From: Makarofka, Bessarabia
10 June 1912
Today I received Edition #34 of the Staats-Anzeiger. I already thought that it had been lost. Yes, if I would have received it in the right order, then I could have discussed in detail all the highlights, which I had mentioned in my reports. But now it will demand that everything in the rear has to disappear.
However, that edition covers the report dated 9 February by Mr. Nikolaus Kahl, whom my brother Jakob had visited. Mr. Kahl certainly would have informed me, had I asked if my brother during his visit had thoughts of his brother Romuald. But since that was so long ago I will not mention anything.
As far as I know, I got along fine all the time with my brother Jakob in the old homeland and up to the time of his immigration. I do not know if my brother in the New World now has different feelings toward me. It is strange that my brother doesn’t write. It almost seems like there is a wall between us. Nonetheless, I would be very happy if the Editor Mr. Brandt would do me the honor as a veteran correspondent, and send to my brother Jakob Dirk in Strasburg, North Dakota the Staats-Anzeiger edition which contains my photograph along with my biography. This could simultaneously serve as a trial number for my brother. (*Editor: It will be our pleasure to do you this favor. We will immediately forward Edition #47 to your brother.) The picture in the paper should remind my brother to remember me.
Of course I look very emaciated as a result of all the hardship I had to endure in the course of the recent years along with an old ailment which has tormented me. As of late, I look my old self again. The ailment has ceased and I have gained weight again. I endured the ailment with patience and without complaining and despairing, because I took it as God’s will.
Dear brother Jakob, despite all the misery I had to put up with, you don’t have to be ashamed of your brother. If the editorship is kind enough and sends you the aforementioned edition, then you will find in the Staats-Anzeiger several things. How everything goes hand in hand. How friends, acquaintances, siblings and parents visit each other in thought via the dear paper. How they are getting along. What they complain about. How they enjoy themselves or shed a tear for each other. You too dear brother should open the door for this friendly guest.
In the course of time and years, you will find a lot in the Staats-Anzeiger that will bring you and your family joy and luck. The Staats-Anzeiger serves as an invaluable reporter and go-between for all immigrants from the Old and the New World. Were it not for the Staats-Anzeiger, as I often emphasized, then not only old friends but parents, children, as well as siblings like in your case would have forgotten about each other a long time ago.
I have many friends and relatives in the New World of which only five have subscribed to the Staats-Anzeiger as far as I can tell through the paper. Dear friends that is sad! Therefore, hurry and order the paper and submit reports to it, because you owe it that much a thousand-fold. I hear way too little from my acquaintances and friends through the paper, and I don’t know why. People were astonished as I often heard, when they had read an article in the paper that was written by some friends in the New World who had been known in the Old World as being uneducated. Yet they were now writing such high quality reports. Then often one would say, look here, Johannes turned into a newspaper writer, and back here he was hardly able to scribble his name. Then I would often reply, dear friend, don’t forget that practice makes perfect.
The New World is not Russia. Despite the jumble of different nationalities the people in the New World achieve rapid progress in the area of education. The people there read a lot more than we do here. They soon get to the point where they can contribute quality commentaries. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. I am hoping that even the “A Farmer” after prolonged practice will write with a greater élan even though he may not be afforded an opportunity to correspond by literary rule.
Oh no, I have to stop since it is already midnight. In a minute we will have 11 June already. After 2 hours of rest I have to be on my job again. I am responsible for managing 2,000 dessjatin (5,000 acres) of farmland and it needs to be attended to. Therefore I am saying good night dear readers. Tomorrow evening I will continue to write.
Makarofka, Bessarabia
11 June 1912
The rushing of a tremendous rain alarmed me when I woke up in the early morning hours of 11 June. The day before I had requested 100 people to harvest rape! What will happen if it continues to rain for a few days? Now it is 12:00 noon and it is still pouring in streams.
To date, the Oekonomie (economic farm) of Makarofka had an expenditure of 15,000 rubles, which will probably climb to 35,000 rubles by the end of the year. This amount plus a lot more is supposed to be taken in again as a profit. How it will turn out one cannot tell as yet, although the expectations are good, but what all could happen in the meantime?
My hair bristles up when I look at the rain. The barley is not in danger, but the rape is and also the winter wheat, which was smashed a little and hopefully will upright itself again, if not entirely but at least somewhat. During the month of May, we had two good rains, which happened at the right time but were accompanied by a severe wind. While I am writing I glance out of the window once in awhile, but the rain doesn’t want to stop.
I cannot report anything about the southern part of Bessarabia, because I have been away from there for too long. My wife and children have written me that everyone is still healthy. Our daughter Antonia from Tarutino was, and I believe still is, on a visit with her mother and siblings. Supposedly, the grain has grown there well also. I have planned to visit my wife and children for a few days during mid-summer to see how they are faring. I also hope that I will soon receive a letter from my children in America. I had given them my address through the Staats-Anzeiger.
Perhaps someone among the readers will inform me about the address of my brother-in-law Georg Mastio. His address was listed in the paper once, but I misplaced it during all that moving around. It appears that the situation with him is similar to that of my brother Jakob. My address is published in the paper almost weekly, if they would care to write.
The reports by “A Farmer” did not interest me during the time when I lived closer to Krasna, because I always knew about what was going on there. Now that I am far away from Krasna I always eagerly look for his reports in the paper. (*Editor: “A Farmer” is writing very diligently. In this edition too you can find a correspondence by him.)
In closing, I greet my old colleague Anton Jochim, Jakob Sommerfeld, my children in North Dakota and all readers of the dear paper.
Romuald Dirk
From: Brisbane, Morton County, ND
7 July 1912
On 4 July, we had a much-needed soaking rain. Lightning killed two of Mr. Christian Dressler’s horses. This was a hard loss in view of the meager condition of the crop. However, we will be content as long as we harvest something.
Jos. Erker and family, and Jos. Stefan and wife from Lemmon, S.D. visited me recently. They said that the wheat there appeared to be the same as here. They had left home on 3 July. Mr. Martin Kunz who left from there on 5 July told us that the wheat had grown a foot and a half higher from Thursday to Saturday. Of course that is a lot, but Martin probably is also able to hear the grass grow.
My brother-in-law recently lost the evener from his buggy while on the way home from church. He had driven a quarter of a mile before he noticed it. Not everybody can do the trick of driving without an evener.
We founded an organization to fight prohibition. The prohibitionists in North Dakota are all chewing tobacco and with that they have enough moisture, but we Germans do not like that muck. We prefer a glass of beer instead. So we established this organization in order to obtain alcoholic beverages on the open market. (*Editor: Dear friend if you do that, then your organization will not exist very long, because you will be in conflict with the prohibition law.)
I answered Mr. Blasius Müller’s letter. I would have done it sooner, but I was not sure if it was the same man that I knew. Now we will write each other more often. Peter Jochim challenges me to write more often. But, Uncle Peter, first off I am a very lazy writer, secondly, I have not had much time, and thirdly I was on a visit to the “moist” environs of Lemmon, S. D. In Lemmon, one really doesn’t seem to know any bad times. There are more taverns there than homes in our town.
(*Editor: You inquire about the cost of an engineering book in German. We assume that this book is intended for machinists or beginners. The cost ranges from $2 to $12.)
A greeting to all Staats-Anzeiger readers and especially to Georg Jochim and to Peter Miller whom I ask to let something be heard from soon. Maybe you will like the Staats-Anzeiger and if so, then I will order the newspaper for you as soon as I hear from you.
Respectfully,
Max Erker
From: Fox Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada
10 July 1912
The state of health is satisfactory, and so is the weather. It rains almost daily. It would have been better had it rained like this a month sooner.
Dear editorship, I am reading the newspaper at my neighbor’s, Joseph Menges, and ask you to please send me a trial copy. (*Editor: Well, this we will be happy to do, but we do not understand the reason for it, since you already know the paper.)
I want to tell my friends in the old country that last Sunday I visited my brother-in-law, L. B. M. Müller. We chatted a long time about things going on in the world.
Hello to my nieces, Agatha Eli and Rosina Heitrich in Krasna, South Russia as well as Ermela Hinz and my old friend Gabriel Rehn. My wife will visit you as soon as you have church services again in Krasna.
Respectfully,
Claudus Menges