AR letter to his children

Arthur G. Rempel

Walla Walla, Washington

1993

A letter to My Children

Seventy years ago this winter, I arrived in the United States of America from Russia. The previous years of revolution, war and famine in the Ukraine of south Russia where we lived, had brought death to my mother and father, as well as to my oldest brother Heinrich and my younger brother Rudi. We did not have enough to eat during this period of famine and many people in our area were starving. At that time, my aunt Margaret and uncle Wilhelm Neufeld, who had left our village in the Ukraine about ten to twelve years earlier to move to the United States, came back to Gnadenfeld to bring food to the starving people. Many of whom were their friends and relatives. Because our family had suffered so much, especially in the loss of both parents, as well as two sons, our uncle and aunt Neufeld offered to take us with them to America when they returned to their home in Reedley, California in the autumn and winter of 1922. Uncle Wilhelm and aunt Margaret Neufeld had made great sacrifices in order to work in the famine relief program in the Ukraine and now they took on this special burden to bring my sister Evangeline and my brothers and me out of Russia, from Gnadenfeld in the Ukraine to Reedley, California in America. I am forever deeply indebted to them and eternally grateful for all they and their family have done for me.

In recent years, I have become increasingly interested in my own background, in getting to know more about my relatives and in learning about my parents and their ancestors. By reading: (i) the “Reminiscences” of Anna Rempel Dyck, my nephew Rudy Dyck’s paternal grandmother, (ii) by consulting a page of the Personal-Buch der Gnadenfeld Gemeinde, the congregational record book of the Gnadenfeld church in the Ukraine, (iii)  by gleaning fascinating information from a long letter written to her nephew in 1966 by Mascha Janzen Story of Tillamook, Oregon, (iv) by correspondence and conversations with my cousins, especially Frieda Regehr of Munich, Germany and Lina (Evangeline) Artes of Winnipeg, Canada (v) by searching through Heritage Remembered by Gerhard Lohrenz and (vi) In the Fullness of Tie: 150 Years of Mennonite Sojourn in Russia by Walter Quiring and Helen Bartel. I have been able to put together a bit of the story of our Rempel heritage. Similarly learning from my cousins and from the Mennonite Encyclopedia, I was able to tell a little about my mother’s family and her background and ancestors.

My Rempel Heritage

A century before our family left Gnadenfeld in the Ukraine of South Russia to live in Reedley, California, in America, my great-great grandparents, Dietrich (Dick) Rempel and his wife Helene Penner Rempel were living on the delta of the Vistula River in Prussia, an area that has since become a part of northern Poland.  On their farm property at Kalthof (Kaldova), near the city of Malbork, the Dietrich Rempels had a large barn, which at the end of the eighteenth century served as the site of the first Mennonite Missionary Festival celebrated in that area. At Kalthof, the Dietrich Rempels also owned a brick factory.

Dietrich and Helene Rempel raised a large family including several sons, of which two, would eventually participate in the migration to the Molochnaya colony in the Ukraine, not far from the northern shore of the Sea of Azov. But before migrating to the Ukraine, Johannes Rempel moved to the city of Koenigsberg on the shore of the Baltic Sea and there developed and owned a leatherwares business. In 1834, while living in Koenigsberg, Johannes married Eva Sudermann, who had come from the Lase estate in West Prussia. The family lived on the upper floor of the two-story house while harnesses, saddles, boots, shoes, etc. were made and sold on the ground floor.

Long before, in 1763, Catherine the Great, in the early beginning of her reign, had promulgated the policy of inviting farmers from western Europe to settle newly acquired lands along the Volga River. This pro-immigration policy of the Russian government continued well into the nineteenth century. Many Germans had already established thriving colonies along the Volga, and now in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries new lands were being made available along the Dnieper River and in the Ukraine steppe north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

During the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Mennonites of Holland experienced cruel and relentless persecution. Starting about 1530 many of them left their homeland to settle in the delta of the Vistula River near the Free City of Danzig. Now, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, their descendents were finding themselves more and more restricted by land scarcity and increasingly suppressed by government policies directed against their anti-military religious beliefs. Thus much discussion occurred among Mennonite congregations about the land availability and colonizing opportunities in the Ukraine.   This was especially so since the Russian government also promised these settlers full religious freedom, including exemption from military service in perpetuity.

The first colonists seeking to establish a new homeland in the Molochna River area left Prussia in 1803. They first made their way south to the older colony of Mennonites at Khortiza on the lower part of the Dnieper River. From there they sent out scouts to assess the available lands to the east and south of the Molochna River. When the scouts brought back reports of open, treeless country with deep black and fertile soil, the wagon train continued east and south as spring weather conditions permitted travel. After crossing the river, they established the first town and villages of the Molochna Colony on the left bank of this small river.

Our Rempel forebears left Prussia in the late 1830’s. My great grandfather’s older brother Abraham Rempel, then about 38 years old, left Prussia in 1836. He became one of the first settlers in the founding of Gnadenfeld. This village was located in a newer, more easterly addition to the Molochnaya land grant, just to the east of the original settlements and contiguous them.

Widowed and with four small children, Abraham Rempel remarried at the age of 44. His second wife was Elizabbeth Goerz, a young woman of seventeen, who apparently had a younger lover nearer her age. Nevertheless, she bowed to family pressure to become the wife of this well-established pioneer. Their daughter, Anna Rempel Dyck, is the grandmother of Rudy Dyck of Palo Alto, California.

My great grandfather, Johannes Rempel of Koenigsberg, also responded to the colonizing opportunities in the Molochnaya, and disposing of his leather wares business, made the trip to the Ukraine in the autumn and winter of 1838-1839. His oldest son Aron had been born in 1835 and Dietrich in 1837. Being too young to be taken on such an arduous wagon journey, little Dietrich was left with his aunt, Sara Rempel Stephan. The Stephans lived in Marienburg, where they were the owners of an iron wares business. Having no children of their own they adopted little Dietrich into their family. As an infant, this little boy was cared for by a Mrs. Maria Weibe of Riesenburg.

Living in Gnadenfeld, Johannes and Margarethe Eva Rempel had a son Gustav in 1840 and another son Johannes in 1842. Some time after the birth of Johannes, Margarethe died.

Johannes Rempel Sr., now made arrangements with the family of his older brother, Abraham, to take care of little Johannes. He himself now made a return trip to Prussia, taking his older son Aron and his younger son Gustav with him. The destination of this wagon journey was Marienburg, where his sister, Sara R. Stephan and her husband, who had already adopted his second son, Dietrich, resided. Now, young Gustav was also left with his aunt and uncle Stephan, where he continued to live until he completed the eight-year school in 1857 and studied piano with his older brother Dietrich.

Apparently, before his return trip to Gnadenfeld, Johannes Rempel drove back to Koenigsberg. In any case, he brought the money for building the church in Gnadenfeld from Koenigsberg. He freighted the bronze chandelier for the Gnadenfeld church from Koenigsberg as well as the brass hinges and locks for the doors, a candle lighter and wall lights with reflectors as large as a dinner plate to illuminate the church. He also brought along the silver communion cups from Koenigsberg. For his time, he was a well educated man who spoke to his children in high German at home.

Abraham and Johannes Rempel were among the first landowners in Gnadenfeld, each purchasing a unit of approximately 165 access for farming operations. Mrs. Johannes Rempel also bought three similar farming tracts, one for each of her three sons: Aron, Gustav and Johannes who grew up to be permanent residents of the Molochnaya colony.

In 1846, four years after the death of his first wife, Johannes Rempel married 23 year old Katarina Dyck, who like himself, had been born in Prussia. By the time of Johannes’ death in 1857, he and Katerina had five children: Herman (born in 1847), Abraham (born in 1849), Sara (born in 1851), Anna (born in 1853 and Nicolai (born in 1855.

In 1859, his widow then married Benjamin Bekker from Poland and they then raised another family of five children.

A very interesting and fascinating story of the fortunes of two sons of Johannes Rempel and of their descendents was shared with me by way of my cousins Frieda Rempel Regehr of Munich, Germany and Lina (Evangeline) Rempel Artes of Winnipeg, Canada.

It seems that at the time these brothers were growing into maturity in Gnadenfeld, the Frranz Goerz family lived in the nearby village of Rudnerweide. Several girls were growing up in the Goerz family and so it came to pass that Gustav Rempel and Anna Goerz had fallen deeply in love. They were about to announce their engagement when Gustav’s older brother, Aron, learned about their plans. Apparently Aron wasted no time in making it clear to Gustav and Anna that he, Aron, had already asked Father Goertz for the hand of his daughter, Anna. And that he had received her father’s permission and blessing and that, therefore, he should marry Anna! In those days, a father had a great deal to say about whom his daughter would marry, and so Anna Goertz came to be the wife of Aron Rempel.

A few years passed, and Sara, another daughter of the Goertz family, blossomed into maturity and now Gustav fell in love with her and she with him. The Rempel brothers then married two Goertz sisters. Aron and Anna Rempel are my grandparents and Gustave and Sara Rempel are the grandparents of my cousins, Frieda Regehr and Lina Artes. These cousins of mine and I are therefore second cousins twice over, since our grandfathers were brothers and our grandmothers were sisters. Additionally, we are also first cousins, since our mothers, both daughters of Missionary Heinrich Dirks and Agnetha Schroeder Dirks, were sisters. Spending their childhood as missionary children in the village of Pakantan on the quarter in Sumatra, these girls and their older siblings also had a very special kind of childhood.