Travel....week 28

In my living room sits an old 'steamer trunk', I use it for storing linens and guest towels, tablecloths
and cloth napkins. When I was a child, it was upstairs at grandma's house, in a cubbyhole, out of the way.  I and my cousins spent hours on the floor in front of it with our paternal grandmother, Lottie Kiehn, listening to her tell the stories that went with the items she would pull out of it. There was a scrapbook for each of our dads that she had kept since they were small, with every newspaper article from the small town paper, the fair ribbons for showing sheep, school papers and pictures. There were items that had been sent from my father when he was in the Air Force during the Korean War, and the pictures, the lace doilies, the christening dresses....it was a treasure trove to a little girl who already loved the family history and stories.

My grandmother got the trunk from her mother, who was the original owner. Grandma told the story that her mother had brought the trunk with her from the Volga region of Russia and the German Colony of Frank, Russia. My great grandmother Anna Elizabeth Crystal had packed all her clothing and a few pretty linens in the trunk and she and her husband George Frick were going to America. When they got to Hamburg Germany (which was a very long trip by wagon) Anna was ill and they wouldn't let her on board the ship. Grandpa was willing to go on ahead and send for her but she was having none of that and insisted that they go together. They finally arrived at the port of Galveston Texas in 1905, just 5 years after the devastating hurricane had leveled the seaport. They then took the train to Loveland Colorado where grandpas uncle was already living. There was a large community of Germans from Russia there, my grandma was born there and when she was old enough to start looking she found a young man whose family was from the same village in Russia but had taken a different path to America, at almost the same time.,,,

 

I have not found my grandad Kiehn's family on the passenger lists, but great grandpa's naturalization paperwork shows that they came in to New York.  From there took a train to American Falls Idaho and then covered wagon to Washington to a little town called Ritzville, which was one of many German-Russian towns in the area. When grandad was about 10 they moved to Loveland, Colorado so he could meet my grandmother.

Most, but not all, of the two families managed to leave Russia before the Revolution. One of my favorite stories of the immigration process was told by my great uncle Henry Meinzer. He would say “If anyone tells you they found my name in the records they are lying!” Uncle Henry's story is that he was sick when they got to New York and they were afraid they wouldn't be allowed in, he always swore he came into the country hanging onto his mothers leg under her voluminous wool skirts! Another story that I have never been able to document was the story that Uncle Adam Bernhardt helped the family get out of Russia, as they couldn't afford the tax required to leave. The family story was that he helped them across the border...somehow. He was the last of the family to make it to America.

The trunk is a reminder to me of the hardships, the travel, the sacrifice that went into my family becoming Americans.  The most memorable item in grandma's trunk was a beautiful doll.  She was 'Little Red Riding Hood' and she was fairly new, she was grandma's doll and we might - if we were good and very careful - get to hold her and touch her red velvet cloak.  Grandma never said it out loud, but we all knew that this was the doll she never had as a child. As immigrants making a new home, working in the fields, hiring out to other's when still a young girl, there was no money for pretty dolls.  This doll was her dream, and it was special. It helped those of  us who were benefiting from the sacrifices to appreciate them a little more.

They certainly came a long way...