Mrs. Amalie (nee Fuchs) Klein Timothy J. Kloberdanz September 18 and 21, 1975

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Mrs. Amalie (nee Fuchs) Klein Timothy J. Kloberdanz September 18 and 21, 1975

140 North McKinley Street, Fort Collins, Colorado

Original tape (3) 1 copy of tape (3) Photographs:

l. Amalie Klein at her home

2. Amalie Klein picking blackberries Transcript

Index

Vital History and Prefatory Note Text

300-347 Tape 1, Side A deleted at request of narrator - not under seal,

however.

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INDEX

Meter Page Subject Material

TAPE #1, SIDE A

001 i-iii Introduction; vital history 023 2 Volga Germans in Batum; Baku

045 3 Houses in colony of Hussenbach (types of)

058 4 Germans settle in Batum at urging of Russian govern ment, circa 1891

086 5 Baku experiences; city divided into the "white" and

"Black" sections; different peoples in Baku; wit nessed a religious sect who "chopped their heads"

on May 8; criminal element in Baku

148 8 Family emigrates from Russia to United States; early

experiences in:

154 8 Philadelphia, Pa. (port of)

170 9 Lincoln, Neb.

189 9 Scottsbluff , Neb.

212 11 Hastings, Neb.

221 11 Proctor, Colo.

278 13 Crook, Colo.

296 14 Fort Collins, Colo.

300-346 --deleted-

348 14 Baku; Baptist German church in;

371 15 Lutheran church in Hussenbach

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Meter Page Subject Material

Tape #1, Side A (Continued)

389 15 Recollections of "very Christian" mother and Baptist church in Baku

404 16 village of Hussenbach (lay-out) 423 16 Baku; church and German people in

469 18 Family leaves Baku in 1903

TAPE #1, SIDE B

002 18 Recollections of Baku

036 20 Experience while sailing on Caspian Sea

048 21 Astrakhan (recollections of) and summer visits to

Hussenbach

065 22 Life in Baku (foods, etc.)

071 22 Recollections of father ("quite an expert") 084 23 Summer trip from Baku to home in Hussenbach 118 24 Memories of Volga River

130 25 Recollections of two brothers buried in Batum and Baku 155 26 Gardens and produce in Hussenbach; recollections of

surrounding countryside and communal pasture

210 28 German attitudes toward Russian government and Czar;

father's cousin a guard in St. Petersburg 250 30 Memories of threshing grain in Russia

291 31 Feelings toward neighboring Russians as illustrated by

specific anecdote

335 33 Opinion of Russian military law

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Meter Page Subject Material

Tape #1, Side B (Continued)

355 33 Russo-Japan War recollections

388 34 Occupation of father who was "raised in Russian village and learned to read and write Russian"

406 35 Russian school in Hussenbach

445 36 Mother experienced vision which influenced family's

decision to emigrate to America

TAPE #2, SIDE A

002 37 Sponsor in Lincoln, Nebraska (George Borgen) wrote letter to Fuchs family to encourage their emigration to America 012 38 Journey from Hussenbach to train station at Russian city

of Kamyshinga; train trip across Russia 034 39 Parents' notions of life in New World

052 40 vague recollections of trip across Russia to Hamburg 063 41 Impressions of stay in Germany; experiences with High

German language

096 43 Village school in Hussenbach

126 43 Russian influence and teacher in Hussenbach school 143 44 Attitudes toward Czar and Russian schooling

185 49 Confirmation in Hussenbach

200 49 Church in Hussenbach; village divided into "Oberdorf"

and "Unterdorf"

214 50 Two week voyage to U.S.; family experiences on vessel

"Prince Oscar"

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Meter Page Subject Material

Tape #2, Side A (Continued)

276 53 1300 rubles accumulated by Fuchs family before leaving

Russia

285 53 Train ride from Philadelphia to Lincoln, Nebraska

(Second session with Mrs. Klein, September 21, 1975)

295 54 Introduction

300 54 Review of earlier recollections; experiences in Baku

320 55 1895 fire in village of Hussenbach; twenty houses destroyed

393 58 Land division in Hussenbach

TAPE #2, SIDE B

003 60 Size of families in Hussenbach

050 64 Catherine the Great and history of German settlement in

Russia

066 64 Letters written to people in America before family left

Russia

089 67 Family sails from Russia to U.S.

142 69 Early experiences in Nebraska and Colorado 169 70 Beet field recollections; child labor 239 73 Beets in Russia (garden type only)

280 75 Attitudes toward child labor laws in America

300 76 Recollections of W.W. I discrimination against Germans from Russia in Scottsbluff, Nebraska; men attacked and

beaten because they spoke German

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Meter Page_ Subject Material

Tape #2, Side B (Continued)

373 78 Klein family moves from Scottsbluff to Hastings, Nebraska, after family dog is poisoned

448 81 Called "Rooshuns" by some Americans

TAPE #3, SIDE A

002 82 Church among early Germans from Russia in Colorado 018 82 Attitudes toward German language in America during

W.W. I and W.W. II

021 83 Husband works as section hand on railroad in Hastings, Nebraska

036 83 Starts farming in Colorado; employ Mexicans as beet workers; relations with Mexicans

081 85 Family's attitudes toward Old Country after settling in America; news of relatives i n post-Revolution Russia

169 90 Attitudes toward recent changes in America; young generation

190 91 Interest of grandchildren in their ancestry 209 91 Advice for living a good life ("Work is the best

medicine for anybody.")

258 93 End of interview

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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW

Mrs. Amalie (nee Fuchs) Klein 140 North McKinley Street

Fort Collins, Colorado

by

Timothy J. Kloberdanz

on

September 18 and 21, 1975

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PREFATORY NOTE

Amalie Klein was contacted through a daughter, Mrs. Don (Peggy) Stumpf of Fort Collins. On September 15, 1975, Mrs. Stumpf

telephoned Professor Sidney Heitman (coordinator of the Germans from Russia in Colorado Study Project at CSU) and suggested that her mother, who remembered many details about life in the "Old Country,"

be interviewed by someone on our staff. Of special interest was the fact that Amalie Klein's early experiences included a lengthy

sojourn in Baku, a city on the Caspian Sea that was located several hundred miles southeast of her native Volga German colony of

Hussenbach. Since Amalie Klein was sixteen years old at the time she and her family left Russia, her recollections of the early years in America were thought by her daughter to be especially vivid ones.

During two interview sessions on September 18 and September 25, 1975, I spent approximately seven hours with Amalie Klein at her home in Fort Collins. Of this time, two hours and twenty minutes were actually recorded on tape. When I initially met Mrs. Klein and informed her that her recollections would be preserved on tape she was reticent to allow all of her story to be recorded. This hesitancy apparently stemmed from some of her past experiences which she felt were too personal to be made public. Her wishes for confidentiality have been respected and only those recollections which she wished to openly discuss are included in the following pages. A few passages have been deleted (owing to their private nature) and the names of

i

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specific persons have sometimes been omitted at Amalie Klein's request.

Generally, I was impressed with Mrs. Klein's keen memory and especially her desire for exactness. Many times during the

interview she would pause and carefully consider the answer she-was about to give. At other times she was unashamed to reply that she could not remember or offer specific details about particular

experiences. I came to respect this sense of integrity Amalie Klein exhibited and which she herself felt was so essential to discover

-Timothy J. Kloberdanz

/kb

ii

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VITAL HISTORY

Name of Interviewee: Amalie (nee Fuchs) Klein

Address: 140 North McKinley Street, Fort Collins, Colorado Birthdate: September 24, 1895

Birthplace: Hussenbach (Volga/Berg_seite), Russia (Linewo Osero, Russian name)

Parents: Henry and Anna Elizabeth (nee Suppes) Fuchs Birthplace of parents: Hussenbach, Russia

Married: Fred /Friedrich/ Klein

Place of Marriage: Scottsbluff, Nebraska Date of Marriage: June 18, 1916

Emigrated to U.S.: May 27, 1911--Philadelphia, Pa.

Vessel: Prince Oscar

Came to Colorado: September 21, 1925--Proctor area

Interviewer: Timothy J. Kloberdanz

Position: Research Associate/Germans from Russia Project

Date(s) of Interview: September 18, 1975 and September 21, 1975 Place of Interview: 140 North McKinley Street, Fort Collins, Colorado

10-7-75 kb

iii

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Today is Thursday, September 18, 1975. It is 1:50 p.m. in the afternoon. This is Timothy J. Kloberdanz, Research Associate for the Germans from Russia in Colorado Study Project at CSU, and I am about to interview Mrs. Klein at her home on 140 North McKinley Street, Fort Collins, Colorado.

TJK What is your full name?

AK Amalie.

TJK Amalie. What was your maiden name?

AK Fuchs.

TJK Your parents were--their names?

AK Henry and Anna Elizabeth.

TJK They were from Hussenbach?

AK Hussenbach, both of them.

TJK What was your husband's name?

AK Fred Klein.

TJK You were born in Hussenbach?

AK In Hussenbach, ja.

(12)

TJK In what year?

AK 1895.

TJK The month and the day?

AK September 24th.

TJK Do you remember your grandparents names, at all?

AK I can remember mother's names--his name is George Suppes, and her

mother was Catherine Elizabeth. But my grandpa died--they pulled a

tooth and he got lockjaws and bled to death.

TJK In what year, about, was that now.

AK That was--mama was still young--she was only about 15 years old.

That would have been way back in, I don't know, maybe in 1810,

something like that.

TJK You talk about Baku, how was it that your people made it down to

Baku, in that area?

AK They left Batum [Batumi?] because of the poor living conditions.

They went to Baku. Dad and his brothers run a taxi line. Dad worked

with them about a year and then we went back home and he bought

this windmill in Andreovka and he made flour, milled flour, for

about a year. Then he didn't like that, so we went back to Baku,

and then he worked for this slaughterhouse as a gatekeeper,

(13)

which was called, in Russia, "boinia." They let everybody in and

out of the gate with the gate locked. It was unsafe in that

vicinity. It really was. Then he worked two years for that

slaughter building as a gatekeeper. Then we went back to Hus-

senbach. He had a log house built for us, because it was time for

us children to go to school and we went to school till I was

fifteen, almost fifteen, and then I was confirmed before we came

to this country.

TJK The log house--was that built by the people in Hussenbach?

AK By the Russian people, Russian carpenters. It was a nice home.

TJK Were most of the homes in Hussenbach log cabins, or...?

AK No, there was quite a few brick cabins. My grandmother married a

man by the name of Heinbiechner and he owned a brick yard, they

[word not clear], where they dyed the fabrics, and where they

tanned the hides. He owned this, he was rich, he owned all that.

There was a lot of brick houses with tin roofs, a lot of them had

straw roofs.

TJK Like thatched roofs, yes.

AK Which was dangerous to fire hazard. There was a lot of brick

houses and good built. Hussenbach was a pretty rich village,

that's why it was called a village.

(14)

TJK Let's back up a little bit. When was it that your family went

down in the area on the Caspian Sea to the Batum area? Just

roughly.

AK Roughly... in 1891.

TJK How did they find out--living in Hussenbach--to go there?

AK The settlements, the people had settled there. The government

had persuaded some of these people to go down there and resettle

that.

TJK You mean Germans had settled that years before?

AK Yes, I mean, Hussenbach had been there. The Russian government

persuaded people to go down there and reinhabitate, rebuild,

that section of Batum. Then they didn't like it so they went to

Baku where his brothers were, see?

TJK Do you have any idea when this first settlement was down there

by German people? That must have been years and years ago.

AK In Hussenbach?

TJK No, in the Batum area.

AK Well, that was about it, because Jacob was born down there. He

was two years older than I am and I was born in '95 and I don't

know how long they were there before he was born.

(15)

TJK Jacob was your brother, now?

AK The second one. The oldest one died right there and was buried

there. Jake was the second one in '93 and I was born in '95.

TJK Were all the Germans in the Batum area from Hussenbach, or were

they from different villages?

AK That I couldn't tell you.

TJK Do you have any idea how many were there?

AK It seems like it was forty families they persuaded to go ... of the

Germans. See, they thought a lot of the German people, the German

people are good workers. They wanted to build up that section.

TJK What kind of land was there that they wanted to build up?

AK There was a lot of fruit forests.

TJK Did they want them to work in the forests?

AK That I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you more about Baku. Then

we went to Baku and dad got in with his brothers and worked with

them a while. He got tired of seeing all the crime that was going

on, and killing. We went back home, and was home and run this

windmill, bought a windmill in this Russian town Uderga. That was

two miles from Chikmenovka, and Chikmenovka was a short ways from

Frankere-Chutor. See, Frank was a big village. There

(16)

was some settlers went there and made a little settlement there and

they called it Frankere-Chutor. That was not too far from

Hussenbach.

TJK How old were you when you left Baku and went back to Hussenbach?

AK About eight years old.

TJK You mentioned before you remembered Baku as being called the

"black" and the "white?"

AK Part of it was part oil, and part of it was a white, nice city. The

black part had oil wells galore. A lot of oil. Because we was so

close to Black Sea and the Black Sea, you looked over it and it

looked like a . . . that's why it was called Black Sea ... it had a

lot of oil under it. That's why it was called Black Sea.

TJK What kind of peoples lived in Baku?

AK This is comical, there was what is "Elisighen." There was Turks.

There was Arabians. There was Armeniens. And the Tatariens

[Tatars].

TJK The Germans, too, that came in.

AK And the Germans, and the Russians, and there was one sect, they had

a day in May, I believe it was May 8, they had a holiday. They

would gather up and have a white horse, cover that white

(17)

horse and they chopped their heads, they shaved their heads, they

chopped their heads, and the words they would say was, "Hakse,

vakse." I remember that. We used to go watch them. Some of them

died by chopping their heads.

TJK What kind of people were these, now?

AK I don't know which ones they were. They must have been the

Tatariens, I think. It was a heathen outfit. Every once in a

while-they were looking for the Holy Mary to come out from under

that white sheet, from under that white horse.

TJK How old were you when this happened?

AK About seven. It was just shortly before we . . . we went down to

see them once and mama said, "We'll never see that again." It was

sad.

TJK You talked too about the criminals. That was in the Batum area?

AK In Baku .

TJK In Baku, as well?

AK In Baku, in Batum I don't know too much about that. The criminals

where they went, dad used to walk to town early in the morning.

He'd say they found one dead here, and one dead there, beside the

road. And even when mama and Jake and I and John was a baby, he

was born down there, we'd walk in to see the aunts and uncles.

(18)

We'd see them lay there dead. Got scared to death, we walked.

. . well, it was two versts* they called it in Russia, which is less than two miles. I think it took 3 versts to make two miles, so you see that wasn't too far. We'd go in Baku once a week to see the aunts and uncles.

TJK Did the German people pretty well stick together in Baku?

AK Oh ja. Ja. There was several of them. There was one girl worked down there, her name was Elisabeth Maehiing. Her folks both died in Hussenbach with "cholery" [cholera]. She had one brother, his name was Cooney. She wrote home to Cooney from Billings, Montana, if he could find a way to come to America to come. So my dad fixed that up and we brought this orphan boy with us to this country. We went... it took us three days to travel through Russia, three days through Germany, we had to lay three days in Hamburg, and then took us two weeks on the ocean. We went on the ship on Saturday afternoon, along 3:00 o'clock maybe, and two weeks later, Friday night, about 11:00 o'clock they stopped the big ship. They all went through an exam, and everybody--their eyes and they were vaccinated, and then at daybreak they started to haul people in to a port, Philadelphia. It was about 10:00 o'clock that two weeks later Saturday morning when we walked the gang planks, big boards, into Philadelphia in the barracks. Just great big high wooden structure. We were examined again and we had to show our money

*1 Russian verst = 3,500 feet

(19)

and trade our Russian money for American money. If we wouldn't

have had enough we couldn't have gone on. We would have to call

our sponsor in Lincoln, George Borgen. He would have had to send

us money, but we had enough and a little more than we needed. It

was a big family, there was eight of us children and this orphan--

nine, and mom and dad was eleven. When we got to Lincoln, then it

took us, I don't know, a couple of days I think, to get from

Philadelphia to Lincoln, Nebraska. When we hired this taxi man and

dad gave him the address and he stopped at Borgen's house. The man

went to the door and talked to the lady. He says "I brought you

some people from Russia." She says, "I don't want 'em, I don't

want 'em, I don't want anybody." She says, "Let me see the

address." She looked and she says, "They live on F Street, so the

man got back in his carriage and took us down to my cousin. She

come out and she was happy to see us and then we stayed there a

week and cleaned up. She knew we were coming. She had the water

hot in the bunk house and we had to shed our clothes, she had new

clothes for everyone, and I think she burned our clothes.

TJK Why did she do that?

AK Oh, they were scared of lice. She was so clean, you know. We

stayed there a week. Then I think the sugar company fetched us to

Scottsbluff to work beets.

(20)

TJK How did they do that? Was there an agent of the sugar company?

AK I think so. I don't think it cost us any money to go from Lincoln to

Scottsbluff.

TJK By train?

AK By train. And by train we were met again and taken to a place, his

name was Bill Oddy. He was a fellow from Germany. He had not too many

acres of beets, but that was the only place that was ... see, we

landed in Philadelphia May the 27th and by that time most of the

contracts were gone, the bigger ones. So, we had this small contract,

I believe twenty acres or so. Bill Oddy. He had traded for this land,

160 acres for a team of horses and a corn "shocking" [shucking]

wagon, he was telling us, and now that's probably worth $150,000. We

worked there that year and then we went to work for somebody else the

next year.

TJK How long were you in Scottsbluff?

AK I was in Scottsbluff five years and then I got married...

TJK In Scottsbluff?

AK In Scottsbluff. We went to the Congregational Church.

TJK That's where you met your husband?

(21)

AK Ja. Then we moved to Hastings, Nebraska and he worked for the

railroad. Burlington-Quincy.

TJK How long in Hastings, about?

AK About seven or eight years.

TJK From Hastings you went...

AK I got married in 1916, the 18th of June. In 1925, September

21st, we took off in the morning in Hastings about 8:00 ... we

had a car, a new Maxwell ... and we loaded up what we could and

our five children and we come to Proctor by Jake Lebsack. That

was Fred's brother-in-law. Just in time for supper. /Laughs./

TJK Proctor, Colorado.

AK Proctor, Colorado, uh huh. Then we lived in Colorado ever since.

TJK That was in what year again? In Proctor you arrived?

AK '25, 1925.

TJK There again you worked beets, right? Or...

AK No, we started to farming right away in '26. We lived with my

in-laws about from September till in November. She had ten

children, I had five. She worked beets with the ones that could

work. I cooked for 19 people. Sundays she would bake and

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during the week it was up to me ... to cook and bake and I know how

to cook. I cooked many of the Catholic weddings, you remember down

at Ovid, for three-four hundred people. Oh, ja. They had these

early morning weddings.

TJK And sometimes three days, did you cook for any of the...

AK Two days, and then that usually closed it up. I stayed, they

usually come and got me the night before and I got up in the

morning, five o'clock and they'd bring half a steer in tubs of

water. They'd peeled two sacks of potatoes, 100 lb. sacks of

potatoes. In the morning I got up and I'd put the meat on. They had

five-six stoves sitting around and then I, when it was time, maybe

ten o'clock, I'd put on the potatoes...by that time the wedding was

over. The young women would come in and took over. All I had to do

then was: "come on, cook, season this and season that." Oh, how

they used to think that I was the best cook.

TJK At that time in Proctor you were cooking for 19 people then. You

weren't working beets then.

AK Not that first fall. I was just keeping house for the Lebsack's and

my family. We lived together like one family for about two months,

from September, October, November. In November we moved into a

different house.

(23)

TJK That's still in Proctor yet?

AK Still in Proctor. Northwest of Proctor.

TJK How long did you remain in Proctor?

AK We farmed for 0. H. Conrad for seven years, that was about five

miles northwest of Proctor. Then when we quit there we moved on

Grady Cheairs' place.

TJK Yes, early pioneers in Sterling, the Cheairs.

AK Ja, the Cheairs. We farmed Grady's place for nine years. Then Fred

bought a cheap farm from old man Estes. He was retiring and he

couldn't handle it. That was closer to Proctor again. That was next

to Jeff Stewart's farm. We lived on that farm five years and then,

of course, he sold out and we quit.

TJK Then where did you go?

AK To the grocery store... in Crook, Colorado. We went into the

grocery store in Crook, and then he left in December, the 28th,

and I run it until May the 12th in 1951 ... myself, I and the kids.

TJK In 1951 you moved...

AK No, then I stayed in Crook till Peggy graduated, till '54. See,

she wanted to graduate--she got scholarship. John got scholarship.

Frieda, Rachel, Leah, they all got scholarships.

(24)

TJK They worked hard in school then?

AK Well, they didn't have to work hard. It was right there [she points to

her head].

TJK When did you leave Crook? In about what year?

AK When we left Crook we moved up here to Fort Collins, the 13th of June,

'54. I've been in Fort Collins ever since. I like Fort Collins.

300-347---deleted at request of narrator - not under seal, however.

TJK Let's go back now to Russia. Again to the Baku area. Was there a

German church in Baku?

AK Yes, there was. A Baptist church and we used to go to that Baptist

church where those two pictures come from that I showed you*. I got

one and my brother got one. It says on one, "I called you by thy name,

you are mine." This is German. And this says, "My child, when bad boys

try to persuade you don't follow them--Mein Kind, wenn dich die bose

Buben locken, so folge nicht," in German. [Proverbs 1:10] And the

other one says, "Ich habe dich bei deinem Namen gerufen, du bist

mein." [Jesse 43:1]

TJK You received these in Baku? From the Baptist Church there?

*These pictures were two small illustrations with a German Bible verse

printed beneath each one.

(25)

AK In Baku. From the Baptist Church.

TJK In Hussenbach...?

AK In Hussenbach we went to the Lutheran church. There was only

Lutherans in Hussenbach. The Frank and Hussenbach and some of

these villages was strictly Lutheran. The Catholic people, most of

them lived in Rothammel.

TJK That was near Hussenbach?

AK Well, it was a ways away, I don't know how far.

TJK It was the closest Catholic village, though?

AK It was maybe twenty miles, I don't know.

TJK All the rest were Lutheran, there were no Baptist churches then

[on the Volga?]

AK No.

TJK How did you ... did your parents feel any differently, you think,

being in a Baptist church in Baku, rather than being in a

Lutheran?

AK No, as long as my mother could go to church and sing and pray, in

German, that's all she wanted. My mother was a very Christian

woman. If it hadn't been for my mother I think our life wouldn't

have been what it turned out to be, because mother just trusted in

God with all her heart, from child on up, she says her father

(26)

taught her that. Was a very Christian man.

TJK That made her a strong woman, the faith, then.

AK It really made her faith strong. As long as she could go to church

and they had prayer meetings and everything...

TJK When the church met were there a large number of people that would

go to church, German people?

AK Oh, ja. The church was built in the middle of the village. There was

what they called "Unterdorf" and "Oberdorf." That's Hussenbach. They

all come from both ends to that, and the school house was in the

middle of that, the village, right in the middle. There was a broad

street and the church and the school house, big school house, and

the little children, the grown children had to go in the morning to

school and the bigger ones in the afternoon. We studied the bible

every day. You can ask me lot of things in this bible and I can find

it for you. Because we had to study it from cover to cover. In

Russia.

TJK Did you go to school in Baku?

AK No. Only to Sunday School.

TJK Do you remember, the German people who did go to the church in Baku,

were some of them people who had lived in Baku all their lives?

(27)

AK I would ...I couldn't tell you that. They did have this Brother

Stahlie, or minister, whatever he was. He came out and invited us to

come to his church.

TJK Was the church in Baku a large one?

AK I couldn't just remember, it's been so long ago. Now you take eight

years from 80-that's 72 years ago, and I just forgot a little bit. I

know there was Sunday School teachers and we had to learn the [words

not clear] A B C [word not clear], and go on from there.

TJK Were there any bad feelings, do you remember at all, toward the

Germans in Baku, from the...

AK No, no.

TJK Because you were asked to come there, right, by the government? That

they wanted you in the Batum area...

AK Well, they wanted us in the Batum area, and then we went to Baku

because people died there in Batum. Because of the-they had to go

out in the wilderness to catch their wild boars, pigs, bears.

TJK It wasn't really settled yet. It was still wild.

AK No, it wasn't. It was supposed to be settled by these Germans. They

trusted the Germans, but the Germans said they couldn't take

(28)

it because it was too ... well, I don't know whether they didn't

have nothing to work with, you know. That's 70 years, 72 years...

TJK And it was a wild area. There wouldn't have been very much.

AK That's right.

TJK When your family left Baku, what year was it again? When they went

back to Hussenbach.

AK When we went back to Hussenbach? I was eight. (Pause) What year

would that have been?

TJK You were born in what year?

AK '95. (Pause)

TJK That would have been about 1903.

AK About 1903. That's right. Ask me about the streets-how the streets

were laid out [in Baku].

TJK Oh, do you remember how the streets were laid out?

AK The streets were laid out in cobblestones. When the horses that,

streetcar was pulled by a horse with a bow on top with a gong in it,

a bell, and when they hit those cobblestones, fire fly, you know.

TJK Oh, because of the shoes on the horses?

(29)

AK Because of the shoes, the horses were shod, oh ja. We used to drive

through town to my aunt's and uncle's.

TJK Baku at that time was a large city?

AK Baku was a large city then, already. Oh, ja. Half of it was pretty.

Buildings were pretty and everything. The other half wasn't. We

didn't hardly have any relation in the part they called the "black"

city. That's where the oil was and that's where that fire, that well,

that fire ... rocks flew up. I don't know how they handled that.

Whether they have motors in there and two rocks flew up and hit fire,

you know, and it exploded and a lot of people were burned to death,

and then they hauled the /human/ bones out into a ravine.

TJK Who hauled the bones out?

AK Mostly Tatariens, those yellow people. I still can't figure out what

"Elisighen" is. And the Arabians, I remember those, they had those

black high hats...

TJK Oh, turbans.

AK No, the turbans--is that not the Egyptians?

TJK Oh, okay, yes.

AK The Arabians had those black hats on. There was another outfit...

(30)

well, the Chinamen had pigtails, braided.

TJK The Chinese were there too?

AK They were there. In Baku there was all kinds of people from around

that holy land section. There was Jews, there was these Armenians,

and also the Cossacks. I remember watching a show where they threw up

a dollar and the Cossack shot a hole through the dollar.

TJK There were probably Moslems there too.

AK Moslems. Those were the ones that had that doings in May. Those were

the ones who chopped their heads and looked for the Virgin Mary to

come out from under that [white sheet]. They had one day a year and I

think it was the 8th of May, it seems like that stuck in my head ever

since I can remember.

TJK Baku was on the Caspian Sea. Was it a sea port?

AK (Pause) Baku was the Caspian Sea. This was the wildest sea we

traveled ... we traveled that. That's where we was on a ship once

when that Jew had cattle on there and mama prayed that God would

bring us safely to port. He says, "Ach, du mit den liebe Heiland--

schwei stille."*--"Shut up." And mama said no, she wouldn't quit

praying. When the ship anchored he gave her five ruble. He says, "I

think your dear Jesus helped us anyway, so we could land."

*[Oh, you and your dear Savior--keep quiet.]

(31)

TJK When was this now, when you were on the Caspian ... was this when you

were leaving Baku?

AK I was about seven.

TJK You were leaving Baku to go to Hussenbach?

AK Well, no, I think that was the summer we went to...every summer we

went home to Hussenbach.

TJK You sailed home, right?

AK We went home on the ship to Astrakhan. From there we went to, there

was another place we could go, we could go a little further, then

mama's folks would come and get us, by wagon. But dad was good to us,

he took us home every summer. In Astrakhan, I told you, that stream

would freeze over solid. In the winter they drove over it with the

horses with the sleds. In the summer it would thaw out enough so the

ships, small ships, could go through. There wasn't too many traveling

people. On the side they would put in boards and make a square and

lay their watermelons in to cool them. I always had toothache. Dad

would always buy a watermelon. They had a marketplace, they had

tables, like picnic tables, and we would sit and Dad would cut

watermelon, and oh, how my teeth hurt, but I never quit eating

watermelon. (Laughter)

TJK Did you ever solve that problem, your teeth? Did they just get

(32)

better, or...

AK Well, no, we went home. I had some of them pulled, gradually.

TJK Was the food any different in Baku than you were used to at home?

AK No, it was the way you wanted, you could do what you want to. You

could make it, see, you made your own bread, and mama cooked like,

and when we was in Baku, specially there at that slaughter place

we got all the meat we wanted and mama cooked good. And made her

own noodles and all kinds of stuff like that.

TJK Back in Hussenbach, did the people find it hard to believe that

you had been that far away and that all these different kinds of

peoples...

AK No, they looked at dad as quite an expert. When we come home then,

after we went to school and he worked for people by the name of

Sinn. They run a store. He was there, he went to Saratov always to

get the provision, cause he could read and write Russia. He worked

for them quite a few years, I think in fact that's where he left,

because when he went there that winter he brought us each one a

pair of felt boots---Filzstiefel. They were made different than

here, you didn't have to have a overshoes. They were thick on the

bottom and heavy. They were steamed like.

081-083---deleted at request of narrator - not to be sealed however.

(33)

TJK In Baku, do you remember the last time you left Baku, when you went

back to Hussenbach to live then?

AK Ja, very well.

TJK That is when you again sailed from Baku...

AK We sailed from Baku that spring, that summer, and dad had some

Russian carpenters build us a log house. It had two rooms and a back

porch. The porch was built with boards, just sort of a... where we

set our samovar in the heat,...I could kick myself there- I saw one

out here once I could have bought for $85 and I didn't have the

money, that's about seven or eight years ago... and that samovar,

you put the water in the outside...

TJK Oh, here in Fort Collins you saw one of these.

AK Ja. And in the middle come this wire thing up and then you put a

chimney out on top of a pipe and you had charcoal to put down in

there. You had to start it with a little wood, little splinters. We

had one, but it was sold. Yes, I remember, we come home that summer

through Astrakhan again, and so in the fall we could start school.

But our house wasn't ready until a little later.

TJK How long did that take to go from Baku to Hussenbach?

AK Not more than about three days. We went from Baku on this Caspian

(34)

Sea up here to Astrakhan, and then from here we took the Volga

River, a ways up here.

TJK Where did you stop when you were finally let off to go to Hussen-

bach? Did they take you as far as Saratov?

AK No, no, we didn't have to go to Saratov. There was another place,

and I can't find it on here (looking at map in world atlas). It was

called Rudna. That's where mama's folks used to come and get us. I

can't find it on here.

TJK Did they come by wagon?

AK Ja. They used to come and get us. From Baku we went on this Caspian

Sea, and where's the Sea of Azov, I traveled on that too. I

remember.

TJK What was the Volga like at that time?

AK The Volga River? Well, in the summer, like I say, it was water,

but...so the ships could go through. Those little ships, the shrill

whistle they gave, whoo, I used to just shake! (Laughter)

TJK Were there many ships on the river at that time?

AK No, no. Very few people traveled.

TJK Do you have any idea how much it cost at that time?--to travel from

Baku to...

(35)

AK No, I wouldn't have no idea. Dad took care of that and you know,

at that time a child don't pay any attention.

TJK It's still amazing though, because so many of the people who lived

in the German villages there had never really been outside of

their own village or-and here you were, and your family could come

back and tell them about all these different peoples.

AK Astrakhan, Baku and Batum. There I don't remember much about, but

I heard about that a lot because I got a brother buried there. And

one brother is buried in Baku. I remember the funeral when the

folks, somebody, come and got him. Course where dad worked they

had their provision.

TJK How did your brother die?

AK What do you call Wassersucht?*

TJK This is where the blood is like water?

AK Ja, Wassersucht.

TJK That was what they called it?

A K Ja. Would that be-where the red corpuscles, the white ones eat up

the red.

*German term for dropsy.

(36)

AK That's probably what it was, ja.

TJK Cancer of the blood.

AK And they died about the same age. They were both close to two

years old. See, when the second one died I was nearly four and I

remember that.

TJK Was it a long illness?

AK Well, probably two months or so. That second one I remember about

two months.

TJK This is when you said your mother would hold up the baby to the…

AK To the light, and she would use to cry and said, "Dear God, why

don't you take him?" because she knew he couldn't live. He finally

died, right at home in her arms.

TJK You say that he is still buried there in...

AK In Baku, and one in Batum.

TJK And you mentioned before, under a fig tree, right?

AK In Batum, that one is buried under fig tree, and mama was telling

that time and time again. There was a lot of fruit there, she

said, you never saw so much fruit. Must of been warm down there.

TJK You didn't have that much fruit on the Volga in your villages, did

(37)

you?

AK No, well, no and yes. Now, each family in Hussenbach had, along the

Medveditz they said, that was a stream, and they had a place for

gardens all along there. It was sub-irrigated and we raised the

nicest watermelons and muskmelons and cucumbers and everything we

needed for the winter. Along another stream, closer to town, they

called it Faul See,--lazy sea, you might say. There was their

orchards, and mama's folks, each one had an orchard, and had apples

and cherries, plums and they dried their fruit. I don't remember of

ever seeing a wormy apple in the Old Country. I don't know. They

cut them in sections and strung them on strings and hung them up,

dried them... and I don't even remember too many flies. I don't.

TJK Was there a beauty about the country there? Was it beautiful...do

you remember it that much?

AK Was it beautiful? Between our village and go to that Sea, the

Medveditz, where our other gardens was, there was a meadow. It was

so beautiful, and it was native grass. There was little hollow

here, there would be a bunch of flowers, maybe Lily of the valley,

and then a little ways away there was another little dip, and there

was bluebelles, you know, tulips. All through that, and that was a

big...oh, I'd say maybe 80 acres, from Hussenbach to that, but it

was stretched out.

(38)

TJK Was it used as a pasture?

AK The people in the village each had a portion to cut so much grass

and haul it home for their horses. It was divided up and their farm

ground, too. It was divided up and every time a person had a son

they got a portion of land. That's what they were promised when they

went to Russia, through the time of Catherine the Great. Some of the

Germans went to Russia, and they were promised if they had a boy

they would get a portion of land, they would never have to go to

war. That promise was broke, and so on. They had their, some of the

farm ground was out, there was one place, they called it Geldkiefer

(money). I think there was probably silver or gold or uranium or

something in that hill, but it hadn't been discovered. Somebody knew

about it, and that was very rich ground around there. They had each

two-three acres at different places. They had one place where they

could raise their cabbage, each one had a strip for cabbage, and for

potatoes, and a place where they had their other gardens. No, it was

beautiful when I was out there. In the spring it was so beautiful.

TJK Did the German people, do you think, in the village... they loved

Russia, they loved the country there?

AK At that time, yes we did.

TJK What about the governmen t, what about the Czar? An d the ot her

Russians?

(39)

AK My dad had a cousin that was with the Czar. His name was Propp. My

grandmother on my dad's side, her name was Propp. It was my dad's

cousin that was with the Czar, what they said in German,

Staatsvolk, you know, guards. Well, they all had to be so big...

TJK Had he been drafted into the Army, to become one of these guards?

AK Ja, ja. And he lived in Petersburg and then the last summer we was

out there, second to the last, he come out to Hussenbach and bought

a section of land. I'd say about 100 acres and he planted that all

into orchard ... apple trees, and it was along that Medveditz, that

stream, that beautiful...oh, trees, they hung over it, and planted

apple trees and grapes and plums and pears and they planted

everything imaginable and he builded a house, put a big hole

through the middle and there was nine rooms on each side. That was

just for sleeping, and everyone had their own room and I was the

girl who took care and played with their two girls they had. Then

they had two boys that were in college in Petersburg. They came out

only in the summer for a short time. They had a cook, they had a

other maid, me and a woman came out from Hussenbach to do the

washing and ironing. They had a mangle, electric mangle of some

kind. They had everything then, when I was fourteen years old. I

worked for them one summer.

TJK What was their opinion--this husband's cousin of the Czar?

(40)

AK Well, they were in high heaven. They had it made. I don't know

what his name was but her name was Anna. I don't remember what

he... I saw him only once. He only had a chance to get away once.

TJK What did the German people in Hussenbach think of the government?

Like the Czar's government?

AK Well, we was there and we enjoyed our homes and our living and

they thrashed with the, uh...this is what I remember [she points

to an illustration in a book*].

TJK This is a picture of women tying grain?

AK I could still show you how they make the [here she demonstrates

how sheaths of grain were gathered and tied by the women in

Russia] ropes that they tied the grain with. They used to go and

have the...rye was used more or less to make the ropes to tie the

grain. They carried a bundle on their back. They made the

ropes...I guess I did forget a little bit about how they did it...

I used to tie on the ends. On the ends of the field, that was my

section, I was babysitting. You'd go and these women, and the men,

would mow it by hand with a scythe and a big wooden thing on top

and they'd cut it and it fell and the women-you push your foot

under it and as far as you could reach with a rake, pull it up,

throw this rope over it, and throw it over and tie it in a knot

and stick it under and it would stay.

*The Story of the Five Year Plan: New Russia's Primer, by M. Ilin,

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1931.

(41)

TJK What did you use to tie these now, was it a string?

AK Grain.

TJK You'd use the grain itself?

AK And this part where you tied with, was where the seed was on.

TJK And it didn't break?

AK It didn't break. The stubbles was on the end and then you took them

and doubled them over and wrapped them up like that and stuck them

under, fold them under. You had to pull it pretty tight and they

stayed.

TJK This was the old method before any machinery was used?

AK That was the old method, and I used to tie about ten bundles across

the ends because I was watching the kids on the wagon.

TJK What was the opinion of the Germans from Hussenbach toward the

Russians who lived in the villages outside? What were their

feelings?

AK Well, there was a place where they used to make flour

...Boreffsmuhl, they called it. It was a big mill. The people used

to-that mill made the flour. We had a mill by Hussenbach that made

our flour. The Boreffsmuhl, they made the flour for Saratov and

Kamyshinga and the big Odessa, and it was a bigger mill. They used

to buy the wheat from the villagers. One time there was a

(42)

fellow, he hauled a load of-and the Russians used to watch him,

and try to rob him or-they used to take their home-made sausage

and stuff along to eat and they stopped at the tea house, and

drink tea and have their own bread and sausage, or Speck. .that's

smoked ham, you know. And so here comes this guy along with ...

two men with their load of wheat, and he's going to hold them up,

and one of them German guys pulled out one of them sausages and he

said they'd better quit or he's going to shoot ... with that

sausage. When they got to the tea house they made catty remarks

about that, made fun about how they chased him off. He watched

them and he understood German. On the way home he robbed them and

took their money. That happened to some of our men in our village.

TJK So then there was some distrust of the Russians?

AK There was some distrust, yes.

TJK Did you associate much with the Russian people?

AK Well, we did when we lived in that Russian town when we had the...

that was where I learned to talk Russian, we lived there two

years.

TJK This was the town of... the name of the town?

AK (Pause) Uderga.

TJK But in Hussenbach there wasn't much- uh, association?

AK No, there was no, uh...there was real good Russian people too.

(43)

Each to his own. They was in their villages and we was in ours.

TJK What about, for instance, when the military law was changed and

they wanted to take German boys to the army? Then there was a

difference in feeling, wasn't there?

AK Well, that was difference in feeling, but they went.

TJK They did go, though?

AK They did go. They had what they was called regular soldiers, or

second class. And the second ones they called a Ryadnik. That was

like a private, and something the other soldier was a little

...and I don't think they got paid much, I don't remember that.

TJK They often say because Catherine the Great had promised there

would never be any soldiers called, and suddenly this was

changed...

AK That's right, suddenly it was changed through another regiment,

another Czar, or something.

TJK The people didn't mind it that much then?

AK No, they went and they come home. They had to serve three years,

then they come home. When they had the war with Japan, that was a

bad one, because there was Stessel, and Kuropotkin. They were

Russians, and they fought with Japan and they would have won the

war, but that Kuropotkin, he was a crook, and he traded off his

army for a Japanese woman. And they lost that war. There was a

(44)

lot of people killed.

TJK Did you read this later on or did you hear that at that time?

AK Oh, we heard at that time, we had pictures of it and everything. That

come out in the open and he was shot, later, he was assassinated.

TJK Were there any boys at all that were killed in the war from Hus-

senbach?

AK No, not that I know of, not that I know of. No, they were just ready

to go, and it was over It didn't last long. Let's face it. It didn't

last long. This guy got crooked pretty quick and filled his pockets

with money from the Japs, or something, I don't know just what

happened. But it wasn't too long. And they say they fed the boys dog

meat and they would swell up and everything. I guess some of them

were lost, but none of my immediate family, not that I know of. Mama

... in Hussenbach they were just getting ready to go when the order

come the war is over. With the Japs.

TJK You said before, your father was considered an expert in the village.

What was his occupation? (Pause) Was he a farmer?

AK No, he never farmed, he was brought up in a Russian village.* I don't

know what they did-that far I can't go.

*After the interview, Mrs. Klein remembered that the name of

this village was Milvotka, which lay about ten miles from

Hussenbach.

(45)

T J K H o w w a s i t t h a t he was brought up in a Russian village?

AK I don't know what they did. I t h i n k they had a w i n d m i l l , o r

something there. I'm not sure, but I heard dad say-that he went t o

Russian schools.

T J K This is where he learned to read and write?

AK Read and write. Well, I had a brother, he died now... had a big

certificate, he learned Russia in the village. He had to learn

Russia in the village schools.

TJK This is another promise that had been broken. Catherine had said

that you could have German schools, but then also that they had to

have Russian schools in the later years?

AK Well, finally that came in but, it wasn't compulsory, we didn't have

to take it. I didn't take it. I didn't take it. I took it a little

bit. Some days I felt like I want to stay, some days I went home.

Mama was sick. She had migrane headaches. She was sick quite a bit,

and when mama was sick I usually, we could skip it, so I skipped

that a lot. Jake had a big certificate in his Russian.

TJK When your father was in Baku, what was his occupation there?

AK Just first with his brothers with that taxi outfit, and then he was

the one that usually kept books and stuff like that. And

(46)

then he was in that slaughter house. He was just a gate keeper.

He had the keys, he let them in and out, and when they came with

a herd of cattle to bring them into the corrals, he had to open

the gate and he had to watch everybody who went in. That was his

job.

TJK When he returned to Hussenbach, then...

AK Then he went to work for these people that run that store, and he

did all their buying.

TJK How long was your family in Hussenbach after you returned?

AK From eight to fifteen. Till we come to this country in May and I

was sixteen.

TJK What made the family decide to come to America?

AK Well, I told you my mama had a dream. She had a dream and God in

a vision showed here there was going to be big trouble and we

should leave.

TJK She never did say what that trouble was, she just had a feeling

there was going to be...

AK She knew there was going to be-well, they had been talking, that

there was going to be a war brewing, but what about or what I

don't know but it turned out to be that the Russians were against

the Germans, I think. They went in the German villages and just

took everything they had.

(47)

TJK Did the older people put faith in dreams?

AK Well, I don't know, T couldn't tell you just how that worked. But

there was real Christian people in our village.

TJK When your father heard this...

AK Well, he didn't want to give in, mama said we'd sell our land and

we did, and got enough money together. We had-we sold our log

house, got over 400 rubles for it, and then we had auctions, we had

to sell our clothes, we only took two changes of clothes with us.

That's all you was allowed.

TAPE 2, SIDE A

TJK Who were you writing to in America?

AK George Borgen in Lincoln, Nebraska on F Street--3 something, 326 I

think F Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. He wrote back and wanted us to

come. So we did.

TJK Did he send tickets to you?

AK No, we had enough money, we had our own money.

TJK From selling your cabin and the land?

AK And the land, uh huh. Two years after we was in this country the

people that bought our land come to Scottsbluff, too. They sold

(48)

it. They got cold feet out there, it was getting closer and closer. We came in 1911 and they come in 1913. They were about on the last ship that came.

TJK When you did come to America, do you remember much of the journey? From where did you leave? You left Hussenbach and then...