Hindenburg disaster (1937), World War II (1939–1945), D-Day (1944), atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1947), the creation of the State of Israel (1948), the formation of NATO (1949), the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), Elvis Presley recording his first single (1954), Sputnik I (1957), the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states (1959), the assassination of Kennedy (1963), Israel’s Six-Day War (1967), the Green Bay Packers winning Super Bowls I and II (1967–1968) the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy (1968), the Apollo 11 moon landing (1969), Nebraska winning its first national championship (1971), the end of the Vietnam War (1973), Nixon’s resignation (1974), the death of Elvis Presley (1977), the Iranian Revolution (1979), the eruption of Mount St. Helens (1980), the launch of Apple Macintosh (1984), the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), the creation of the European Union (1992), O. J. Simpson’s arrest and trial (1994), the founding of Google (1998), the September 11 terrorist attacks (2001), the invasion of Iraq (2003), the sale of the first iPhone (2007), the swine flu pandemic (2009), the killing of Osama bin Laden (2011), Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014), Donald Trump’s election as president (2016), the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2021), and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2022)—to name just a few.

Inventions since 1933 include items as mundane as the ballpoint pen and as spectacular as jet engines, the transistor, the personal computer, the cell phone, and (Bard tells me) artificial intelligence. Someone born in 1933 may well have begun life in a home without electricity or indoor plumbing; now one must go camping (or to an underdeveloped country) to experience that sort of life.

The price of a Ford Model T was $445 in 1933. Today’s Ford Escape ranges from $27,000 to $40,000. In 1933 an acre of Nebraska farmland cost, on average, $21.20; in 2023 it is $3,835. A loaf of bread was a nickel and a gallon of milk 30¢ in 1933; today that bread will cost at least $1.32 and the milk in excess of $3.00. The average cost of a gallon of gasoline was 18¢ in 1933; ninety years later it is “down” to $3.16.

Without a doubt, someone born on 11 December 1933 has experienced both lows and highs, challenges and successes, mourning and celebration. But reaching the milestone of ninety years of a life well lived is cause for pure, unrestrained celebration. So on this, your ninetieth birthday, Dad, all your family and loved ones not only celebrate with you but also celebrate you, May you have many, many more!

Arrival from Russia

For the last century and a half, Mennonites have been well-served by a variety of periodicals offering both spiritual guidance and news of interest to the broader church community. One such serial publication was the Herald of Truth, which was launched in Chicago by John F. Funk in 1864—that is, while the Civil War raged and our ancestors still lived in imperial Russia. 

Today I discovered that the entire run of this periodical (1864–1908, after which it became part of the Gospel Herald) has been digitized by the Anabaptist Mennonite Digital Collaborative and is freely available for anyone to access. I chose an early year at random (1875) and began thumbing (scrolling) through. I noticed that the news section of one of the monthly issues that year mentioned the arrival of a number of immigrants from Russia who had traveled on to Kansas. Intrigued, I wondered if there might be any mention of our ancestors, or at least the boat on which they traversed the Atlantic. Happily, there was.

The July 1879 issue of the Herald of Truth includes an article titled “Arrival from Russia,” the first part of which is pictured below (for the article and the full issue, see here).

The article reports the arrival of the SS Switzerland on 24 June 1879, which was the very ship and the exact day on which Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller and family arrived in Philadelphia (for more on our family’s journey on the SS Switzerland, see here). Hard as it is to believe, this article is describing their arrival in the U.S. Given the article’s importance to our family history, it is worth quoting in full.

The Red Star Line Steamer “Switzerland” from Antwerp, arrived at Philadelphia, June 24th, with 726 Mennonites from South Russia, under the leaders, Franz Toews, Cornelius Regier, Julius Friesen, Jacob Neufeld and David Hiebert.

They were landed on the afternoon of the 24th, and on the afternoon of the 25th they were forwarded over the Pennsylvania Railroad by special train, to their respective destinations.

     64 families, numbering 354 souls, Nebraska.

     42      “                   “          260     “      Kansas.

     14      “                   “             77     “      Minnesota.

       7      “                   “             35     “      Dakota.

During their stay at Philadelphia, they had the advice and adtendence [sic] of the Mennonite Executive Aid Committee of Pennsylvania, of whom were present Brother Amos Herr, Gabriel Baer, H. K. Godshall, and Albert E. Funk, who had also as the representatives of the American Mennonites paid the fare of twenty of the new arrivals from Antwerp to their destination in the West.

Bro. D. Gaeddert from Kansas, also met the new arrivals on their landing, and in a very effective way assisted the committee, helping and advising the newly arrived brethren cheerfully and untiringly.

The Red Star Line and its General Agents, Messrs Peter Wright & Sons, and the Pennsylvania Railroad and its Agent, Mr. Francis Funk, again earned the acknowledgement of the committee and the newly arrived brethren, thus recommending themselves to the continuing favors of the Mennonites in America and in Russia.

The Herald of Truth is not the only Mennonite-focused serial to have been digitized and posted on the web, nor is this issue the only one of interest to this blog and its readers. Henry and Beatrice Buller also make an appearance in an issue of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin, but that will have to await another post. 

 

Invitation to a Wedding

A new friend of Buller Time blog and a member of our extended family, Carolyn (Peters) Stucky, recently shared several treasures from our family’s history, including letters from nearly a hundred years ago, a transcription of remarks that Henry Buller delivered at a 1990 Buller reunion, and the item pictured below.

Viewed from the outside, there is little remarkable or even noteworthy about this simple envelope. Indeed, it does not even indicate who sent it or its intended recipient. The contents of the envelope are an altogether different matter.

One does not need to be able to read German to recognize the names Malinda, Cornelius P. Buller (with a period), and Mr. and Mrs Isaac Franz. The date offers an additional clue: January 20, 1927. This is, of course, an original invitation to Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding. 

The invitation in German and English reads:

Zur Hochzeit unserer Tochter Malinda mit ihrem Braeutigam Cornelius P. Buller laden wir sie sammt Familie zu um half Zwei Uhr nachmittags des Tages, Donnerstag Januar 20, 1927 herzlich ein; um mit uns den Stifter der heiligen Ehe fuer sie um seinen Segen zu bitten.

To the wedding of our daughter Malinda with her groom Cornelius P Buller, we cordially invite you with your family at half past two in the afternoon, Thursday, 20 January 1927, in order with us to ask the Originator of holy matrimony for his blessing on them.

Curiously, although the exact time and day are specified, the location of the ceremony is not mentioned. The GRANDMA database reports that the Bethesda Mennonite Church record book (1878–1948, book 1) lists both Grandma and Grandpa being baptized on 24 May 1926, so a little more than half a year before their wedding. One might imagine, then, that the ceremony also took place at Bethesda, although that is by no means certain. I invite any blog reader with different or additional details about the wedding to share that information with us all.

Holding the invitation in my hand a few minutes ago, I was reminded of the vital importance of artifacts. Stories are, to be sure, important building blocks in the construction of our collective family memory, but the artifacts of our history—the clocks, trunks, wheat weavings, shotguns, articles of clothing, and even letters and diaries—connect us in a more direct and tangible way with those who came before us. I write this as a reminder to myself and everyone else to preserve not only our ancestors’ artifacts but also our own, so that those who come after us will likewise enjoy a connection to their forebears, including all of us.

Halbstadt 13

The previous post explored the types of houses that the first settlers probably built; this post continues in that vein by discussing the funding that they had for constructing those dwellings and establishing their farmsteads.

In support, every settler received from the high crown the lumber needed for a dwelling and 125 bank rubles for the purchase of livestock and farm implements. This advance was to be repaid without interest, according to the immigration edict, after the graciously granted ten free years over the ten following years.

received from the high crown. Tsar Alexander I’s imperial government provided the support detailed in the rest of the sentence.

lumber needed for a dwelling. It is difficult to determine with any precision how much lumber was needed for a dwelling. According to David Rempel, each settler family was given “100 rubles worth of lumber” (D. Rempel 1933, 91). An 1842 article published in the Russian journal Zhurnal Ministerstva gosudarstvennykh imushchestv and later translated by John P. Dyck (available online here) reports the privileges that Catherine II granted to the original Chortitza setters. These privileges included the following: “Each family received a loan of 500 rubles and 125 logs, four Sajhen … in length” (p. 3). The Russian sazhen (or sagene or sajene, here Sajhen) was roughly 7 feet, so the allotment that Catherine promised the earliest Mennonites in the 1780s was 125 logs of 28 feet in length. That seems like a significant amount of lumber, although we have no indication of the diameter of the logs. Further, we do not know if the first Molotschna settlers were provided the same amount of lumber. In the end, all we can safely conclude is that each Halbstadt settler received enough lumber (probably logs, although possibly cut lumber) to build a semlin-style house like those discussed in the previous post.

The community report does not discuss how the lumber would be provided to the residents of the treeless steppe, but a letter from the military governor Armand Richelieu (see further Halbstadt 6) to the Molotschna settlers offers some insight. The letter, which is reproduced in Isaac 1908, was written on 2 April 1804, while the future Molotschna residents were wintering in Chortitza, that is, before they had arrived at their new home. It seems that some had developed serious doubts over the winter about the suitability and desirability of the land designated for them. Richelieu wrote to allay their fears and to convince them to carry on with their journey. Within this context he addressed the issue of the promised lumber:

The wood and shrubs necessary for your … houses may be transported from the Dnieper to the Molotschna, a distance of only 60–70 versts [40–45 miles] over land [lit. “to the axis”], which is not considered a serious difficulty in our area. Large shipments of timber are often brought to the region from Kremenchuk, which is more than 300 versts [200 miles] away. (Isaac 1908, 9)

In all likelihood, Richelieu’s point is not that there were trees that could be cut along the Dnieper River but that lumber/logs from elsewhere could easily be transported down the river and then hauled overland the remaining 40–45 miles to the Molotschna colony. Indeed, David Rempel explains that Molotschna was chosen in large part because it was “situated near the Dnieper to facilitate the delivery of lumber” (D. Rempel, 1933, 89).

125 bank rubles for … livestock and farm implements. As noted above, each settler family was given 100 rubles worth of lumber to build a dwelling; slightly more was available for the purchase of livestock and farm equipment. We should probably not imagine that each family was handed 125 rubles in cash; rather, if the practice was the same as that in later years, then the figure is probably a rough average of what the original settlers received.

We see, for example, that in 1815 one Mennonite family settling in Russia owned no wagon, no horses, and only one cow; they were provided 215 rubles to purchase one wagon, two horses, and a second cow. That same year another family entered Russia with a wagon, two horses, and a cow; they were given 53 rubles so they could purchase a second cow (P. Rempel 2007, 103). We see a similar pattern in 1816, when a family arriving had a wagon, three horses, and three head of cattle; they were given money to build a dwelling but not to purchase livestock (104). The same scenario is depicted time and again over the next several years: the Russian government provided funding so that each settler family had at least one wagon, two horses, and two head of cattle (see P. Rempel 2007, 104–15, 145–55).

The 1805 Molotschna census referenced earlier (for the census, see here), confirms and supplements this picture. The census reports that each of the twenty-one families who settled Halbstadt owned at least one wagon; four families owned two. Similarly, each family owned at least two horses (average per family: 2.5 horses) and two cattle (average: 4.3), just as one would expect given the Russian policy described above. Families also kept sheep (twenty-eight owned by nine families) and pigs (thirty-four owned by eleven families), though in smaller numbers than horses and cattle.

Finally, the 1805 census also reports the farm implements that the Halbstadt settlers owned. In addition to the wagons, there were twelve harrows and ten plows in the village. Four families had full ownership of a plow, while twelve families reported having half-ownership of a plow; obviously, two families were sharing a single plow is such cases.

advance … repaid without interest. The governmental funding just described was not a grant but rather an interest-free loan. The Halbstadt settlers were expected to repay all the funding received: both the value of the lumber and whatever cash they received to purchase livestock and farm implements.

Earlier (see Halbstadt 4) we read of money that the settlers received when they first crossed into Russian territory: 50 bank rubles to each family (forage for their animals); traveling money of 25 kopeks for each family member twelve years and older and 10 kopeks for each member under twelve years; and a food allowance of 8 kopeks a day for each family member after arrival and up to the first harvest. There was some confusion or misunderstanding as to whether this earlier funding was a grant or a loan. According to David Rempel, although “the Russian authorities at Grodno, where the colonists received the money, had told them that it was not returnable,” “all this money had to be repaid by the colonists after the expiration of a ten year period of exemption from taxes” (D. Rempel 1933, 92 n. 52 and 91–92). In sum, the settlers were responsible to pay back both the lumber and farm loan and the traveling money that they had received earlier.

ten free years … ten following years. Thankfully, no interest was accruing on the total amount of the loans during a ten-year grace period. Further, the loan amount was not due all at once after the end of the grace period but could be paid back over the following ten years. As hinted at by David Rempel above, the settlers became liable for the standard property tax of 15 kopeks a dessiatine at the same time as their loans began to come due.

Works Cited

Isaac, Franz. 1908. Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte derselben. Halbstadt: Braun. Available online here.

Rempel, David G. 1933. “The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia: A Study of Their Settlement and Economic Development from 1789 to 1914.” PhD diss. Stanford University. Available online here.

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Halbstadt 12

Our progression through the story of Halbstadt’s founding and early history continues. With the village name explained (see the previous post), we are ready to learn of the establishment of the village itself.

The houses were built for the most part already in the first summer of a framework filled out with prepared loam. In support, every settler received from the high crown the lumber needed for a dwelling and 125 bank rubles for the purchase of cattle and farm implements. This advance was to be repaid without interest, according to the immigration edict, after the graciously granted ten free years over the ten following years.

the first summer. As we discovered earlier, twenty of Halbstadt’s founding families arrived on the same day: 21 June 1804 (see Halbstadt 6). Here we learn that, during the first three months of their residency, they constructed their initial (and no doubt temporary) houses.

framework filled out with prepared loam. The community report’s description of these first houses is both clear and frustratingly vague. It is clear, for example, that the houses used lumber in the frame and sod in the walls. Less clear is the extent of the framing, whether it was limited to doors and windows or extended to the roof or beyond. Given the limited information found in the report, the best we can do is to suggest a reasonable and provisional reconstruction of these houses.

We have periodically noted that Mennonites were not the only ones settling in the area at this time. One such group of settlers, the Prischib enclave or colonies, was located to the west across the Molotschna River opposite the Molotschna Mennonites. These settlers were primarily German Lutherans who arrived in the region at roughly the same time as the Mennonites. They, too, were under Russian imperial authority and likewise were required to compose their own village Gemeindeberichte. The community report for the village Hochstädt, which was 8 miles west-northwest of Halbstadt, offers additional details:

The first dwellings were hastily constructed earth-covered cellars called Semljanken. Two to three years passed before some were able to leave their “hamster dwellings,” since they were in no hurry to build houses. (Woltner 1941, 65; German original below)

The dwellings that the Höchstadt setters constructed are referred to as cellars, which indicates that they were at least partially, if not entirely, below ground. The report further identifies the dwellings as Semljanken, which appears as a German word but is in fact a Russian term adopted by German speakers living in a Russian context. The Russian term землянки, or semeljanken (more precisely, zemljanka), refers broadly to any house constructed of earth or specifically to dugouts, which would include the earth-covered cellars mentioned here.

Although the Russian term semeljanken does not provide additional details about the type of house, it does point us in the right direction. When Russian Mennonites settled in Manitoba in the late nineteenth century, their first houses were constructed of sod, just like the first dwellings in Molotschna earlier in that century. These sod houses were known as semlins, a term that clearly stems from the Russian term semeljanken and its German derivation Semljanken (note the repetition of the letters s-m-l-n). Based on this correspondence, we can now construct a likely image of the sod houses that were hastily constructed in Halbstadt.

According to Allen Noble,

semi-subterranean structures were utilized because alternative building materials were not immediately available when a group migrated into an area, or because sufficient time was lacking to construct an above ground dwelling before the onset of the first winter. German-Russian Mennonite settlers entering the largely treeless prairie provinces of Canada in the mid-19th century resorted initially to the old dwelling forms called the semeljanken or semlin.… The semlin which the Mennonites created was a rectangular, excavated pit about three feet deep, with low, above-ground walls of large sods upon which rested a timber and sod roof of gentle pitch. Average dimensions were 24-30 feet long by 12 feet wide. Some reports suggest that farm animals as well as humans occupied the earliest such structures. (Noble 2007, 128).

If, as seems likely, the Halbstadt dwellings were roughly the same as the Manitoba semlins, then we can safely imagine that they resembled the semlins reconstructed on the grounds of the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada (see their website; all photographs courtesy of Shahnoor Habib Munmun).

Of course, we should not imagine that the original Halbstadt dwellings were exactly like the semlins in Manitoba more than half a century later; apart from the sod, the available building materials no doubt differed. Nevertheless, the general size and shape of the these semisubterranean sod houses probably was the same.

The interiors of the Halbstadt houses are an even greater mystery. As shown below, the reconstructed Manitoba semlin has wood walls and floors, and it is possible that the Halbstadt semeljanken shared this finishing touch.

The community report states that the houses were constructed of “prepared loam” (zubereitetem Lehm), which one might take (as in the translation) as a reference to the cutting of sod into building blocks; however, the German can also be translated “finished loam.” In this sense one might envision not the preparation of the loam but the finishing of the loam walls inside the structure. Does that mean, then, that the interior was finished with lumber, as shown here? Although this is possible, if the term means finished rather than prepared, it seems more likely that the loam itself was finished.

This understanding finds support from other Russian Germans who settled in North America, specifically Germans who in 1876 resettled from the steppes of Russia’s Volga region to Kansas. Albert J. Petersen Jr. writes:

At first they constructed temporary shelters on the chosen village sites. The first dwellings were semi-dugout sod houses. Although often attributed to the American experience, the German-Russian sod dwelling, or semljanken, actually had its origins on the Russjan Volga. Unlike American sod houses, the semljanken was set three feet in the ground. The walls were built of sod, projecting several feet above ground level. The interior walls were plastered with a combination of mud mixed with dried prairie grass. (Petersen 1976, 19)

Note first that the adoption of the semljanken (or semlin) form was not exclusive to Mennonites; other residents of Russia shared that architectural feature. More significant for the specific question at hand is the final sentence: the interior walls of this sod house were plastered, or finished, with mud mixed with dried grass. If the phrase zubereitetem Lehm refers to the finished state of the sod walls, rather than the preparation of the sod blocks themselves (I do not know which is in view), then it likely refers to a type of plastering similar to that described by Petersen.

The next post will finish the rest of the current paragraph by commenting on the lumber used in house construction and the other forms of government support of the new settlers.

*****

Höchstadt community report:

Die ersten Wohnungen waren eilig angefertigte, mit Erde bedeckte Keller, welche Semljanken genannt wurden. Bei einigen vergingen 2 bis 3 Jahre, bevor sie ihre Hamsterwohnungen zu verlassen im Stande waren, weil sie sich mit dem Häuserbau nicht gerade beeilten.

Works Cited

Noble, Allen. 2007. Traditional Buildings: A Global Survey of Structural Forms and Cultural Functions. International Library of Human Geography Book 11. London: Tauris.

Petersen, Albert J., Jr. 1976. “The German-Russian House in Kansas: A Study in Persistence of Form.” Pioneer America 8:19–27.

Woltner, Margarete. 1941. Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer. Sammlung Georg Leibbrandt 4. Leipzig: Hirzel.

On the general topic of this post, see also the following resources:

Butcher, S. D. 1904. Sod Houses, or The Development of the great American Plains. Kearney, NE: Western Plains. Primarily photographs available online here.

Dick, Everett. 1954. The Sod-House Frontier, 1854–1890: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas and Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas. Lincoln: Johnson.

Francis, E. K. 1954. “The Mennonite Farmhouse in Manitoba.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 28:56–59. (unavailable to me)

Germans from Russia Settlement Locations blog. Includes map and information about the Prischib colonies.

Noble, Allen G. 1981. “Sod Houses and Similar Structures: A Brief Evaluation of the Literature.” Pioneer America 13:61–66.

Vashakmadze, Shota. 2017. “Solomon Butcher’s Architectural Image.” Avery Review 25. Available online here.

For German Semljanken = Russian землянки, see https://amtrakt.de/tagebuch/.

Halbstadt 11

The previous post dealt with a long section of the community report and thus turned out quite long itself. The subject of this post is a single sentence.

The Oberschulze at the time, Klaas Wiens, gave this village the name Halbstadt without special reason, at the request of the settlers for the name of a village in Prussia in which some of them had lived.

Oberschulze. There is no consensus about how best to translate this German term, and there is good reason to think that one common translation, district mayor, is as misleading as it is enlightening. For these reasons I decided (for now) not to translate the term at all, so that readers are not misled by an imperfect translation choice.

The problem stems from the inexact relation between the archaic German word Schulze and the English term most often used to translate it: mayor. The German Schulze was, to be sure, the chief executive of a village, but his role was not so much holding a political office as it was exercising practical authority. Thus the Schulze was usually responsible to collect taxes, to enforce governmental decisions, and, in general, to maintain the peace. Each village in Molotschna had its own Schulze, and the Oberschulz was “over” all of them, serving as the chief executive of the district. No English term conveys this role in a clear and succinct manner, so for the time being I will simply use the German term itself.

Klaas Wiens. We have already encountered Klaas Wiens twice in our journey through the Halbstadt community report. Wiens was first mentioned as one of the de facto leaders of the group(s) who traveled to establish the Molotschna colony (see Halbstadt 3). More recently we read that Wiens was the first to plant a forest plantation in Molotschna, an act for which Alexander I rewarded him by granting him his own estate (see Halbstadt 10). To read more about Wiens, see the entry on him here.

According to Cornelius Krahn (1959), Wiens was Molotschna’s first Oberschulze, serving from 1804 to 1806. Unlike the village of Alexanderwohl, which was named by Andrei M. Fadeev, of the Ekaterinoslav Bureau of the Guardianship Committee, or Waldheim, which was named by Johann Cornies, Halbstadt was named by Oberschulze Klaas Wiens. This in itself is an indication of the type and extent of authority that an Oberschulze exercised.

without special reason. A more paraphrastic rendering of the German might be: The Oberschulze at the time, Klaas Wiens, gave this village the name Halbstadt for no other reason than that the settlers asked that it be named after a village in Prussia in which some of them had lived. The point is that the name Halbstadt had no particular significance as it related to the founding of the village. The name, which literally means “Half City,” was no commentary on the new village. By way of comparison, recall that the founders of Alexanderwohl invested great significance in the naming of their village (see here).

name of a village in Prussia. In fact, the new Molotschna village was named Halbstadt because some of its founders had lived in a village by that name in Prussia/Poland, or so we are led to think. Richard D. Thiessen reports that “the 1776 Prussian census lists 13 Mennonite families in Halbstadt with the following surnames: Claasen, Conrad, Dick, Isaac, Kroecker, Loewen, Mertins, Reimer, Toews, Wall, Warkentin, Wiens, and Willer” (Thiessen 2012). Oddly, not one of these names appears among the list of original Halbstadt settlers (see Halbstadt 5): Berg/Barg, Boldt, Braun, Epp, Esau, Fast, Friesen, Giesbrecht, Groening, Heide/Heude, Hiebert, Janzen, Plett, and Wiebe. It is always possible, of course, that several of the founders of Molotschna Halbstadt moved to Prussian Halbstadt between 1776 and 1803. However, it seems curious, perhaps even suspicious, that one of the thirteen families identified with Prussian Halbstadt was Wiens, the surname of the Oberschulze who gave Halbstadt in Molotschna its name.

Works Cited

Krahn, Cornelius. 1959. “Oberschulze.” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Thiessen, Richard D. 2012. “Halbstadt (Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Halbstadt 10

In the previous section of commentary on the Halbstadt community report (Gemeindebericht) we learned about the soil where the Mennonite farmers settled and its agricultural potential. In this post we turn to another aspect of the territory: its utter lack of trees when the settlers arrived.

To beautify the treeless steppe, a wooded area of 10.5 dessiatines was planted at the north end of the village close to the Molotschna; this was at the request of His Majesty Alexander I during his highly esteemed visit to the local villages in 1825. Seeds from abroad were obtained for this purpose by His Excellency State Councillor Mr. Contenius and the local Agricultural Society. In addition, under the management of the Society, every farmer [i.e., landowner] has planted 1 dessiatine of various fruit trees on his hearth as a garden.

treeless steppe. As noted often, the steppeland of the Molotschna colony was devoid of trees when the Mennonites first settled there. This was one of the features that caught the attention of outsiders as early as the Greek historian Herodotus, more than four centuries before Jesus. Much later, during Catherine the Great’s tour of the territory, she “noted with dismay the lack of trees” across the region (Moon 2013, 39; see further 36–39). According to David Moon, the absence of trees was not a natural phenomenon. He explains:

The environment of the steppes encountered by the first waves of migrants was not a “pristine” world that had evolved independently of human action. Later research confirmed the suspicions of some earlier specialists … that the treeless grassland was to some extent created by human activity. For many centuries, the indigenous, nomadic population burned the steppe to encourage the growth of fresh grasses for their herds of livestock to graze on. The combined effects of fire and grazing contributed to the evolution of the grassland, restricting the spread of trees and shrubs from those parts of the landscape where they grew naturally. (2013, 7)

Human activity had created a treeless landscape, and now human activity would reverse course and populate the steppes with beautiful trees.

wooded area of 10.5 dessiatines. The community report begins with a communal area and activity: the planting of a wooded area at the north end of the village, near the Molotschna River. A dessiatine is equivalent to 2.7 acres, so the size of the wooded area was a little more than 28 acres. The community report does not specify what type of trees were planted here, but these were almost certainly forest trees (see below). An aerial examination of the village site today does not reveal any traces of this wooded area; presumably the trees died or were cut for firewood at some point during Halbstadt’s history.

request of … Alexander I. The commitment to planting trees is attributed to Tsar Alexander I, but it was not due entirely to him. Alexander I visited Molotschna twice, in 1818 and 1825, and several roughly contemporary sources record that during his second visit he encouraged the Mennonite residents to plant trees. An 1831 letter from Andrei M. Fadeev, chairman of the Ekaterinoslav Bureau of the Guardianship Committee, to Johann Cornies explains:

Mennonite communities in general, and every individual in particular, must henceforth give preferential and continuous attention to the development of orchard- and forest-tree culture. Both of these economic branches can help lay the foundation of prosperity for Mennonites and their descendants, and visibly distinguish their villages from others.

     The obligation of the Molochnaia Mennonites must rest on sacred feelings of gratitude and on their promise to establish and spread the cultivation of forest trees. In 1825, during His Majesty’s last visit to the Molochnaia villages, Mennonites solemnly promised the late Tsar Alexander, of ever-glorious memory, to lay out small village woodlots in which each household would be assigned a half-desiatina plot. This vow must not be broken. Actions in this regard will assist Mennonites in maintaining their privileges on a firm, enduring foundation, and will establish their own prosperity and that of their descendants. (Cornies 2015, 227–28)

A brochure written by Fadeev four years earlier, in 1827, recounts Alexander’s visit in even greater detail. Fadeev had accompanied Alexander on the journey, so he was well equipped to offer a reliable report. His account of one conversation is especially relevant here:

After dinner His Majesty entered the other room. After several minutes the Mennonite elders were called. The Monarch asked them whether they were satisfied in everything and whether they might not have some complaints. After they answered that in every respect they were happy and satisfied, and that nothing remained for them than to thank the Monarch for his charity and grace, he said, “I am likewise satisfied with you for your quiet life and diligence. However, I wish that on each farm you would plant trees—particularly the American acacia that grows quickly in this area—in groves up to half a desiatin in size.” (Good and Good 1989, 127)

Note the slight difference between the two reports: the first refers to “small village woodlots in which each household would be assigned a half-desiatina plot,” whereas in the second Alexander expresses the wish that “on each farm you would plant trees … in groves up to half a desiatin in size.” The single wooded area described in the Halbstadt community report corresponds more closely to the 1831 account; the size of the wooded area (10.5 dessiatines) likewise matches a half-dessiatine allotment for each of Halbstadt’s original twenty-one farmsteads.

In Fadeev’s 1827 account, Alexander commends fast-growing acacia trees as an especially promising option. According to Peter Köppen, a Russian official who visited Molotschna in 1837, “The trees they [the Mennonites] planted most frequently were elm, ash, and maple, and also poplar and black locust. In addition, they had managed to grow some coniferous trees” (Moon 2013, 181). All these varieties would have been appropriate for Halbstadt’s communal wooded area, although, of course, we do not know what type(s) of trees were actually planted there.

Finally, as mentioned above, these tree-planting initiatives were not solely attributable to Alexander. In fact, Fadeev’s 1827 brochure records him clarifying for Alexander that a particular stop on their route was not a village but rather “the estate [Vorwerk] established on the land granted by Your Majesty to the late Mennonite elder, Wiens, for his zealous service and establishment of the first forest plantation in this district” (Good and Good 1989, 125, emphasis added). Likewise, Fadeev’s 1831 letter to Cornies notes that “orchards and forest trees are already well established in several Molochnaia Mennonite villages” (Cornies 2015, 228). In light of this evidence, we should conclude that Alexander’s 1825 comments did not initiate the Molotschna tree-planting efforts but rather gave them a much-needed boost and focus.

State Councillor Mr. Contenius and the local Agricultural Society. We met Samuel Contenius earlier (see here) due to his involvement in assigning lands to the settlers. Here he is credited with securing and providing tree seeds to the Mennonite villages. As noted earlier, Contenius retired from his chairmanship of the Yekaterinoslav Guardianship Office in 1818, so his procurement of seeds from foreign sources either took place before that time or was part of his unofficial work on behalf of the Guardianship Office before his death in 1830.

References to the Agricultural Society can be confusing, since there was not one but three such bodies over the first half of the nineteenth century. As John R. Staples summarizes, 

The most visible elements of Nicholas’ reforms in the Molochnaia were economic “societies.” Contenius had created a first, the Sheep Society, in 1824, before Nicholas’ ascension to the throne. It provided a model for the much more powerful Forestry Society, created at the state’s behest in 1831, and, most importantly, the Agricultural Society, created in 1836. (Staples 2015, xliii)

Staples further explains 

Contenius personally created the Sheep Society and provided detailed instructions on its structure and activities. He hand-picked Cornies as its chair-for-life and insisted that Cornies report extensively on his activities and successes. The Forestry Society was also Contenius’ idea, although by the time it was created he had died, and Fadeev played the central role in formulating its charter. (2015, xliii)

In seems most probable that the reference to the Agricultural Society in the Halbstadt community report is to the Forestry Society. For what appears to be the Forestry Society’s charter, see Cornies 2015, 227–35. 

every farmer has planted 1 dessiatine of various fruit trees on his hearth. In addition to requiring the creation of village forest areas, the Forestry Society mandated the planting of fruit trees. Each landowner (i.e., owner of a Wirschaft) was required to plant various fruit trees on his village lot. Fadeev writes in his 1831 charter letter to Cornies:

In Mennonite villages, a number of good, well-disposed householders have laid out large orchards with good fruit trees. To advance orchard cultivation as a flourishing branch of the economy in Mennonite villages generally, and to distinguish them from other settlements of this region without the advantages and privileges granted to Mennonites, every householder is obligated to lay out an orchard behind his house of a size permitted by the local situation and his means. The soil must be adequately prepared and the site protected from livestock damage. … The dimensions of areas selected by each householder for his fruit orchard must be measured and calculations must be made to determine how many rows of trees can be planted without crowding. Every tree must be given sufficient space to grow naturally, so that roots and crowns do not eventually grow together. Experience shows orchards with trees planted too close together result in inferior trees and less fruit than orchards where sun and air can have a beneficial influence on the crown of every individual tree. … Very dry or hot locations are exceptions, where trees must be planted closer together. Spaces between apple and pear trees should be filled with cherry, peach, apricot, and plum trees … as the most useful fruits for every husbandman on the land. (Cornies 2015, 231–32)

According to the Halbstadt community report, the residents of that village had each planted 1 dessiatine (= 2.7 acres) of fruit trees on their lots. Of course, we should not understand this statement literally but as a general description of the villagers’ compliance with the Forestry Service requirement.

In the following (much briefer) post, we will return to Elder Wiens, who not only planted the first forest plantation but also played a key role in the history of Halbstadt.

Works Cited

Cornies, Johann. 2015. Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Volume 1: 1812–1835. Translated by Ingrid I. Epp. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Good, E. Reginald, and Kathryn Shantz Good, trans. and eds. 1989. “The Last Visit of Emperor Alexander I to the Mennonite Colonies.” Journal of Mennonite Studies 7:123–30. Available online here.

Moon, David. 2013. The Plough That Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914. Oxford Studies in Modern European History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Staples, John R. 2015. “Introduction.” Pages xxi–lvi in Cornies 2015.