Home of Our Fathers....and Mothers, Actually: Part 3

The Farm House....

In the last post, a picture of a painting of the Zacher homestead was shared at the very end depicting what the house and outbuildings looked like in the early 1900's. Here's the actual photo that painting was created from, crosshairs and all. The crosshairs were drawn on the original to break it up into a grid of 8 sections as requested by Irma Birdsall, the artist who created the painting:

There are two differences between the painting and the actual photo I'd like to point out:

1.  The door to the grainery on the side of the barn toward the back. Please note the door in the actual photo. In the painting, it is painted as a section where the plaster has fallen away. It's pretty easy to see how that mistake might have been made since some of the plaster had, in fact, fallen away from around the door. Add to that the fact the original photo is pretty small and the door is kind of hard to see, and there you have it. Mom always made mention of that "flaw", but also said it's really not all that important in the scheme of things. It was still a painting of "home" for her, and that's all that mattered.

2.  The painting does not include the two figures walking toward the back entry to the house shown in the cropped photo image below. It would be fascinating to know who they really were!

My Mom used to tell us she didn't know if those two people were her and her Dad, Oscar, but she liked to think it might be. It's obvious the person on the left is a little girl. So, Mom might have been right, but me being me, I just couldn't resist doing a bit of research on whether or not Mom's nostalgic remembrances were accurate. In order to do so, though, a different approach needed to be taken.

Obviously, the faces of the two in the picture could not be seen. No facial recognition software in the world would work in this instance, eh? So, a different focus?

The house? Nope.

The windmill? Nope.

The vehicle parked in front of the house? Yep. That's it!

Is that a Ford Model A or a Ford Model T?

Anyone?

The reason I ask is because if it's a Model A (I don't think it is), the photo may be of Mom and her Dad. If it's a Model T (I think it might be), it might be of Mom and her Dad.

I'm soooooo confused!

Mom was born in 1923, and, according to Wikipedia, the Model A began its production run in October, 1927. That would have made the child in the photo perhaps 4 years old if, and it's a very big IF, the vehicle in question was purchased brand new in 1927.

If the vehicle is an older Model T, the forerunner of the Model A, it could still be Mom and her Dad in that photo. But, then again, it could be Aunt Lorraine, Aunt Roberta, or even Aunt Jeanne. It all depends on how old that vehicle is when that photo was taken.

These are the kinds of questions, conundrums, and puzzles that drive me up a wall backwards sometimes.....trying to figure out how ALL the pieces of a puzzle actually fit together.

On this one, I guess we may never know who at least one of those two people in the photo actually is....and maybe both.

Anyway, getting down to business here....

I'm starting out this blog post with a photo of the Zacher homestead farm house and outbuildings. Why? Because I can. Well, there's more to it than that, actually.

If anyone watched the video, The Germans From Russia: Children of the Steppe Children of the Prairie, that I shared in the last post and am providing here once again, part of the story talks about how settlements in South Russia revolved around the town. Seldom did anyone build homes or reside outside the community. Farmers lived in town, and went out to till the soil and tend their flocks and herds during the day. They came back to their homes in town when done in the fields for the day. As a result, social activities and interactions, both from a personal and also a religious perspective, were pretty commonplace and relatively easy to engage in. That cannot be said for Germans from Russia settling on the vast open prairie of the Dakota Territory.

When Germans from Russia emigrated to the United States, they took advantage of the Homestead Act. That act was passed to encourage western migration and settlement. There was a catch, however. In order to be able to claim a parcel of land under the Homestead Act, the claimant had to live on that parcel for 5 continuous years in order to be able to claim it as their own. They couldn't live in a town and farm the land from there by going out during the day and coming back to town in the evening. And that's why the Germans from Russia couldn't engage in the same kind of "culture" they were used to back in South Russia. In effect, they were kind of forced, if you will, to erect whatever dwellings and outbuildings they could, including sod from the prairie and the kind of building materials including sandstone and mud described in the article in the first blog post in this series.

Christian Zacher, my Great Grandfather, homesteaded on the 160 acre parcel the Zacher house and outbuildings are located on. From there, he purchased the other claims as mentioned in the previous post and as written by his daughter, my Great Aunt Pauline Zacher-Miller.

Even by today's standards, the Zacher homestead was kind of off the beaten path, so to speak. I believe the closest farm to the Zacher homestead may have been the Sprenger farm, about a mile away to the west give or take. By today's standards, a mile is kind of like a hop, skip, and a jump away. By days gone by's standards, that mile would have been a pretty good walk or horseback ride. I'm not sure how many other homesteads were "close" to the Zacher homestead, but I certainly don't remember any of them being within a mile's distance.

ND State Highway 49 is on the westward side of the Sprenger homestead, but Highway 49 didn't even exist at the time Christian lived on this property. According to Wikipedia, ND State Highway 49 was constructed in 1927, and by that time Christian had already left for California.

But I digress.

Isolation. Distance from neighbors. Loneliness. All were factors in whether or not Germans from Russia even survived the arguably "brutal" living conditions on the open prairie of the Dakota Territory (North Dakota didn't become a state until November 2, 1889).

The Zacher homestead was different....at least from what I've been able to research. This particular homestead became kind of a stopover for travelers. According to Great Aunt Pauline, it was also almost a trading post of sorts with Native Americans.

Perhaps the reason was because folks were welcomed with open arms. Perhaps it was because trails led there. Perhaps it was for other reasons unbeknownst to us. I do know that my Dad's Father, Ferdinand Hochhalter, stopped there once or twice on his way to Glen Ullin to procure supplies to stick build a house on their property 12 miles south of the present town of New Leipzig. So, it must have been a pretty well known stopover in them there parts.

In fact, what was once Grandpa Zacher's shop at one time became a bunkhouse that guests stayed in overnight if necessary. It later became his, and later Uncle Harlan's shop for awhile. Uncle Harlan later built a quonset that functioned as his own much larger shop.

At any rate, the house has deteriorated to such a degree that the current owner is really reluctant to allow anyone to go into the house for obvious reasons. But, memories still serve, and Fonda Rieger was kind enough to dig deep into the recesses of her memory and draw floor plans of the two floors of the house. 

First floor:

Second floor:

A couple of things regarding these two images:

1. A remodel of the original house was undertaken by Uncle Harlan and Aunt Jeanne. Prior to that remodel, the area on the first floor designated as a bathroom was originally Cousin Clyde Rieger's bedroom. He didn't move to the upstairs bedroom until after the remodel was completed and indoor plumbing was installed.
2. Indoor plumbing. Before indoor plumbing, I remember there being something in his bedroom some would call a "honeypot". Others called it a "honeybucket". Regardless, it was a toilet with a bucket inside that would have to be emptied at pretty regular intervals. Otherwise, the outdoor biff had to be used, and that was NOT a very pleasant experience in the middle of winter and late at night, for sure!

I'm now going to show a progression of photos of the house that come as close as I can get them to being similar to the original photo that began this blog post.

Circa 1980's:

Digital Horizons Online.

The next one is also from circa 1980's, but was provided by Cousin Ardis Zacher-Storms:

While this photo from Ardis is not a frontal shot, it does show the south face of the house and part of the barn.

Now from 2016, two photos provided by Fonda Rieger

From afar:

More closeup and from inside the corral:

Ravages from both time and the elements of Mother Nature can be brutal, especially if structures like our own Zacher homestead buildings are no longer lived in and used for any purpose other than the nostalgia for those of us who lived there or practically lived there (like my own brother, sisters, and me) when we view current photos and reminisce on years gone by.

And with that, this blog post comes to an end.

I'm not sure where to start with the next blog post, so readers are encouraged to make suggestions and recommendations on what they (YOU) would like to see.

Until next time.....

Home of Our Fathers....and Mothers Actually: Part 2

America.....Land of Opportunity, a beacon of hope for so many folks who emigrated to our shores so long ago and from so many places including from southern Russia, the origin of the Zacher story.

The reasons for emigration to America were many and varied. Germans from Russia emigrated primarily because the promises made by Catherine the Great, ruler of Russia and the person most responsible for Germans relocating to present day Ukraine in the first place, were revoked by subsequent rulers after Catherine the Great's death. Those revocations included exemptions from military service. Germans from Russia left their German homeland originally for many reasons, but compulsory military service was arguably at the very top of the list. When exemption from military service was revoked in their adopted homeland of southern Russia, it was sort of a last straw, so to speak.

Even though their knowledge of what lay ahead was limited, they made the conscious decision to journey into the unknown and to seek their fortunes and fulfill their destiny in that Land of Opportunity known as the United States of America.

The Zachers were part of that emigration from southern Russia to the United States. Their journey, like the journeys of so many others, must have been difficult, dangerous, and long. There is a lot of information available on emigration. Several were provided in my previous post, so I won't repeat them here. However, I also found a video on YouTube called "The Germans From Russia: Children Of The Steppe Children Of The Prairie". It's a three part series rolled into one almost 59 minute long video that gives the viewer a history of this very special group of people....their origins, their culture, their movements, their beliefs, and so much more. The video was produced and published by Prairie Public Broadcasting. Highly recommended.

When Germans from Russia reached their final destination, primarily the open prairie of the Dakota Territory and Nebraska, their traditional way of life where they came from was not possible in their new settlements. More of why that was so is detailed in the video mentioned above. I believe that is part of the reason why it seems a lot of families and individual members of those families went their separate ways after one or two generations in this country. Not always, but definitely sometimes.

So it appears to be with the Zacher family. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.

When families did depart for parts both known and unknown, keeping in touch with other family members left behind and those spread far and wide was kind of problematic for several reasons.

• The infrastructure of paved roads, highways, and interstate highways we enjoy today did not exist back then. Heck, I can remember even when I was growing up not really all that long ago in the small North Dakota town of New Leipzig just how daunting it was to make a trip to Bismarck once or twice a year to do school shopping because no matter which route we took, the roads were gravel....dusty and wash-board gravel most of the year. Speeds were much slower as a result. If it rained or snowed....well, let's just say it wasn't a whole lot of fun to be on the road in those kind of conditions, and I'm a third generation Zacher descendant! If travel by road was that difficult for folks in my earlier years, just try to imagine what road conditions were like for first and even second generation Zachers. 
• Air travel? Seriously? The Wright Brothers first flight occurred in 1903. Need I say more?
• Even travel by train was limited, expensive, arduous, and time consuming.
• Calling by telephone may have been an option for a few but not many. The same conditions as air travel pretty much applied to phone services availability throughout the country. Plus, many telephones that were in service were on party lines. Those folks who experienced the lack of privacy on party lines know EXACTLY what I'm talking about here.
• Add to all of this the fact the Internet wasn't even invented yet, and, well, you get the picture. At least I hope you do.

But I digress....

Christian Zacher and Suzanna Sprecher-Zacher both emigrated to the United States from what was then known as Bessarabia, Russia, today known as Ukraine. Their children, including my Maternal Grandfather Oscar, were all born in the United States as first generation Zachers. The next generation of Zachers, my Mom's generation, is the one I am personally most familiar with. In fact, I never really knew the generation before hers except for Grandpa Oscar, and he died when I was only 10 years old.

There were eleven, that's right....eleven, children of Christian and Suzanna Zacher. Christian's second wife, Katerina, had five children from a previous marriage two of whom died before she married Christian. Christian and Katerina also had three more children in their marriage.

Of the eleven children between Christian and Suzanna, three that we know of died as infants. One child, Arthur, passed away in 1903 at the age of nine according to Ardis Zacher-Storm's Family Tree document.

So, in essence, there were six children of Christian and Suzanna Zacher that were Great Aunts and Great Uncles of mine in addition to my Grandfather, and who lived well beyond my own birth date in 1949 (yeah, I AM that old).

Out of six Great Aunts and Great Uncles of mine, I knew one....Great Uncle John. And that relationship was from one visit just one time in Lewistown, Montana where he lived at the time.

I never knew any of Katerina's children or any of the children between Christian and Katerina.

All those relatives who might have been able to provide a history of sorts, albeit almost all anecdotal, were so far flung, staying in touch with each other was difficult at best and eventually pretty much non-existent over time at worst.

After a period of time, one after another passed away, their knowledge and experiences now only memories in the minds of the next generation, the generation of which I am a member.

My generation, while almost certainly cherishing those memories (I know I do), also tend to forget some of the details as so many folks are wont to do. Or, their recollections of those details evolve over time or simply fade away as time inexorably passes by. Those are the stories that give my generation and generations to come a very small window into what it was like living back then. To be witness to those memories changing, fading, and being romanticized over time is inevitable if not written down. It's kind of sad, really.

So, where am I going with this? Well, I'm going to Great Aunt Pauline Zacher-Miller, the youngest of Christian Zacher's children with Suzanna. Why go to her? That's a very good question, really. The fact Pauline's siblings didn't actually engage in recording their own family histories for posterity is sad, really. Great Aunt Pauline was the only one to do so. And therein lies the genesis of this blog series on the Zacher family history. I'm simply adding to her already fascinating story, and hoping I'm doing her story justice by doing so.

Pauline was born in 1899. She moved with the family to California in 1907. Her first hand knowledge of the Zacher homestead was limited, therefore, by virtue of the fact she was only 8 years old when they moved. And, yet, she has written a pretty darn comprehensive history of her recollections of both the Zacher homestead and of her family life while living there. Pretty amazing when one comes right down to it.

In fact, Great Aunt Pauline is the only child of her generation I'm aware of who chose to write anything at all for posterity regarding the Zacher homestead. Out of that many children, twelve to be exact if my mathematically challenged brain has run the numbers correctly, only one, Great Aunt Pauline, chose to write what is now arguably the only genuine historical document that Cousin Ardis Zacher-Storms was able to include in her Zacher Family Tree and History.

I've scanned that document and named it Great Aunt Pauline's Writings. Click on the link to be able to read the whole thing. It's also the only document I'm aware of that gives those of my own generation, and those to follow, any inkling as to what life was like for her generation growing up on the Zacher homestead. The rest of our knowledge in that regard is lore passed down word of mouth, generation to generation.

Great Aunt Pauline Zacher-Miller looked to me to be of almost regal mien. Her poise, the dignity she exhibited in the photo below is remarkable, really. The photo was taken in 1943. She was 44 at the time. She passed away in 1995. Boy, I really, really, really wish I could have met her and been presented with the opportunity to get to know her....even a little bit, and to be able to ask her questions....so many unanswered questions generated by her writings.

The story she tells in the document I'm sharing in this blog post stands alone and very tall. There are only a couple of things I will elaborate on.

First, the Zacher homestead was, and still is, located in Grant County, North Dakota. For anyone reading this blog post not familiar with the state of North Dakota, yes, the state does exist, and, yes, Grant County is located in North Dakota, and, yes, Grant County is actually inside that red circle on the map below:

Ok, narrowing it down even further, we need to locate the Zacher homestead within Grant County.

Counties are always platted as townships. The township the Zacher homestead is located in is called Minnie Township. And Minnie Township is located inside the red circle in the map below:

Each township in every county has a location designation. Minnie Township is designated as "Township 135 N., Range 89 W".

Each township is then divided into sections.

Still hanging in there with me? Fun, eh?

For those unfamiliar with how land acreage works, a section is comprised of 640 acres divided equally into 4 quarters of 160 acres each. Sections are normally 1 mile square on all sides except when natural barriers such as rivers (look at the bottom border of Grant County) enter into the equation. Also, not all parcels of land ownership abide by the 160 acre per quarter rule. Some quarters of land are broken up by blocs of acres and owned as parts of those quarters. That's significant for the Zacher homestead because Christian's land ownership appears, at first glance, to be kind of haphazard in some ways.

The map of Minnie Township is shown below. The Zacher homestead is comprised of land in Sections 25, 26, 34, and 35. Section 36 is labeled as School Land, but, in talking with Fonda Rieger, we're pretty sure this was used as pasture by her Dad, Harlan Rieger, when they lived and worked there. As a result, we're just not sure how that fits into the Zacher homestead unless it was leased acreage.

The Zacher homestead designated as belonging to Christian Zacher is shown inside the red box:

Christian's name appears in the areas he owned on the map above, but it's a little hard to read. That's why I took it one step further and cropped the image down to the southeastern corner section of Minnie Township in which the Zacher holdings can be more easily read:

I hope everyone can make out the areas he owned because his holdings are pretty scattered within the township itself, truth be told:

Thanks go to Fonda Rieger for providing the county and township maps shown above. The state map was copied from an open source site on the Internet whose copyright citation is in the lower right hand corner of the image.

It's important to include a zoom from the State Map of North Dakota all the way down to the Minnie Township map because, in her writings, Great Aunt Pauline states that, "By the time he moved to California in 1907 he had something like 80 claim (sic) - 160 acres in a claim times 80 = 12800 acres, or 20 sections".

Of course, Great Aunt Pauline was referring to her Father, Christian, in the statement above. However, if one looks carefully at the map and adds up all the acreage he owned inside that box, the sum total comes to 1280 acres, not 12,800 acres. That's the equivalent of 2 full sections, not 20. Regardless, 2 full sections of land is still quite a lot of land no matter how one looks at it.

The other thing I'd like to share here in going beyond what Great Aunt Pauline wrote has to do with her mention of the time of Sitting bull in a letter she'd written to Cousin Ardis Zacher-Storms. Ardis included it as part of Great Aunt Pauline's writings. In that letter is this quote:

"The time we lived in North Dakota was around the time of Sitting Bull and Custer's Last Stand. 

There were Indian uprisings and raids of farms. Oscar told about one time when the farmer's families were taken to a Fort in Glen Ullen (sic) which is now a cemetery --- and Oscar was quite young and remembered hiding under a table."

When I saw her reference, I immediately did some research to see if there was ever any such fort in Glen Ullin. No matter where I looked I couldn't find a single trace of any kind of a fort in Glen Ullin. One thing led to another and the pieces to this puzzle started coming together.

I believe the fort she was referencing was called Ft. Sauerkraut. But that fort was located in Hebron, a settlement not too far from Glen Ullin. In November, 2013, I wrote the first in a series of blog posts about Ft. Sauerkraut. This is significant because there actually is such a place, and I'm pretty sure Great Aunt Pauline was referencing that fort when she mentioned the fort supposedly in Glen Ullin.

The blog series I wrote consists of five parts, the very first of which is entitled Ft. Sauerkraut. If you care to read up on it, just click the link provided here to get to the introduction. At the very end of that post, you'll find 4 more links to the actual story as told by an anonymous historian. It's a fascinating read, and I do hope you, the reader, find it fascinating,as well.

With that, I'll close this blog post with a photo of a painting commissioned by my Mom with a local family friend and part time artist from my home town of New Leipzig by the name of Irma Birdsall. This painting was lifted from a photo of the farm you, the reader, will see again somewhere down the line in posts yet to be written.

Readers, I give you the Zacher family homestead as it appeared sometime in the early 1900's:

Until next time.......