Sue Sitter/PCT Members of Heart of America Germans from Russia and their special guests applaud Mary Ebach, center, on a job well done at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Heart of America Germans from Russia Heritage Center. From left are HOAGFR Board Member Steve Fritel, Bremer Bank CEO Jeanne Crain, Rugby Mayor Sue Steinke, Board Member and donor Ron Brossart, Ebach, Club President Monica Houim and Museum Director Jennifer Willis.

More than a century ago, waves of German emigrants left oppressive conditions in Russia’s Black Sea region for an uncertain future on the prairies of North Dakota. Their descendants gathered at Rugby’s Prairie Village Museum Oct. 6 to dedicate the Heart of America Germans from Russia Heritage Center, built to tell the stories of their struggles and triumphs.

Members invited the public to the dedication ceremony, held outside of the center on the museum grounds. After an opening prayer given by Fr. Frank Miller of Rugby’s St. Therese Little Flower Catholic Church, attendees saluted the flag as local radio personality James Maertens, himself a descendant of Germans from Russia, sang the national anthem. One by one, speakers from Pierce County and beyond spoke of their experiences as Americans with a rich cultural history.

Rugby Mayor Sue Steinke read a proclamation designating Oct. 6 as German-American Day. The proclamation described how the first German settlers arrived in what would become the United States on Oct. 6, 1683. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed Oct. 6 German-American Day. Congress designated Oct. 6 as German-American Day in 1987. Steinke congratulated Rugby’s community of Germans from Russia on their “beautiful building and thanked the German community for their contributions “to our city and our nation.”

Representatives from the offices of Sen. Kevin Cramer and Rep. Kelly Armstrong also spoke.

Monica Houim, president of Heart of America Germans from Russia, gave her thanks to members who collaborated on the development of the new building. Houim described how former museum director Cathy Jelsing “was at the first meeting to get us going with the idea of the new building. Stephanie Steinke, the director after Cathy, got us going as well. Jennifer Willis, the current director, put the pedal to the metal and got the stories, panels and exhibits done. She was very resourceful. She worked evenings and weekends, sometimes emailing me and texting me,” Houim said.

Houim said Willis had learned Rugby had declared Oct. 6 Germans from Russia Day. Houim said Willis also discovered how early German-Russian settlers had used a “sauerkraut rock” to weigh down cabbage as it fermented into sauerkraut.

Houim described how Germans from Russia endured hardships first on their journey to Russia from Germany as they traveled to the Black Sea region of Russia.

Houim described how German people making their way to their Black Sea villages “had to squeeze through dangerous passages like the Iron Curtain,” where the shores were so close together that if a ship didn’t pass through correctly, the sides of the ship would scrape the rocks on either side .

“The journey from Russia to America was no picnic, either. Many arrived in ships that carried cattle. They weren’t exactly luxury liners,” Houim said.

Houim went on to describe how the settlers arriving on the prairies of the Dakota Territory saw a very different landscape and different climate from what they were used to. She told of the struggles those who left later faced as they fled a communist country to settle in the USA.

“My grandparents, Pete and Leonida Koenig were part of the original Germans from Russia group started by Judge Fredericks back in the 1970s,” Houim said of the Heart of America Germans from Russia. “My sister, Mary, was also a part of this group. Our grandfather, Andrew Volk, came to America with his family when he was a teenager. Can you imagine coming to a new country and a new culture (as a teenager)? (Today’s) teenagers are upset if they have to change schools.”

Houim said she was honored to dedicate the new center, which features artifacts from collections by Mary Ebach and other descendants of settlers, and a list of surnames of Germans from Russia who settled the Pierce County area.

“In America through God’s Grace is on the sign on the building. There is no other way,” Houim said.

Also present was Ron Brossart, son of Valentine and Alice Brossart, whose large financial contribution helped to establish the center and Heart of America Germans from Russia Chapter. Brossart told of homesick early immigrants looking for “the highest point” of the flat prairie, hoping to stand on the top to get a glimpse of their Russian homeland.

Willis thanked Bremer Bank, Valentine and Alice Brossart “and so many more” in a speech to the crowd of about 100 people. “The Germans from Russia Heritage Center was a blank slate and a daunting task. I’ve never dreamed we would accomplish so much in so little time. This building is here to educate its visitors and celebrate the German-Russian immigrants who came to the United States seeking a new life free from oppression,” Willis said.

Willis thanked Heart of America Germans from Russia member Kathy Blessum “for her help with supplying artifacts, painting and cleaning the building.” She also thanked Ebach, who “contributed items along with her knowledge and zeal” and Bob Fritel, who she said, “built a portable wall, a bench and so many display items.” Willis also thanked Houim and her sister, Mary Schmaltz “for their knowledge, understanding and hard work and Vicki Hoffart, who has spent many hours on research and creation of family histories.”

Attendees also heard from Bremer Bank CEO Jeanne Crain, who grew up in Rugby and whose grandparents on her father’s side came from Russia to New Rockford to settle in the early 1900s.

“It feels fabulous to be here,” Crain said of Rugby after her speech. “It feels so familiar. I am so rooted in this community. It’s always fun. I gave myself a self-guided tour around the city this morning because I wanted to see my old stomping grounds. It still feels like home.”

“My father’s ancestors were part of that group of Germans who moved to Russia but his parents were Germans from Russia who moved to the United States. So, my grandfather, Charles Heilman and his wife, Clara Heilman, I believe they met here. They came here as young teenagers and emigrated from Russia to the United States,” Crain said.

Crain said her grandfather, who settled in New Rockford, “hauled water and hauled coal. He would go out to the railroad tracks and gather excess coal that would fall and he would sell it to people to heat their houses. That’s the life he led.”

Crain’s father, John Heilman served in North Africa and Europe in World War II. He used the GI Bill to attend watch-making school and then became a watchmaker and jewelry storeowner. Heilman and his wife, Harriet, established a jewelry store in Rugby in 1960 and ran it for 26 years.

“Education was a really important aspect of what my dad wanted for his kids,” Crain said. “I think it was a part of that heritage he had and he just saw the opportunity with that. My dad was always encouraging for us to get educated and find our own dreams, whatever our passion was. He was very welcoming for us to figure that out on our own.”

Crain said she keeps in contact with friends she made growing up in Rugby. Crain attended Rugby High School. “There’s a group of us friends and we still stay connected,” she said. “We’re still Panthers.”

Crain said she played basketball and participated in track and field in high school.

Ebach, a longtime member of Heart of America Germans from Russia, said she joined the group after moving from Bismarck, where she was a member of the North Dakota Germans from Russia Historical Society, and Minot, where she was a member of their Germans from Russia Historical Society.

Ebach said both the state and Rugby organizations were founded by Judge Ray Friedrich, a Rugby resident who died many years ago.

“He was a very dynamic person,” Ebach said of Friedrich. “There was a time Germans were ashamed to be German. But when that organization was formed, they could speak German in public and sing German songs and do all those sorts of things. So, people joined those organizations in great numbers.”

Attendees enjoyed a lunch of sausage, knoephla soup and kuchen, favorites in modern day North Dakota contributed by German immigrants from Russia. Emcee Steve Fritel announced Michael Miller, director and bibliographer of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection in the libraries of North Dakota State University.

Miller shared how he developed a collection of oral histories from North Dakotans with family connections to Russian-Germans who settled the state.

Miller said he had visited the Pierce County area many times. In 1990, he traveled with Professor Jean (John) Schweitzer of Strasbourg, Alsace, France to research the histories of local residents whose ancestors had ties to that region. Miller said he and Schweitzer photographed area cemeteries to learn more about the settlers of Selz and Strasburg, whose founders came from “the Catholic villages of the Kutschurgan District – Baden, Elsass, Kandel, Manheim, Selz and Strassburg.”

Miller added, “For many of you here today, your ancestors left these villages to immigrate to North Dakota.”

“In 1990, we visited the cemeteries at Balta, Blumenfeld, Fulda, Orin, Rugby and Selz. John Schweitzer saw these familiar names of Axtman, Bachmeier, Bischoff, Brossart, Fritel, Heilman, Hoffart, Schmaltz, Voeller, Volk, Welk and Wentz identifying their ancestral villages,” Miller said.

Miller expressed gratitude to the family of Valentine and Alice Brossart. Miller described how Valentine and Ron Brossart traveled with him to Ukraine to visit “their ancestral Catholic villages near Odessa.”

“Valentine’s father, Frank, was the first born in in 1893 in a sod house near Hague, North Dakota. Ron’s grandparents were Johannnes and Francisca (Vetsch) Brossart, who emigrated from Selz, Russia, to North Dakota in 1892,” Miller said. “Valentine’s mother, Elizabeth, was born in Selz, South Russia, in 1892. At age 18, with her parents, she immigrated to the United States. Valentine wrote, ‘My mother was very homesick and at times would talk about her life growing up in Russia with tears in her eyes. She talked about losing her mother at a young age,'” Miller said.

Miller said another descendant of German settlers from Russia, Theresa Kuntz Bachmeier, demonstrated making cheese buttons, or kase knoephla for him and Prairie Public television in 1999. The video of Bachmeier, who was born in Orrin in 1909 and died in 2001, appears as part of Prairie Public’s “Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia.” The video is available on YouTube.

Miller said he and Prairie Public Television again visited Pierce County and Rugby to film “At Home in Russia, At Home on the Prairie,” which Miller said, “focuses on the Catholic Kutschurgan District villages. Much of the filming was done in Rugby and Pierce County. Persons interviewed included Monsignor Joseph Senger at his home church of Orrin, Christina Gross Jundt and Mary Clara Ebach preparing borscht soup and plachinta (a type of pumpkin turnover).” The documentary is also available on YouTube.

Karen Retzlaff, a charter member of the Germans from Russia Hertiage Society, also spoke to the group. She described how the society evolved over the years from a North Dakota group using a national group called the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia in Colorado as a template to a multi-state organization in its own right.

Germans who had emigrated from the Volga River area of Russia had founded that group. Retzlaff said she began to learn the difference between the “Volga Germans,” who immigrated to the Central Plains of Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado and the “Black Sea Germans,” who had immigrated to the Dakota Territory.

Retzlaff told attendees she had discovered Germans settling the Black Sea area of Russia hadn’t come at the request of Catherine the Great, as many Germans from Russia often assume. The people settling the Black Sea Region came later, when her grandson, Alexander, opened the area for settlement.

Retzlaff’s ancestors emigrated from the Black Sea to the Dakota Territory in the late 1800s, settling near Zeeland.

Retzlaff said she helped to found the North Dakota group at the urging of Judge Ray Friedrich, who lived in Rugby. The society held their first organizational meeting Jan. 9, 1971. The first officers were Friedrich, president, Art Leno, secretary and LaVern Neff, Armand Bauer and William Simpfenderfer, directors.

Retzlaff said she is one of the signers of the society’s original charter. The organizers first named the group The North Dakota Historical Society of Germans from Russia.

Retzlaff described how the society drew from resources provided by Dr. Karl Stumpp, who collected information on Germans living in Russia when he was a soldier for the German Army in World War II. His collection fell into Allied hands and the Americans sent it to Washington, D.C. Retzlaff said the collection helps researchers now.

Stumpp also visited the society when they held a banquet to mark the city of Bismarck’s centennial in 1973. Other special guests included Count Maximilian and Countess Gunilla Von Bismarck, descendants of Otto Von Bismarck, for whom the city is named.

Retzlaff also gave advice to attendees preserving family photos and other records. Holding an album she said had magnetic pages, Retzlaff advised, “If you have any photos in those pages, go home and take them out because they are leeching all of the color from the photos. If you stuck newspapers in there, they’ll start crumbling,” she said. Retzlaff recommended keeping the records safe in plastic sleeves designed for archives instead.

Retzlaff shared highlights from the society’s history in her presentation.

The society expanded to include help for people interested in genealogy. They enlisted the help of researcher Gwen Pritzkau, Riverton, Utah, to access family records from the Latter-Day Saints Library. One society member, Alice Essig, collected and typed hundreds of obituaries on index cards.

Retzlaff said the society also benefitted from information shared at one of their conventions by Tim Kloberdanz, a descendant of Volga Germans who told how German Russian, French and Norwegian cultures evolved along with Native American cultures in North Dakota from the state’s early days to modern times.

Members revised their articles of incorporation on August 21, 1979, officially changing their name to the Germans from Russia Heritage Society. They also elected Retzlaff as their first female president. Retzlaff said she helped Gary Jerke to establish a chapter in South Dakota. She then helped to establish the first international chapter for Germans from Russia in Calgary, Alberta with Frank Senger in 1983. In 2021, Frank’s daughter, Robin, would coordinate an international virtual convention for the society.

“I think if Judge Friedrich was still with us, he’d be very proud of what this organization has become. I think he’d be equally proud of what has happened out here,” Retzlaff said of the Heart of America Germans from Russia Heritage Center.

Retzlaff welcomed members of Heart of America Germans from Russia to visit the GRHS center in Bismarck.

“You guys are in charge of writing the rest of the story,” Retzlaff said to the audience.