Liberatus P Schaeffer

Diary of Liberatus Schaeffer Written at Dickinson, North Dakota

Introduction

If one can judge from his incomplete 40-page, handwritten autobiography, Liberatus Schaeffer was a superb linguist. It is written in clear English, though he had no formal schooling in North America and went to school for only 9 months in Argentina. His daughters say he could cuss fluently in six languages, but had the reserve not to do it in the languages his children could understand. A talent for languages, though useful in the multilingual world into which he was born, was not rewarded in any direct monetary sense. It does, however, make for entertaining reading because he salts his accounts with vivid figures of speech and sly humor. In the grand biblical tradition, he begins with the “begats,” then goes on to tell about his life in Argentina and later, in the United States. The Munchen he refers to frequently is the village in South Russia, not the city in Germany.
Text of diary from the beginning:
Genealogy
My great grandfather Simon Schaeffer was born in Voelkersweiler, Rhinepalatinate (Bavaria), Germany. In 1809 he moved to South Russia to Gersonski Gubernie, Ananovski Uroyesta, Raschtatski Wolost to help build the village of Munchen. By trade he was a tailor, but he had to start farming in order to get a homestead from the Russian government by order of Zarista Katharina. He walked back and forth to Germany several times to visit his Bavarian friends. My grandfather Andreas Schaeffer was born in Munchen. He was wedded to Salomea Welbaum of Munchen. They had sons: John, Andreas, and Francis. They were married to Salomea Heck, Barbara Hecker, and Anna Maria Gartner, in that order. Daughters they had: Susanna married to Eustacius Herner, Anna married to Joseph Eberle, Anna Maria married to Francis Obritschkervitsch. Those men were all of Rastat. John Schaeffer died in Munchen. Andreas and Francis went to Argentina. Eberle died in Rastat, Herner went to Argentina, and Obritschkervitsch went to Stark County, North Dakota.
My father Andreas Schaeffer Jr. was born in Munchen. He was married to Barbara Hecker of Munchen. their sons were Martin, Pius, Joseph, Peter, Liberatus, Francis, [who] died in infancy, and Bonaventure. [Their] daughter Frederika, married to John Heck of Speier,...died in Russia. He went to Argentina with five children: Martin, Genoveva, Magdalena, Leokadia, and Dionisius. Other daughters of my parents were Anna Maria, Francisca, and Rosa. Katharina died in infancy. Anna Maria was married to Mathias Meier. Rosa was married to Leonard Gertner, Francisca was married to Karl Friedel. They all died in Argentina. Brothers were married: Martin to Maria Eva Schaff of Speier, Pius to Elizabeth Thome of Munchen, Peter to Katharina Schaff of Speier. Joseph to Cecilia Stark of Rastat. Bonaventure to Rosa Selinger of Rastat. All died in Argentina except Pius and Elizabeth, who died in Milwaukee, Oregon. My mother’s parents were Martin and Maria Anna Zweifel of Munchen. their children were daughter Barbara, my mother, and sons Konrad and triplets Franz, Georg, and one died in infancy. Franz was married to Katharina and Georg was married to Barbara Thome. Daughters of John Thome of Munchen, Konrad, and Franz, died in Munchen. Georg, with his family, went to Argentina in 1900. They had ten sons and two daughters.
My wife’s ancestors were Grandfather Siegfried Heck and Margareta Dettler, both of Munchen. Their children were Max, Georg Michael, Franz, John, Philip, Valentine, and their daughters were Maria Josepha, Margareta, and Theresia. Siegfried Heck was a stonemason by trade and farmer. All his sons were farmers but Philip, [who] went to Priest Seminary in Saratov, North Russia. There he studied music and voice and became organist and choir leader and singer. He had the most remarkable, sweet, mellow, vibrating tenor voice anyone ever heard. When he sang, it always ran hot and cold up and down my spine and got my eyes watery. It is just too bad he [doesn%E2%80%99t] live now so he could get his voice recorded for future generations to hear a wonderful voice. He was married to Maria Anna Redler of Rastat. Her parents were Adam Redler and Maria Eva Gotzfried of Rastat. They had five sons: Peter, Paul, Franz, John, and Joseph. their daughters were Maria, Josepha, Agatha, and Maria Anna. My wife’s parents were: Philip Heck of Munchen and Maria Anna Redler of Rastat. They had daughters: Magdalena, married to Franz Michael Scherger of Munchen, Odilia, married to Michael Ebinal of Rastat, Amalia, married to Philip Scherger of Munchen, Celestina, married to Liberatus Schaeffer of Munchen, Cecilia, married to Siegfried Hecker of Munchen, Katharina, married to Herman Fitter of Simferopol, Crimea, Russia, Ida, married to John Kistner of Rastat. Sons: Nickodemus, married to Katharina Herner, Philip, married to Margaretha Kistner of Rastat. Monica and Nickodemus the first, died in infancy.
Next Time: The Story Begins...
Part Two

Andreas and Barbara Schaeffer moved from Munchen, South Russia to Argentina with their children. They left Munchen November 17, 1898 and landed in Buenos Aires the 17 of January 1899. We were on the combination steamship Bon for 3 days. It was a combination freight and passenger ship. We went on it in Bremen, Germany. We stopped in Antwerp, Belgium and Madrid, Spain, and celebrated Christmas 1898 on this ship and got the best gooseberry pie ever tasted. They also took five steers and hogs along to butcher as they needed for meat. On this ship, I [saw] the first electric lights and flying fish. My father and I did not get seasick. I did not suffer any starvation on this ship, and there were always cigarette and cigar stumps to pick up on the floor. But the German cigars were too strong because I had to smoke too fast in the bathroom. There was no other place to smoke without getting spanked for smoking, but I didn’t think even then that eleven is too young to smoke. I started when I was 5 and never got sick from it. Now I wish I should get sick with the first cigarette and never touch it again.

In Buenos Aires, we took the train to Coronel Juares F. C. J. Provincia Buenos Aires, where my brother Pius awaited us to take us to Campo Jacinta, where he was living. He left Russia one year before us. It took us all night to get there, with two wagons and there was another wagon waiting to get my brother, Josepha my sister, and Rosa and me.

I was hired out to John Sticka to herd horses at ten pesos per month. Josepha and Rosa were hired to Jakob Hipner as farm helpers. There was no time to lose. It was in the time of harvest. I was never on a horse and saddle before, but as soon as I got off the wagon, Mr. Sticka put me on a little bay horse and saddle and sent me out to herd about 60 horses. But they knew more about how to get to the grain stacks than I knew how to keep them away. They made a regular fool out of me, and when the bumblebees bothered them too much, they ran away and my little bay sat me on the ground and followed them. They called him a tamed horse, but I knew different names for him. One time, it took two men a whole night to get that bunch of beasts back. You never heard a kid bawl fancier than this one.

Also on this place, I saw my first antelope. I wondered what animal that was and tried to get closer to it, but it was much faster than my little bay. A few days later, I saw a big bird walking along, so I thought that would be a nice companion to have, and even ride him instead of the bay. I started to run him down, and as soon as we started to gallop, he had us lost in a few minutes time. I thought if I had him under me, the horses wouldn’t get away from me so often. Later, I found out it was an ostrich and not to be used for manual work. A few days later, I had better luck to catch a beautiful black kitty with two white stripes on its back and a long, bushy tail. It ran into a shallow hole. I reached in and grabbed it by the tail and pulled it out. I thought it had a very strong smell after some very strong coffee, but it would make a nice pet to take home for the Sticka kids to play with. But when I started to pat it and stroke it, it started to kick and scratch and smell even stronger and tore my pants and shirt. By this time, I could hardly see anymore. I thought it must have spit in my eyes, so I let it go its own way and I went mine. I got a rousing welcome when I came in the house that evening. The workers were in the kitchen already for supper, and as soon as I got in, they started to scream and sneeze and laugh. After I told then what had happened, Mrs. Sticka didn’t think it was so funny and chased me right out and made me bury all my clothes I had on that day, and made me take a bath in a big wine barrel. By the time I was done, I got nothing but cold leftovers for supper. That was the thanks I got from her for wanting to be nice to her children and bring them a pet. After that, when I got in, there were always friendly inquiries if I had any new experiences, and indeed I did, but they didn’t hear them all from me.

The two months on this place were my unhappiest in all my life, because I had to be out in the wide open pampas with just [those] horses and no one to talk to. If some gaucho rode by and tried to talk, we couldn’t understand each other, so they just rode on and laughed over such a dumb kid, and left me behind crying so much harder for loneliness. But I had to respect them for having the decency to offer me a cigarette to smoke, even if it was coal black tobacco, stronger than barb wire. It came from a human being, and my nerves got soothed and my homesickness vanished for awhile. If it weren’t for the few strange animals and birds I got to see, I am afraid I would have lost my mind from homesickness. I was never alone before in all my eleven years and six months. Now, just all at once out in the wide open pampas, as level as a baseball diamond, where I could see as far as my eyes could reach, and still I couldn’t see what I wanted to see, and that is people and more people. I had a feeling I was forsaken by God and all people out in the wild pampas in the beautiful, summery Argentina. But like all earthly time, these two months came to an end, and harvest was to an end, and Mr. Sticka didn’t need me anymore. the stacks were all threshed, so he could let his horses run free. He took me back to my parents. What a happy meeting that was. Now I was in civilization, never to be alone again.

Next Time: We Start Farming...

Part Three

My father had some money left he brought from Russia, so he bought four collar-broken horses and a wagon and a few other things we needed to move to Campo Lucero, where several German families had leased some land to farm. Estancia Lucero is one of the nicest ranches in Argentina, with good fertile, level land, a few lakes, one river running through, and no hills. There are no dry creeks in all that country. The first thing we had to do here was to put up a tent with a tarpaulin we brought along in our household goods. The beds were made from big gunny sacks filled with straw that we brought along. The cooking we did outside. The fuel was cow chips, of which we had to keep a supply in the tent out of the rain. The next was to make a well, which took only half a day. The water is only from 6 to 12 feet from the surface and easy digging. With eight feet deep, we had all the good water we needed for people and animals. The next thing was to make adobe out of mud and straw to build a house and shed. In about a month, we had it all done to move in. The inside we plastered with mud and whitewashed with lime. To plaster the outside, we had time later.

By now it was time to start plowing to put in wheat, so we bought fourteen halter and saddle-broke horses and ten wild ones and wild we got from the ranch to break and work for that year. There is six months time to plow and seed in that country. You can imagine what struggle it was to break ten wild and fourteen spoiled brutes with only four tamed horses, but we got three hundred acres of wheat seeded and a very good crop. We had a good start and what we called a new home in a new country. By now, we had a milk cow and some chickens for eggs, and for meat we had more than enough from mother nature. There was plenty of game, like wild ducks and perdise, which is a sort of partridge, and very easy to catch and has the best meat of all fowl. And there were very many mulitas, what they call the armadillo. They have a delicious meat which tastes like suckling pig. When we wanted different meat, we could go to the ranch and get sheep at two pesos per head if we left the pelt there or three pesos for the whole sheep. They had some in the corral every morning for the farmers to butcher. It was only about five miles to go.

Lucero raised many sheep and shorthorn cattle and mules for market. Horses they raised only for their use. Their shorthorns were some of the best in the country. From where we lived, it was about forty miles to Coronel Juares [or Suarer], the nearest town and railroad. We couldn’t haul all our wheat ourselves, so we hired some of them big Carreros. They could load two hundred sacks, which is about 500 bushels. They hitched from 15-22 horses on [those] wagons and took them two days to get to town. We had to pay them one peso, twenty centavos per sack, but wow, when it was a wet season and they got stuck in the mud, they sunk down four feet deep. The rear wheels were about ten feet high. When they sank down, one could hear the most nerve-chilling cursing the Spanish language could describe, and they all called themselves Catholics; otherwise, those Carreros are some of the most honest Argentines I have met.

Now I was close to 13 years old and something had to be done so I could receive Holy Communion. My parents took me to Colonia San Jose by Coronel [Juares?] Suares, where there was a parochial school, where I got instructions in religion and learned to read and write German and Spanish. In Russia I had five years of Russian School. In San Jose, there was a brick one-room school, about eighty pupils, one German and one Spanish teacher. The parish priest was the principal and religion teacher. He was from Germany and very strict, and he liked too much to hang on to my ears. But he never spanked me like my Russian teachers did when I was feeling my oats. So after nine months of school here, I received Holy Communion on December 8, 1900. After I had taught them kids some discipline in behavior towards one kid from the country, and long before I left there, I was respected by everyone. My father was present at my first communion day and took me home on December tenth, an educated man of thirteen years and six months of age, ready to do any kind of work and I felt big enough to do even more.

Next time: New arrivals from the Old Country!

Part Four

And right shortly after I got home, there came a shipload of Germans from Russia, many of them my relatives, and my idol Philip Heck with his family, among them, my childhood sweetheart and playmate Celestina. Now I knew that I will be content even in the wild pampas in Argentina. By now, she was even lovelier looking than before. Her hair got a little darker and wasn’t called Heck’s whitey any more. Now she was plainly called Celestina. Of course, I had much cozier names for her, but we could never get together to play anymore like in the old country, and that is the way it should be, because now we were no more little children. We also got separated by moving to different places far apart from each other, as we will see how we moved around in Argentina. But when it was time to get united for life, I knew how to get her.

Although we paid cheap rent for the land we leased, we had to move every three or four years because some weeds and wild oats started to grow and the landlord wanted to seed alfalfa on it and good alfalfa it produced. So in 1902, we moved to a different place in Lucero, about five miles further from town. the three years here went pretty smooth except my saddle horse fell on me and broke my leg. An old woman set it and made me lay on my back for three weeks until the skin and flesh came off my heel. Then she put me on crutches for another three weeks. Hecks also moved on a place in Lucero, about thee miles from us. In 1905, Hecks moved to Bonifacio, a day’s drive, and we moved to Daireaus, two days’ drive, and only about four miles from town. In 1908, we moved to Macachin, three days’ drive, this in the territory of Pampa Central. This time, Hecks moved to Compo Brovos del Dos, one day’s drive, still in the Provincia Buenos Aires, about 20 miles from the town, Guaminia by Macachin. We lived about ten miles from Macachin, but only five miles from the railroad station Atrewco, where we delivered our wheat. This land is very sandy, and in 1910, we didn’t get our seed back, it was too dry and windy. But in 1911, we had a good crop on this land.

I did not see Hecks from 1906 till 1909. Now I was 22 years old and thought it was time to get my childhood sweetheart to stay with me forever. So I saddled my horse, Trabuco (by this time I had three saddle horses) and went to see what can be done to get married. It was a two-day ride across country, this was in October, and everything looked beautiful and promising at Hecks, so I went home with good hopes and told my parents about my plans. On the 28th of October, my father and I took the train to Tres Lomas, where father [Philip] Heck got us the same day with the buggy. That was about twelve miles from their home. On November 1, we went to Guamini--that is my father and I and Celestina and her father and her sister Odilia, who was married to Michael Ebinal. On the second of November, we took our marriage license and our wedding clothes and rings, and at Heck’s home we set the wedding day for November 22, 1909. On November 19, my parents and I and my brother Peter and wife Katharina and my brother Martin and his daughter Anna, who was my bridesmaid, took the train to Salliquelo. This was more convenient for train connections. Here Hecks got us again with the wagon and team. On the 21st, someone drove to Guamini to bring the Spanish priest out the next morning to say mass and marry us. Someone with a fresh team had to take him back to Guamini after a grand wedding dinner, which was enjoyed by everyone present. It was prepared by our mothers, sisters, and many neighbor ladies. It was prepared the old German style, like chicken soup, stuffed suckling pig, stuffed geese and duck and many other fancy stuff to tickle one’s appetite. This celebration lasted two days, but the musicians I had invited did not come because they did not get the letter I had mailed to the orchestra leader. So I played most of the time myself on the accordion. My cousin Siegfried Hecker helped a little for short intervals. For dancing, we had to put up a big tent. For the floor, we borrowed lumber from a lumber yard in Tres Lomas. So all in all, it was a nice wedding with about a hundred guests.

About two weeks after the wedding, it was time to get the machinery ready for harvest, so I took my beloved bride and her belongings on the train to our home in Macachin, where we had our own room in my parents’ house. She and all her family took it hard to say goodbye when we left. She cried for awhile on the train. I was very sorry I had done wrong for taking her away from her home, but it didn’t take long for me to dry her tears, and get her to laugh her hearty way. I found out later that all brides have to go through the same sorrow by saying goodbye from their parental home. So we lived happily with my parents for two years. My parents loved her as deep as parents can love, and she was devoted to them also. When we moved to the U. S. A. in 1914, my mother said, The ones that insulted us the least go the furthest from us,” and that is a sweet statement from a mother-in-law.

Next time: Mother Nature weighs in…

Part Five

In 1910, we had a total fail crop, so I took five horses and my spring freight wagon and my darling wife and drove to my parents-in-law to work in the harvest. They had a very good crop. My mother-in-law was a midwife known far and wide and praised by all who knew her, and delivered all our three children who were born in Argentina. So in their house was born our first child Nickodemus, recorded and baptized in Guamini, December 20, 1910. So in March of 1911, we drove back again to Macachin to put in our other crop, which turned out one of the best we ever had. In March of 1911, we built our own house, about a quarter of a mile from my parents, but we still worked together in our farming operations. By now, we had about fifty horses and ran three plows and a drill. My brother Peter and his family moved in our room and my brother Bonaventure was still single at home, so we worked together like before, without any arguments. I was the foreman, and what I ordered we did without dispute. Of course, I did my share of work like everyone. I hope my children and children’s children are able to live in peace like we did and I am sure God will bless them.

After seeding was done, we had about four months of what was called the idle time, from September or sometimes from August to the middle of December when harvest started. This time was spent in repairing and making new harnesses and repairing machinery. We had two eight-foot binders and one combination twelve-foot push binder and header. during harvest, we had to hire about six men. The idle time was also spent in going on trips and gathering fuel like cow chips for the year. On this place, we had to go only about six miles to a bush to get wood for cooking and baking. Our women were very happy with this new fuel. We never had any wood to burn before. These were the only wild trees we had seen and easy to cut and split, a brown and good-smelling wood. I don’t know the name of the trees. The only trees we had seen before were planted around Estancias and were poplar and willow and some peaches. I am not sure why they don’t plant other trees, but probably some late frost would catch them in blossom and they wouldn’t bear fruit.

Around Macachin country, the land is somewhat rolling and sandier than the places we had been before. On this place, our second child Bertha was born June 1, 1912, with Mother Heck present. Bertha was recorded in Macachin and baptized at home by a missionary priest of the Divine Word society from Buenos Aires. These priests would come out to the German Catholic communities on the prairies [pampas] about two times a year to hold missions and dispense the sacraments. They would stay about a week each time. Very few Argentineans would come to these missions, although they were baptized Catholics. They didn’t know enough to practice their faith and that it is necessary for their eternal salvation. In 1912, our four-year contract for the land was out and time to move again. My parents and brothers moved further out in the pampas to Alpachiri, a branch of different railroads, a two-day drive with the wagons. We didn’t go any further, and moved two days back in the Provincia Buenos Aires, to Campo Graciarena by Tres Lomas, where Hecks were moving at the same time, and built a room onto their house. At the same time, not to forget that we had to go through the whole process of making adobe and build like every other time we moved. At home, I had picked out the eight horses I liked best and three yearling colts, and just worked with Hecks to put out the crop of 1913. This crop didn’t turn out good and I didn’t make much, and got disgusted with all Argentina and moving around like gypsies and started to make plans to go to North America where we heard that the government gave people free land for homesteads. You shall see about that later. On Campo Graciarena, our third child Monica was born, and mother Heck was present. Monica was born July 3, 1913, and was baptized and recorded in Thetouon Trenque Loaquen by a Spanish priest, about 7 hours drive from us, but the next priest to reach. The soil around Tres Lomas is pretty sandy but productive when it rains enough, but has more dry years than back by Coronel Juares Suares.

Here I want to explain a little what Tres Lomas means. A loma is a hill and very far from this town are three hills in three different directions to which this town Tres or 3 Lomas was named. These lomas are not what you may imagine common hills. They consist of pure, fine, clean sand which don’t blow away from its particular home loma. It is round in form and measures from one to three hundred feet on its base and one hundred feet high. From a distance, it looks like a pyramid, but on top it has a hollow shape like a soup bowl which is about forty feet wide and twenty feet deep. That hole holds water all the time. Why it can hold that water in that sand I don’t know. Whichever direction the wind comes from, the sand just blows around it outside and [doesn%E2%80%99t] cover that hole. The water is always clear. At Daireaux, we had one of these lomas on our own land. I crawled up many times to inspect it but never learned why it always stayed the same round shape, no bigger and no smaller than it was before a strong wind. When it was windy, we could see the sand move around in it but not away.

In Alpachiri, my folks had a total fail crop. They moved back to Casbas in the Provincia Buenos Aires, where my sister Francisca and her husband Carl Friedel had just moved from Quemu Quemu, where they also dried out in 1913. They and several of our family, namely Martin, Joseph, and other relatives and many more had bought land by Quemu Quemu and had a nice village built in 1908. In five years, [they] lost to drought and scattered all over the country. Most of the territory of pampas is not fit for the plow. It is too sandy and dry. Here I want to mention also that, where it is sandy, there are lots of fleas that make it miserable for a person. Those pests got too sharp teeth and get around too fast to catch. Once they get under clothing and on the skin, those little jumbling brownings can make a regular fool out of a big man until he can catch them or get rid of them, otherwise--like take off the clothes and shake them out. So I am smart and go to North America where it is cold and there can’t be any of them bloodthirsty beasts not bigger than a louse, which is not bigger than a pinhead, and of which I had seen plenty in Russia. Let’s see how smart I was.

Next time: Another new country beckons us…

Chapter Six: The Final Chapter

So in March of 1914, we sold everything we had accumulated except clothing and bedding. The horses and wagon I took to Mirasol, a two-day drive where they had a good crop and money to buy what we had for sale. There was another community of our relatives and friends that bought all we had left. The tin roof and doors and windows in our room we sold to Herman Fitterer, who had just married Katharina Heck, my sister-in-law, and they moved in our room. I forgot to mention that in all our houses we had ground floors and tin roofs. On April 12, 1914, all relatives and neighbors that could get there gathered at Hecks to say goodbye and wish us luck and a happy voyage to North America. They all said if we liked it better there they would all come also. But that turned out the other way, as we shall see later.

About five o’clock that evening, it was time to go to Tres Lomas to go on the train to Buenos Aires. We started handshaking, embracing, kissing, and bawling like I had never seen before or after. The week before this, I had taken my family to my parents and relatives to say goodbye, and that was the same scene.

So on the twelfth of April, 1914, about 8 o’clock, with heavy hearts we got on the train at Tres Lomas and got to Buenos Aires at eight the next morning. Here we had to get our ship tickets, which cost us $72.00 a ticket (the children went free), and tot doctors’ examinations and several shots for various diseases, and exchanged our pesos for dollars. By the time everything was paid for, we had fifteen twenty-dollar gold pieces left, which we put in two strong little sacks which we got from the exchange and hung them around our necks under the underwear to keep out of sight. That stuff is heavy, but it was safe that way, and we brought it all the way to Albion, Nebraska. We had kept some dollars for spending on the trip. On the sixteenth of April, they took us on a two-wheel carro with five horses and hauled us and our baggage. We had two big bags and two big trunks and some suitcases. They hauled us to a railroad station and put us on a small train to LaPlata, where our ship was loading hind quarters of beef for New York. At about four o’clock, we got on the ship Van Dyke of the British White Star Line, freight and passenger.

It was a nice ship and they gave us a room all by ourselves with four beds but all English stewards, which we couldn’t understand. One could talk a little Spanish, so that helped some. It was dark when we left La Plata and couldn’t see to say goodbye to Argentina. In about two hours out on sea, the ship started rocking from side to side and our Nickodemus [his spelling] started to vomit, and then Mamma and Monica, but Bertha and I never got sea sick on all the trip to New York. We had about one hundred passengers on board of mixed nationalities and I could converse with them all. At the time, I could speak fluently in German, Spanish, Russian, and Serbian. There was an old Serbian woman who couldn’t talk with [any]one on the ship but me, so she kept close to us all the time and helped us with our children. We had also a Russian boy by the name Elia Gorbadiuk. He worked for a year for Hecks and came with us to Albion, Nebraska. He was very nice and helpful to us and our children but he needed us also since he couldn’t speak anything but Russian. On the ship, I taught him to write his name in the Latin alphabet, which is the same as the English.

There would be lots of nice things to write about. This Elia he got buried alive in Boulder Dam by pouring cement in the shaft, and there was no possibility to get him out. I was very much upset when I heard of his misfortune, for we were like brothers for one year in Argentina and two years in Nebraska. May God rest his soul! On the morning of the seventeenth, we got to Monte, Uruguay, where we stopped and took more passengers. The next stop was at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For almost a day, Elia went out to see the city. He said he didn’t know there could be a city as beautiful as that. I heard others say that it was the most beautiful city in the world for trees, flowers, and boulevards. The next stop was at Bahia, Brazil, where we took a lot of coffee. The next stop I don’t remember the name, but there we took a lot of pineapple and coconut. The next stop I also don’t remember, but it was Brazil where we loaded bananas and oranges. The next stop was Trinidad. At all stops we got more passengers. Some were Negroes and they didn’t get rooms below so they had to be on deck all the time. One hot night, they stole our Nickodemus’s cap so he had to land in America bare headed, and always looking for his cap. From Rio de Janeiro on it was so hot for about fifteen days, so they had to span big tarpaulins over the deck for shade, and then it was too hot. But we couldn’t stand it in our room and slept on deck also. We just put some blankets on the floor and slept as good as we could on that hot, hard deck. But after we were out about two days from Trinidad, it got cooler and we could sleep in our room again. In the morning of May the twelfth, when we got to New York, it was so cool that we had to put coats on. From Trinidad to New York, it took six days on very wild water, and I had my hands full with my seasick wife and two sick children. Bertha was not sick, but she had no footing on that rocking ship, so I had to have her on my arms all the time. The others didn’t get out of bed. Elia was sick some of the time also, but when we got to New York and the ship was quiet, he came to my aid and carried Nickodemus, and I carried Bertha, and Mamma carried Monica wherever we went until we got on the train.

In New York, we got more doctor examinations and various shots against several diseases. On the evening of the same day, they put us on a train to Philadelphia, where we had to change trains to Saint Louis. There we had to wait fourteen hours for the next train. We had plenty of time to go to a store and buy a cap for Nickodemus and slept on the floor in the depot. This is the nicest and biggest depot I had ever seen. They put us on a train to Omaha, where we had to wait again about eight hours for the next train to Columbus, Nebraska. What a trip this was on these trains, with Nickodemus not wanting to sit on the toilet bowls with all that noise underneath. He held everything for the next stop without any ill effects, and Mamma was scared stiff every time the train went over a bridge or around a curve. She always shut her eyes so as not to see the train fall into the rivers and [feared we would] all drown in a strange, godforsaken land. She wished she were back in Argentina, where there are no bridges and curves. She was very glad to get off the train in Albion, where we landed May sixteenth 1914. “Now,” she said, “I got solid ground under my feet again and will never go on a train or ship again.” But poor Mamma miscalculated Nebraska, and her fears got even worse when Nick Redler took us with his automobile to his mother’s farm. It is only about six miles, but had a dozen bridges and curves. Every time we got to a bridge, she screamed and told him to stop till she walks across, and he said, “Then you can walk all the time. Don’t you see that this country is all hills and creeks, and if we don’t put these bridges in, we can’t drive at all?” So she had to shut her eyes and hang on for dear life. This Nick Redler is her first cousin, the son of Paul Redler, her Mother’s brother. When we got there, Paul was dead for several years, but his wife and her sons Peter and Lea and daughter Julia, all single, were still on the farm. They had a big house and plenty of room to take us in till we got some place to live by ourselves, which didn’t take too long. There was an empty house one mile north of them and the farmer that owned it needed a hired hand.

And so I hired out to him and he gave us the house to live in for free. There were some apple and mulberry trees with enough fruit to keep us in pie all summer, also free. I got $35.00 a month for two months, that is June and July. When he needed me outside of those two months, I got two dollars a day. I had to walk a mile to his place and had to eat breakfast and dinner at home. I ate my breakfast at five in the morning and walked over and sometimes didn’t get dinner until two o’clock. They were late risers but the best cooks you can find anyplace. Sometimes I ate like a glutton and they were proud of themselves for being such good cooks. But they didn’t think of how long it was since my last meal. In July, the apples got ripe, so I took some along to eat whenever I got hungry, and that made it better for me to stand it until their dinner time. Their dinners were always delicious. One time, they gave me a big dish of ice cream for dessert, and I thought I had to eat it all so not to offend them. I got violently sick that night in the stomach and had a sore throat, and I couldn’t eat any more ice cream for twenty years. This was the first ice cream I had seen in my life.

I also worked for other neighbors for two dollars a day. Our closest neighbor just across the road from us, John Bulinger, with whom I could speak German, needed a man to cultivate corn. So I went over and he gave me two horses and a walking cultivator and showed me how to do it (for I had never seen a cultivator before). In two days walking behind that outfit, the heels of my Argentina boots came off and my feet got so sore that my feet were wet with blood and my ankles swollen and painful until I couldn’t walk anymore. So I told John about it and he gave me a walking cultivator, which I didn't like much better, but I could heal my feet again. I never wore those Argentinean boots again.

The work in this country is different than what I was used to before. this was late in May and both of us had enough of North America, and wrote home to our folks and told them not to dare and plan to come over till we saw more than just Nebraska. In June, another uncle, Peter Redler, three miles from us, gave us a cow to milk, but Mr. Nofsinger did not let us put her in the little pasture that was by our house. He had a few head of cattle of his own in it. He said there wasn’t enough grass for more, so we staked her on the section line, where there was enough grass. One day the flies were so mean and when Mamma took her to water, she pulled the rope out of her hand and ran home. The next morning I told Mr. Nofsinger no cow, no milk for babies, no work. He started to make a heck of a racket. I couldn’t understand him and walked down to Leo Redler and told him about it and he hitched up his single buggy and we went to see Mr. Nofsinger what could be done about it. They agreed that we put our cow in the pasture and Mr. Nofsinger puts one of his in Leo’s pasture, and I thought, What a cheap country this is if it can’t hold another cow. In Argentina, I never heard of such littleness. The people here think that in Argentina it must be awfully hot. Well, it is in the north, towards Brazil, but in the center where we were, it is temperate. Sure, during high summer, during December, January, and February, there are hot days. But the nights are always cool. I can’t remember one night when I didn’t have to cover with at least one blanket. In Nebraska, there were too many hot, sultry days, and some nights it was so hot and stuffy that we couldn’t sleep. Some nights, my family and I would sit outside and complain and cry for homesickness and decided to go back to our people. But before we could get ready, the First World War broke out, and one of the first English ships the Germans sank was the Van Dyke, the ship we came with. It was reported that the Germans took the passengers off, but some ladies were so frightened that they went insane. The most of them were Americans. What a shock that was when we read about it in the German language American papers, like the Lincoln Freie Presse, the St. Joseph’s Blatt, and the Argentinisher Volksfreund. These three papers we subscribed for from the beginning of our arrival. From the beginning of the war, our mail was very irregular. Some was lost and the letters we got were censored. That is they were cut open and pasted shut again and written on (censored by the censor), and that didn’t make us any happier knowing that we couldn’t go back.

In one of those letters we got first, they invited us to come back and they [would] give us everything we needed to start farming again and the money for the trip. But it was all too late. The war had started too soon. All we could do now was worry more and more and do as good as we could with our destination. The three hundred dollars gold we deposited in a bank in Albion. The few household goods we needed didn’t cost much, like pots and pans. Nick Redler had a hardware store in Albion, and he sold us everything for wholesale price. The other Redlers helped us with many other things, like meat and jellies and preserves which they put up themselves. They all have fruit orchards and a few milk cows and many hogs. They live in the corn belt and their most income is from hogs and cream. The alfalfa grows good there even on the hills and even corn grows good up there. As hilly as the land is, I didn't see any waste land. For me it was no pleasure to farm, but it pays. Elia hired out right away to Peter Redler, Sr., who farmed in company with his son Eustach. The English-speaking all called him Easter. This Peter is the one that gave us the cow to milk.

On some Sundays, Elia would take Easter’s stallion out for exercise and ride over to visit us. We compared the Americas. He wasn’t very enthused with North America either, but it was easier for him because he had no home and no family [any]where. He could talk Russian with old Peter. Some Sundays, we walked over to visit them. We had bought a little coaster wagon, so some days when I was out working, Mamma put Bertha and Monica in the wagon and pulled them wherever she wanted to go with them. Nickodemus would have to walk or help push uphill and hang on down hill. She visited all her relatives during the summer. When I saw them travel that way, I could cry my heart out for pity and shame. What a fool I was to take my family away from our people to a strange country where there was no hope for advancement, no chance to start farming. Land and horses were too high priced. Our three hundred dollars would only buy one horse, let alone all the other things it takes to start farming. I couldn’t think of anything else to make a living and stay with my family at the same time. What I earned we needed for groceries and shoes.

END OF DIARY