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Historian with ties to Pierce County retires from NDSU

By Sue Sitter - | Dec 3, 2022

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A North Dakota State University historian with ties to Pierce County will retire Dec. 1 after devoting 55 years to preserving the history and culture of German immigrants from Russia who settled the northern plains more than a century ago.

Michael Miller, director and bibliographer of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at NDSU, said he plans to stay involved in the work he began in 1967.

Miller’s last day at NDSU is Dec. 1. He’s already set his sights on more projects for 2023 and 2024.

“It’s my official retirement, but then I’m going to volunteer with special projects at the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection and also work as a producer with Prairie Public Television for the Germans from Russia documentary series,” he said of his future plans.

“We’re working on a new documentary,” he said of the television project, the 11th in a series of stories told of Germans from Russia.

Strasburg roots

“This new documentary is going to be a 30-minute documentary on the Welk Historic Homesite. And that’s the birthplace of Lawrence Welk,” he said.

“The focus will be on the family of Lawrence Welk, farming, homesteading and what influenced Lawrence Welk playing the accordion,” Miller said of the documentary slated for release in fall 2024.

Miller said the documentary would explore how the people and culture of Strasburg, North Dakota shaped Welk’s musical career. “They were quite well-known for their music,” Miller said of the people in the region. “He learned a lot from them through lessons and also, simply how to play the accordion.”

Miller said his own experience growing up in a German-Russian family in Strasburg influenced his choice to devote his career to collecting, documenting and preserving the culture.

“The main interest with that was growing up at Strasburg, North Dakota,” he said. “My teachers were Catholic nuns and they had a lot of influence. They would always say, ‘You need to be a leader in preserving these people – their heritage and culture.'”

“They’re very unique, with their foods, their dialect, their language, their habits – that really had a lot to do with the background,” he said of the Germans from Russia.

Miller said two of his aunts had influenced him with their own love of history, and “It certainly also helped that I knew the language.”

“So,” he said, “I think what influenced a lot of my career decision was growing up in that environment.”

“So many people take (their culture) for granted and a lot of people aren’t interested in it,” he added. “But, hopefully, a lot of people are, including myself, that have shown interest in it and have interest in taking a leadership role.”

Pierce County ties

Miller said his work to document the culture of Germans from Russia has taken him to Pierce County many times during his career. He and researchers from Alsace, France and Germany have made trips to Pierce County cemeteries to document family names. He has also given talks and advice to Rugby’s Heart of America Germans from Russia chapter.

“There are a lot of Welks in Rugby,” he said as he spoke of Lawrence Welk’s history. “I think they’re all in some way related.”

He recalled traveling to Pierce County with French researcher Jean Schweitzer in the 1990s. Schweitzer, he said, was “an expert on the names of families who came from the Alsace region of France, where many Germans from the Black Sea area had come from.”

Miller said as he and Schweitzer checked into Rugby’s Northern Lights Inn, they happened to meet members of the Welk Family, who at the time were gathering for a reunion.

“It ended up that Professor Schweitzer and were invited and became a part of this,” he said. “In the 1990s, a lot of these people didn’t know much about their history and culture, and all of a sudden, there’s a man in their midst who lives near these villages where their ancestors lived before they moved to South Russia and came to Pierce County.”

“They became very interested,” he added.

Miller said he had encountered many Pierce County residents interested in their German ancestors who immigrated to the United States after living for about a century in small communities near Russia’s Black Sea region.

He traveled with German Ethnographer Karl Stumpp to dedicate a building for Rugby’s Heart of America Germans from Russia group in 1978 on the grounds of the Prairie Village Museum.

The building, which had once been a farmhouse, deteriorated over several decades. The group removed the artifacts displayed inside and demolished it.

“Now, the new Germans from Russia building is at the site where the Karl Stumpp Museum was,” he said.

Keeping ties strong

In addition to visiting the area to share information, Miller said he and NDSU researchers have established ties with Pierce County in other ways.

“We’ve made a lot of close ties with the Rugby area with our Prairie Public documentaries and of course, our other projects, and we’ve done a lot of filming, naturally, because there’s such a strong heritage of Germans from Russia in that area, especially south of Rugby.”

“I know Pierce County has a mixture of different ethnic groups,” he said. “But I know when you talk about Germans from Russia, it’s south of Rugby.”

Miller has traveled to Pierce County with crews from Prairie Public Television to film documentaries on local families descended from Germans from Russia.

In 2000, the crew featured area resident Theresa Kuntz Bachmeier preparing kase knoephla, or cheese buttons, for “Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia.”

Miller returned in 2002 to interview Monsignor Joseph Senger for “Prairie Crosses, Prairie Roses: Iron Crosses of the Great Plans.”

Ten years later, “At Home in Russia, At Home on the Prairie” featured locals Christina Gross Jundt, Mary Ebach and her sister, Clara Ebach, Bachmeier and Senger.

Miller said the NDSU Germans from Russia Heritage Collection would keep its Pierce County ties strong, even after his retirement. And Miller planned to stay involved in the work.

Future projects

“NDSU would like to work with the Heart of America Germans from Russia group in developing a pilot project for oral history interviews. We think that’s very important,” he said.

“We’ve talked with Kathy Blessum and Ron Brossart and some other members about this idea,” he added.

“We’d like to establish a pilot project where they do interviews of the older generation of Germans from Russia in Rugby and Pierce County and then eventually, the interviews, working with the GRHC, they can be placed on the Dakota Memories section of Digital Horizons at www.digitalhorizonsonline.org.”

The website holds records collected between 2005-2009, documenting stories from people living in settlements in north central South Dakota, North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

“And the other project we have is a new travel exhibit that is going to premiere in 2023 that’s called ‘Building Life at Home on the Prairie,'” he added.

“It’s now on display at NDSU and our plan is to have in June, July and August of 2023 to have the North Dakota premiere of this traveling exhibit at the Prairie Village Museum in Rugby,” Miller noted.

“It’s all based on Father William Sherman’s Homestead Photograph Collection,” he added.

“When you talk about cooperating with Rugby and Pierce County, this is a real landmark project of having this traveling exhibit for the first time in Rugby,” he said.

“I thought it would be important to have it there because they’ve been doing so much work with the Prairie Village Museum, plus, they have an amazing story of raising the money to put up this building,” he noted.

“I think we’re going to have a public program there, too,” he said. “I’m not sure who it will be, but I’m hoping it will be someone who has studied the homestead architecture of the Germans from Russia.”

‘A lot to offer’

Miller also praised Rugby’s Heart of America Public Library for its work to preserve local history records.

“Their ethnic collection there is amazing in that library,” he added. “They’ve had some good support with the Heart of America Public Library.”

“It’s certainly a warm place to come,” Miller said of Rugby. “In my opinion, if you’re going to move to a town that’s smaller with a lot to do and a lot to offer, Rugby is one of the best.”

Mary Ebach, who said she first met Miller when Rugby’s Heart of America Germans from Russia chapter was a new organization, said he has had a major impact on local families with ties to Germans who had come from Russia’s Black Sea area.

“As extremely interested as he is in the culture, it seems like he’s gotten deeper and deeper into it,” she said. “As a result, people are into genealogy.

“It’s just amazing how many people are working on their family histories,” she added. “He has the resources and information that can either help people or direct them to where they can get their information.”

“He has information from a lot of people (descended from Germans who lived in Russia),” Ebach added. “Even all religions – it’s not just Catholics or Lutherans; there’s a Jewish group that is involved. There are so many areas that are covered by his assistance and it’s all greatly appreciated.”

“Because when he’s got all that experience along those lines, you feel like you can call on him and he’ll be there to help you,” she added.

“He’s been very helpful in getting the local group of Germans from Russia together, get the building constructed for the Germans from Russia; and contribute ideas for the Germans from Russia that we’ve never thought about,” she noted, adding he had attended some of the group’s meetings by phone.

Miller said he encouraged the group to establish an endowment fund to maintain the Heart of America Germans from Russia building into the future.

The family of Valentine and Alice Brossart started a legacy fund for that purpose with a donation of $50,000.

The fund has grown with help from several donors. Donations can be made through the North Dakota Community Endowment Fund at www.ndcf.net/learn/community-endowment-funds/ by selecting Heart of America Germans from Russia Endowment Fund, or by contacting Kathy Blessum at 208-1044 for more information. Donors can also contact Heart of America Germans from Russia at hoagermansfromrussia@gmail.com, or send donations to HOA Germans from Russia, P.O. Box 221, Rugby, ND, 58368.