Chapter 7 Abraham Moves to the Kuban, Russia 1864-65

Changes in the Family

I wonder if the Schmidts had been planning on moving before Father Heinrich died in 1864. Here is a list of families who applied to move to the Kuban dated May 1864:  http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Kuban_1864.htm

Mother Katharina (spelled Catarina in Russian) is listed as Widow Catarina Schmit (sic) with son Heinrich, 17, son Abraham, 14, and daughter Catarina, 18. (Yes, the daughter was mentioned after the sons.) They had 80 rubles of moveable household goods but no land or house.

I think that census list is fascinating because of all the little nuggets of information - confirmation of the family members, their ages, their finances and their relationship to our family. Also on the list of families who are moving to the Kuban is the family of Abraham's future first wife - Katharina Nickel, who was 7 at the time. Heinrich Nickel was owed 953 rubles for his house that he sold and he had 777 rubles in moveable household goods.

Why did they move to the Kuban?

In the last blog we talked about the lack of land in Molotschna motivating the move. The other motivation was religious freedom. It started with a religious revival. As the original immigrants to Russia had become first settled, then comfortable and then wealthy, their original religious way of life had changed. It is noteworthy that the Mennonites were awarded the exclusive rights to make and sell alcohol in the Ukraine. For a religion that believed in temperance this was certainly a change in values.

In 1860 a religious revival swept the colony, started by a Lutheran preacher. He emphasized the joy of rebirth through baptism. He chided the congregations for their laxity - crude jokes at wedding, drunkenness and a lack of charity to their fellow man. His followers wanted a change and they found it in this re-awakening to their religious beliefs.

So in 1860 the Mennonite Brethren church was founded with its emphasis on the fundamental beliefs of Mennonite doctrine while also enjoying the emotional side of their spiritual freedom. They couldn't change the offenders or kick them out of the church because church membership was mandatory. (Smith's Story of the Mennonites, p. 433). But what they could do is gather around themselves like-minded people and worship together separately from the others.

It was difficult to separate in the same small community. The division caused strife within the colony. When Johann Classen went to St. Petersburg and petitioned the authorities for official recognition of their new church without losing their privileges, he also asked for a land concession under favorable conditions for a new settlement "along the Kuban River", in the upper Caucasus. (ibid, p. 434)

I imagine a conversation like this between Abraham and his mother:

"Muttie, did you hear?" Abraham might have said. "Brother Classen is taking people to the Kuban! He said we could go and work for another family and eventually own our own farm!"

"I don't know, Abraham. It is a long way around the Black Sea. And fierce Turks live there."

"Not anymore! The Russians have driven them all away. And beside there is plenty of land for everyone!"

"Now, Abraham, did he say we would be allowed to worship as we please?"

"Yes, Muttie, he had the Mennonite Brethren church recognized by the Czar!"


The Kuban

Click on the map to see a larger version

In 1864,Katharina Funk Schmidt and her children left their life in Schardau and her husband's grave to move once more to a new frontier. After three weeks of traveling in the back of a bumpy wagon, they arrived at a vast prairie where they and their fellow settlers would build a new colony.

That first winter, many became discouraged and returned home to the Molotschna Colony. But Abraham's family stayed.

Life was not easy for Katharina, 57, in this new frontier. They were back to sod houses again. While they waited for the new crops to come in, their supplies often ran low. The territory was still wild and undeveloped. (This was why the Russian government wanted them to move there - to colonize this new acquired territory.)

The Cossacks signed a treaty with Russia

The native Cossacks were only partly "civilized". The Cossack villages were scattered at intervals along the Kuban River as outposts for the Russian government. These Mennonites were still foreigners and needed watching. The Cossacks were not farmers. They were traders. Their villages were squalid, dirty and consisted mostly of men. The few women were concubines who lived first with one and then with another of the men. The marshes created by the Terek and Kuban Rivers made perfect hiding places for bandits waiting to raid the farms and villages. Sometimes parents scared their kids into good behavior, not with tales of bogeymen, but with tales of kidnapping by the wild, bellicose tribes in the region.

A Cossack hut

But the soil was fertile and the climate was ideal. Fish were plentiful. The rivers teemed with herring, carp and salmon. The sturgeon were so big that they had to be hauled in by a team of horses! And, in time of great need, the settlers were only a few weeks ride from the old colony.

Katharina and her children lived in the Kuban for ten years. 

What about Abraham's brother and sister? According to the census, by1869 Heinrich, 24, was married to a Katharina, 34. He will follow Abraham to America in 1878.  Abraham's sister Katharina, 23, married a man from Poland. The 1869 Kuban Census says she was married in the Mennonite Region of Poland. We lose track of her here.

Abraham's mother, Katharina Funk Schmidt died in February 1874. She was born in Prussia on 22 June 1807. She was married first to David Unrau who died in 1843. She had a daughter with him - Maria Unrau Neufeld. After her husband David died she married our Heinrich Schmidt and had 3 children - Heinrich, Katharina and our grandfather/great-grandfather Abraham. Then she moved to the Kuban and died in 1874.

Abraham was a man of 24 when his mother Katharina Funk Schmidt died.(Handwritten diary by Abraham Schmidt. Original with Hulda Langhofer, translation from Rosalie Berg.)
Still unmarried and landless, Abraham was ready for the changes that were in the air.

Note: I have not uploaded our family tree yet. I am giving you references to one that is publicly available, but is not complete.

Chapter 6 Father Heinrich's Death 1864

Abraham's Father Dies, 1864

Abraham was just 13 years old when his father died in Schardau, Molotschna Colony, south Russia. His father Heinrich was 70 years old when he died. This was a remarkably long life for this era and for this part of the world. Since they didn't have immunization yet, people died of common childhood diseases as well as epidemics. During the Crimean War of 1853-1856 (between England and Russia), the Mennonites nursed and cared for five thousand wounded soldiers. The soldiers left behind typhoid, typhus and dysentery.

Florence Nightingale made nursing a legitimate profession for women through her example in the Crimean

Malaria was another killer, but it was slow and hidden. The swampy riverbanks were fertile land for growing watermelon, which was a Mennonite favorite. But the rivers were also home for the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Many people blamed watermelon for the "sweating sickness" - malaria.

Also many women died from "blutvergiftung" or puerpural fever also known as "childbed fever", and up to 30% of infants died at birth or in their infancy. In 1880 the sixty villages of the Molotschna Colony only had one doctor. Midwives delivered the babies. These midwives didn't receive any particular pay but were exempt from paying taxes. (Mennonite Encyclopedia, www.gameo.org)


When do they move? Isn't Abraham going to come to America?


A Religious Move - but not to America
After his father died Abraham along with his mother Katharina Funk Schmidt, his older sister Katharina, and his brother Heinrich, all moved to the Kuban area of Russia, which was 200 miles east of their village of Schardau.

They didn't move alone. Almost 100 families were granted land by the government, although only 67 families actually moved. (Mennonite Encyclopedia, www.gameo.org) They went there  for two reasons. First of all, the Molotschna and Chortitza Colonies had run out of land. And second, there was a religious revival.

Land Opportunities

Mennonites were invited to Russia as master farmers. A model farm supposedly needed to contain approximately 175 acres. The Russian government forbade the division of the farm upon the death of the owner. It had to be kept intact. One son inherited the land and the other children found other jobs where they could. They were landless and were spoken of as "Anwohner". (Smith's Story of the Mennonites, by C.H. Smith, 1957, p. 410.) The landless had no vote in the local village assembly. By 1870 it is estimated that at least two-thirds of all heads of families in both colonies were without land. Many were granted a small patch of land to build a hourse and to make a living as best they could on their "kleinewirtschaft".

The original lots of 175 acres were sufficient for sheep raising. Remember, that's how the colony started - growing wool? But as they turned to growing wheat, the farmers needed more acreage to be profitable. Finally, the pressure of the population encourged the colonial government to ask the Russian officials for permission to set up "daughter" colonies. The Mennonites were granted land in the Kuban in 1862.

A Religious Revival and the first Mennonite Brethren

As I read about the Kuban, I was surprised to read that the founders of the new colony were also among the first to call themselves Mennonite Brethren. That's when I learned about the many branches to this tree of faith.

If a congregation differed enough in their beliefs that they could not reconcile, then their only choice was to start a new church. Sometimes the difference might seem trivial, such as whether ribbons could be worn on underwear. (Henderson Mennonite: From Holland to Henderson, Stanley E. Voth, 1982.) But actually these seemingly trivial differences were symbols of larger issues. (Conversation with Kevin Enns-Rempel, Pacific University, Fresno)

The early Mennonites had their differences of opinion too. The people from Holland were Frisian and the people from Flanders were Flemish. Each accused the other of worldliness in dress or furnishings.

Die mit Haken und Oesen,
Wird Gott erlosen;
Die mit Knopfen und Taschen
Wird der Teufel erhascen

Those with hooks and eyes (on clothes)
Will be saved by God;
Those with pockets and buttons
Will be seized by the devil. (Henderson)

Sometimes the differences occurred over large issue, like discipline. If someone broke a law in an early Mennonite colony the only punishment available was to "ban" the wrongdoer. They didn't have jails and weren't part of the Russian judicial system. Although not used very often, this system of discipline conformed to the pacifist ideal. When a Mennonite was "censured" no one in the church could speak to him or do business with him. (Smith's Story of the Mennonites, by C.H. Smith, 1957.)
Since they were in a community set apart from the rest of the world this could be devastating. Imagine taking your wheat to market and having no one willing to buy it. Or going to the only store in town and finding no one to sell you any food.

One division in the church came about over whether this "no speaking" rule applied to family members. Could a wife talk to a banned husband?


And this is where the Mennonite Brethren started.
More tomorrow....with my thanks to cousin Myron T. for his help in editing this blog.

Chapter 2 What was it like in the south of Russia in 1811?

When Heinrich Schmidt arrived with his family on the vast prairie in southern Russia, no one else lived there. Only half-civilized nomadic tribes of Tartars roamed the area.

The colonists built the original 48 villages like Rúckenau (est. 1811) and Schardau (est. 1820) along the Molotschna (which means milk) River that flows into the Black Sea. The later villages were established every one to three miles along the streams and tributaries. They were strung out along the dusty, country road like beads scattered along a string.

Everyone lived along the main village street. The plots of land divided among the original settlers were 180 feet by 720 feet with the house set back from the main road. Although the first houses were made of sod, by the time Abraham was born in 1850, everyone had rebuilt their house in the precious lumber that was brought in by wagon from hundreds of miles away. The farmland lay behind the houses, all in an orderly fashion. Because of the cold winters, the settlers attached the houses to their chicken coops and stock pens. They did this so they wouldn't have to go out in the cold and rain to take care of the animals, but it gave the impression that the animals lived in the house with them.

The early economy of the colony began with sheep and cattle raising. Wool was in demand in Europe (do you care that it was because of the demand for uniforms caused by the Napoleanic Wars?). The expanse of waving grasses made sheep raising easy and profitable. As transportation developed and markets became more accessible, agriculture turned more toward wheat farming. (Henderson Mennonites: From Holland to Henderson by Stanley E. Voth 1982)

Was Heinrich Schmidt a farmer?
Not everyone was a farmer. Abraham wrote in his diary that his father Heinrich "was a chauffeur for a wealthy miller in Russia".

 

Some of the people had small businesses like the blacksmith, dressmaker, cabinetmaker, wheelwright, and weaver. These businesses apprenticed children and taught them skills in return for their labor.

There were also 13 "hollander" mills in the Molotschna colony. The owners of these mills were often wealthy because the climate was perfect for growing cereal crops. The average farm grew 500 pounds of wheat per acre. 

The Mennonite farmers grew rye to make their famous "black bread". They also developed a particularly hardy strain of wheat that came to be known as "Turkey Red". The Mennonite farmers brought this wheat to the United States in the 1870's. According to the previously mentioned book about Henderson (see above) all the wheat grown in America today came from the Mennonites' Turkey Red.

The wealthy millers employed many servants including chauffeurs to drive their carriages and their wagons. The wagon driver hauled the flour in long wagon trains to the port city of Berdjansk on the Sea of Azov  about 60 miles away. Cornelius Janzen, a grain dealer, bought and sold wheat for the Mennonites.

So perhaps Heinrich got a job driving the wheat to the port city. What an exciting job for a young man!

What happened next? The next installment will be about Heinrich and his wife Katharina and the birth of our grandfather/greatgrandfather/2xgreatgrandfather Abraham Schmidt.

Abraham Schmidt - the Beginning Chapter 1

Having just survived the coldest winter since their arrival in south Russia, the colony of Molotschna was enduring a heat wave in July 1850 as Katharina Funk Schmidt gave birth to baby Abraham. History would note record temperatures that year from a low of 14 degrees below zero in January to a high of 102 degrees in July.

To make it worse, storms came sweeping across the broad, treeless Russian plains filling the air with dust. It was enough to make any immigrant want to return home, if they had a home to return to. But these immigrants didn't. When the Mennonites left their homes along the Vistula River of Poland, they sold their houses and land, packed everything they owned on wagons and trudged hundreds of miles to the south of Russia. It took them between five and seven weeks to get to the new colony.

OK, so that's why they weren't Russian even though came to America from Russia.

From 1804-1840 six thousand Mennonites left Poland. They left Poland because they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs, especially their refusal to bear arms. The Napoleonic Wars were making it hard to avoid conscription into the army. (Personally, I think that the neighbors were jealous. The Mennonites were such good farmers that they were able to move into the swampy land along the Vistula River and turn it into productive farmland. When they left they had to sell to whoever would buy it for whatever price they could get.)

Then, were the original Mennonites Polish?

Not necessarily, although during the 100 years that they lived in Poland some local people joined their religious community. The Mennonites came from other countries like Holland, Switzerland, France and Germany. They banded together through their common religion and beliefs, the same beliefs that forced them out of their native countries.

Which country did Abraham's parents come from?

Abraham's parents were not born in Russia according to his diary.(Personal diary owned by Hulda Langhofer)

His mother, Katharina Funk, was born on June 22, 1807 in the part of Poland ruled by Russia. Abraham called this area "Polen Russia".

His father, Heinrich Schmidt, was born in German in 1793. Heinrich (the father) came with his parents to the southern part of Russia when Heinrich was 18 - that was in 1811.  Heinrich came with his father Daniel, 51, his stepmother Barbara, 37, and brothers and sisters.(Die Niederlandish by Unruh, p.330)

They brought with them 1 horse, 6 cows, 5 sheep, 1 harrow, 1 wagon, and a spinning wheel. They settled in the Molotschna Colony near the Black Sea in a newly created small village of 30 people, called Ruckenau.
Soon after they arrived in Rückenau, Heinrich's sister Susanna married Jacob Draksel, a neighbor, on February, 25, 1813.

But why did they pick Russia? And why right then?

Russia under the rule of Catherine the Great had just won a war and gained millions of acres of unoccupied agricultural land along the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Russian government wanted to settle the area with industrious, stable farmers. She offered liberal inducements - such as free land and transportation; support until they were settled; tax exemption for a limited time; self-government within their region; exemption from military duty; and, most importantly, religious tolerance. After Catherine the Great died, her son Paul continued the same offer.

In Summary
Abraham was born in Russia in 1850 but his father and grandfather had come from Germany in 1811. Their religion and their culture remained intact in Russia through their communal solidarity.

More tomorrow......

A 78 year Life Story with Music in 3 minutes

Here is a video that I made about Abraham Schmidt 1850-1928.

Click on the arrow: