Oddly enough, like the seven dwarfs whistling while they worked, strenuous activity seemed more a source of pride and pleasure than any kind of burden. One might expect this from Calvinists or Catholics (works being evidence of election for the first and necessary for salvation for the second), but these were peasant farmer types of the Evangelical Lutheran variety among whom faith alone was sufficient for the afterlife. Faith alone, however, obviously did not suffice for a lengthy stay in this world on the storm swept steppes at the edge of the Black Sea in 19th Century Russia or the even more hostile Badlands of the Dakotas and Eastern Montana.
In these twin and sometimes grim environments, they did indeed sing and laugh and joke and even whistle while they worked. Among the last of those hardy pioneers, my Uncle Bill, will celebrate his 100th birthday on November 10. Some will say it's all a matter of good genes; others will point to the strength of religious belief; and others still will attribute it to hard work and clean living. And they will all be right. The life style (if such a term can be translated and applied) makes one coherent whole uniquely adapted, not only for survival, but for prosperity under the harsh and challenging conditions that faced this group of people.
Among their accomplishments after the Bubonic Plague took out a third or more of the population of Europe they: (1) lived and survived in the battle fields of 16th, 17th and 18th century Europe along the Rhine and the Danube; (2) migrated in large family groups down the Danube to the Black Sea in the mid and late 18th Century; (3) established large and prosperous farms that fed the rest of Russia; (4) migrated again to the most desolate regions of North America in the late 19th Century to avoid slaughter and extermination from rising Slavic nationalism followed by Bolshevik purges; and (5) established new farms that supplied 80 percent of several U.S. grain crops by 1900.
The first migration from Wuertemberg to the Black Sea was not a leisurely raft float down the Danube. Many died en route of cholera. Many of those who survived the trip died during the first harsh winters and the failure of the Russian Czars to deliver on the assistance promised in exchange for settling and populating the lands that had recently been wrested from the Ottoman Empire. They did, however, deliver for a time on the promises of freedom to worship, exemption from military service and the right to hold and transfer to their children cultivated land. They maintained their ethnic identity, their language and their chiliastic religious beliefs (at least until the predicted apocalypse in 1826 failed to materialize).
The Siegle and Holzwarth families settled in the Black Sea village of Hoffnungstal. Their houses were immediately next to one another, and were built to withstand the hard winters as well as the scorching heat of the summers.
Uncle Bill and his immediate family were among the last groups to leave the Black Sea colony of Hoffnungstal after the horrific purges had already begun. Like many others who escaped, they made a long trek back to Germany and then booked third class passage aboard an immigrant ship from Breman to New York. They came on the Neckar, a sister ship of the Main depicted here.
The conditions on such immigrant ships improved measurably in the last decades of the 19th Century, but the Neckar hardly qualified as a luxury liner. Operated by the North German Lloyd Line, the ship was built by J. C. Tecklenborg & CO., Geestemunde, Germany. With a gross tonnage of 9,835 and about one and two thirds of a football field in length (499' x 58'), it is a bit difficult to imagine how it carried 370 second and 3,000 third class passengers. We know from the ship manifest, however, that Wilhelm Siegle was aboard when the Neckar arrived in New York on April 7, 1912 in the company of his father Christian (age 29), his mother Margaretha (age 32), brother Johann (11 years and 3 months)and Leontine (2 years and 7 months). Wilhelm was four years, five months and 2 days old upon arrival.
The typical dwellings first built on the homesteads in the Dakota did not differ much from those left behind in Russia. In fact, neighbors continued to be neighbors, and the name of the church -- Hoffnunstal, German for Valley of Hope -- continued unchanged in the Dakotas.
Compared to the alternative, the trek out of Russia and the ocean voyage was not much of an ordeal. The official Soviet history gives a chillingly banal account of the slaughter and oppression that soon after extinguished the colony:
"The village [of Hoffnungstal] had its origin during the latter part of the 18th century. Its first residents were Ukrainians and Moldavians. In the beginning of the 19th century the German colonists began to settle. In the summer of 1919, the wealthy colonists staged an uprising against Soviet authority. The revolt was crushed by regiments of the Red Army assisted by the local poor populace. In 1920 a party organization was established. After the Great Patriotic War residents from the western Ukraine came to Tsebrikovo. Near the village are many ancient burial mounds."
Now back to the title of this piece: "Work makes living sweet." So much a part of the ethic and culture of this enterprising group, I doubt that it took more than a minute of discussion before it became the motto of Germans from Russia Heritage Society on a seal also depicting a sod house next to a plow and a windwill.
Happy 100th Birthday, Uncle Bill!
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