Copyright Loretta Willems, Jan 21, 2003
An Invitation to a
Willems Reunion 1980[1]
“Dear Relatives,
Our
great-grandfather, Gerhard Willems, was born in Holland (or Prussia) on Oct. 3,
1820. He was married to Katharina Rempel
in 1841. They spent some years farming
in Russia. Great-grandmother died in
Russia in 1875 at the age of 52.”
Willems Gen. I. II. III.
“Gerhard and
his family moved to Minnesota in 1875; however, his wife Katarina died just
shortly before they left for America.
Gerhard moved from Minnesota to Canada.
After he died he was put into a grave and it was covered with
boards. In the Spring when some of the
sons came from Minnesota his body was viewed and then buried.”
Gerhard Willems (1820) and Katharina Rempel Willems
(1823-1875) are my paternal great-great-grandparents. They were completely unknown to me till my
mother sent me a mimeographed invitation to a 1980 Willems Family Reunion to be
held at Bethany Bible Institute in Hepburn, Saskatchewan. The people invited were the descendants of
Gerhard and Katharina, and the invitation listed twelve children born to
Katharina and Gerhard with birth and death dates for most of them. It noted that some of the information might
need correcting and invited people to bring pictures and other information they
might have about the family.
I was not able to
attend the reunion and learned nothing further about Gerhard and Katharina and
their children until a 1994 visit to my Aunt Mary (Willems) Davis in Dinuba,
California. I had just finished my
doctoral dissertation and was finally turning in earnest to writing about the
story of my Willems grandparents and their family. I told Mary about my project,
and we talked about her parents and what she knew about their families. She said she had something I might want, then
searched in her papers and took out a mimeographed sheet of data that was given
to her by one of her cousins. This
document, Willems Gen. I. II. III, gives the same names and dates as those on
the 1980 Willems Reunion Invitation but with some additional dates and
information about locations of births and deaths. It was probably put together and distributed
after the pooling of information at the Reunion.
Two years later, in the winter of 1996, I was able to
return to Dinuba, this time for six weeks, two of which I spent with my cousin
Joanne who lived in Fresno. I slept on
her couch and each weekday morning drove with her to the high school where she
was teaching. She got out of the car,
and I continued on to the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies at Fresno
Pacific University (my family was MB).
The rest of the day was spent immersed in the Center’s resources. Kevin Enns-Rempel, the archivist, introduced
me to the archives and other primary and secondary sources. He also entered the information on Willems
Gen. I. II. III into a computer data base, the Genealogical Registry and
Database of Mennonite Ancestry, referred to as “GRANDMA.” That information brought up an ancestry chart
that gave exact dates for Gerhard’s birth and marriage to Katharina Rempel as
well as information for Katharina’s parents.
GRANDMA was just getting started when that first
genealogical chart was printed. In the
years that followed, much more data was gathered and entered. In April 2006, I was able to attend a
genealogical workshop at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, which also has a
Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies.
The workshop was conducted by Tim Janzen, a physician who is also deeply
involved in the GRANDMA project. After
the main program, Tim met with us individually.
When I gave him my Willems-Rempel material, he said that he was corresponding
with a relative of mine, Gerhard Willems
(b. 1955), a great- grandson of the Gerhard (1844-1916)[2]
who stayed in the Crimea when the rest of the family emigrated to North
America. This living Gerhard Willems was
born in Kazakhstan but moved with his family to Germany in 1988, just after the
fall of the Iron Curtin. Gerhard (1844-1916), the son who stayed in Russia,
died during the terrible years of the Russian Revolution, but his descendants
were not wiped out. They not only
endured they were able to preserve important family records that is now in
GRANDMA. In those records were the names
and dates of birth four children who were not on the list that I’d received
from my family.
Gerhard
and Katharina had a total of 16 children,
and we know all their names and dates of birth.
We also know the date of death of all but one of them.
Migration: From the North Sea to the Black Sea
Katharina Rempel Willems, was born March 3, 1823 in the
Mennonite colony of Molotshna, which was located about 200 miles northeast of
the Crimean peninsula where it juts into the Black Sea. That land is now part of Ukraine, but when
the Mennonites came there it was ruled by Russia and known to them as South
Russia.
Her husband, Gerhard Willems, grew up in the Molotschna
colony, but he was not born there. He
was born November 11, 1820, in the Mennonite village of Neundorf in the delta
of the Vistula River not far from where it empties into the North Sea, a land
that was then part of Prussia, but is now Poland. In 1822, Gerhard’s parents, Gerhard Heinrich Willems (1792-1837) and his wife, Judith
Berg (1797-1826), embarked with
their two children on the long, arduous trek that took them from Prussia to the
village of Lichtenau in the
Molotschna college.
Katharina’s parents, Peter
Bernhard Rempel (1792-1837)
and Katharina Berchen (1780-1831), made that same trek from Prussia to South Russia
with four children in 1817. I know those
dates because of a book, Mennonite
Migration to Russia: 1788-1828,[3]
compiled by another descendant of the
Mennonites who migrated from Prussia to South Russia, Peter Borosovitch
Rempel. This Peter Rempel, a
descendant of Mennonites who stayed in Russia, received degrees in archaeology
and history at Moscow State University and the Institute of Archaeology of the
USSR Academy of Sciences. He used that
training to pursue inquiry into the fate of his maternal grandfather, Peter
Petrovich Rempel (1885-1944) who was arrested by Soviet authorities on charges
of espionage in 1938 and never heard from again. Rempel’s book contains information taken
from three categories of documents:
1)
Lists of passports and immigration visas issued
by the Russian General Consulate in the city of Danzig (1819-1928);
2)
Lists of Mennonite parties receiving travel and
food money upon entering New Russia at Grodno (1803-1810);
3)
Reports on the economic status of each Mennonite
household, its possessions, as well as the grants and privileges issued
(1795-1828).
--”Peter Rempel, whose family consists of 6
males and 2 females. Settled in
Russia in the year 1817.
Settled in Lichtfelde, Molotschna. They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 205 rubles
50 kopeks, 1 wagon, 2 horses, 1 head of cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost
170 rubles. The local administration
suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 head of cattle at a sum
of 55 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household at a
sum of 589 rubles” (p. 107).
Peter Rempel (1792-1837) and his family
entered Russia in 1817. That was the
year immigration into Russia resumed after being suspended in 1812 as a result
of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the upheavals that ensued. If his birth date in GRANDMA is correct, he
was 25 when he migrated to Russia.
Unfortunately, “Peter Rempel” is the
only name given. The entry simply states
that the family consisted of 6 males and 2 females. The GRANDMA entry for Peter gives the names
of four children born to him and Katharina before the 1817 date, all of them
boys. In addition, the entry for
Katharina notes a previous marriage that produced a son born in 1801. With Peter, that makes six males. One of the females would have been
Katharina. The second female remains
unknown. A widowed mother was my first
guess, but Peter’s mother died in Prussia in 1818, and I have no information at
all about Katharina’s mother.
Katharina Berchen Rempel (1780-1831) was 12 years older than Peter Rempel. That age difference was not unusual among
Mennonites. Marriages between young men and older widows seem to have been
fairly common:
“All adult, baptized Mennonites were married
and as the death rate was quite high a man or woman might expect to be married
more than once in his or her lifetime.
Remarriage usually occurred soon after the death of a spouse, and the
children of earlier marriages became part of the new household or were divided
among other relatives. Sometimes a young
man married a middle-aged woman with a family, sometimes a middle-aged man
married a young girl who had not only her husband’s children to raise, but also
her own” (Urry, 61).
Financial situation: The entry says that Peter
Rempel had no cash when the family entered Russia. All they had was a wagon, two horses and a
cow. If they did receive the 644 rubles
in financial aid suggested by the local administration, it must have been very
welcome.
The family seems not to have been among the
very poorest of the settlers, however.
According to a chart of the 460 Mennonite families who migrated to
Russia between 1815 and 1825, having no cash was not unusual. Almost 70% had less than 100 rubles, and
beginning amount is 0. In terms of
possessions, the 205 ruble valuation of Peter Rempel’s property was close to
average: Only 42% had more property than
the Rempel family when they arrived in Russia—10% entered with nothing.
The
Willems Family
--“Gerhard Willems,
Mennonite from Neuendorf with his wife Judith Berg*, daughter Judith
4 (b. ca. 1819), son Gerhard 1½ (b. ca. 1821). Passport fr. Danzig issued on June 19, 1822,
Nr. 40” (p. 184).
--“Gerhard Willms, whose family consists of 2
males and 2 females. On the move to
Russia brought 500 rubles cash, possessions valued at 500 rubles, horses valued
at 320 rubles. Settled in Lichtenau,
Molotschna. Began receiving
financial aid in 1823” (p. 192).
Gerhard Willems/Willms (1792-1837): Fortunately, there is a passport application for Gerhard and his
family as well as a settlement record.
The passport application not only states the village in Prussia, Neuendorf,
where the family resided, it gives his wife’s first and maiden names, Judith
Berg, as well as the names and ages of his daughter, Judith age 4[4], and son Gerhard 1
½ .
Financial situation: The Willems family seems
financially much better situated than the Rempels. They had 500 rubles in cash, an amount far
above the average settler—only 18% of the settlers had more money than Gerhard
when they arrived. With horses valued at 320 rubles, and other possessions
valued at 500 rubles, Gerhard and his family seem to have been among the more
prosperous settlers even though the entry also states that Gerhard began
receiving financial aid in 1823.
Supplementary information in the book states that church elders “agreed
that the amount needed for any family was 878 rubles and 40 kopeks. Well-to-do families were to settle at their
own expense, and those families with some money and property were to be given
500 rubles each.” Evidently, Gerhard
and his family were not considered “well-to-do” even though only 36% of the
settlers had more money and possessions when they arrived.
The
Molochna: the Early Years
“Mennonite identity was based not only
on faith, but also on membership in a colony, a district, and the village where
individuals were born, brought up, or resided.” [5]
There
is more than one Peter Rempel listed in the immigration records, and there is
more than one Gerhard Willems. One of
the important factors in delimiting identify is the name of the village where
each settled—Lichtfelde for Peter Rempel, and Lichtenau for
Gerhard Willems. Lichtfelde,
where the Rempels settled, was one of
the first three villages established after immigration resumed after the war
with Napoleon. It was on the Jushanlee,
the southernmost tributary of the Molotschna River in the Mennonite
colony. Lichtenau, where the
Willems family settled, was one of the original ten villages established in
1804, all of them on the Molotchna River.
The
Willems Family
By the end of 1823 when the Willems
family arrived, there were 37 villages and hamlets in the Molotschna
Colony. That number would eventually
reach 60. Evidently the colony had
reached about half its full development when the Willems family received
land.
Gerhard (G.) Willems, born 11
November 1820 in Neuendorf, Prussia, was just a toddler when his family
migrated to South Russia. He had an
older sister, Judith, born “about 1817,” and was just six, two months shy of
his seventh birthday, when his mother died September 12, 1826. That death may have been related to the birth
of the third child listed on the Family Group Sheet, Heinrich, born
“about 1826” (death date unknown).
Life was short in the early years of
the colony. Judith Berg Willems
was the first of Gerhard and Katharina’s parents to die. Death came September
12, 1826, just four years after the family left their home in the Vistula River
delta. Her death came just after a
period of hardship in the colony. Severe
winter storms during the winter of 1824-25 resulted in heavy livestock losses
that were then followed by locust attacks in 1825[6].
Early
remarriage was expected when children were involved and Gerhard and Judith soon
had a step-mother. On 30 January 1827,
just four months after the death of Judith, Gerhard H. married Anna Wiebe
(b. abt 1800). They had five children,
the first of whom was a son named Heinrich born about 1827. The
names of children who died were commonly given to the next child of the same
sex, which would indicate that
the Heinrich born to Judith in 1826 did not live long. Heinrich (b. 1827) was followed by
four sisters, Anna (b. 11 Dec 1827), Maria (b. abt 1830), Katharina
(b. abt 1831) and Justina (b. abt
1834). Gerhard Heinrich Willems
left a young family when he died.
Gerhard, the son,
who emigrated to North America, was sixteen when his father died. As the oldest son he would have carried heavy
responsibility for the support of the family.
The Great Drought of 1832-34
“On
Saturday, 1 September 1832, a light rain spattered the dusty fields of the
Molochna River Basin, then quickly blew away west. It would hardly be an event worth noting were
it not that no precipitation fell again for seven long months, and it was twenty months before the spring
rains of 1834 released Molotschna settlers from the grips of drought and
hunger. Following hard on the heels of
the cholera epidemic of 1830 and 1832, the Great Drought of 1832-4 left a
permanent mark on Molotschna society” (87).[7]
In 1837, three
years after the Great Drought of 1832-34, Gerhard H. Willems and Peter
Rempel both died (Peter Rempel on October 31, exact date for Gerhard
unknown.) Two men were only 45 years old when they died. Gerhard Willems lived in South Russia about
fourteen years before his death; Peter Rempel lived there twenty years before
he died.
The Rempel Family
Katharina B. Rempel, born 3 March
1823 in the village of Lichtfeld, Molotschna colony, was also very young, not
quite eight years old, when her mother, Katharina Berchen Rempel died on
February 16, 1831, the year a cholera epidemic swept through the region. She was 50 when she died. The birth year for Katharina Berchen, the
mother, is recorded as 2 May 1780, which indicates that she was 43 when her
last child, daughter Katharina, my great-great grandmother was born.
Young Katharina
(1823-1875), the daughter, had many siblings.
She was the seventh of the children who were born to her parents, all
but one of them growing into adulthood.
In addition, she had half-brothers and sisters. Her mother had a son, Abraham (b.
1801)[8]
from a previous marriage to Jacob Wall who died in 1812. Katharina
acquired another half-brother and a half-sister when her father re-married
after the death of his first wife, Katharina’s mother.
Peter Rempel was
41 when his wife died, and like Gerhard G. Willems, married just a few months
after the death of Katharina, his children’s mother. On 29 September 1831, he married Margaretha
Sawatzky (1808-1893). They had two
children, Anna (b. 18 Dec 1833) and Cornelius (b. 12 Dec 1836),
before Peter Rempel’s death in October, 1837.
Katharina was fourteen when her father died.
Gerhard
Willems (1820-1900) & Katharina B. Rempel (1823-1875)
Gerhard was 20
and Katharina 17 when they married March 8, 1841. I know very little about their life
together. One of the things I do know is
that they had a lot of children.
According to his obituary, Gerhard “produced 16 children, seven of whom have preceded him to eternity.” Nine
of those children were boys, seven of them girls. Their first child, a boy they named Gerhard
(b. 21 Oct 1842-d. 2 Mar 1843), died
when he was 5 ½ months old. When the
next child, a boy, was born, he, too, was given the name Gerhard (b. 17
Jan 1844-d. 4 Apr 1916). The next child,
a girl they named Anna (b. 8 Aug 1845-d. 17 Feb 1932) survived. She was followed by another girl, Katharina
(b. 28 Oct-d. 7 Feb 1847). She did not
survive. However, that death was
followed by the birth of seven children who did survive into adult life:
Peter (b. 9 Jan 1848-d.
31 Dec 1887); Heinrich (b. 17 Oct 1849-d. 1 Jun 1928); Johann (b.
25 Apr 1851-d. 20 Jan 1905); Bernhard
(b. 10 Apr 1853-d. 12 Mar 1912); Cornelius
(my great-grandfather, b. 5 Feb 1855-d. 9 Aug 1902);
Katharina (b. 7 Oct 1856;-d. 1890); Abraham (b. 17 Nov 1858--d.13
Nov 1945).
The next death did not come till
sometime in early 1862, when a daughter named Elizabeth (b. 6 March
1860) died. Her name was given to the
next child, a girl, born that same year: Elizabeth (b. 31 March 1862-d.
9 August 1927). The next baby, Jakob
(b. 15 March 1864), evidently did not survive.
No death date is given for him, and he is not mentioned in the list of
children who migrated to North America with their father, Gerhard. The last two children are known to have
survived: Maria (b. 6 Aug 1866-d. 3 July 1895); and Margaretha (b.
17 Sep 1869-d. 1917).
Residence
The GRANDMA notes
for Gerhard (b. 1844) state that records written by him that are in the
possession of his great-grandson, Gerhard (b. 1955), give Lichtenau (his father’s home village) as his place of birth. Busau
(Crimea) church records, however, state that he was born in Brodsky, a large Mennonite estate near
the town of Melitopol, about twenty miles south of Lichtenau. If Gerhard was indeed born in Brodsky, the
family must have later returned to Gerhard’s home village since Molotshna school
records[9]
for 1857-58 list the names of the five oldest of Gerhard and Katharina’s
surviving children—Gerhard 13, Anna 11, Peter 9, Heinrich 8 and Johann 6—among
the children attending the Lichtenau school for those years.
The family did
not stay in the Molotschna, however.
Sometime after 1858, most likely in the early 1860s, they relocated to
the Crimean Pennisula. This peninsula is
southwest of the Molotschna, a journey by wagon of about 200 miles from the
village of Lichtenau.
Mennonite Historical Atlas: The
Crimea
“During the Crimean War (1853-56) The Mennonites helped their fatherland
by taking care of Russian wounded soldiers and by providing transport wagons
and drivers, even within the battle zones of the Crimea. Through this experience the Mennonites became
aware of the mild climate and relatively fertile soil of the peninsula,
certainly preferring it to the distant cold stretches of Siberia. With the need for more land, particularly by
Molotschna residents, the Crimea became a desirable option. In 1862 four Mennonite villages were
established, one of which was Karassan.
Throughout the years additional settlements were founded, mainly along
major railways and roads and therefore scattered across the whole peninsula,
some on purchased, others on leased land.
There were also a considerable number of private estates …”
“In
the 1870s Mennonites from the Crimea also emigrated to America, sometimes whole
villages or church groups moving as a block…
”The
land, by and large, was fertile, but in some areas water was scarce, or where
present, brackish. Agriculture
flourished in most regions, common commodities produced being grain, cattle,
fruit and grapes.”
The GRANDMA entry
for Gerhard (1820 1900) states that he was a member of the Karrassan, Crimea
Mennonite church and was living there in 1861.
The obituary for Gerhard and Katharina’s daughter Elisabeth, who
was born 31 March 1862, also
states that she was born in the Crimea[10]. Gerhard & Katharina and their family
must have been among the first settlers to Crimea, living on the peninsula at
least thirteen years before the family emigrated to North America the summer of
1875. Katharina Rempel Willems, however,
was not with her family when they embarked on the journey. She died May 11, 1875. Eleven of her children did make the trip to
North America and spent the rest of their lives in that land far from their
birth. Ten of the children, the youngest
ten, accompanied their father. The
oldest daughter, Anna, who was married to Johann Siemens, migrated with her
husband and children in 1889, joining her father and younger siblings in
Mountain Lake, Minnesota.
The eldest son, Gerhard (1844-1916), stayed in the
Crimea. Married to Maria Kaethler
10 January 1871 in Karrassan, he worked as a blacksmith in Keneges, Crimea from
1871 until February 1873. On 25 February
1874, he moved with his wife and two young children to Alexanderfeld (Kutyuki),
which was also on the Crimean peninsula.
He seems to have stayed in Kutyuki until his death in 1916 during World
War I. He and Maria had a total of nine
children between 1871 and 1885. Five of
those children lived to marry and have children of their own, the other four
died in childhood.[11]
~~~*~~~
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
Sources
GAMEO: Global
Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.
GRANDMA: Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry. (Online subscriptions available through the California
Mennonite Historical Society website.)
Lichtenau School Records:
1857-58 are from the Peter J. Braun Mennonite Archive File Number 1841
(Mennonite Heritage Centre microfilm #502).
Mennonite
Historical Atlas. William
Schroeder and Helmut Hueber. Winnipeg,
Canada: Springfield Publishers, 1990.
Mennonite
Migration to Russia: 1788-1828, compiled by Peter Borosovitch Rempel.
Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp & Richard D. Thiessen. Winnipeg, Manitoba:
Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2000:
Secondary
Sources
John R. Staples. Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian
Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783-1861. University of Toronto Press, 2003.
James Urry. None But Saints: The Transformation of
Mennonite Life in Russia 1789-1889.
Canada: Hyperion Press Ltd., 1989.
[1] Sent out by the Reunion Committee: Sam Willems,
Waldheim, Sask.; Wes Willems, Saskatoon, Sask.; Elmer Andres, Hepburn, Sask.;
Herman Berg, Hepburn, Sask.
[2] This Gerhard’s son Peter (1877-1942) was born in
Kutyki, Crimea, but died in Spasskoyi, Kazakstan. His son, Gerhard (1908-1997), was born
in Yalantusch, Crimea, married 1940 in Crimea, had children in Kazakhstan and
died in Germany (GRANDMA).
[3] Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp
& Richard D. Thiessen, (Winnipeg, Manitoba:
Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society), 2000.
[4] The GRANDMA entry for Gerhard Willems (1792-1837)
states that a note in the 1835 census in which he is listed, as well as the age
of his wife, Judith, “seem to indicate
that the first child, Judith, was born to a previous wife.”
[5]James Urry, None
But Saints: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia 1789-1889
(Canada: Hyperion Press, Ltd., 1989), p. 57-8.
[6] Urry, p. 85.
[7] John R. Staples, Cross-Cultural
Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783-1861.
[8] GRANDMA entry for Abraham J. Wall notes that the 1835
Molotschna Census lists him in Lichtfelde at the home of his step-father. He was married and had four children by that time
born between 1827 and 1833. That must
have been a full house.
[9] Lichtenau School Records: 1857-58
are from the Peter J. Braun Mennonite Archive File Number 1841
(Mennonite Heritage Centre microfilm #502.
[11] One
child, Anna (b. 1880), died in infancy.
In 1889, three children died within three weeks of each other: on 22
January 1889, twelve year old Gerhard (b. 1876); on 29 January, the
second Anna (b. 1882); and finally, on 14 February 1989, eleven year old
Johann (b. 11 Nov 1877), the twin brother of Peter, the
grandfather of Gerhard (b. 1955), who also has a twin brother (Peter).
