1877 Letter 2nd Translation plus a Letter from a Cousin

Charlotte from the Menno-Roots mailing list that I'm a member of offered to have her mother, Erica (Penner) Lepp translate the letter(s). Most of it is the same as the first translation with a few differences that make sense with what we know of Mennonite life at that time.

Letter Page 1

Fuerstenwerder 16 October 1877

To you dear brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law in America.

For some time I have wanted to write you but until now this has not materialized.

Therefore with my writing I want to be your guest and want to chat with you about things

that have occurred. Motherkin has passed away but I think you may already have

known this through my husband’s and Fatherkin’s letter since my husband wrote

immediately on Sunday evening and Fatherkin on Monday morning. Then my husband

and Johann Willems went to Tokmak to a funeral of a Russian and they took the letters

with them. Tuesday was a funeral.

On Thursday the 30 of September there was a wedding at Gerhard Willems. The school

teacher married Anna Reimer. We also attended the wedding. From there I went to

Motherkin. She was swollen and felt cold, it was rather shocking to touch her. Her body

as well as her hands were

Letter Page 2

quite swollen up to her elbows. Then Maria brought her some Moos (fruit soup) and she

ate a little. She said that her independent eating would soon be over since she could not

hold the spoon securely in her hand. I told her that that Mrs. Frank Kornelsen passed

away yesterday. She replied saying it would not be many days before people would say

that she was dead too.

It was so by the following Sunday October 2nd at 7:30 AM was the hour that our dear

Heavenly Father called her home.

Jacob Brauns from Friedensruh attended her funeral and told us that Johan Braun was not

well. He was sick in bed for 8 days. On October 13 he was buried.

On the 8th of Oct we have butchered a cow. On the 13th of October they arrived with a

little son named Abraham. The mother

Letter Page 3

Mrs. Neufeld told us about Mrs. Henry Siemens (struggles). She went completely insane

Mrs. Neufeld says it was exactly like it was with her brother Henry. They could not help

her so Mr. Siemens took her home. There she lived only a few days.

Now I want to report to you on our farming situation. We have had a rich harvest: Wheat

138 Tsch. Barley 99 [1]Tsch, Oats 30 Tsch, Rye expecting to get 18 Tsch. that still hasn’t

been threshed. Potatoes 50 Tsch. Corn yielded very well. We hauled it all to

Astrikanki (?)


The corn had up to 3 cobs to a stalk. We have already received it (?)

Lastly the watermelons yielded exceptionally well. I have cooked 7 pails of syrup, so I

will stop writing because I am so busy with sewing and knitting.

Sincere greetings from me to the children. Greet all acquaintances. Farewell

Elizabet Friesen.
[1] Tschetwet is a measure (abt 3 litres?)

Letter Page 4

Now you dear ones you will wonder why this letter was not mailed sooner but I thought

we would be able to sell but now there is no prospect in view for the businesses are quiet.

Jacob Goertzen sold his place to his son in law Dietrich Peters for 2500 Rubel. No one

else has sold (anything)?

No one buys wheat. Barley chop (ground barley) for feed is sold in Takmok. So you to

can see what the prices are.

Maybe the war will soon be over. Then we think the prices will rise. The Russians have

captured the large (Leugtung? Plentno?) when they took about 54,000 Turks captive. At

Kars is a Leptung which they took as well with many Turkish prisoners. Enns in

Margenau says it costs the Russian military 60,000 until the month of October.

Mr. Sawatsky and Mr. Isaak from Ruekenau were here and collected for 11 villages in

Turkey. They are Lutheran people who have been robbed of everything, but no lives

were lost. We are all well, we are greeting you, “ade” .

Sent 17 December.

Peter Friesen (?)


I have also received a letter from my dad's cousin, Raymond Wiebe. In his letter he tells me that Fuerstenwerder was a Dutch Mennonite village whose name would translate as "The Prince's Meadow" or "The Prince's Grassland". He then directs me to a map on page 15 of "The Groening and Wiebe Family 1768 to 1974" book that, at present, I have loaned out. I was going to borrow my dad's copy, but forgot the last time we were in town. On page 15 is a map, Raymond writes:

Notice the words "Gross Tokmak" along the top of the North Mennonite Villages (English "Grand Tokmak") was the "county" just north of the Molotschna Mennonites. The city of Tokmak was that "county seat". Then we look down to the central Molotschna villages of Fuerstenwerder, south to Margenau village, right up the creek to Alexanderwohl village and lower left to Ruekkenau village. English translation of Ruekkenau is "Rich Valley" and English translation of Margenau is "Margaret's Valley". The above is helpful context to this letter. I assume and agree that the wife Elizabeth Friesen starts the letter. Then her husband Peter Friesen wrote and finished the letter. I have been told that adding the letters "OF" to a name makes it "masculine".
Yes, all our immigrant families which left south Russia (Ukraine) during the 1870s, left many relatives behind. This made leaving Russia so sad and tearful. Only 25% of the 1874 to 1879 Mennonite families left for America. Therefore most Mennonite families that came to America had left at least 50% of their Uncles, Aunts, cousins (even children) back in south Russia. Your Aunt Katharine and your great Grandmother, Katharine Wiebe Klassen saved this letter for over a century, at this stage we are not able to say whether Peter and Elizabeth Friesen were "Klassen" family relatives or "Wiebe" family relatives.

He goes on to mention resources that we can search to possibly find the answers to our questions. Some of these resources may still be in Russia (1858 and 1868 census) written in German, some may take little more effort like the German newspapers at Tabor College. I think my next step at this point will be to take a look at the GRANDMA database (I have version 4.1 but haven't installed it) and see what I can find. I recently purchase "Grace Meadow, The Story of Gnadenau and Its First Elder, Marion County, Kansas" by David V. Wiebe (Raymond's father) and from it realized that the Elder Jacob Wiebe married Justina Friesen in 1857. So there's one tie with a Friesen family. I also have a copy of "They Seek a Country" by David V. Wiebe, but I don't know if either one will help with the specific information I need. I'll post more as I find it.

1877 Letter Translated

Rudi Aksim has graciously translated my 1877 letter. Here is what he wrote:

Hi Leann!

Attached is what your letter says, although the last four lines (in italics) on page 4 still confuse me a little. It has something to do with the Turks or the Russians destroying German-speaking colonies in the south, but what you see there is what I *think* it says. Hope this is helpful.

Rudi

Rudi has a couple of very interesting websites, I would encourage you to visit them...

http://www.aksim.org/ and http://www.nomorelectures.com/

I'm still not sure how the people in this letter are related, I need to print it out and send it to my dad's cousin to see if he might know.

Edit 03/15/09: When I post any of my German/Russia family history to my blog I notify 3 mailing lists that I am a member of. When I emailed the list about this post I received over 200 hits in just a couple of hours! I have also received a couple of very informative responses concerning the translation, the first one from Glenn Penner via Menno-Roots on Rootsweb...

This is very interesting.

I have a few corrections that could be made (not in any particular order):

Kornelischen is actually Kornelische (Mrs. Kornels)
Neifeldsche is Mrs. Neifeld (Neufeld is a common Mennonite surname)
Siemanschenon [?]'s wife is Siemensche von der ... (I can't read the next word)
Siemon is Siemens (a common Mennonite surname)
Willams is actually Willems (this is a well known Mennonite surname)
In the context of the letter Wirtschaft refers to the Friesen's farm
Herbusen probably refers to watermelons (we called them rabusen)
Before the first reference to Harbusen there is a word which I can't read which I am sure is incorrectly translated as Clearing. I'm sure that this should be translated as a vegetable or other garden product. Someone else who has a better knowledge of German may recognize the word with that in mind.
Gerstein is actually Gertzen (a common Mennonite surname)
Ohm does not mean General. It is Dutch for uncle but is often used as a term of respect usually for a minister of the church. I found this mis-translation rather funny considering some of the Ohms I've known. The names following Ohm are Sawazki and Isak (Isaak), two well known Mennonite surnames. Rikkenau refers to Rueckenau,.
To my knowledge there was only one Rueckenau in Russia, which was in the Molotschna Colony. Perhaps someone can correct me on that.
Gerdhrud is actually Gerdhard which should be Gerhard.

I think it's great to have these letters translated. Letters and diaries give us an idea what ordinary people were thinking at the time.

Glenn Penner

The second letter is also from Menno-Roots, Neil Voth comments on Glenn's post...

Glenn has given us the family names and Rueckenau. The other place name that comes up would be Tokmak, the nearest town for the Molotchna villages I'm glad to see that he also remembers the word Rabusen, the way I thought I had heard it at home . (I was beginning to doubt my memory.) Jack Thiessen's Low German dictionary gives Arbus , with or with out umlaut, Rebus and _Herbus !_ Arbusen is , no doubt borrowed from the Russian.

Not strictly genealogy, but we need the language to do it.

Neil Voth

1877 Letter

I'm again needing help from my Old German Script reading people out there. My aunt sent my mother a letter that's dated 16 October 1877, but that's all I can read on it. We have no idea who it's from or who it's to and are hoping that someone out there can interpret it for us. My family would really appreciate any help we can get on this. (Edit: This letter was all on one sheet of paper, folded in half book style. I assumed that it was written book style, front and back, but I may be wrong. Pages 2 and 3 below were the center pages when the paper was opened and the 4th page would have been the left side with the 1st page when the letter was laid flat. One response that I have received questioned the writers fluency in German. I'm assuming that the person spoke the low German that my Mennonite ancestors spoke. I understand that there are enough differences as to make it difficult to be understood by someone that spoke the official German.)

Old German Gothic style

Thank you, Wendy, for sending me this translation key. I actually have a copy of it somewhere in my notebooks. I also have a copy of "Das A, B, C" somewhere, but I can't seem to put my hands on it. I looked for it a couple of days ago and it's not where I last recall seeing it.

For those of you that were unsure of what language some of the postcards were written in, you will be able to look at the following chart and see the straight, pointed lettering that is recognizable as German Gothic Script. I likened the spelling of my maiden name, Heinrichs, in German Gothic Script to "chicken scratches" because of all the sharp ups and downs in the writing of it. If you'd like a challenge, print out the chart and see if you can translate any of the postcard. Of course, you'll have to remember they're written in German, so it might help to have a German dictionary handy too.

More postcards to be posted shortly...