Family Picture

 

Here is a wonderful family group picture shared by Sharon White. It is of the Johann Conrad Kisling, Jr. family, her great grandparents. Thanks! Remember, I'd love to spotlight pictures from your family.

Next Meeting

The next AHSGR Intermountain Chapter meeting will be held on January 9. It will be held at the home of Shawnette Malan and Carol Harless: 10001 Hook Drive, South Jordan.
The board will meet at 12 noon and the general meeting will start at 1:00 P. M. If there is bad weather, the meeting will not be held. If you are not a member, but interested, you are invited to come to the meeting.

Family Heirloom

 

I wanted to share this picture of one of my family heirlooms. When my son was a missionary in Russia, he was allowed to visit our ancestral villages. I sent him a map of Pfeifer so he could find the family home. When he found the Burghardt home he asked the Russian woman who now lives there if he could look around the place. She was gracious and then said, "I have something that belongs to you." She went in the house and brought out this cross and gave it to him. She had found it while tilling the garden spot. What a treasure! If you click on the picture it will enlarge so that you can see the details. It is about 4 inches in height with a sunburst at the intersection of the cross. Above that is a scroll. It is obviously not Russian Orthodox because it is missing the foot bar at the bottom. It is wood inlayed in iron.

If you have something you'd like to share, please email it to me so that I can add it to the blog.

Christmas Party

I can't tell you how disappointed I was to miss our chapter AHSGR Christmas party. Besides great company and food, I was looking forward to the telling of stories about the Christmases of Germans from Russia. Hopefully, I can hear some of them later. Family commitments, health, and weather kept me from coming, but I still wanted to share my family's story. So, here goes...

When I was younger, my uncles shared this family tradition with me. The Burghardt family in Pfeifer, Russia, was so large that they actually occupied two houses that were next door to each other. They were located across the street from the Catholic Church. At Christmas time, a line was strung from the roof of the church to that of the Burghardt home. Candles were attached to that line to decorate for Christmas. I couldn't actually picture how that would work, so I sort of brushed it off as just a good story. Many years later when I obtained a copy of a map of Pfeifer which showed the village, complete with family names labeled on the homes, I was surprized. There were indeed two houses next door to each other that belonged to a Burghardt family. They were across the street from the Catholic Church. If that part of it was true, then maybe the story about the Christmas candles was also true. Now I treasure that story as part of my family's Christmas tradition.

Geneology and Medical History

First of all, I want to say thanks to my AHSGR friends and the thoughtful and cheerful gift that was sent to me at the hospital. Also thanks for the get-well cards. I am home and doing well. Modern medicine is amazing! My recent experience has certainly helped me to see the importance of knowing your family medical history. With that in mind, I'd like to share some archaic medical terms that you might find while researching your ancestors (Family Tree Magazine):

Rheumatic fever: Fever, swollen joints and inflammation of heart valves

Scarletina: Scarlet fever

Sugar diabetes: Diabetes mellitus

Pleurisy: Inflammation of the membrane around the lungs, often from pneumonia

Phytogenic fever: Typhoid fever

Cachexia: Wasting away from poor nutrition due to illness

Black lung: Anthracosis

Dry bellyache: Lead poisoning

Apoplexy: Sudden brain impairment, as in a stroke

Marsh fever: Malaria

Dipsomania: Alcoholism

Flux: Diarrhea

Here are two more that I've found in my family research:

Dropsy: An abnormal accumulation of fluid in the body, sometimes associated with heart or kidney disease

Pott's Disease: Tuberculosis of the spine

An Amazing Video

Once again Suzanne has shared something wonderful. Check out this site for a documentary on a Mennonite family during Stalin's reign:

http://www.throughtheredgate.com/?action=Home

Chapter Meetings

During the October meeting of AHSGR, plans continued for the 2011 Conference to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. There are still several chair positions that need to be filled, so if you are interested please be sure to attend the next meeting which will be held:

November 14th
3040 Homecrest Street (in the clubhouse)
West Valley City, Utah

The officers will meet at noon and the general meeting will start at 1:00 P. M. Sharon White will be the hostess.

Food assignments are:
Salad: He-R
Entrée: S-Z
Dessert: A-Ha

The December 12th meeting will be at Carol Harless and Shawnette Malan’s house. There will be no Board Meeting. Everyone will meet at 12:00 noon. We will have a Christmas party. Bring a Christmas story pertaining to the Germans from Russia. The food will be a Christmas theme. We will have a gift exchange with a limit of $5.00. Karen Dellos will be in charge of games.

Bring your German recipes to the meetings. We are going to try to sell a chapter cookbook in order to raise some money.

Try This Site

Suzanne has contributed another great site for us to try:

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Germans_from_Russia

Free Forms and More

I just read an article in the Family Tree Magazine about heirlooms, which for me help tell the story of our families. If you are like me, you don't have many from your German-Russian line. My goal is to leave a little more of that personal story from my generation so that the next one doesn't have to work quite as hard at is as I have. If that is something you are interested in, here is a very condensed version of some of the ideas in the article:

1. Make a list of the heirlooms in your possession. Tell the story that goes along with them, and write it down as well. Categorize them into groups, such as photos, documents, objects, etc.

2. Share any photos you have by making duplicates. Send labeled prints to other family members, then there are other pictures if something happens to the originals.

3. Organize the documents in an archival container. Dig into your memory and write down as many stories and anecdotes as you can.

4. Organize your research so that is easy to find what you need when you need it.

There are free forms availble at www.familytreemagazine.com that will help you with this project.

Newspaper Archives

As you already know, many German-Russian immigrants settled in Colorado. If you are one of the many who have ancestors who settled there, this site is the one for you. It covers 147 Colorado newspapers from 1859- 1923. I can't tell you how surprized I was once I did some searching. I found one article about my uncles that made me cry, one that made me proud, and one that made me laugh. It is amazing what reporters got away with in the early 1900's. Check out this site:

http://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/

Try This Site

I promised at the last meeting that I'd try out some new sites and let you know what I thought about them. Here is one that I liked and had some success on:

www.findagrave.com

I actually found my grandfather's grave on this site. If you are lucky like I was, it will even have a picture of the headstone. If it doesn't have a headstone picture, you can make a request for it and a photographer will be sent out to take one and add to the page. The section and plot number is also given. I have never visited my grandfather's grave, but now I will. It is awesome!

September Meeting

This is just a reminder about the next Intermountain Chapter AHSGR meeting:

September 12, 2009
Retirement Community Clubhouse
3040 Homecrest Street
West Valley City, Utah

The board will meet at noon, with the general meeting at 1:00 P.M. Bring an idea for the 2011 Convention theme. We are looking for new members, so if you haven't joined our chapter, please come and join us!

August Meeting

The most recent meeting of the Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR was held Saturday, August 15, 2009. During the meeting members reviewed the by-laws for the chapter and shared publications and other resources which have been useful in their research. Much discussion was held concerning the opportunity to host the 2011 National AHSGR Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. Many volunteers will be needed, and it is hoped that membership will grow in the coming months.

Holy Cross Church, Pfeifer, Kansas

Just to give you some background on the last posting, I wanted to share this picture. It doesn't show the church in great detail, but you can certainly gain a feel for its beauty. The story behind it is really quite amazing. I loved it because it showed the faith of the Germans from Russia. In 1875 the first group of Germans left their home in Pfeifer, Russia, and eventually arrived in Kansas the following year. Before a church was built, the people erected a huge cross where they gathered on Sunday to worship. In 1879 their first church was built and was simpler in architecture than this one. The current church was completed in 1891. The people had contibuted to its construction with donations of wheat that was sold as well as labor by parishoners who were stone-masons and carpenters.

Just a note- the Holy Cross Church was was named one of the "8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture" by the Kansas Sampler Foundation in 2008. Donations for the restoration of the church are appreciated:
Holy Cross Charities
1606 Sarratov
Pfeifer, KS 67660

Letters from Russia

In the recently published newsletter of AHSGR a letter found in the Ellis County News, Hays, Kansas, was printed. The letter from Pfeifer, Russia, to Joe Stramel in Pfeifer, Kansas, described the conditions in Russia in 1921. On a visit to Pfeifer, Kansas, I picked up a small publication on the history of their beautiful Holy Cross Church. I found the bottom picture in that publication. I'm not sure if it is the same Joe Stramel, but found the picture interesting. I took the top picture of the small post office which gives you a more complete idea of the setting. The post office was closed at the end of 2008.