"German-Russian Voices from Saskatchewan"

By Tom Isern

Plains Folk column, Prairie Public Broadcasting, Fargo, North Dakota, 2007

After I went through the old homestead files and got the other written documentation on the Germans from Russia, many of them with background in North Dakota, who ended up settling in Saskatchewan, my associate Jessica Clark headed for that prairie province to collect oral histories. Expenses paid by the generous Embassy of Canada.

Now, Jessica and her husband, Will, complain quite a bit about how they are overfed when they do this fieldwork how solicitous German-Russian women keep stuffing them like birds for the roaster, feeding them strudels and knoephla and platchinda at all hours, mealtime or not. I think, though, that their complaints are more in the nature of bragging than actual grievance. Anyway, the stories Jess and Will recorded are just as rich as the food they consumed.

Some of the stories are tragic. Although the tellers are North American born, they pass along vivid memories from the old country, Russia, such as those told by Wilfred Leippi of Kronau, Saskatchewan. His mother told him how her father had come to Canada ahead of the family fortunately, as it turned out because while he was gone, Russian soldiers rounded up all the men of the village near the Volga River and shot them in the schoolyard

Another story-teller, Reynold Zeiler of Allan, Saskatchewan, recounted the tale often told by his father, Roy Zeiler. As a boy in Russia in the 1920s Roy scavenged the countryside for anything to feed his starving parents and siblings. He finally found a rotting horse head and dragged it home, but it was too late. His father, Reynold's grandfather, Felix Zeiler, already had died of starvation.

Most of the stories, though, have to do with life on the prairies, especially the experiences of growing up with the land, happier experiences. Doreen (Brossart) Zeiler and Christina (Bast) Krismer of Allan recall the habits of visiting that took place among neighbors without electronic media how people just dropped in all the time, lingering to share a meal, the men talking in the parlor, the women talking in the kitchen while they worked. Christina in particular listened to these conversations in order to learn her heritage; people might not sit down and tell their histories directly to a child, but a child might pick them up by easedropping.

One of their neighbors, Wilfred Boechler, was an aspiring musician. One day he heard the hired man play a mouth organ, and his interest was stirred. The hired man taught him to play one chord on a guitar. The rest of what Boechler learned of music was self-taught. He made himself a little practice guitar-neck with frets. He took it to the field and practiced fingering during breaks while hauling hay. Becoming a performer, he knew the old German standards, and he liked Lawrence Welk he had to, I suppose! but popular singers like Elvis, the Canadian country singer Wilf Carter, and the American country artist Johnny Cash, were his favorites. Thus radio loosened the old ties to the land and tradition drawing young German-Russians into the world of North American popular culture.

These are stories worthy of hearing and preservation; Im glad were doing this; and I hope sometime Jessica brings me back some Kuchen along with the recordings.

This text and audio may not be copied without securing prior permission from Plains Folk.

North Dakota Public Radio is a service of Prairie Public Broadcasting in association with North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota.