From: Krasna, Bessarabia
3 October 1920

Honored Editorship!

There still is a lot of work here with the Welsh corn straw. The harvest of the Welsh corn is finished. The wine is in the barrels. There was 150 to 200 and more pud of Welsh corn per dessjatin. (Note: 1 pud = 36 lbs., 1 dessjatin = 2.5 acres) There is so much Welsh corn straw that we have hardly enough room in the yard to stack it up. Since July the weather has been dry. We need a thorough soaking rain.

The health condition is good. This year we had a blessed year. Now we can also export barley. The Jewish business owners are badly after us. In the city of Kilia supposedly 30 to 35 rubles are paid per pud of barley.

Our church is still in its old place in the center of the village. Bishop Joseph Kessler is still with us here in Krasna. Hopefully, he will stay with us further until everything is peaceful again. As pastor we still have B. Leibham with us. Mathias, son of Joseph Volk holds the office of senior mayor. The clerk is a Rumanian. Church elders are S. J. Türk and Albrecht Lauterbach. The Russian Czarist ruble is supposed to be exchanged for lei by 6 October.

Unfortunately, I also have to report something sad. We received the information by letter, that the Bolshevists murdered Pastor Joseph Nold, who used to live here, in his brother’s house in Cherson. First they put him to torture and tormented him in unthinkable ways, to make him confess where he had his fortune hidden. When he confessed that he had 40,000 rubles in gold buried, several men were sent to the specific place to get the money. After that he was tortured some more and finally beheaded.

On 2 September, Franz, son of Jakob Kuss died. He had reached the age of 65 years. Besides his widow Katherina he left behind 4 children, of which 3 are already married.

Last night a wagon was stolen from Martin Ternes’ yard. The loss was estimated at 6,000 rubles. About such things one hears almost daily.

I want to inform my friend Michael Volk in Raleigh, North Dakota, that I received his letter of 22 May. I ask him to be less lazy in writing, and let himself be heard from more often. Simultaneously with this correspondence I am mailing a letter to him.

This is to inform Klothilda Kahl that her parents and siblings are all healthy. We have not heard anything from Martin who lives in the Caucasus.

I thank Mr. Cyrillus Haag in St. Paul, Minnesota for his letter. Your comrade Georg Dressler was at the German front during the war. He was in four battles. He was killed in action in the last one.

I have to close now. I am greeting the editorship and all readers.

Anton Gedak

From: Prelate, Saskatchewan, Canada
27 October 1920

Worthy Staats-Anzeiger!

On the 18th of this month, I once again drove out to the farms to make collections. It is hard to get paid otherwise. Everyone holds back as long as he can.

I just had arrived at the second debtor, when it started raining. By the third one it started to snow. So I put chains on the car and drove home because I did not trust the weather and I was 25 miles away from home. Towards Prelate I had to drive into the weather. Soon I could not see through the windshield anymore and almost collided with another car, which came from the opposite direction. It snowed for 20 hours. The snow was 12 inches deep. Of course everything has melted by now. But the roads are muddy and hardly passable. Many yearn for dry weather so that they can thresh or transport the wheat.

I have the “Oregon Fever”, which I cannot get rid of soon. On 25 October, Anton Bachmeier moved to Portland, Oregon and 5 or 6 other families are going there next week. Yesterday Kaspar Ternes from Elardee came back from Washington and praised that region extraordinarily. The fruit there was in full splendor and he brought back a carload full of apples. Soon we will taste the quality. On 25 October, we had an election at which also was voted on “wet” or “dry”. There you could see how great the fraud is among the foreigners. Only the men, who are citizens and the women who are born in America were allowed to vote. The rest of the women could not vote, since one was afraid that these would vote for “wet”, so that their men could drink openly and not have to hide in secret places.

Melchior Gedak