Events

Wayne Garman: I am a native of Saskatchewan, Canada, with Germans from Russia ancestry in the Kutschurgan village of Elsass as well as the Mennonite colony of Chortitza. I hold a masters of history degree from Texas State University. The history of the Germans from Russia is one of my major research topics. I have presented at both GRHS … Continued

Presenter: Wayne Bonner  Although virtually all members of AHSGR have heard the story of Catharine the Great and her manifesto of 1763 inviting settlement in Russia, not everyone is aware of the population movements that occurred prior to that epic migration. Numerous Germans, primarily from the present German states of Baden-Wurttemberg and the Palatine (Pfalz), … Continued

Lena Wolf currently lives in London, but grew up in Kazakhstan as a child of Germans from Russia parents. Lena's mother Angelina, was born in the German village of  Blumenfeld in Ukraine and her father Adam, was born in the German village of  Gnadenfeld, not far from Rostov on Don. Both were deported in 1941 … Continued

In this presentation we will learn why the sisters, Jackie and Janine Pfeiffer, decided to write a book about their childhood memories of the 1950's. We will learn the background and how the documenting led to publication of their book, While the Windmill Watched: A Slice of Rural America in the 1950's.  Jackie and Janine grew up on … Continued

Presenter: Dr. Ann Braaten Ann Braaten is an associate professor in the Apparel, Retail Merchandising and Design program at North Dakota State University Emily Reynolds Historic Costume Collection at NDSU, an archive of over 5000 clothing and textile items that reflect the history of the region, the history of fashion and international dress.  The collection … Continued

Presenter: Dr. Tatjana Schell Born to a Volga German family, Katrin Schell, Tatjana's mother, spent her early childhood in the 1950s-1960s in the region of Omsk in western Siberia where her parents and their respective families had been brought to following the deportation from their native village of Seewald on the Volga River. Growing up … Continued

January – Ann Stewart, “REMNANTS: A Family’s Escape from Stalin’s Russia and the Child They Left Behind” Presentation: When I was in third grade, my grandfather told me he had been imprisoned. “Lubyanka,” he whispered as if I knew what that meant. “In Russia.” I was horrified, wondering what my grandfather had done to be … Continued

February – Howard Foote and LaDonna Hunt, “Chapters in Action: Restoration of an abandoned cemetery in Oklahoma” Presentation: In the fall of 2017, the Oklahoma chapter took on the restoration of the abandoned Mennonite Brethren Cemetery, a few miles north, of Eakly, OK. Their initial findings indicated that there were many issues that needed to … Continued

March – Brenda Smith, “An Uneasy Neighbor: Parsing a prison record to discover ‘Trapper Frank Weber’” Presentation: Franz "Shorty" Weber was a Polish German immigrant to the USA in 1902. By 1913 he had followed railway building to northern British Columbia where he tried farming before finding his solitary future as a fur trapper. Starting … Continued