Sister letters 1926

Gnadenfeld, 14 February, 1926

Beloved Brothers and Sister!

Since Uncle Heinrich invited me to include a note with his letter, I gladly want to do that. Kolja is sleeping now, and little Artur also. Jasch has gone to an evening program at the high school. Poppenberger to his fiance, and Maria has also gone visiting. It is Sunday. This afternoon we were at Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Marichen’s and Johann Dirks’. I only had little Artur with me. Kolja remained with Maria. He is a very healthy child. He is not yet half a year old and already sits up straight. He is also very cheerful. When he is on my arm, he jumps almost all the time and turns his little head. Oh how gladly I would love to show you our boys some time! Why are you so frightfully far away? When one thinks about it, one feels like emigrating, and then again we think who knows whether we would have it any better there? Here, we do have our own yard and house, and also the possibility to manage something. Who knows how it would be over there? 

We ordered a tractor some time ago, but so far we do not know whether we will be able to get it. When a shipment arrives, they are always quickly taken. Very many tractors are now being sold here. 

Now I must write to you something sad, namely that Ponye, our old faithful house companion, is dead. I want to write more precisely how it happened. A mad dog, of which there are very many here now, had britten him very badly. Therefore, so as not to be in danger of being bitten by him, we had to shoot him. It saddens us very much, and I believe that it will still make you sad as well. Isn’t that true?

Grandmother is already impatiently awaiting death. A while ago, she was quite ill and suffered from bed sores in spite of millet pillows. Now that is again better, but her legs are quite swollen and her stomach can hardly tolerate even the gentlest diet. 

My Jasch’s foot is still not fully healed, though I always keep hoping that the dear God will make him well again. Otherwise, we are all in good health.

Lina, the kitchen curtains must be very pretty. I also very much wish for some for the large room. There the old tassel curtains from Aunt Mairichen are still hanging, but they are already very bad,

How strange that you now have to have the lamps burning by day? Do you not have electricity in your house? Who owns the parlor organ? Really not you? We would very much like to have one, or even rather a piano. But for the granting of that wish, many drops will have to flow into the sea. 

Temple’s Sara is almost engaged, only that she has not quite promised. He is a widower without any of his own, but with four foster children. He is a Gnadenfelder, professionally a blacksmith, and for a time a preacher, named Heinrich Unruh.Sara does not feel strong enough to marry, and also has many other reasons that so far he has not refuted with persuasive answers. 

By Easter time Anna will return home as a trained nurse. In order to recover for a half, or even for an entire year. She must also work for another year for practical training.

Gnadenfeld, 3 June 1926

Much beloved Brothers and Sister!

You all look so good in the pictures and also so happy. May you really be so! Do you often wear glasses? Are your eyes not healthy? 

Here there have still only been a few very hot days. Usually it is cool. It could also rain some more. In wheat the Hessian fly is very common. The glasses, Dietz, you must just be wearing as a joke. Now, though, I must tell you something very important. Organist Rempel’s Sara was married on the Sunday before Pentecost to the same Heinrich Unruh about whom I have already written. For a long time, she did not know whether she should do it. I do not believe that she will regret it.

Anna had come on furlough from Betania and we chatted a great deal. She still does not have a fiance, and is free enough. On Pentecost, she received her bonnet, the badge of a trained nurse. She is still the old Anna, only perhaps a little more purposeful. The work with the patients is very promising for her and she says she is very happy. She is in the same room as Marichen Bartel. Rempel’s Heinrich very much wants her as his wife, as Marichen Braun has told me. 

Have you already heard that Aunt Alida Dirks has died? She died quite suddenly of a stroke or of heart failure, I do not know exactly. Only three days earlier she had a very frightful headache, so that she thought she was dying. She had discussed it all in detail with Uncle Hermann, also regarding  Lottchen’s further upbringing. She is to go to the Baltic provinces to visit her aunt’s and to attend school there. Uncle Herman is now in Moscow, about this matter, to get the required papers, and to pick up the travel money that the relatives have sent there. Then he wants to take her there. Aunt Alida died shortly before Easter and is buried in Ohrloff. Soon thereafter Uncle Hermann, together with Lottchen, moved in with Uncle Henrich and Aunt Marichen, where they will live now. There he became deathly ill but was able to leave the sick bed three weeks later. He is suffering from gallstones.

Otherwise, everything is as of old. This spring Jasch has plowed very much for other people and also for us with the tractor. Peter Loewens, we, and the Poppenbergers bought one together. 

The children are healthy and fat. Kolja can really crawl now, and walk along a bench. I believe he will soon be able to run. When he is not crying he is always very merry. When he stands in his little wagon, he jumps so hard that one fears that he will fall out. He already babbles a lot, like “da-da, baba, mama” and a lot of other idle child-talk. Artur is usually quiet and plays nicely. Kolja wants to be entertained much more. Artur is already able to talk a lot, runs to Brauns a few times every day, where Suse and Greta gladly play with him. He likes Aunt Leta (Greta) best, but he enjoys Aunt June (Suse) as well. Willy Braun’s Martha is also a smart, active little girl: only she and Artuur often fight over the toys. It is so sad that they do not have any grandmother. So often, I wish for that.

Five days later. Yesterday was Jasch’s 27th birthday. For that reason we had many guests on DSunday, all the relatives and their children. Sunday evening, Jasch and I went to hear the radio. We heard parts from the opera, “Boris Godonov” from Moscow. From Prague we heard “O Taeler weit, O Hehen” (Oh Valleys broad, O heights) sung by a mixed choir, as well as the song about the old beatle, sung by a men’s choir. Also various things from Breslau, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Ekaterinoslav and Leningrad. You see, Russia also has many modern amenities. We always want to have our picture taken but there are always so many necessary expenditures that one always has to wait with that. 

This year, there will be only a few plums to eat and none to preserve, which for me, is very regrettable. But perhaps there will be more apples, as in the previous year.

Our old grandmother is still living. Her care is becoming quite difficult. Marichen is fearful that her caretaker will not stay but will suddenly want to leave. For that matter, she does her job very well. The Braun’s are very satisfied with her.

I just remembered. At Remple’s Sara’s wedding, Miss Katja Reimer requested that I ask you where Miss Lieschen Schroeder resides. She has not written to her for a long time. Is she not very far from you?

The day before yesterday, Aunt Greta Schroeder appeared here with Aunt Marichen Dirks. She was calling on all her acquaintances to bid farewell. She and Aunt Marichen Schroeder, the widow, soon plan to go to Saskatchewan. She said I should write this to you. 

Yesterday evening and during the night, it was raining and I always have to watch that Artur does not run outdoors. For that matter, he has already fallen into the mud two times. Now he is standing beside me and begging “Mama, please, please, boat”. 

What do you know about Uncle Aron Rempel? Greet everyone at the Neufelds.

Gnadenfeld, 13 August, 1926

My dear Brothers and Sister!

Here it is threshing time and especially busy. After our threshing was done, Jasch drove the tractor and machine to thresh for other farmers. Altogether, he wants to thresh at 13 places. Now he is at the 10th. Then it goes on to plowing with the tractor, first for us, then for earnings, and so for a while yet, Jasch will always be away the whole day long. He only gets home at night, and then he is so tired that he goes right to bed. Although the prospect looks good, the harvest is about average, so that for many it will be tight. We will have enough to eat, but buying furniture, acquiring sufficient linen items and kitchenware, that will have to wait. 

Poppenberger is still with us but we are hoping that in the fall he will finally marry Hannchan Neufeld and move there. He never talks about marrying although they already signed up over a month ago. We will rejoice when we can again be alone in charge of our premises and then we want to arrange it more comfortably for us. As it is now, it is too difficult for Jasch. I, too, am always so busy that I have to neglect what is most urgent. Maria is almost never at home, always in the field, and then I am alone to tend the children, to make meals, and to clean up. The sewing and mending then remains untended. Then I just mend Jasch’s work clothes in the evening when the children are sleeping. For the winter, we want to hire a girl to help care for the children and also a stable boy. Now, for example, there are three Russian workers and Maria. With the addition of Jasch and Poppenberger and the children, there are always nine people to cook for. Sometimes that gets pretty stale for me. But, as I said, when we are alone again, we want to make it more comfortable> But not now so much, and rather look for other earnings more conducive for Jasch. Well, that is enough complaining! I really had intended never to do so, and this almost looks like that way.

At last, we are sending you a little picture of little Artur, but his being photographed happened entirely without our knowledge. The singers were being photographed at the Brauns and, as usual, he was there, and Greta took him upon her lap and said “This one also gets in”. Artur can now say almost everything, only still not “K” or “R”. In the evening, when he hears the tractor, he says, “Daddy is coming already”.  Kola is also a very dear child. Now he will soon be a year old. He cannot yet walk by himself, but one can already lead him by the hand. Also, he is already making attempts to speak.  I had Marichen Braun sew them each a red satin romper. They look very nice in them. The other day, it began to rain and during the night it rained very much. It had not rained for a long time. The dust on the street was already a hand’s width in depth. Now I want to go over to Braun’s for a bit. 

I saw Aunt Marichen and Lottchen go there and Artur is already there. I am taking Kolja with me. Do you know, Aunt Varja has gone to Simferopol with Vadjim and Olja and really does not want to return. She was almost always quarreling with Uncle Hans, and now also with Uncle Hermann, where however, Aunt Varja was mainly to blame. Still, may she just return. Uncle Hermann is often ill with malaria fever, and also has gallstones. He feels that he will die soon, especially since, as he maintains, Aunt Alida appeared to him when he was lying fully awake and said to him that she would fetch him.But probably he only saw her in his fever hallucinations. Grandmother has been sick for some time (diarrhea). She is so impatient that she does not die. Sometimes she says, “I do not want to lose hope, sometimes I almost have to. The Savior does not want me”. If only she could stand at the door in heaven, and so on, and then, in a pleading voice she calls for death. Sometimes she says we must help her die. It is hardly tolerable to hear her moan and ask, and all efforts to tell her that the Savior has long accepted her does not help anymore. May she soon be able to go to her rest! The caretaker has it very difficult, as do the Brauns. She can no longer swallow solid food, can only drink and still has such a hunger for this and that. Sometimes, everything is mixed up for her, but at other times, she knows everything in detail. For example, the birthdays of our children. 

Rempel’s Sara, Mrs. Unruh has had such a painful finger the last few weeks so she was not able to receive your letter. Anna is now on furlough, and does not quite know yet whether she should remain at home or return to Betania. Mika urges her to stay, and I would also be delighted if I could have my old friend here again.