Thus far in the Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller, as recorded by their son William, we have read of Heinrich’s ancestry back to his grandfather, also named Heinrich, in Brenkenhoffswalde in Neumark, of his poverty growing up in Deutsch-Wymsyle and then his being orphaned at age seventeen, followed by his emigration to Molotschna colony, where he worked as a blacksmith until eventually he moved to the Crimean peninsula. We then turned to the ancestry and life of Aganetha Dirks, who was likewise orphaned, albeit at the much younger age of nine, and spent the next decade or more working for various families from one end of Molotschna colony to the other, until she also moved to the Crimea with her guardian Daniel Unruh. Eventually the two stories merged, and the two married in November 1865.
As was the case with the last post, the following section is more personal than historically important; this is, after all, a family history. However, the experiences of Heinrich and Aganetha were probably not that different from those of our own ancestors. By reading about their lives, then, we understand better what our own ancestors went through during their sojourn in Russia. With that in mind, we pick up the thread of the story with the newlywed couple.
[23] Soon after this, father and mother went to live with a family by the name of Birnbaum. Father had hired out to this man to do the smithing. Everything went well for a time, but gradually Herr Birnbaum became sullen, gruff and fault-finding. Nevertheless, father endured his insolence patiently for two years. He had rented a few acres of land which was sown to barley. Mother was glad to help at anything that she could do. She was the very soul of economy, industry and thrift, and both Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum liked her. She worried a great deal over the misunderstandings between Mr. Birnbaum and her husband, but day by day the breach between them widened until the climax came over a horse deal that father had made with him. Looking back these many years, father admits that he was perhaps rather too bold, stubborn, and impetuous considering his poor condition, and the fact is, he felt the same way about it at that time, and tried to make amends to Mr. Birnbaum by begging forgiveness and offering his hand—all of which overtures Herr Birnbaum proudly spurned. To him it was the unpardonable sin that a poor man, desiring rather to suffer wrongfully than to make enemies, offered to assume all the blame—he would not deign to receive it, but became still more bitter. Not only did he alter the terms of sale of the horse so that it was utterly impossible for father to meet them (which he knew), but he even demanded the immediate return of a book that mother had borrowed, stating that they would steal it, no doubt, once they left his premises. A few years later he died. On his deathbed, the pangs of his conscience, no doubt, were so sharp that he sent a messenger to our parents’ home with the book and with his request to mother to forgive him—but to father, never! He died with hatred and unforgiveness towards father in his heart. Evidently he never experienced in his heart the pleasure of that gentle virtue—mercy—which Shakespeare in his Merchant of Venice so admirably describes, “The quality of mercy is unstrained; it falleth like the gentle dew from heaven. It blesseth alike him who gives and him who receives.”
That was a sorrowful day for mother when they left the Birnbaums. It cost her many a bitter tear, for time had already woven a train of tender associations about the place. Here Mary, her firstborn, was born on the 19th of November, 1866; and here, too, on the [24] 15th of January, 1868, her second child, Aganetha, had been born and now lay buried. She was such a bright and cheerful child of but one year and one-half, and it nearly broke mother’s heart when the Death Angel came. Can we wonder that with the thought of this new-made grave uppermost in her mind that she was loathe to leave the place?
After leaving Jabor (for so the village was called where the Birnbaums lived), they moved to Schigel, Crimea, where father again plied his trade of blacksmithing. In addition, they began farming on a small scale. They lived here three or four years and slowly acquired a little property. Here on the 6th of September, 1869, Henry was born. Also, Lena, on the 20th of April, 1871, and Cornelius on the 6th of June, 1873.
From Schigel they moved to Friedenstein, where it will be remembered they had been married. They rented a little ground here but remained only one year, as all the German landowners (the Unruhs, the Schroeders, the Tolems, the Gloecklers) had sold out to Armenians and had to give possession at that time. Some of these, like the Unruhs, moved to America, as we have already noted. This was in 1873, and father was ready at that time to go to America, but Unruh discouraged him, pointing out to him his lack of funds. This, too, was the guidance of Providence, for had they come over at that time, they would not have known where to go.
But from now on, their minds were made up to go to America, and they were waiting only to hear from a Mr. Unruh. And so it was that at the end of their year at Friedenstein, they moved for a few months to Schakell, just long enough for an event of great importance to happen. For here, at the hour of two p.m. on the 7th day of July, 1875, another son was born to them whom they forthwith named Abraham. It was the time of harvest, and father helped the neighbor farmers there until the 6th day of August, when they decided the time was ripe for them to begin their great journey to America. What an undertaking it was for them! Poor and inexperienced in travel as they were, with a family of small children—the oldest of which was nine years and the youngest but a babe of one month—we today can hardly comprehend. But doubt never seemed to enter their minds. They were in the prime of life and had stout hands and brave hearts. It required determination and faith and vision, but they had all these [25] things, and today we are the heirs of what these sturdy qualities in them wrought for us. May that day never come when we shall forget the debt of gratitude that we owe them, and that Being whose hand so graciously guided them, and Who shapes alike the destinies of men and nations!
Given the personal, individual nature of the stories, not a great deal requires explanation here. However, the villages mentioned—Jabor, Schigel, Friedenstein, and Schakell—warrant some comment, even if we are able to offer only hints and guesses. We begin with the larger context, repeated from the previous post:
Mennonites began to settle here [Crimea] soon after the Crimean War (1853–1856); probably they became acquainted with it in the course of their transportation duties for the government and preferred it to the other lands under consideration for settlement situated on the Amur in Siberia. In 1860 Mennonite land seekers looked over several possible sites, and in 1862 four villages were established, which were later followed by others. (Brandt and Krahn 1953)
In fact, Germans (for so the Mennonites were classed) had been settling Crimea since the end of the eighteenth century, and among the total colonist population of Crimea the Lutherans far outnumbered the Mennonites. Further, Molotschna Mennonites were well aware of Crimea early on; for example, Johann Cornies, when just a teenager, earned his early fortune by driving a wagon to the peninsula to engage in trade with its residents. Seeing his success, other Mennonites followed suit and hauled a variety of agricultural products south.
Consequently, although the Mennonite migration to the Crimea was no doubt spurred by Mennonite contact with the area during the Crimean War of the mid-1850s, I suspect two other factors were more decisive: the Molotschna land crisis was reaching a critical point in the late 1850s, which served as a strong motivation for many Mennonites to seek available farmland; Crimea was far more settled and German than it had been in the early nineteenth century, which made it a more attractive locale to put down roots. These realities shaped the Mennonite experience in Crimea and may be reflected in what we know—and do not know—about Heinrich and Aganetha’s Crimean experience.
Heinrich Goerz explains that “there were no large closed [Mennonite] colonies in Crimea. Its various settlements were widely scattered throughout the great plain of the peninsula and each one was different” (Goerz 1992, xvii). Stated more simply, strictly Mennonite villages were spread throughout the peninsula, not concentrated in any one area. Further, there were far more German villages than Mennonite ones, as a comparison of a list of German Crimean villages (here) with that of Mennonite Crimean villages (here) reveals. Consequently, we should not think that all Crimean Mennonites lived in Mennonite-only villages; many of them no doubt lived alongside and among Lutheran Germans.
This is important for our understanding of Heinrich and Aganetha’s residency in Crimea. Only one of the villages where they are said to have lived, Friedenstein, can be identified, and it appears only on the German list linked above, not the Mennonite list. Further, the last name Birnbaun, where the couple worked in Jabor, is presumably a Jewish name, which again implies a non-Mennonite locale. The location and identity of the other villages mentioned are unknown, but there is no reason to think that they were strictly Mennonite. Finally, the account refers to German, not Mennonite, landowners in Friedenstein. In all likelihood, then, Heinrich and Aganetha had contact with a variety of ethnic and religious groups, including but not limited to Mennonites.
Not much more can be said about this chapter in the family history of Heinrich and Aganetha. We leave them on the cusp of their journey to America, where we will pick up the story in the following post.
Works Cited
Brandt, Theodor, and Cornelius Krahn. 1953. Crimea (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.
Buller, William B. 1915. Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller. Parker, SD: privately printed.
Goerz, Heinrich. Mennonite Settlements in Crimea. Translated by John B. Toews. Echo Historical Series 13. Winnipeg: CMBC Publications, Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.
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