The post on Daniel Unruh was not an interruption in this series but rather preparation for this post: the journey of Heinrich and Aganetha Buller and their children from Crimea to the plains of Dakota Territory. We left off the narrative of William Buller’s Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller with the couple ready to begin the journey.
[26] Their departure for America was preceded by one last visit to such friends and relatives as they had. Accordingly, they left Schakell by wagon on the 6th day of August, 1875—being on a Friday—for the village of Schwesterthal for an over-Sunday visit with mother’s sister Mary, now Mrs. John Sperling. An untoward incident happened on that little journey which, if they had been of a superstitious mind, might have appeared as an omen direct from Heaven, warning them not to go any farther. As they were crossing a river (they had to ford it), in some way their wagon came near upsetting just when they were in the swiftest part of the current. For a moment their lives seemed in danger. All their store of earthly goods came near being lost in the turbulent little stream. For this, the initial part of their great journey, they were indebted to the kindness of one Abraham Toems.
On the following Monday Sperling took them overland to Cornelius Duerksen’s, a distance of some 50 Werst (about 30 miles). Several days were spent there visiting, and sad were some of the scenes enacted as the time for their departure drew near. Duerksen looked at the whole undertaking from a decidedly dark angle and did everything he could to dissuade them from it. But so firmly had they made up their minds that nothing coμld move them. They refused to look at it darkly. So Uncle Duerksen drove with them to Koslov, a seaport on the Black Sea, where they intended to board a steamer for Odessa. They arrived there towards evening of a fine day, but during the night it began to rain, and all the next day it kept on pouring down. Their boat was to leave at 6 o’clock p.m., and as the time drew near it began to look as though they would have to become thoroughly soaked to gain the ship. All looked gloomy and dark. Cornelius Duerksen made one final appeal to them to change their minds, offering to haul them back to Schakell and let them have the use of a couple of cows gratuitously. But to no avail. Father and mother remained firm and determined to continue their journey. Still it kept on pouring until, as if a merciful God took pity on them at just the right time, about 5:30 p.m., the storm ceased for a few minutes, and the sun shone through a rift in the clouds. All made good use of the lull in the storm. [27] Quickly Uncle Duerksen drove them and their belongings to the wharf, unloaded and helped them board the boat.
People of all nationalities—Russians, Turks and Tartars—were streaming back and forth; the bridge leading to the boat was slippery and treacherous. In the haste and confusion, in some way Cornelius had become separated from the rest of the little flock. Suddenly Mary noticed that he was missing and darted away, screaming and crying, to look for him. In and between that motley crowd she dodged and ducked and searched. Fear and alarm were written in such bold characters upon her girlish face that each could read in his own language the distress painted there. Soon the crowd began to question in the Russian language, “Tschewa? Tschewa?”( What is it? What is it?), to which father explained that a boy was missing. All eyes now were busy, and soon the boy was found sitting on the edge of that slippery bridge, shaking his feet to and fro over the back sea below, seemingly unconscious of any danger. One show was gone, but the boy was saved! Mary, the heroine, had found him! And be it said here as a small tribute to the memory of that brave and noble heart that this incident well shows the qualities of courage, watchfulness, and love that characterized her whole life.
On Saturday, August 14, they arrived at Odessa. They spent Sunday there. They visited the agent of a ship company, but, having no passports, on which subject they had been misinformed, they could not be transferred by him. Accordingly, about 6 o’clock that Sunday night, they took the train for Warsaw, where they stopped off for three days, in part to gather information concerning their further journey—particularly in which manner to get across the Russian border (without passports) and in part to visit a friend (living quite near the city).
On the following Monday Sperling took them overland to Cornelius Duerksen’s, a distance of some 50 Werst (about 30 miles). Several days were spent there visiting, and sad were some of the scenes enacted as the time for their departure drew near. Duerksen looked at the whole undertaking from a decidedly dark angle and did everything he could to dissuade them from it. But so firmly had they made up their minds that nothing coμld move them. They refused to look at it darkly. So Uncle Duerksen drove with them to Koslov, a seaport on the Black Sea, where they intended to board a steamer for Odessa. They arrived there towards evening of a fine day, but during the night it began to rain, and all the next day it kept on pouring down. Their boat was to leave at 6 o’clock p.m., and as the time drew near it began to look as though they would have to become thoroughly soaked to gain the ship. All looked gloomy and dark. Cornelius Duerksen made one final appeal to them to change their minds, offering to haul them back to Schakell and let them have the use of a couple of cows gratuitously. But to no avail. Father and mother remained firm and determined to continue their journey. Still it kept on pouring until, as if a merciful God took pity on them at just the right time, about 5:30 p.m., the storm ceased for a few minutes, and the sun shone through a rift in the clouds. All made good use of the lull in the storm. [27] Quickly Uncle Duerksen drove them and their belongings to the wharf, unloaded and helped them board the boat.
People of all nationalities—Russians, Turks and Tartars—were streaming back and forth; the bridge leading to the boat was slippery and treacherous. In the haste and confusion, in some way Cornelius had become separated from the rest of the little flock. Suddenly Mary noticed that he was missing and darted away, screaming and crying, to look for him. In and between that motley crowd she dodged and ducked and searched. Fear and alarm were written in such bold characters upon her girlish face that each could read in his own language the distress painted there. Soon the crowd began to question in the Russian language, “Tschewa? Tschewa?”( What is it? What is it?), to which father explained that a boy was missing. All eyes now were busy, and soon the boy was found sitting on the edge of that slippery bridge, shaking his feet to and fro over the back sea below, seemingly unconscious of any danger. One show was gone, but the boy was saved! Mary, the heroine, had found him! And be it said here as a small tribute to the memory of that brave and noble heart that this incident well shows the qualities of courage, watchfulness, and love that characterized her whole life.
On Saturday, August 14, they arrived at Odessa. They spent Sunday there. They visited the agent of a ship company, but, having no passports, on which subject they had been misinformed, they could not be transferred by him. Accordingly, about 6 o’clock that Sunday night, they took the train for Warsaw, where they stopped off for three days, in part to gather information concerning their further journey—particularly in which manner to get across the Russian border (without passports) and in part to visit a friend (living quite near the city).
1. Several posts ago we were unable positively to identify any of the locations mentioned; this time we are in somewhat better shape. We still do not know the location of Schakell, where Heinrich and Aganetha lived, but we can provide the rough location of Schwesterthal. According to Tim Janzen’s compilation of Mennonite Villages in Russia (here), this village was located in the Dzhankoy district, which is marked with the number 1 in the map below.
2. Aganetha’s sister Mary (Maria) lost her spouse in 1866, John Sperling his in February 1875; the two were married in May 1875, and Mary and her children moved to the Crimea, where John already lived.
3. It is unclear whose uncle Cornelius Duerksen (Dirks) was, but the most likely explanation is that our author William is speaking of his uncle, thus Aganetha’s brother. If so, then we can presumably locate Cornelius, per GRANDMA, at Biyuk-Busau, number 2 on the map below.
4. From there, we are told, Cornelius transported the emigrants to “Koslov, a seaport on the Black Sea, where they intended to board a steamer for Odessa.” Kozlov was the former name of the city of Yevpatoria, which is a prominent port on the Black Sea (number 3). The family then took a steamer to Odessa (number 4), a city of over 160,000 people at that time.
5. Before leaving Odessa, the family had a scare, as the youngest child, Cornelius, went missing. His sister Mary noticed his absence and was the one who ended up finding him. Mary died in 1896, just shy of her thirtieth birthday, which explains why William, writing in 1915, speaks of her in the past tense.
6. The statement that “they visited the agent of a ship company, but, having no passports, … they could not be transferred by him” raises several significant questions. Did the agent work for the steamer company that had just transported them, or was this a ship company for a future leg of their journey? What does the verb “transferred” mean in this context? Did this obstacle prompt them to travel by train to Warsaw, or would they have done so anyway? The first two questions remain a mystery, but the third may permit a reasonable guess.
The article referenced in the previous post (here) describes Daniel Unruh’s journey from Crimea to the U.S. as follows: “Since leaving their Crimean homes in the Black Sea villages of Brudersfeld and Friedenstein for the Russian port of Feodosia, the Unruh group had spent some five weeks in travel, coming by way of Odessa, Berlin, and Hamburg” (Unruh and Unruh 1975, 206). The key sequence is Odessa–Berlin–Hamburg. Heinrich and family followed the same route, presumably by design, not by chance. Since there is no way to go from Odessa to Berlin except by land, we can probably safely conclude that the train ride from Odessa to Warsaw was not in reaction to the transfer problem, whatever it might have been; rather, it was in spite of that problem, which did not prevent the family from keeping to their planned course.
Clearly, the lack of passports was a problem when they arrived in Odessa, and it remained so once they rolled into Warsaw. The following post will pick up the story there, with Heinrich and Aganetha facing the passport problem head on.
Works Cited
Buller, William B. 1915. Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller. Parker, SD: privately printed.
Unruh, John D., and John D. Unruh Jr. 1975. Daniel Unruh and the Mennonite Settlement in Dakota Territory. Mennonite Quarterly Review 49:203–16. Available online here.
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