52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 13 Prompt - Nearly Forgotten

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 13

Prompt – Nearly Forgotten

Around 2005, Bill and I downsized from our rather large house to approximately 900 square feet, two bedroom condo.  I started downsizing by going through all my photographs and removing them from their photo albums and consolidating them into elasticized batches.  The bookcases of photo albums became one tote bin.  At the same time I decided to start scanning these photos to our computer.  It has been quite a project but after a dozen years or so I finally got them into my computer.  In the past month or so I started going through them and fixing them such as straightening, cropping, adjusting their color and generally just improving their looks.  It has been therapeutic in times of craziness and uncertainty.

I came upon my nursing photos.  During our COVID 19 pandemic cities are struggling to get enough medical staff including nurses.  The government had suggested that it would bring nurses out of retirement to help.  My daughters asked me if I thought it was something that I would do.  I believe they were concerned for my well being.  My answer was; “No way in hell would I go back now!”  Afterwards I felt selfish for such a response and lack of respect for those nurses who must be going through their own version of hell right now.  I began reflecting on the twists and turns of my life as a nurse. It did bring back things I had nearly forgotten about as Wendy, R.N.

1974 - Wendy R.N.

It seems I had always wanted to be a nurse.  There was a time that I was thinking about becoming a teacher or a pharmacist.  However in my teens I volunteered as a candystriper in a local hospital which seemed to confirm that my calling should be a nurse.

There was three ways to become a nurse.  The first was taking a four year course at university.  I never considered this because one it was too costly and secondly, truly I didn't think I was bright enough to go to University.  However looking back, I wished I had gone to University.  If only I had been encouraged to believe in myself as capable of being a university student.

The second was taking it from a hospital and living in nurses' residence.  Usually it was a three year course. At the time there was no in-hospital training in Saskatoon.  The closest of this type was in Calgary.  My girlfriend and I had planned to go to Foothill's Hospital together.  My mom forbade me from going away to nursing school.  I am sure it had to do with lack of money in our family and not being able to afford it especially the cost of living in residence.  My girlfriend did go and became a Foothill's Hospital nurse.

The third way to become a Registered Nurse was by going to a technical school. This was the route I traveled.  I took it at Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Arts and Science in Saskatoon.  It was a two year course where upon completion we wrote our exams and if we passed we became Registered Nurses just like the hospital trained nurses and the University nurses.  The degree nurses were able to do more administrative work, work in public health and teach in the nursing schools.

My memories of student nursing were exhausting hours of book work and hospital training.  The first year ran from September to June.

The second year ran from mid August to mid July.  Yes that was 11 long months.  In the second year we were required to take some of our rotations outside of Saskatoon.  I took Psychiatric Nursing in North Battleford and Advanced Nursing in Prince Albert.   At the end of the second year we had 4 weeks to study for our Canadian RN Exams.  They were only given a few times a year and at this time it was given in Mid August in Saskatoon.   For 4 weeks I hid out in my bedroom and at one time I had dad set up our tent trailer so I could go out and study in it away from the family distractions. The exams were brutal.   They were 4 – 3 hour tests. Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning and afternoon and Thursday morning.  Once they were done I was too tired to celebrate.  However I believe that our graduation ceremony was within the week of the final exam. 

       

Wendy With Her Parents After Grad Ceremonies

Back Row: Bill, Wendy RN & BFF Kay. Front Row is Mom & Dad & Sister Diane & Grandma M.

I applied for nursing positions at all 3 hospitals in Saskatoon.  My first choice would have been at St. Paul's Hospital however I got a job at City Hospital.  This was probably because I had just finished my final student nursing shifts at City Hospital.  I had applied for Obstetrics or Pediatrics or at the very least Surgery, but again this was not to be.  I got a position on a 33 bed active medical ward.   I started after the September long weekend.  Our marks did not come out until late September or early October and therefore you worked as a “graduate nurse” until the marks came in.   It was a reduced pay schedule and a little less responsibility as I remember.  Once your marks came in and passed you earned the Registered nurse designation with retro pay making up the difference in wage.   The City Hospital medical director for the medical wards was a legendary nightmare.  She was a nun (yes in a city hospital) and strict.   Shortly after I received my marks she sought me out on the floor.  I remember the scene like it was yesterday.  My patient had gone for a test and I was taking this time to make his bed.   In those days, hospital beds were re-made with fresh linen everyday.  She started helping me make the bed and asked me about my marks.  I told her that my highest mark was in Psychiatric nursing.  She just clicked her tongue and said curtly what about your medical mark.  I told her it was my lowest.  Without missing a beat she said well it was a good thing that they got me on the medical floor because now they would teach me what the school had almost failed to do.  For months I felt she trailed me.   But then you see – new nurses were always tested with the most difficult, crazy and absurd patients.  That is just what happened.

At this time nurses wore white uniforms except for the pediatric nurses who could wear pastel green, pink or blue.  Pant suits had just come in a few years before that.   I had a few dress uniforms but really they were not practical because you often had to hitch them up as you hiked up on the bed to turn a patient.  We were required to wear our pin we got at graduation to let everyone know where one got your training.

 A nurse's hat was required.   It was a badge of honor as well as a way of distinguishing nurses from student nurses from nurse's assistants called LPN's or Licensed Practical Nurses.  Hats were a damn nuisance.  They were forever getting caught in the curtains surrounding the patient beds pulling them off our heads and dismantling our done up hair because no nurse could have hair longer than the collars of our uniforms.  It was a godsend when someone finally did a study on nurse's hat and found them one of the least hygienic thing in the hospitals.

My medical job was a full time position.  Part time employment had not existed yet.  Also a nurse worked all 3 shifts.  There was no such thing as full time nights or full time days.  The union had not yet brought in mandatory working conditions such as every second weekend off or minimum number of hours between one shift and the next shift.   The head nurse made up the 12 week rotation and you followed it lest the coverage on the floor went to hell.  My first summer of working as a nurse I worked every weekend from the May Long weekend until Labour Day.   I figure that it was punishment for taking two weeks off after my May 3rd wedding for our honeymoon.

My favorite nursing story from this nursing period is a tale of bats and dementia patients.  City Hospital was next to a huge park just off the Saskatchewan river.  On those beautiful spring and summer nights we would often open the windows for our patients.  There were no screens on the windows.  This one particular week that I was working evenings we had a bad run on bats entering the ward.  They were usually found by following the screams of terror as opposed to screams of pain from the patients.  We would be required to catch them and put them in a stool specimen cup to send to the lab in the morning. This one particular bat was rather elusive.  We called in the orderlies to help us run up and down the hallways with our bed sheets and towels and try to catch it.   They finally got it cornered in a patient room beside our nursing station desk and closed the door to keep it contained. Unfortunately there was a few patients in that room and they were our dementia patients.  We liked them close to watch them as they would often wander away.  The two orderlies did finally catch the bat but it sounded like quite a fight.   The patients were none the wiser.  Or so we thought that.   The next evening when I was on shift and I was giving meds to the women in this room, a daughter of one of these ladies was visiting and the mother proceeded to tell her that there were men in her room last night running around and also a bat landed on her pillow.  The daughter patted her mother's hand and told her mother that she was just having a bad dream and she looked at me and rolled her eyes  .I could not bring myself to tell the truth regarding the bat in her mom's room.  It was a shared story on the unit for months to come.

In May of 1976 Bill finished his degree in Electrical Engineering. He landed his first engineering job in Regina. I quit my job and we moved to Regina.

My last week of work at City I worked 8 night shifts in a row.  There was 8 deaths from cancer on our unit.  Unfortunately they happened one per day on the shifts I worked.  It was sadly overwhelming.  The second last evening shift I was driving home and when the car in front of me ran over and killed a cat.  I cried and cried.  It seemed wrong to me to have more empathy for a cat that I did not know than the patients that died on my ward that week.  It seemed messed up to me.

In nursing there is an ebb and flow in staffing of the hospital.   When I arrived in Regina I could not find a job in nursing.  I decided to take the summer off to rejuvenate.  It was still impossible to find a nursing job at the end of the summer.   I applied for and was accepted into a 6 month nursing course for operating room nurses to start after the September Long Weekend.   For reasons I have not been able to figure out, I bailed on the course.  Shortly thereafter I got a job as a bank teller at The Bank of Montreal in the mall across from our apartment.   I worked at the bank over the next 11 years. Needless to say my nursing registration lapsed.  I did try to go back the year Jackie was born and try to get the hours I needed to maintain my registration. I had until December 31st to get the required hours.  Alas the hospital did not have the hours to give to me so that  I might maintain my RN Status. I was deflated and returned to banking.

In 1988 / 1989 I decided I wanted to go back to nursing.  Both of my girls were in school at this time. I enrolled in a refresher course.  It was a self study program that could take up to a year to complete.  I started in fall of 1988.  In January of 1989 Bill got a new engineering job in Edmonton that started in mid March.  I called Alberta nursing association to see if I could continue my course there and they said no I would have to start over.  Thus I turned on the after burners to finish the courses and get my clinical practicum done before moving to Edmonton.   All this happened while we readied the house for selling, sold the house and prepared to move.  Also Bill had to start in Edmonton before the move was done and I had to balance working night shifts on my practicum with finding card for the girls.  Somehow I got it done and I put in my last clinical shift the day before the movers came.

In Edmonton I had arrived during a time of Alberta wealth and prosperity.  Thus I was able to get a job by mid May.  I worked at The Grey Nun's hospital and worked a .6 FTE (6 shifts per two weeks) on a medical floor.  I worked night shifts only because it seemed like the best fit for a mother with kids in school.   I would get home from work in time to send them off to school.  I would wake up as they got home from school and have the evening with them.   Things went well for the first few years. I felt that I was back where I belonged.  Then came one of many downturns in Alberta which inevitably meant cuts to Alberta health and thus nursing staff.  The system of downsizing the nursing staff was done strictly on seniority and a fun thing called bumping.  I was bumped from my position meaning a nurse with more seniority was given my position.  The nurses who were bumped from their positions went into the pool of nurses and when it all settled out we got to choose from the remains of the part time positions.  Again this was done by seniority.   The lucky thing was that I was always the most senior nurse to choose from the left over jobs.  The first bump landed me on an orthopedics ward and I was able to find a .6 FTE night shifts.  I really did not appreciate ortho.  It was hip and knee replacements in a day where you kept the patients in for a week or more.   It was heavy exhausting work.   I only stayed there 6 months before I was bumped again in a second round of cuts to nursing staff.   I was once again the most senior of the left over nurses who got to choose from the left over jobs.  I chose a .6 FTE night shifts on pediatrics.  In all of my nursing choices this was the best ward and most satisfying job.   I loved pediatrics.  It loved me.   I thrived on this ward.

In my reflection of my pediatric nursing gig, I remembered an incident that rivaled the bat story.   I worked the night shift as usual.  Children are the most vulnerable when in a strange place such as a hospital.   At that time parents rarely stayed overnight with their children and once they settled their child for the night they would leave. In a report at shift change we were told that this particular 3 year old boy had a horrible evening and pretty much screamed the whole shift.  The child fell asleep at 11 pm and the exhausted parents decided to go home.   We were warned to try to tip toe our way through our assessments of this little boy.   Sometime around 2 AM I went in to do some quiet vitals. Carefully I removed the bed sheets to get a better look at the child's chest.   Next to this munchkin was his special plush animal.   However it was not just any plushie but the one and only “Tickle Me Elmo”.   In touching this hateful plushie I set off it's loud and very annoying giggle.  Being a quick thinking nurse I took the extra pillow and pushed it down on Elmo to shut him up or at the very least mute him.  Well as luck would have it, one of the other nurses was passing by at the same time watching me with some curiosity as I was suffocating Elmo.   In the morning report it was reported that the child had a good sleep and was improving however his buddy Elmo suffered a life altering condition due to suffocation!   I was forever the nurse who suffocated Elmo.

After a year and a half the bumping began again.   Same scenario but the left over positions were becoming less.  I finally got a half time position in Emergency.  They worked 12 hour shifts which I never got a handle on.  Four of us took a month long emergency room classroom course.   I hated the work.  Always unpredictable and it was hard to get a handle on patients who came and went in a flash of an eye.

I was in Emergency for a half a year before the dreaded bumping began again.  Again I was the first of the leftover nurses to get my choice on the very few leftover postings.  I got a .4 FTE position in ICN – Intermediate Care Nursery.  Again four of us were on a month long ICN classroom crash course.   Generally I loved this unit. We admitted the newborns (the freshly born babes from the delivery room) to ICN and assessed them.  They either went with mom to maternity or they were admitted to our unit for further care. Generally they were not the extremely sick babies as those were transferred to the children's hospital.   We were a kind of step down unit where the less intensive babes were followed.  Also we received the babies from the children's hospital as their needs were less intensive and primarily we were there to fatten up the preemies so they could go home with their parents.   Such beautiful little lambs these patients were. It was a good place.

As life would have it - 6 months later Bill got another job in Calgary. Once again I quit nursing hoping for an easy transition to a Calgary hospital.

But oh no. No one was hiring in Calgary.  We had moved to Calgary in September and finally the next spring I found a job as a nurse in a mediclinic office.  My varied experience served me well in this world of walk in clinics.  We saw it all.   The obvious colds, sore throats and flus.  We stitched up people.   We removed a nail from a man's hand.  We put on and took off casts.   I did so many ECG's to rule out heart attacks.  We medicated the migraines.   We removed foreign objects from people's ears, noses and other orifices.   It was busy.  It was fast paced.   It was a nursing job that I worked from 10 to 2 each day.  The hours suited me fine. I worked here for a couple of years before finding a doctor's office to transition into.   It was a busy 6 doctor practice.  It was a Monday to Friday 8 to 4:30 job.   It was very repetitive and predictable. I worked at this office for about 4 or 5 years before I left.  I earned about half as much as a hospital nurse but was suppose to be glad that I didn't have to work shift.

I would like to say that I moved on to bigger and better things.  I did not.  I was mentally exhausted by it all.  There was a riff or maybe it was a difference of opinions between a few doctors, management and me.  It was the final straw.  I left nursing once again. 

I took a few years off to reassess life.  During this time Bill and I decided to simplify our life and downsize to a very small condo.  After a few years of wanderlust and self evaluation I decided I wanted to go back to some kind of work and it certainly was not going to be nursing.   However my medical background found me a job as seasonal flu clinic clerk.  The women who hired me couldn't quite understand why I was applying for the clerk job because she had several nursing positions she needed to fill if I would be interested.   I said no and then she said she would hire me as a clerk if I acknowledged that I could not give or advise clients medically because I was hired as a clerk and not a nurse.  We worked in temporary clinics set up around the city to vaccinate the population against flu. I loved it.  I told no one that I was a former nurse and it was lovely.   It was mindless.   Work ended when the doors closed and I had no bad or unsettled feelings that I forgot to do something for a patient.   I worked seasonally for a few years including the frantic year H1N1 hit.   This seasonal job turned into casual clerking in well child clinics in the city.  Again no on knew I was a nurse until I saw one of my former doctors from the medical clinic who had come in for a tetanus update.  I was sitting at the front desk and she asked if I would be giving her the needle because apparently I gave the best needles. Blush.   My fellow clerks jaws dropped and the gig was up.

I went from the seasonal work to part time clerking in a well baby clinic and then on to a full time clerk position in a well baby clinic.  I believe I worked just under a year and a half in this full time position.   I earned more than I did as a nurse in a doctor's office and about 6 dollars less than a graduate nurse.   It was good.

This job came to a crashing halt when Bill had his Pulmonary Embolism and in my opinion almost died.  We realized then that life was really too short.  Bill had already taken an early retirement before this happened.   I was going to work a few more years but decided to retire from work after this.   It was the most satisfying decision in my life.

The best part of life has been being retired with Bill.   I enjoy it and hope to god I never ever have to work again.  I recommend retirement for everyone.

My sister Betty was also a nurse. I was talking to her one time about my on again off again nursing career. She said to me quite succinctly; “Well Wendy maybe you really didn't like nursing.”   True, too true, but I was not willing to see it and acknowledge it.

Nursing During COVID 19

Bless all the nurses and medical staff who are working in these unprecedented times of COVID 19.  I wish you strength, stamina and good health in your true calling.
Thank you.

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 12 Prompt - Popular

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 12

Prompt – Popular

I would think that the least popular statistic these days are those reported on COVID-19.

I was recently exploring my Legacy toolbar when I found "Family Statistics Report" tab.   I always thought that there had to be some way to sum up interesting facts on my tree. Well maybe only interesting to me but definitely less scary than the COVID-19 statistics. 

My Legacy family tree has 2117 individuals. Keep in mind that I have both Bill's family tree and mine as one tree. More of the individuals in my tree are alive than dead. I'm not sure if that means anything at all. However for me it is easier to get information on the living than to find names of long lost dead relatives.

In adding names I always got the sense that there were given names that seemed popular in use. Legacy has done a nice job of sorting through these given names. 

First of all my family tree has 1313 unique first names. That means that there were 784 names repeated in some way. My guess before finding these statistics would have been that John or Johann would have been number one on this popular given name list. Surprisingly they were tenth and seventh respectively. Mind you only 2 repeats difference. The most popular given name was Katharina. Keep in mind that this is the overview of all my tree's given names throughout all time periods.

The statistics report further divides them into popular given names by century.

In the 16^th century, only 3 names are given – Dorothea, Michael and Peter. However n the 17^th century only Peter continues as a popular given name in my tree. In fact Peter becomes the most popular. 

In the 18^th century the names Aron, Christina & Elisabeth dropped off the list of popular given names. The given names of Johann, Susanna, Jacob & Wilhelm appear as new popular given name in this century. 

Johann, Peter & Franz are not in the 19th century list of popular given name.  John & Anna make a come back in this century. Although one could make a case that John & Johann are the same name. Robert pops up as a new popular name. 

These are the popular given names in my family tree.  

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 11 Prompt - Luck

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 11

Prompt – Luck

In the past week our lives have been turned upside down by COVID-19. Originally called Coronavirus or Novel Coronavirus. The WHO organization chose to rename it so that it is not associated with one type of animal or area of the world.  For example the 1918 Spanish Flu, Bird Flu, or the Hong Kong flu. So they named it as follows: "CO" stands for "corona", "VI" for "virus" and "D" for "disease", while "19" was for the year, as the outbreak was first identified on December 31.”

I have never experienced the things that have occurred over the past week. Never has life felt so full of fluidity. I am numb to the term “Breaking News”. Change is the only certain thing. I know that I am not alone in this feeling.

Many years ago I picked up a book called Flu The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. By Gina Kolatata. It was copyrighted in 1999. At that time not much was written about the Spanish Flu that killed nearly 50 million people world wide. Some say it might have had something to do with the war ending because so many recruits had been struck by the flu while in their training camps. The book was a well written history of the Spanish Flu. At the time of writing they had not identified the Virus, however it has since been identified as H1N1 virus.

I began looking through my family tree to see if anyone died during The Spanish Flu which was officially from January 1, 1918 until December, 1920.  I found several members that died during this time. However there is no certain way to determine if this pandemic flu was a cause of their death. 

David Peters, my great grandfather was born April of 1835 in Russia. He died in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on April 14, 1919. He was 83 years old. However according to his death record he died of arteriosclerosis and Myocarditis.  These were the type of long term health issues plus an elderly age that make people susceptible to the flu. He may have gotten the flu too and it was not noted on his death record. 

My paternal great grandmother (my father's mother's mother) as above died March 3, 1918. I do not know the cause of her death however the timing makes me suspicious that it may have been the flu. She died at the age of 69.  

Helena's brother, my 2^nd great-uncle also died within the time period of The Spanish Flu.

These are all supposition which I haven't proved yet. 

My grandmother Mary McLaughlin's had a younger brother that was either forgotten or never mentioned. I found out about him through the file folder that was sent to me by my Aunt Phyllis after her husband died and she decided to send Mary McLaughlin important papers to me to have.  

I had passed by this envelope several times before I looked inside. This is what I saw.

 I was surprised to see it was a cemetery location for a baby and written at the bottom was  "My Brother Williham".  This was a new name to me.  

 He was born on October 25, 1917 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He died March 2, 1918 in Winnipeg. He died at home which was 613 Talbot Avenue, Winnipeg. He was 4 months and 7 days old. His medical record states that he died of “Lobar pneumonia” and contributing factor was “indigestion”. I find this an odd secondary cause but then that is what it says.

According to this record the doctor attended to him between February 15^th 1918 to March 1, 1918 whereby he died at 5 A.M. March 2nd. Wilhelm Krikau had only had the pneumonia for 5 days.   I believe that Wilhelm died of The Spanish Flu which was deadly and rampant at this time throughout the world. It was a pandemic.

Wilhelm was buried March 22, 1918 at Brookside Cemetery in Section 74; Lot 167. 

So what does this blog have to do with luck. Well nothing and everything. I hope that luck is on our side as we traverse the universe of this 2019 pandemic.

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 10. Prompt - Strong Woman

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 10

Prompt – Strong Woman

My fourth great-grandmother is Elisabeth M. Innerwinkler.

So it goes something like this.

 Me > Jacob Peters (my father) > Franz Peters (his father) > Katharina Peters (his mother) > Andreas Peter Mueller (her father) > Peter Peter Mueller (his father) > Elisabeth Innerwinkler (his mother ). 

Elisabeth Innerwinkler was born in Austria in 1738 to Michael and Maria (nee Egger) Innerwinkler. The Lutheran Reformation and Anabaptist movements was just taking hold. The Empress of Austria did not tolerate those dissenting from Catholicism. In 1755 the Empress exiled just under 700 people to Transylvania, Romania. Among the families who were sent away were the Innerwinklers and Mueller's (Millers) – my 4 times great-grandparents. 

 Empress Maria Theresa

Petrus Mueller was born on November 20, 1721 in Unteramlach, Austria. Both Petrus and Elisabeth were likely raised as Catholics in their young lives. Likely being baptized as an infant and attending weekly mass with their parents. As Petrus grew up he was less satisfied with the Catholic teachings.

In the 1755 when Elisabeth was 16 and Petrus was 44, they were among the dissidents sent to Transylvania to live with the Lutherans.

Peter and some of the other men worked as a day labourers around Alwintz, Transylvania, Romania. It was at this time that Peter made contact with a very small religious group known as Hutterites. This small group of Hutterites told them of their beliefs and the small group of dissidents felt they found a religion that they could believe in. They stopped going to the Lutheran church and started reading the Hutterite literature. They were forbidden to return to the Hutterites under threat of prison and removing their children to a orphan's home.

However Petrus Mueller did lead about 58 Catholics and or Lutherans to join him as Hutterites in Alwintz. In 1762 Petrus was re-baptized as a Hutterite. The next year he married fellow dissident Elisabeth Innerwinkler.

In the following article from "Delphini, Johannes Theophilus (18th century)." from Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online it explains what happened next.

“Johannes Theophilus Delphini (Delpini) was a Jesuit priest who was commissioned in September 1764 by Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria-Hungary, to convert the Anabaptists (Hutterites) living at Alwinz in the Hungarian province of Transylvania . With the help of the government and severe measures, such as confiscation of books, compulsory attendance at his sermons, threats and imprisonment, he tried to make them forsake their faith. In the beginning he was not very successful,

but after their preacher Joseph Kuhr (or Kohr, Gor) had been arrested and another preacher, Martin Roth (Ruth), had been forcibly "converted," others followed, threatened by imprisonment or tempted by the attractive promises of the government. A large number of them, however, fled to Russia or Turkey in order to keep the faith. In 1768 Delphini returned; his mission was finished; all but a few who suffered in prison had turned Catholic."

The Hutterites who would not be “converted”  had been forced by Delphini to flee under cover of darkness on October 3, 1767. A total of 78 Hutterites escaped to Prisiceni, Wallachia, near Bucharest. It was a hard journey because they had to cross the Carpathian Mountains in winter. Peter and Elisabeth Mueller had two babies and a third on the way. They joined a Hutterite community firstly in Choregirle, south of Bucharest. Typhoid sickness caused them to move to Prisiceni, Romania in July of 1769. They were hoping the Turkish people would be more tolerant than the Empress.

Alas war broke out. Between 1768 and 1774 the Turkish and Russians fought. The Hutterites suffered greatly at the hands of marauding Turks and Romanians. They were plundered and pillaged and lost a great deal of their possessions. However the worst was yet to come. It is explained this way in an article from a October 2010 article in The Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian. The article is called “Eight Generations of Millers / Muellers. 1665 – 1916. “ written by Jake Buhler.

“But on November 27, 1769, mercenaries destroyed the colony and tortured five Hutterites, including Peter Miller, using hot irons. Peter died a painful death. Five months later his wife Elizabeth

Innerwinkler and their three children joined 66 other Hutterites in their escape to Wischenka, Russia”

I believe that at this time Elisabeth had only two children because...

Peter and Elisabeth had 3 children. Their first was born September 10, 1763 – Michael Mueller. He died two years later on February 10, 1766 in Transylvania.. Their second child, Katharina was born December 13, 1765 also in Transylvania. Katharina died at the age of 5 years on April 5, 1771 in Wischenka, Russia. Their third child, Peter Mueller was born January 18, 1768 in Romania.

Elisabeth Mueller died young in Wischenka Russia on December 19, 1773 at the age of 35 leaving behind her 5 year old son, Peter Mueller. We do not know who raised young Peter. We do know that he was baptized in the Hutterite faith on March 20, 1782 in Wischenka Russia. Peter married Susanna Stahl on January 8, 1791. They had seven children. Two of these children stayed in The Hutterite Colony, In 1819 the others moved away and joined the Chortitza Mennonite Colony when the Hutterite colony was in disarray due to communal living issues. However one year later all but two brothers returned to the Hutterite colony. The two that stayed behind had married Mennonite women. Thus my family line became Mennonites.

Elisabeth Innerwinkler died too young. She lived a life full of turmoil starting with religious discontent in her family and then in her married life. She and her husband were on a continual trek to find a home that would not persecute her family just because they were Hutterites. She witnessed her husband's death due to torture. Two of her three children died at young ages. It is my belief that there is no other way to characterize my 4th Great-Grandmother, Elisabeth Innerwinkler, than a strong woman.

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 9 Prompt - Disaster

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 9

Prompt – Disaster

My maternal line, The Krikau's, come from a group of people known as Volga Germans. This was because they settled along the Lt. and Rt. bank of the Volga River just south of the city of Saratov. These were the German people who came to Russia at the invitation of Catherine The Great. 

Catherine The Great

The Germans were at the end of a 30 year war and subsequently their taxes increased and their availability of land for their sons decreased. The promises of The Manifesto of 1763 spoke to the disgruntled and destitute German people. Among the promises was religious freedom, military exemptions, free land, tax exemption, monies to move and they could keep their own language. Thus in 1766 the first settlers set off for their new promised land. After almost a year of travel they arrived on the east side of the Volga River. As far as their eyes could see there was open land with thigh high grass. They had thought there would be shelter of some kind or at the very least wood as promised in The Manifesto to make their shelters. Winter was coming and they had to have shelter. They built homes dug into the mud at the side of the banks of the river. Not everyone in the colonies survived the first Russian Winter.

Catherine the Great had an ulterior motive to bring on the colonists. Her kingdom was expansive and she was unable to fend off the raiding marauders taking over the land she claimed as hers. 

My Krikau ancestor, Johann George Krikau born in 1723 in Wofenhausen, Germany was one of those Germans seeking out a better life for his family. He settled in Warenburg in the Saratov region of the Volga River. Colonies settled along the lines of their religion which was either Lutheran or Catholic. My family was Lutheran.

From the time of their arrival until 1775 the colonists came under attack. In an article written by Asya Pereltsvaig it is explained like this.

“Early on, the Volga German colonies came under attack during the  Pugachev's Rebellion of 1773-1775. The insurrection started among Yaik Cossacks headed by Yemelvan Pugachev, a disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Russian Imperial army. Pugachev claimed to be Tsar Peter III, who had actually been assassinated in 1762, promising freedom and land to the enserfed peasants. Motivated by these promises, his force quickly numbered in the thousands. During 1773-1774, Pugachev’s band rampaged throughout the Volga region, wrecking havoc as they went from village to village. Many of the German settlers fled to the countryside, burying whatever valuables they possessed, while others remained in the villages, only to be beaten and hung on hastily erected gallows. Whole villages were burned down. The rebellion was eventually crushed by government forces, and Pugachev himself was captured in the Urals after his fellow rebels betrayed him in September 1774. He was taken to Moscow and after a trial was executed in January 1775. “

Despite their disastrous start, the Volga Germans persisted and prospered for the next century. In that time Johann George Krikau had a son Johan Adam Krikau born in Germany just a year before going to Russia. J. Adam Krikau married Barbara Catherine Marie Schmidt and they had a son Johann Phillip Krikau born September 15, 1811 in Warenburg. He married Ann Marie Engelhardt – born March 6, 1815. They had 8 children that I am aware of. My direct line Krikau was born July 31, 1837 in Warenburg. His name was Johann Andreas Krikau. He married twice. His first wife was Katharina Margaretha Kramer. They married in 1857 and had 6 children, Katharina M Kramer died in January, 1875 at the age of 38. In that same year Johann Andreas Krikau married his second wife Elisabeth Barbara Doering who was 35 years of age. Together they had 3 children. Johann Andreas and Elisabeth Barbara are my direct line. Their middle child was born in Warenburg, Russia on January 20^th 1879. He was my great grandfather Andreas Krikau. Andreas married Marie Katherine Kraft on June 15, 1898 in Warenburg. At this time, Russia had started to rescind some of it's promises such as military exemption, tax exemptions and language spoken.

Andreas and Marie Katherine must have seen that things were about to go badly for Volga Germans in Russia. Thus they were lured by Canada's free land and endless possibilities. They immigrated in fall of 1911 to Saskatchewan.

Unfortunately for the family and friends they left behind in Russia, life was about to get much much worse.

During WWI they endured the “anti – German” sentiment. The Bolsheviks persecuted them for their religious beliefs. Church was closed down and the pastors arrested and deported.

In a previous blog I discussed the catastrophic famine and typhus epidemic that followed the Russian Revolution where it is estimated that a third of the Russian Germans died.

More immigration may have occurred at this time, that is until Stalin closed the Russian borders in 1929 and brought in “agriculture collectivization”.

WWII began. On June 22, 1941 Germany invaded Russia. Stalin retaliated by deciding to deport the German Russians including those who were fighting for Russia. He deported them to Siberia and Central Asia (Khazkhstan) to enforced labour camps. On August 12, 1941 Stalin decreed their expulsion due to supposed treasonous acts such as helping the German forces as they invaded Russia. The expulsion was quickly done in a matter of months. They were allowed one suitcase. Told to bring food for their trip. They were escorted to a train station. The men were separated from the women and children. They were loaded into cattle cars and their transport to Siberia and Kahzkhstan took months which meant it was during the cold winter. They only stopped every 3 days at which time they were given sips of water. It is said that approximately 200,000 to 300,000 ethnic Germans died either due lack of shelter, starvation, disease or over work in the labour camps.

On November 26, 1948 Stalin made their banishment permanent, forbidding them to relocate to European Russia, the Volga Valley, and it remained that way until after Stalin's death in 1953. In 1955 the Soviet Union released the whereabouts of a million Volga Germans and granted them belated amnesty. It was not until the 1960's that the government admitted responsibility for the persecution of innocent people and declared the 1941 action “null and void”.

At this time a few Russian Germans moved back to the Volga Region but in fact their homes were occupied and in some cases their villages did not exist anymore. The majority stayed and were in general assimilated into Russia Society.

In 1980's under Mikail Gorbechev perestroika (restructuring of Soviet politics and economy) and in the era of glasnost (openness) many Russian Germans began their return to Germany. This was due in part by Germany's “Law of Return” whereby those Germans with proof of descendency (like a family bible) could repatriate to Germany and become German citizens along with all of its privileges. The German population was not happy that these Russians who never lived in Germany could become citizens. For those who chose to return to Germany it was not an easy transition. Many no longer spoke German. Their culture was basically Russian. Starting over was too much for some who by this time were established and assimilated to their Siberian and Central Asian homes.

In about two and one-half centuries the descendants of the Volga Germans suffered through unimaginable and disastrous events. Some left to start over in America. Some stayed and died at the hands of political war, revolutions, famine, plagues and enforced labour camps.  Those that stayed and survived were more than likely assimilated into the Russian culture. The Volga Germans were no more.

Wendy