Dear friends and colleagues,
Special regards from the campus of North Dakota
State University. The NDSU Libraries offer me wonderful
opportunities to pursue challenging projects relating
to my ancestral roots, the Germans from Russia.
These opportunities have enriched my life with valuable
and cherished friendships in the USA, Canada, Germany,
Moldava, Ukraine, and Russia.
The Dakota
Memories Oral History Project sponsored by GRHC
was begun in the spring of 2005. The project is
designed to document the heritage and culture of
the Germans from Russia community. The primary focus
is on childhood memories and family relationships,
especially what is was like growing up German-Russian
on the Northern Plains.
Jessica Clark, a doctoral student in history at
NDSU is coordinator of this project. She is a recipient
of the Theresa Mack Germans from Russia History
Doctoral Fellowhip.
From May to July, 2005, a total of 31 interviews
were completed with older persons living in the
Ashley, Gackle, Streeter and Wishek areas of south
central North Dakota. This fall, two public forums
about the project were held at Gackle and Wishek.
Plans are to extend the project with additional
interviews in other areas of North Dakota with large
German-Russian settlements.
Theresa
Mack Wald of Grand Forks, ND, wrote: "My
gift for the fellowship is to preserve the heritage
and culture about the positive aspects of the Germans
from Russia. I want to provide a living legacy for
the scholarly study of my heritage, of which I am
very proud. My parents, John G. Mack born in 1888
and Katherina Deringer born in 1890, lived in the
Catholic Black Sea German villages of Elsass and
Neu Schloessel, Kutschurgan District, South Russia
(today near Odessa, Ukraine). They immigrated in
1901 and 1914, to Pierce County, ND. My father was
14 and my mother was 24 when she came to America."
In September, 2005, I attended the Festival of
Germans from Russia, Medicine Hat, Alberta. This
was a most impressive event. Leader, Saskachewan
will host the festival for October 15-17, 2006,
and then back in Medicine Hat in 2007.
I look forward to attending the Germans
from Russia Heritage Society Convention, Holiday
Inn Airport, Portland, Oregon, July 12-16, 2006,
and the American
Historical Society of Germans from Russia Convention,
Embassy Suites Hotel, Lincoln, Nebraska, August
13-19, 2006.
Friendships were renewed during the Journey to
the Homeland Tour to Odessa, Ukraine, and Stuttgart,
Germany in May, 2005. The 12th
Journey to the Homeland Tour is scheduled for
May 23 - June 2, 2006. For more information, contact
Michael.Miller@ndsu.edu.
I continue to serve on the Board of Directors of
the Germans
from Russia Cultural Preservation (www.grculture.org).
Major projects of the Foundation include assistance
to the orphanage and boarding school in the former
German village of Landau, Beresan District, today
in southern Ukraine near Odessa. The Foundation
is sponsoring, with private donations, the production
of a 2006
documentary on the former German Catholic Kutschurgan
villages, today near Odessa, Ukraine.
The Germans from Russia Heritage Collection (GRHC)
at the North Dakota State University Libraries received
a $1.1 million endowment in 2000. The gift comes
from the estate of Marie
Rudel Portner, a native of Fessenden, Wells
County, North Dakota. Mrs. Portner was of Bessarabian
German-Russian heritage. This endowment substantially
enhances and enriches the activities and mission
of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.
Students, scholars, and family historians will have
access to significantly expanding print and electronic
resources, oral histories, and archival materials
because of this endowment. Marie's father, Simon
Rudel, was born in Alt-Arzis, Bessarabia. In 1882,
at Scotland, South Dakota, Simon married another
Bessarabian immigrant, Dorothea Weber, who was born
in Dennewitz, Bessarabia. There were twelve children
in the Rudel family. Marie reminisced in 1997 with
memories of her Christian baptism in the James River,
herding sheep with her sister Hilda, and teaching
in rural schoolhouses where chalkboards were simply
plaster walls painted black. Marie exemplified the
moral strength, humorous wit, and focused determination,
which characterized many ethnic German-Russian settlers,
as well as other early pioneers of the Northern
Plains and Dakota Prairies. The NDSU Libraries are
deeply grateful for this generous gift of Marie
Rudel Portner in memory of her parents, Simon and
Dorothea Weber Rudel.
Gisela
Schilling Keller, a longtime employee at the
NDSU Varsity Mart, established the Udo Gerhard Keller
zu Kellerode Fund with a major financial gift to
the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection. The
Kellers immigrated to the United States from Germany
in 1955. Gisela expressed: "We came here from
Germany with practically nothing. We were grateful
for the opportunities we had in this country. This
gift is a thank-you to Fargo and to North Dakota
for the opportunity to build a home and to NDSU
for the opportunity to work." In 1941 and 1944,
Udo and Gisela Keller volunteered to assist the
resettlement program of ethnic Germans from the
Soviet Union to the Warthegau region in eastern
Germany. Many who left Bessarabia and southern Russia
near Odessa, Ukraine, had siblings and cousins living
in North Dakota.
The Thomas
J. Hoffman Collection was received in April,
2004, from Sun City, California. This gift from
the Hoffman family was requested to be donated to
GRHC by Thomas J. Hoffman, who died in December,
2003. This marvelous collection of genealogy and
family resources will be of special interest to
persons of Catholic Beresan District ancestry, South
Russia (today southern Ukraine). For further information,
visit the GRHC website or contact me.
Prairie Public Broadcasting and the NDSU Libraries
have collaborated to produce four award-winning,
one-hour video documentaries, The
Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children
of the Prairie (1999); Schmeckfest:
Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia (2000);
Prairie
Crosses, Prairie Voices: Iron Crosses of the Great
Plains (2002); and A
Soulful Sound: Music of the Germans from Russia
(2005).
A
Soulful Sound: Music of the Germans from Russia
premiered on Prairie Public Television in April,
2005, and is now appearing on other PBS stations
throughout the USA. This program is in DVD format
along with a performance CD.
Prairie Public Television has produced a new DVD
bringing together three documentaries formerly available
on videotape: Schmeckfect
and Recipes from Grandma's Kitchen, Volume 1 and
Volume 2.
If you wish to be added to the Black Sea Mail List
to receive e-mail messages of news from GRHC including
book and videotape announcements as well as upcoming
outreach programs, please let me know with an e-mail
message to: Michael.Miller@ndsu.edu.
Our outreach activities for 2005 included centennial
events at McClusky, Streeter, Wishek and Zeeland,
ND providing us with many memories and contacts.
We look forward to attending the Harvey ND Centennial
for June 29 - July 2, 2006.
The monthly column published since November of
1996, "In
Touch with Prairie Living," for North Dakota
and South Dakota weekly newspapers continues to
be well received. My thanks to the newspaper editors
and the many readers.
My work with a wonderful staff continues to be
most rewarding and I am deeply appreciative. These
people include Ann Braaten and Sara Sunderlin, Emily
P. Reynolds Historic Costume Collection, NDSU, where
gifts of textiles
and clothing to GRHC are housed; Jay Gage, exhibits
and textiles curator; Carmen Hauck Hoefs, desk-top
publishing; Natalya Kornfeld, Russian translator;
Brigitte von Budde, German translator; and student
assistants.
We appreciate the work of our volunteers with book
reviews, oral history interviews, publications,
and outreach programs: Mary Lynn Axtman, Fargo;
Bob and Margaret Aman Freeman, Redondo Beach, CA;
Linda Haag, Fargo; Brother Placid Gross, Richardton;
Edna Boardman, Bismarck; Carol Just, St. Louis Park,
MN; Victor Knell, Fargo; Rev. Marvin Hartmann, Fargo;
Christine Krismer, Lewis and Dona Reeves-Marquardt,
Austin, TX; Regina, Saskatchewan; Thomas and Janice
Huber Stangl, Sterling, VA; Allyn Brosz, Washington,
D.C.; Betty and Chris Maier, Linton and Apache Junction,
AZ; Dr. Homer Rudolf, Richmond, VA; Rosemary Ripplinger
Schwan, Devils Lake; and Ronald J. Vossler, East
Grand Forks, MN.
My special thanks to volunteer German translators:
Alex Herzog, Boulder, CO; Alice Morgenstern, Munich,
Germany; and Ingeborg W. Smith, Western Springs,
IL.
I encourage you to view Germans from Russia Heritage
Collection website at http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc.
We have assembled a wealth of information for you
to view. May I suggest that you consider purchasing
books, videotapes, photo notecards, or other items
described in the section titled "Order."
They make wonderful gifts and provide needed income
for the mission of GRHC. Sales of these items provide
important financial assistance to GRHC for these
privately funded projects including the Oral History
Program, translations, publishing, photography archives,
website development, and traveling visual displays.
In recent months, GRHC has published these books:
1) Child
of the Prairie, Man of the World: Memoirs of Dr.
LaVern Freeh; 2) Extended
Relationships of the Communities of Leipzig, Kulm,
Tarutino, Bessarabia, Russia; 3) Graf-Buck
Family Heritage: Family Photographs and Memories
of Streeter, North Dakota; 4) Researchers
Guide to McPherson County, South Dakota Cemeteries;
5: The
Centennial of St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Zeeland,
North Dakota and the Spiritual Heritage of St. John's
Catholic Church, Rural McIntosh County, North Dakota.
GRHC recently published its sixth book by Ronald
J. Vossler and Joshua Vossler: The
Old God Still Lives: German Villagers in Czarist
and Soviet Ukraine Write Their American Relatives,
1915-1924.
Nelly Daes' popular Cookbook
for Germans from Russia has been translated
from German to English by Alex Herzog. Herzog wrote:
"What I like about Nelly's cookbook is her
inclusion of at times amusing, and at other times
very sad and tragic anecdotes, as well as the descriptions
of the Black Sea German customs and folkways - all
woven between and around the recipes." Janice
Huber Stangl, editor for the cookbooks, commented:
"This cookbook contains not only recipes, but
also humorous and heart-warming anecdotes from the
German Russian diaspora. The cookbook is an essential
addition to every household."
Already in GRHC's seventh printing since February,
2002, is German
Food & Folkways: Heirloom Memories from Europe,
South Russia & the Great Plains, by Rose
Marie Gueldner.
Dr. Timothy Kloberdanz, Department of Anthropology
and Sociology, NDSU, Fargo, wrote: "Although
there are German-Russian cookbooks currently on
the market, this one is quite unusual because of
the way it interweaves background history, ethnic
heritage, and so many mouth-watering Old Country
recipes. If the German-Russians have a Martha Stewart
anywhere in North America, it may very well be Rose
Marie Gueldner!"
Brother Placid Gross, German-Russian folklorist,
Assumption Abbey, Richardton, ND wrote: "This
book is the crowning achievement of all cookbooks.
It is a great and wonderful tribute to our pioneer
mothers who knew how to hold body and soul together
with hard work and creativity to make a banquet
with the simplest of basic ingredients."
In closing, I want to extend warm Dakota regards
from the prairies and plains, and from here in the
Red River Valley.
With Dakota regards,
Michael M. Miller, Bibliographer
Germans from Russia Heritage Collection
North Dakota State University Libraries
PO Box 5599
Fargo, ND 58105-5599 USA
Tel: 701-231-8416,
E-mail: Michael.Miller@ndsu.edu
GRHC website: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc
Personal Home Page: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/biography.html
The mission of the Germans
from Russia Heritage Collection is to collect, document,
preserve, exhibit, translate, publish, promote,
and make accessible resources on the culture, history,
folklore, foodways, and textiles and clothing of
the Germans from Russia, particularly Bessarabian
Germans, Black Sea Germans, Crimean Germans, Dobrudscha
Germans, and Volhynian Germans and their descendants
in North Dakota and the Northern Plains.
