by Duane L. Herrmann

The story of the Herrmann family recounted earlier, in Andrew Herrmann Family in America (and its German translation, Andrew Herrmann Familie in Amerika) was the story of a German family which came to America. Most of the American branches of the family remained German until the middle of the twentieth century when the children married people with ancestry other than German. As decades have passed the family has become even more wonderfully diverse.

The story of the Lawrence Herrmann family is a vastly different story from that of his grandfather. This story is a story that includes participation in several significant events in American history because the ancestors of this family were here before independence from Great Britain. These events include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, World War II and the Vietnam Conflict. Our ancestors also participated in one of the Oklahoma land runs and the atomic bomb testing over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

It is regrettable that family information has largely been transmitted through the male line and name, as if the women, their lives and ancestors, were irrelevant. They appear to step out of history from a void and melt into their husband’s story. This is out of balance but it has gone on for too many centuries and generations to be easily rectified. Minds, institutions and records are oriented toward the male line, other information is very difficult to determine. The following account of the family established by Lawrence & Juanita Herrmann attempts to be more balanced, but with lack of time, information and resources, success can only be limited.

Some of the information and stories related here come from both Lawrence Herrmann and Juanita Boaz Herrmann, Georg Ankenbrand (Reckendorf, DE), Don Boaz (Topeka ), James Boaz (Atlanta, GA), Ramon Delarosa II (Harlingen, TX), Irma Kearney (Toledo, OH), Jean Koch (Woodburn, OR), Emil Lutz (Berryton), Walter Mullens (Topeka), Erma Payne (Berryton), Dena Rodell (Topeka), Sadie Rome (Lenexa), Marga & Ferdl Schulz (Obermanndorf, DE), and others. This account also attempts to correct, revise and expand or condense information found in The Andrew Herrmann Family in America (corrections of information in this book will be gratefully appreciated). Much information has been found since then and changes have occurred with time. These include not only more information about the Herrmanns in Germany but also new family connections as the family has expanded. We now have ties to Lebanese Arabs, natives of America (we are not so much immigrants anymore), Spaniards and a survivor of the Titanic.

This Herrman family was started in America when four siblings came to this country in the 1800s. The exact dates of their arrivals are not known but ............. but we are getting ahead of the story. This book will tell some of the stories of some of those children, some of their descendents and some of the families that resulted. This is not a complete picture of the life of every member of the family, that is impossible. It does give a picture of our past which serves as grounding for our future (if you don’t know from where you’ve come, you won’t know where you’ve arrived).

The Herrmann family had lived in Reckendorf, Bavaria for generations. Reckendorf is in the part of Bavaria that was once part of Charlemagne’s Empire (800-814), the far western area: Austrasia. Because Charlemange was a member of the tribe called "Franks," the area has been labeled the "Frankish" part of Bavaria, "Franken" or "Franconia." Reckendorf is likely to have been settled earlier than that.

The name, Reckendorf, is not German (obvious if one is aware that the German language does not use the letter "C"), but the ending: "dorf" is German and means: village. The name has a pre-Germanic slavic root: "recki." A recki was an escort or footsoldier (some might say, knight) who was not bound to any lord or higher authority, a sort of independent, mercenary soldier. We can speculate that one such recki settled in this spot and fortified it for his protection (because there was no civil order as we know it today) and others came to live there also for his protection; so it is the village of the soldier or "Recken-dorf. The fortification, however primitive, would have been called "a castle."

The earliest European "castles" were stick and grass huts inside a ringed mound of earth. Three distinct periods of early settlement have been discovered under the present village of Reckendorf. The third settlement has been continuous to the present time. This one was begun when the combined Germanic tribes of Franks and Thuringians migrated to the region from the north in the 400’s when Roman defenses were weak. When the Roman forces returned they did not evict the new settlers as previous Roman policy and strength would have dictated. They merely guarded the cities and other strategic locations.

These new people used the name that was there before them (as Europeans used Native American names when they invaded North America), so the village is older than this time. They found the area easy to settle and farm for they did not have to clear the land of forest. The Franks conquered the Thuringians in 531 and absorbed the area into their realm. The area was colonized by large landowners loyal to the Franks. The landowners controlled the land and the people who lived on the land and worked it. Because of this social stratification the inhabitants of the region never developed their own tribal identity. The presence of powerful landowners explains why the history of the village is related in terms of the families who owned it. The settlement endured through centuries of wars, famine, plague and sporadic times of peace.

The first substantial structure in Reckendorf could well have been a Grubenhausen: a typical early European style of central house. It was a long house with short walls made of rock or sod or wattle with two rows of central posts holding up a high ceiling of thatch. The high ceiling allowed smoke to collect without choking and killing the family before it could seep out of the thatch (chimneys were an invention of the future). These buildings served all the needs of the farm. Animals were penned in one end while the family lived in the opposite end. An entrance, large enough for a wagon to enter, was in the center of one side. Around the entrance was storage space for grain, tools and other supplies. Around this main house would be scattered tiny huts for other, poorer people (the commoners or serfs) to live.

The name "Herrmann" is reported to be a corruption of the word "harriman" which meant "army man." Would this indicate a relationship to the founder of the village, or just a person who lived in the village of the soldier? Probably the latter.

Christianity was brought to Franken by an Irish monk named Kilian who was assisted by eleven companions. They were part of the conversion of Europe that the Irish carried out over several centuries. Kilian was martyred in Wurzburg in 689, not really far from Reckendorf, and is know known as St Kilian. Such travelling groups of twelve were common and intended to attract divine blessings by resembling the number of Christ’s apostles – the perfect twelve (and large groups were less likely to be attacked while traveling). This missionary activity was part of the tide of teaching that spread from Ireland eastward across Europe in the latter half of the seventh century. The Irish were followed by English monks returning to their ancestral Germanic homelands to convert them to the new faith. Monks would not have gone, if people did not live there.

The history of the village has not been recorded in detail but evidence dating from the end of the tenth century shows that the site has been inhabited since at least then. It is near the city of Bamberg and the surrounding area was settled and "civilized" by then. A document survives with a date of 902 which refers to, "Castrum Babinberch," the Roman name of the city before the name "Bamberg" was chosen in the next century.

After the time of Charlegmange the region was part of the East Frankish kingdom from which the Saxon kings, beginning with Henry I (919-936) founded the German Empire. This area, Franken, began its own separate identity when two well-established family dynasties competed for the German crown. When the Babenberg family lost, in 911, their attention was turned to opportunities in the south, the crown of Austria resulted. Though they lost the right to rule it, the city retained their name.

King Conrad I ruled Franken directly setting the region apart from the rest of his realm. This right was granted to Henry, Duke of Bavaria in 973. In 1007 Bamberg was selected to be a bishopric, the residence and administrative center for a Catholic Bishop. This gave the city its importance in medieval times. Pope Benedict VIII held a church synod there in 1020. The second bishop of Bamberg, named "Suitger," was elected Pope in 1046 and chose the name, Clemet II. After his death his wish to be buried in the Bamberg cathedral was fulfilled. He is the only Pope to be buried north of the Alps.

The power of the Catholic Church in these centuries was unrivaled. Because the Bamburg area had a degree of independent rule and it was the seat of one of the highest officials of the church, Franken had many of the attributes of an independent state. Bamberg gained its most wide-spread importance in 1460 when Albrecht Pfister established his printing shop there. This made it the second city in Europe (and the world) to have a printing press. He had learned directly from Gutenberg and became his rival.

In the year 1000 Reckendorf and its surrounding countryside was owned by the Andechs-Meran dynasty. In 1248 this family line ended and the von Truhendingen family inherited the village and the area around it. One hundred years later, in 1249, ownership of the castle and region went to the von Schofstall family who retained ownership for the next two centuries. The earliest coat of arms for the village originated in this time.

Not only the Protestant Reformation, inadvertently started by Martin Luther, which quickly swept through Franken touching Reckendorf, but the Hussite precursor to the Reformation (supporters of Jan Hus who was burned alive as a heretic) swept through the region in 1429-30. The Peasent’s War, which followed the Reformation and was ended brutally in 1525, left its mark on the village. In the last year of that war the manor house of Reckendorf was burned. Civil disorder continued, though to a lesser degree, until German areas were invaded by France and Sweden. The resulting political settlement left Franken firmly a part of Bavaria to which it has remained since.

In the sixteenth century peasants in various places rose up against their landlord-owners. This rebellion reached Reckendorf in the 1520’s. In 1525 the manor house of the village, which replaced the castle, was burned by the peasants.

Ownership of the village and its land changed again in 1544; this time to the Wiesenthau family. They remained in possession until 1649. The most prominent member of this family was Christoph Wiesenthau. He built the large building, a Gesindehaus, or servants quarters, with it’s high gable that is still standing today. He was also involved in establishing the brewery on the site of the former castle: "Castle Brewery." Over the entrance door is the coat of arms which incorporates the year date and an "S" the first letter of the name of the brewery.

A central feature of the village today remains the brewery. Its name (in German) is Schlossbrauerie and produces Reckenbier (beer of Reckendorf). The brewery traces its beginnings to 1597 and the brewing activity of the monks of the monastery which had once stood at the site of the present brewery; in fact some of the old monastery structure survives in the brewery. As a result, the brewery continues to be called "the castle." Those who work there, work at "the castle," and many villagers have worked there over the centuries, including members of our family.

When the Americans, at the end of the 20^th century, began translating letters written decades before by German relatives they found references to "the castle" and logically assumed there was a castle in Reckendorf (Germany is full of castles). When the German members of the family read of this assumption, they laughed: the castle had not been there for a thousand years or so. In fact, the brewery, on the site of the castle had been there 400 years, and the monastery had been at the site hundreds of years before the brewery. There were no towers or turrets or fortified walls.

It is interesting to note the most famous resident of Reckendorf, who also emigrated to America. He did not live in Reckendorf for a long time, just briefly while his mother was waiting for the visa to America, so she and her children could join her brothers there. Her husband had died in 1845 leaving her with six small children. It was 1847 when she applied for the visa in Bamberg, the nearest large town. While waiting for the visa the family stayed briefly in Reckendorf with family or friends who were also Jewish.. Her youngest son became famous in America after he made sturdy pants for miners in California out of the canvas usually used for sails. The pants are often called jeans or simply the name of the man who made them: "levis." He was Levi Strauss.

Reckendorf had had a large Jewish population for centuries. They had a school and synagogue. In the imagination of the gentiles they were the cause of every misfortune, from breaking a bone to catching a cold. The holocaust was the fanatical culmination of these superstitions. The Jews of Reckendorf were all taken. The school remains as a private home, the synagogue (now proudly referred to as the oldest remaining synagogue structure in Europe) is a warehouse for the brewery. The Jewish cemetery, on the other hand, is now protected and cared for by the village government as a source of pride.

The Herrmanns who came to the U.S. were children of Andreas and Barbara Herrmann. Nine children were born to the family, six lived to adulthood, four of these immigrated leaving only two remaining in Reckendorf to raise their families. To complicate the picture there are at least three men, father, son and grandson, named Andreas Herrmann and the first may have married twice (further clarification and details could not be obtained for this book). A second, or even third, family was not unusual in the days when women often died in childbirth and disease was rampant. The Herrman part of this story really starts with the middle Andreas Herrmann. Not much is known of this family before his time.

This Andreas married Barbara Schwinn. Barbara’s parents were Alexander Schwinn and Ottilie Schmitt. More information about them has not yet been found. Barbara was born in Reckendorf on 5 February 1837 and died there on 12 September 1899, at the end of the century. Her husband, Andreas, was born in 1822 and died 27 December 1889, ten years before her.

Their oldest daughter, Eva Herrmann planned ahead for her move to America. She worked extra and saved all the money she could. With the money she was able, after arriving in America, to buy some furniture, a horse and wagon and rented a boxcar to ship her new belongings out west. She ended in South Dakota where she filed a homestead claim. She lived there alone, for ten years. The first years were required to prove the claim, then she remained to build her new life. The entire time she lived there, she lived in the same tarpaper covered shack, probably with just one or two rooms. Her livestock, on the other hand, in true German fashion, were provided with a small wooden barn that was more sturdy and weather (and predator) tight than her own home. Indians that were travelling by would, from time to time, sleep in her barn. They caused her no problem. She kept the farm until she married.

She married Jake, or Jakob, Gales of German descent from Alsace-Lorraine who lived in Independence, Iowa. A wedding photograph remained with Andrew’s family. They had no children. After living in Iowa, they retired from farming and settled in Toledo on Western Ave, a block from her sister’s store. Jacob died about 1920 while sawing wood. Eva was very frugal, raised all her own fruit and vegetables and saved money every way she could. She was a stout fastidious person, with a rather large nose, a devout Catholic, and somewhat stoic. When she was elderly and ill, her brother Andrew came from Kansas to take care of her for a time. Eventually, in 1946, her condition worsened so much that she was bedfast for long periods of time. She was hospitalized the next years with several nurses assigned to her care.

On her death at age 82, she left instructions for her money to be split between her and her husband’s families. This task was left to her nephew, Bill Smith, who found it somewhat complicated due to the family being scattered in two countries, but he was successful in carrying out her wishes.

The second daughter of Andreas and Barbara Herrmann, Mathilda, stayed on her arrival in America, with cousins in Toledo, named Fleishman. Henry Fleishman had a friend, Charles Smith, who was widowed with seven children and needed a wife. He arranged for the two to marry but withheld a piece of information from Mathilda: the existence of the seven children! After the marriage she learned what her true role would be (others in the family remarked that it was virtual slavery). She eventually had three children of her own: Florence, Frances and William.

Charles Smith died when his youngest child, William, was only six years old leaving Mathilda a widow with the ten children, though some of the oldest were on their own. She was now the owner of a dry goods store, an ice cream parlor and barber shop. She rose to the challenge and continued in business till she died at age 69. A granddaughter described her as "a work horse... a fine business woman and very good with numbers and very generous." She was lean of build, quick on her feet with an equally quick wit and a sense of humor.

Her daughter Florence moved to Detroit and did not remain in contact with the family.

Frances married an older man, Clyde Smith, and had a son. She died soon after that and the son died as a young man.

William Jacob Smith, Mathilde’s son, went to school through the sixth grade, and acquired a little business schooling. At age 16 he began to work as a messenger for a brokerage firm and eventually, many years later, became a partner - a true American success story. He was also a good athlete, gardener and sportsman. He married Irene Halkner of Glandorf, OH, also of German descent. They had two children: Irma and Bill Jr.

Irma Smith married Bernard, "Bud," J. Kearney who worked for General Motors. The family was transferred a lot: to Cleveland twice, Detroit twice and Bay City once, but Toledo was always "home" and they settled in the area in their retirement. Bud died in 1986. They had two sons who also work for General Motors, but in Michigan, not Ohio, and they have four children between them. Irma initiated the first return visit of American members of the family back to Reckendorf.

Bill Smith Jr served in the navy at the end of World War II. He was trained for half a year in the Quarter Master Division, then was sent west to serve on the USS Yorktown based in Bremerton, Washington. After the war he married and had five children. He was one of the first American’s of the family to return to Reckendorf to visit.

Maria, a younger daughter, was sent to America by her parents to break up a love affair. She had been found in bed with a boy her parents didn’t want her to marry. To stop the romance and end the relationship, her parents sent her to America. Her little sister was only a small child at the time, but was upset by the decision. She remembered how happy Maria had been before the discovery, and how devastated she was afterwards. For twenty years Maria refused to write to her parents, she was so angry. In the next generation, a niece, Eva married a son of Maria’s boyfriend (he was a tank driver in World War II and died in the explosion of his tank after he had been ordered to blow it up to avoid capture by the Americans. She then married his brother.). Maria Herrmann was the youngest of the family to come to America.

Her brother, Andrew, rode the train to Baltimore where she was to arrive to meet her. The ship did not arrive on schedule, it had been delayed over a month by storms at sea. He did not have money to stay in the city and wait that long, so he returned home. She contacted him when she arrived and he sent her money for train fare for her to join him in Iowa where he lived at the time, she had nowhere else to go.

At first she kept house for him, but tired of that and went to live and work with an aunt (Eva?) in Toledo, then she got a job of her own. She Americanized her name from Maria to Mary and married Edward Kinnee in the rectory of St Peter & Paul’s Catholic Church, not in the church itself – he was not Catholic. Together they had two sons.

Ed Kinnee had been born in September 1862 in Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada and obtained only a second grade education. Despite that, he was so successful that at his death he left an estate of $50,000, including a prosperous broom factory. His family had been well to do in Germany and came to America to improve their fortune. The first Kinnee to come was hired at the time of the American Civil War to come to this country to fight in the place of an American; a common and legal practice for those who could afford it. He survived the war and did not want to return home to Germany.

Ed died in September 1929 in his home on North St in Toledo, Ohio. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery there.

Mary Herrmann Kinnee is reported to have become a thin nervous woman, which may have been an eventual consequence of the difficult birth of her last son. She worked in the broom factory after her husband died and lost most of her money in the Great Depression. Maria was like her brother Panger, in that she also stood very erect and was a loud talker. It was a family trait.

Her sons were Herbert & George. Herbert graduated from college and thought about becoming a priest, but did not. He eventually married a girl of French descent, Gabrielle and had a son named Andre.

George married a girl of Polish descent, Mildred Rose Meister, on 13 January 1931 in St Mary’s Church in Toledo. They had four children: Donald Edward, Richard George, David John and Mary Mildred. Mildren Kinnee had been born on 27 April 1908. She was a member of several church oriented orgainzations: Mercy Hospital guild, St. Anthony villa, L.C.B.A., Rosary Alter Society and St. Elizabeth’s society.

Her oldest son, Donald, was born on 3 October 1933 in Mercy Hospital in Toledo. He became a chemical engineer and married Barbara Niezgocki on 11 June 1955 in St Adalbert’s Catholic Church. They had five children: Donna, Dawn, Lisa, David and Peter. His interestes included membership in the National Bridge League, Holy Name, West Toledo Exchange Club and Knights of Columbus. His wife Barbara, was born 31 August 1935. She was primarily a homemaker with outside interests that included Welcome Wagon, craft clubs, school band boosters, Rosary Alter and D’Youville Association.

The four Herrmann siblings who came to American do not seem to have kept in touch a great deal after they settled in different places. After moving from South Dakota they are known to have seen each other only once and corresponded occasionally. A few of these letters survive. Andrew visited his three sisters and their families when they all lived in Toledo only one time, travelling from Kansas by bus in his regular overalls. A niece there remembered him from that trip being "tall and lean," thinking of him as the "frontier type" who was "very sure of himself." It was obvious even to the young girl that he was an independent thinker. Only one sister, Mathilda, made the trip to Kansas, once.

A second brother, Pankratz, or Panger as he was called, survived infancy, others did not. Panger stayed in Reckendorf. He was the third son born to Andreas and Barbara Herrmann, the 6^th of the nine children. An earlier brother, Bernard, had died two months old in January 1862. When Panger was ten years old his older brother, Andreas, went to America and the two never saw each other again.

Panger and his brother Andreas were a lot alike, despite the lack of contact. They physically resembled each other, stood erect, talked loud and looked alike. They both grew mustaches and both became farmers. Both had violent tempers and only one son, but the rest of their lives were very different. Panger lived his entire life in the same Bavarian village, moving only once from his childhood home to his own house. His brother lived in four different states of the U.S. in several different houses. His brother bought and sold three farms each with 120 to 160 acres, Panger farmed the same 66,000 square meters his entire life. Both brothers also smoked a pipe but Andrew gave it up in his later years. For smoking, Panger also grew and cured his own tobacco. Other crops he grew included potatoes, wheat and cabbage, Andreas grew oats, wheat and corn.

Panger’s great grandson, looking at the events of the two lives remarked, "Andreas lived a life of adventure compared to Panger." At least there was more variety.

Panger lived in the family home until he sold it to neighbors in 1912. The new owners added a gable and windows over the front door. Other than that, the house remained virtually unchanged (though with the early addition of electricity and water to the kitchen) when the first American relatives visited and walked in it as a family pilgrimage.

The house, like many in the region, is a duplex. The Herrmann half, is the back half; behind it is the barn and a small bit of land which most houses in Reckendorf do not even have. The front door of the house opens into an entryway with stairs on the left going up. Past the stairs, opposite the front door, is the door to the kitchen. To the right of the front door, opposite the stairs, is the door to the living room. Behind and through the living room is the bedroom. Upstairs the attic is one open space with very tiny original dormer windows on the back roof. The addition of the gable and its windows on the front opened the space and brings in light. Originally it was very dark with little headroom.

In 1912 Panger and his wife bought the home of the former Burgher Meister (Mayor) of Reckendorf. The property was particularly attractive because the land with it was the largest space in the village. The land and trees were so extensive that the opposite end can not be seen from the back door of the house. The Burgher Meister was exceptionally fond of drink, even for a Bavarian, and had gradually filled the land with fruit trees. In Germany every owner of fruit trees is legally allowed to brew his own beer. Despite drinking all his own beer, he drank himself into debt and sold the property to pay off his debts. The house and land was coveted by many in Reckendorf and speculation was high that Panger would not be able to keep up the payments as they were rather steep. The price was 6000 gold Marks.

But Panger had worked out a deal with his uncle, Georg Schwin, his mother’s brother. Georg had no children. His wife had died and he was looking towards old age with no one to care for him. He and his wife had owned several restaurants and had saved a considerable amount of money. The arrangement they worked out was that Georg would provide the money to buy the house and, in return, Panger and his wife would care for him and get a mortgage for the balance owned for the property.

The old man turned out to be a tyrant. Panger and his wife could hardly bear it and talked of giving up. The entire village knew how bad the situation was and many felt the two would walk out. Panger was ready to, but his wife was determined to stick it out. "We will never leave," she said, and they stayed. They stuck it out for six years. The uncle finally died in 1918 at age 79 (he had been born 16 August 1839). The mortgage payments were difficult to meet until inflation began to increase after World War I. As the value of money dropped the bank was stuck with a mortgage that was worth less and less, but easier to pay off. In the 1930s they were financially able to remodel and modernize the house.

When they bought it, the house was larger than what Panger and his wife needed since they had no children, that was one reason many in the village felt they would give up on the deal. Panger was 40 when he married and his wife was ten years younger, both felt they were too old to have children. The subsequent births of their two children, Andreas and Barbara, were each a surprise.

Panger and Anna wanted to send Barbara to America because they knew only one of their children would be able to live in the house later, but Barbara refused to go. She did not want to be so far away from home.

Panger’s son, Andreas, began his adult life like many in Reckendorf, working for the Schloss brewery. He was a brewer and barrel maker. His father was never in the army, Panger had been too young for the Kaiser’s army of World War I and too old to fight in Hitler’s war. Andreas was not so fortunate. He was age 33 when he was drafted into Hitler’s army. His unit was eventually sent to the Russian front and he disappeared. There was a great possibility that he had been killed.

After the communication from Andreas ceased, Barbara (married by now) and her husband moved to Reckendorf to care for the house and family farm. Barbara’s husband had worked for Fichtel and Sachs in Schweinfürt. In Reckendorf he worked for the brewery doing some of the work Andreas had done.

Barbara and her father were alike in many ways: both went to church regularly, had sharp tempers and were strict parents. She was lenient with her grandchildren though. She took them traveling, often by bus, around Germany, to Munich, the Alps and even into Austria. In this and other ways she spent money on them and indulged them.

Barbara never forgot about her American relatives and encouraged her grandson, Georg Ankenbrand, to find them. He had no idea where to start. America was a big place for a young German boy to try to begin a search for unknown people. He did have some friends who were planning a trip to America, so he joined them to get an idea of what the country was like. They went to Miami, Florida - a startlingly different place from Reckendorf. But the country was so large, he was overwhelmed about where to start to look for his relatives.

It was a delightful surprise a few years later when three of these Americans came to his father’s front door. The Americans had found him! He later came to America with his father and father’s cousin.

Across the street and down from the original Herrmann home in Reckendorf is the home of the Schramm family, which the youngest daughter of Andreas and Barbara married into. They have lived there for generations and do still. This daughter is the second one which Andreas and Barbara named Margarete. The first Margarete was born 5 May 1867 and died a young girl of 6½ on Christmas Day 1873. Evidently their grief was so great her memory was enshrined in the birth of their last child.

Margarete Herrmann married Georg Schramm who was born in 1844 and died in 1928, "by shingles." The marriage came about in a rather unusual way. Margarete was walking on her way to visit relatives at a party and passed Georg Schramm. He asked where she was going. She said to the party, for the patron saint of the church, and asked if he wanted to come. "No," he said. "I have a lot of work to do."

One week later there was trouble between Margarete and her parents. She was not in church and her brother, Pankratz left the service, disappointed not to see her. Outside the church, he found a friend who also noticed that she had not been in church. The two suspected something unusual was going on. Margarete became aware of their suspicions and confronted the them, "What happened, to make you so distant?"

"You are keeping secrets from us," they replied. Margarete was so surprised by this response that she did not know what to say.

Pankratz then talked to the village priest who said that Margarete and Georg Schramm were planning to marry. The priest in Reckendorf had only learned of it from the priest of another town whom Georg had told. Margarete knew nothing of this and was surprised when Panger told her that he knew.

She was thirty years old at the time, with no other prospects of marriage, so she decided to go along with it. She and Georg set the wedding date for a few weeks later.

On the appointed day she arrived at the church ready for her wedding and found a different man preparing to be married. Startled and angry at the deceit, she returned home. A short time later she learned that her wedding was scheduled for an hour later; a different couple was being married right before her wedding. She returned to the church and was married.

Margarete was noted for her intelligence and met life on her own terms. She did not have a particularly good relationship with her mother-in-law when she married and moved into her husband’s house where his mother also lived. After a few years the mother-in-law moved out. The estrangement was so great that the two women refused to speak to each other so the children ended up being messengers between the two.

Once when Margarete was three months pregnant she told her older children that the baby would be born on December 27. True to her word her child, Eve, was born that day! The children did not realize how remarkable that was.

Margarete was never ill when she was young. In her old age she had a slight stroke but recovered so completely and swiftly that there was only one day when she could not speak clearly. She was one tough woman!

In contrast, her daughter, Anna was often ill, especially during the war. Margarete did the work for both of them. She worked in the fields as well as in the house. Hans Schramm did not do fieldwork, he made barrels and other work at the brewery.

In the past, in rural Germany, if a woman didn’t do the farm work, she was regarded as lazy. During the war men went to fight and women had to do all the work. Margarete’s grandson, Gustov, helped take care of her in her old age.

Margarete often told stories about the people of the village, including the Jews who used to live there. Her grand daughter and namesake, Marga, was fascinated by the stories and would stop at her grandmother’s house to hear them. She had to walk three kilometers to school and if school let out early, or weather was bad, she would stop and visit her grandmother, or "Oma". Her own mother didn’t have time to tell stories.

Margarete didn’t like seeing the doctor. Once when she felt unwell, she saw a neighbor going to the doctor and asked why. "Woman’s complaint," was the reply. When the neighbor returned Oma asked what the cure was. "Nothing," the neighbor replied, "it will go away." Oma decided not to see the doctor.

Margarete & Georg Schramm had three children: Hans (born 25 September 1907), Mathilde (22 November 1908) and Eva (27 September 1916). They were direct cousins of Carl Herrmann and his sisters. The two Schramm sisters lived long enough to meet the first of the American family to return. Both died before the second visit.

Margarete had a grand daughter (daughter of her daughter, Mathilda Limpert) named after her but was called Marga. Marga’s husband, Ferdinand Schulz, was in Hitler’s army and captured as a prisoner of war, just 19 years old. Ferdl was sent to a camp in the U.S. On the way he was in transient in camps in England and Scotland for a few weeks. When you are in the military, you do get to see the world! His destination was a camp in Georgia where he spent the first years of the war, 1944-46. The transport ship to the U.S. held 10,000; 8,000 prisoners and 2,000 soldiers. The fear of being torpedoed was great. All the men wore life preservers all the time and the ship flew three banners for protection: Red Cross, German and American. The trip ended when the ship safely passed the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.

On the train ride in the U.S. to the camp, the Germans saw factory parking lots full of cars. They were amazed that so many workers owned their own cars. Town after town it was the same: millions of cars for ordinary workers. Such wealth and luxury was unbelievable!

At the camp in Georgia the heat was unlike anything they had known at home! The entire experience was unforgettable. The camp sent the prisoners out on various work details. One was cutting wood. The prisoners had to provide a certain amount of wood. They soon learned that they could cut more wood than the required amount and sell the excess. They paid off the guards not to report the excess.

A wholesaler would buy the wood from the prisoners. The wholesaler had many things on his mind and sometimes would not take the wood he had paid for. Sometimes, when this happened, they could sell the same wood twice. Often while he was bargaining with some of the prisoners, others would sneak into his whiskey supply, drink some and fill the bottles with water. When the wholesaler would take a swig before he left, he would discover the difference and yell, "God damned Germans!!" It was a way of learning English. Decades later Ferdl remembered the scene, and the English words, exactly.

Another work detail was to pick the peach crop. The farmer said they only needed to pick half the crop, the price was high and that’s all he needed to sell. They could eat the rest. As a result, they would eat as many as the wanted. Some ate as many as forty peaches a day. Peaches are not commonly grown in Germany, especially not in Bavaria.

Ferdl spent the last years as a prisoner in France. While there he and a friend or two were approached by a French guard. The guard suggested a plan to raise some money, "If you escape, we will get 1000 Franks when we catch you."

The Germans thought it over and responded, "we will escape for you, if we can have half of the reward for catching us." The guards agreed. They would all have to trust each other for the plan to work. The Germans duly escaped, the alarm was sounded and the escapees were caught by the guards who hatched the plan. The guards were rewarded with the 1000 Franks and, at the end of the day, it was split with the Germans who had made the escape. The adventure relieved the monotony of the daily routine for everyone and turned a tidy profit for the participants. If only all of war could be so safe and exciting!

When the war ended, food in the prison camp instantly declined in quality. And there were other changes: they were no longer prisoners. They could leave the camp, but had no way to go anywhere. And they could no longer earn money as they had, so they had to devise other ways. One was to go to the camp laundry wearing one shirt but coming out wearing several. Then they would sell the shirts to local residents. Sometimes they just stole food. Once when stealing melons, the owner saw them and yelled, "If you come back, I’ll shoot you." But the Germans didn’t worry, they knew he had no gun.

Returning to the main thread of our story: Andreas, the father of the Herrmann children who came to America, died in 1889. It could not have been too many years after his last child arrived in America. The family who remained at home in Reckendorf was sure he died of a broken heart, to never see four of his children again. The children’s mother lived to 1897, the year of the birth of her first American grandchild. Did she know of this grand baby, this "enkelkind"? It is doubtful. But the family name would be carried on in the new country.

Preserving the family name, making sure that one member of the family would live to carry on the Herrmann name, is the main reason given for Andreas Herrmann (the son) being sent to America: to keep him out of the German army. His father had seen men wrecked in body and spirit by war and didn’t want his oldest surviving son to suffer the same fate or worse. The political situation looked ominous.

Franko-Prussian war was recently over and Prussia was gaining more and more power among the German states. First a North German Confederation was formed, with Prussia as the largest and most influential member. Impressed by observing a large, powerful, efficient and unified German state, many southern German states voted to be absorbed into Prussia in order to be part of this one single powerful German nation; a dream centuries old. The small independent German kingdoms, duchies and cities (there were over 300) were becoming a single nation. The separate kings and rulers were giving up a part of their status and authority to a higher authority. In 1871 King William of Prussia was crowned Kaiser of all Germany.

"Kaiser" is a title derived from "Caesar" and meant one who ruled over kings.

During this time of rapid social and technological change many long-standing social patterns were disrupted. The early 1800s heralded many significant changes in the personal and social status of individuals. For centuries individuals had been tied by birth to a place and occupation. Between 1807 and 1820 various land reforms were enacted in the different German states that freed the German peasants from serfdom; individuals were no longer the property (or responsibility) of landowners nor were they tied to specific plots of land. And the domestic servants of the nobility were put on an employee basis, they could now be fired. This personal independence brought with it an unprecedented degree of insecurity and suffering.

Greater changes occurred for artisans and craftsmen (shoemakers, watchmakers, coopers, cabinetmakers, tailors, weavers and others). The Herrmanns were weavers by occupation, not by choice but by birth. For centuries such crafts had been organized and controlled by guilds. The guilds insured stability: economic as well as social stability. They restricted the number of members, maintained standards of quality (high or low), determined prices and limited production. These controls produced a stable, but static, orderly society which endured for centuries with little growth, change or development.

In the 1800s these changes inside German areas were accentuated by outside forces: the European industrial revolution, the consequent rise in world trade and a general increase in population (the German states themselves increased in population from 25,000,000 in 1815 to 34,500,00 in 1845 – an increase of 38% in just one generation), all compounded by localized drought and famine. The increased population was greatest in western and southern German lands, which included Bavaria. These pressures fermented the revolution of 1848 and the aborted Frankfurt Parliament which attempted to unite the German states on more democratic ideals.

With the failure of the revolution and the dismemberment of the parliament, while the problems continued and increased, great numbers of dissatisfied and dislocated individuals and families left the German states, most headed for America. This flight of talent, energy and ideas was a drain on the German population which was felt for generations. Instead of being used for a better Germany, this energy was used in the post-civil war development of the United States. The Herrmanns were part of this migration.

The Herrmann who would carry on the family name arrived in America in the 1880s. On 19 January 1883 the S.S. Vaderland docked in Baltimore ending a voyage from Antwerp. One of the passengers to disembark was Andreas Herrmann. The passenger list does not indicate any other information about him (except age), but he is in the right place at the right time and the right age (18 - his birthday had occurred during the voyage) so it is logical to assume he is the Andreas Herrmann of our family. There was no one else with the same name to arrive between 1882-1884.

Andreas told his grandchildren how, on the trip, he carried a loaf of bread and kept it hidden under his coat so no one would see it or steal it. He would only eat a bite when no one else was looking. We can conclude he was travelling steerage where beds were placed close together and stacked one on top the other to get the most number of people into the spaces. There was no privacy and meals were as simple as possible.

He brought little else with him on the trip; just some clothing in a trunk. Among the clothes was a linen nightgown. He had made it himself. He grew the flax, made the thread and wove the cloth. It is said that he even made the loom on which to weave it. This could have been part of his apprenticeship before coming to America.

"...his parents weren’t farmers in Germany," Carl recollected about his father. "But were supposed to be weavers. Dad had a loom ever since I can remember and he brought it with him to this farm."

After Andreas made the cloth his mother cut and sewed the nightgown together. On the front she embroidered the letter M. He did not explain why it was M instead of H or even, A. When his son was old enough to wear it he gave Carl the nightgown and it remained in his possession the rest of his life. In the cover photo of Andrew Herrmann Family in America, Andrew is seated with his new family on the porch of their house in front of a blanket on display. It is likely that he displayed the blanket because it was one that he had made himself.

Andreas spent the first twelve years in America working near Independence, Iowa. He had relatives in the area, some of his grandfather’s other family had come before and settled there. Here he learned English and became "Andrew Herman." He stayed with a family named "Tevis" and worked on their farm. The oldest Tevis daughter taught school and taught him English at home. He kept in touch with her later in life. He recalled that he would hitch her horse and hold the reins for her while she mounted the horse so she could go teach school. It is likely that he began to use the English form of his name (Andrew) while he was here.

Before he had learned much English he was told to take a wagon to the garden and load it with turnips. When he arrived at the garden he only saw one crop that could be loaded up, so he filled the wagon with them and took the wagonload to the house. Fortunately the owner had a sense of humor and understood the difficulties of living where you could not understand the language. Andrew had loaded the wagon not with turnips, but with pumpkins!

During the years in Iowa, Andrew had learned how Americans farmed and he had saved some money so he could begin a farm of his own. He was nearly thirty and wanted to get on with his own life. It is likely that his older sister, Eva, who may have also spent time with family in Iowa, wrote to him about homesteading in South Dakota where she was. He went there and homesteaded in Aurora County (near White Lake). The legal description reads: "Lots number one (1), seven (7), eight (8) and nine (9) of section thirty-one (31) in township one hundred and three (103) North of Range sixty-six (66) West of the fifth (5) Prinicipal Meridian, South Dakota."

To fill up the prairie that the Native Americans had been forced from, the US government was offering land to anyone who would live on it to change it from prairie to farmland or forest. The latter was a dream or an illusion. There was some belief, which lasted till the dust storms of the 1930s, that if land was plowed, or trees were planted, more rain would fall. Trees do affect the environment, but not so much as the hopes and hype of the nineteenth century had people believe. Andrea’s homestead was considered a "Timber Culture" patent: certificate #2911. It’s purpose was "To encourage the Growth of Timber on the Western Prairie." His application was #15022 for 126 ¼ acres.

Andrew planted the legally required number of trees, of which we can safely assume that most died, raised crops and ran cattle on land that was not yet fenced. Once while checking his cattle from horseback, the horse stepped into a small hole that was deep enough in the ground to cause Andrew to fall off. The impact must have been severe enough to cause a mild concussion because he latter said that he felt like he had to hang on to the grass to keep from falling off the earth. Fortunately the horse did not break its leg and waited for him to get up and get back on.

He "proved the claim" and clear title was awarded him by the United States General Land Office on 5 August 1898. The deed is dated, not only in the "year of our Lord," but also in the year "of the Independence of the United States one hundred and twenty-third." It is signed by President William McKinley and other officials. The deed was sent from Washington D.C. and reached the county and was filed on 16 June the next year. Six months later, after having already moved to Nebraska, he sold the land.

Selling homesteaded land was not an uncommon practice. Often the profit enabled the family to buy better farmland without the struggle of starting all over again. It was a common method for impoverished immigrants to gain economic independence in their new land.

A neighbor family in South Dakota was named Koch and also German. One of the older sons, Jacob, had come over two years earlier to look for a suitable, and affordable, place for the family to settle. This was a common practice for immigrant families looking for a new life. The area was not yet a state when the family arrived. They claimed a homestead nine miles south and two miles west of White Lake. This was just one mile west of a Catholic Church. The family was established by the time statehood was achieved by South Dakota in 1889. Some of the family stayed on the same land for the next hundred years.

One of the Koch daughters was Lena. She had been born in Germany (in Mettendorf), the third of six children, on 28 December 1866, and came over at age 18 with the rest of her family. The children formed a very close family. Two brothers and a sister (Mike, Jake and Annie Koch) married two sisters and a brother (Katherine, Margaret and Mike Ries) and another brother and sister (Mike and Mary Koch) married a sister and brother (John M. and Anna Ruden). Lena married outside this circle, moved away, and was largely lost track of.

Mike Koch, the youngest, seems to have kept in touch the most with his older sister. After he had moved his family to Oregon, leaving drought stricken South Dakota, he returned to South Dakota to spend some time in the summers to work on the farm he still owned there and rented to a nephew. One year he brought his wife and traveled by train, instead of the usual bus route, and detoured to Kansas to visit. He rented a car in Topeka and drove out to the farm to visit Lena and her family.

Mike’s wife died in 1948 and for a few years a daughter and her family lived with him. One day while Mike was working in the garden (featuring corn, onions and huge, five inch Cathodin potatoes) he envisioned a cultivator with tines that pointed up to cut weeds off at the soil and not disturb the roots of vegetables (especially potatoes). His son, Pete, built one in his machine shop and his son, Lawrence, flew to Washington D.C. to apply for a patent. They called it "Sputnik" after the satellite that had just been launched. The process became more expensive than they could afford so Mike settled for a "patent pending," but the cultivator was never manufactured.

In addition to gardening Mike liked to play pinochle (in the winter when he couldn’t garden) and smoked a pipe with Union Leader, his favorite tobacco.

For his 74^th birthday in 1952, he held a birthday picnic that became an annual event which continues to be held today. By 1978, one hundred years after he was born, his direct descendents numbered 132, but not all of them made it to that year’s picnic.

A grandson, also named Mike Koch, hiked through Europe one year and visited the family home town of Mettendorf. He found a Margaretta Koch living there but he could speak no German and she could speak no English so they could not confirm their relationship. He did take lots of photos of the town and showed them at the next family reunion.

Our direct ancestor, Lena Koch had married Nick Koch in St Edwards, Nebraska on 25 January 1891. A photograph of the wedding survives in the Herrmann family. Lena’s sister is a Maid of Honor.

Nick fell ill late in 1893 and wrote a will when he realized he was dying. A few weeks later, on 12 January 1894, he died. and is buried in the St Edwards Cemetery (on the west side, near the center). Nick and Lena had been married a few days shy of three years. His gravestone is evidence of her affection and loss.

Nick Koch had been born in Constum, Luxembourg and had homesteaded the land in 1883. His claim (#7778) was filed at 3:45pm in the afternoon of 24 December that year. The land was eighty acres described as the North ½ of the SE ¼ of Section 10, Township 18, Range 4.

Now a widow, Lena needed help to run her farm. The summer after her husband’s death a very dry, baking wind blew through the area on 26 July 1894, drying and killing all the crops and nearly all the other plant life. It just cooked everything. Local newspaper reports indicate the severity of the disaster. Lena very likely went home to her family in South Dakota where the wind did not reach and there was food. While there she met Andreas Herrmann, an unmarried man who needed a wife. Both shared the common German language and background. On 13 November 1895 in the church in Aurora County, South Dakota they were married by Rev G. Hoffmann. Their marriage license, dated 30 October 1895, was #138 recorded in the Circuit court of Aurora County, which seat is in Plankinton.

After moving from South Dakota Lena had such little contact with her family that her life was an empty spot in the family history. Jean Koch, the wife of one of her nephews could only write in the 1970’s, "...Lena Koch, moved to Kansas. No one (in Oregon or South Dakota) seemed to know much about Lena, except that she married Andrew Herrmann and had three children: Carl, Mathilda and Gertrude. At one Koch reunion, cousin Louise Henkes gave me old pictures of Lena and her husband and three children and also an address in Berryton, Kansas.

"I wrote to Mathilda and received an answer. She was delighted to hear from me, and told me all about her family. She was 80 years old and wrote so beautifully. She gave me all the information I had asked for about her sister and brother and their children, so that branch of the Koch family is no longer a mystery." A few years later a reunion was accomplished.

Lena and Andrew Herrmann had three children. Carl Nicholas was born first, on 22 September 1897. Even though census and other records state his birth as occurring in Nebraska, some believe he was born in South Dakota. The deed to the land Andrew homesteaded in South Dakota was not granted until 4 August 1898, nearly a year after Carl was born. A photograph of the couple with baby Carl shows a geography quite different from the geography of the farm in Nebraska.

Two years after Carl, Mathilda Mary was born, on 29 June 1899. The last to be born was Gertrude Francis on 26 August 1901. The girls were known by their nicknames, "Tillie" and "Gertie."

Andrew Herrmann moved his family to Platt County, Nebraska by late 1899, near the corner with Boone and Nance Counties. Here, he entered into the hog raising business, a step his namesake great grandson would also take nearly one hundred years later. There was no specially constructed hog fencing at the time so he made his own with barbed wire. He strung three wires close together near the ground to prevent the hogs from rooting under it. He used additional wires higher up so that cattle could also be kept in the same pasture. Years later, when the family moved each strand of wire was taken off the fence posts and moved to be reused at the new farm. Economy is nothing new in the Herrmann family (did someone say, "tight wad"?). The rolls of wire completely filled one wagon.

The children remembered when they were small that their mother was often ill (and being children they were not given any other explanation) and could not cook or do other things around the house. Tillie is reported to have said, "I don’t know how we grew up as healthy as we are, for mother was sick quite a bit when we were small. Dad did the cooking during those times. The only thing I can remember that he would cook was pancakes. They were always real thick and the size of the frying pan. Most of the time they were either over done – maybe burnt is a better description, or under cooked and doughy in the middle. Maybe milk saved us. We milked cows and at milking time we always took our cup and got a full cup of milk."

Andrew took care of his children when they were little. Though this was not an outstanding feature of his personality, when his grand daughter, Erma, was born and she cried endlessly, he is remembered as spending hours walking with her to sooth her and help her sleep.

German was the language spoken at home. Andrew and Lena knew enough English to communicate on a limited basis, but German was more comfortable and the language they preferred to use. In later life, when there were no other German speakers around and they used English exclusively, they never lost their accent. In his later years, Andrew continued to correspond with his sisters in America in German, though they all knew English - it was easier.

The children learned English when they began to attend school and gradually forgot the German, none of their children ever learned German. Their grandchildren would have to learn it in school.

The years in Nebraska were hard. Only one in three was profitable for farming so the family decided to move again. They also wanted a place with fruit bearing trees. The drove around the countryside looking at other land, noticing those with fruit trees. "The closer we got to Kansas, the better the orchards looked," Carl is reported as saying. "And there more so many nice plums, that was my Dad’s favorite." The plums brought the family to Kansas.

In 1908 Andrew sold the farm in Nebraska and moved to Blaine, Kansas. The next year, on 22 July, Lena sold her homestead land. They bought two more farms a mile south of town, this time each was 160 acres. The land was side by side, but divided by a road that became Kansas Highway 99. A cemetery lies just north of the west piece of ground which had a windmill standing into the 1990s. There is no trace of the farmhouse on the east side of the road except for an outline of foundation stones and scattered bits of broken glass. There was a woven wire fence in front of the house and yard which was later incorporated into the pasture fence for the land is now a pasture. Not only the house and barn, but the three acres of fruit trees are gone.

Blaine, Kansas had been founded as an Irish colony to be an alternative to the Irish slums of cities in the east, specifically St Louis. Conditions in the slums were not healthy, physically or morally, and those families who migrated westward out of the cities often left the Catholic faith. A Catholic colony on the empty prairie, with its own Catholic church, would enable families to leave the slums but not the church. In 1878 the "St. Louis Colonization Association" was formed to buy empty land and sell it to prospective Irish Catholic settlers at cost. Several sites for colonies were selected in Kansas and Arkansas. The Missouri Pacific Railroad, at the same time, had large tracts of land for sale along its route to California. Congress had given land to companies wanting to build railroads so they could sell land to finance construction of the railroads. Many towns were created along the proposed railroad lines across the west and Blaine became one of them.

The colonization association classified the land it would resell into three grades of quality. The highest was priced at $4.60 an acre, the next at $3.50 and the lowest at $2.50. All the land was sold in eighty acre tracts. All the land around Blaine was sold in a year. The town was platted in 1879 and named "Butler," after the priest who came up with the idea for the colony. When the platt was filed, it was learned that there was already a Butler City, Kansas so that name could not be used. The Post Office, which had been already been established in someone’s home nearby, had the name of Blaine, so that name was given to the town.

The Herrmann family came to the area just thirty years after the town was established and stayed thirteen years. These were significant years for the children; it became their childhood home. Later in life, decades after leaving Blaine, Carl would speak of the time there as if they had just moved away.

Blaine was a thriving little town with three hotels, a grain elevator, cattle pens (cattle were shipped to Kansas City), three grocery stores, two barber shops, a bank, drug store, hardware store, doctor, dentist, livery stable and later a Ford dealer.

The new church in Blaine, St Columbkille, was finished the year the family arrived and dedicated the next, so they were able to contribute and participate in that community celebration. It is named for St. Columba, of Iona (an island off the coast of Ireland). Several saints had a similar name so to distinguish among them he was renamed "Columbkille" in honor of his having established several monasteries (killies) in Ireland. It is pronounced: CALL-um Killy. The Herrmanns helped build the school next to the church.

Community life in Blaine revolved around the church and school, the only ones in town. The mile walk into town was no obstacle – at least not for the children. Tillie and Gertie both sang in the church choir and Carl would have been an alter boy, but he was too old. They were a part of the life of the town. In 1916 when the new school building was built, Andrew and Carl helped haul loads of brick to the site of the school next to the church. The school burned eleven years later and was replaced by the present building.

An event he never forgot happened to Carl at school one day when the teacher told all the boys to stay after class. When the girls had left, he recalled, "the teacher opened the door to the old wood burning stove and said for us to pass by the stove and for us to throw all of our tobacco in it. Of course we did." The teacher obviously wanted to take a strong stand against tobacco, but it didn’t quite work. "After that all the boys hid their tobacco in the fence rows as we came to school," Carl smiled remembering how they had out-smarted the teacher. Either the lesson was well-learned or, more likely, a later experience cured him of tobacco. He once sneaked a pipe or cigar (the listener couldn’t remember which) and smoked it behind the barn. It made him so sick he never touched tobacco again.

Carl did not complete his education in any formal sense. Farm boys did not generally attend much school in the early decades of the 20^th century, there was too much work at home to do. "I didn’t stay in school too long," he explained. "As soon as I was big enough, I quit school and started helping Dad on the farm. I don’t think the Herrmanns were too good as students." Then he quickly added, "but we weren’t too bad either." As a student, he probably never imagined that he would one day serve on the Board of Education of the school his children would be attending.

One of the first cars Carl remembered seeing was a 1913 model with a bright brass radiator. It must have made a quite an impression for he remembered it even into his 80’s, and the memory amazed him. In 1916 his parents acquired their first car, a model T Ford. It created many opportunities.

"One time Tillie and Gertie sneaked that car out," Carl recounted. "And drove it all the way to Westmorland (seven miles), with one doing the steering and the other working the pedals on the floor. They used to laugh a lot about that." Even though they were young and neither was tall enough to push the floor pedals all the way down (there were three: the brake, the clutch and the gear pedal), they had figured out a way to drive the car. They learned as they drove. In the early decades of the century there were no age (or height) restrictions for drivers, nor licensing of them.

When Carl acquired his own car he was so curious about the workings of it that he taught himself to repair it. He even made a list of its parts. It wasn’t long before he could tear it apart and rebuild it. He taught himself to do the same with his next car. But sometime after that he quit, he said, "(I) couldn’t keep up with the machineries."

Life on the prairie was not the most exciting, but unusual events did occur. Once an aeroplane landed in a field near Blaine. That caused a sensation which people talked about for years! Neighbors depended on each other for company and relaxation. The Herrmann family was particularly close friends with families named Northrup and Bennett. But Blaine became increasingly less than satisfactory.

The reason the town was founded became the reason the Herrmanns eventually left. Blaine was an Irish town and Lena Herrmann eventually became tired of being surrounded by Irish. They also found better farmland further south and east, near Berryton, Kansas.

In March 1921 the Andrew and Lena Herrmann family moved to Berryton, Kansas, an area with lots of Germans and plum trees. Again two farms were bought, each also a quarter section of land, one in Andrew’s name and one in Lena’s. This time each farm had its own house, barn and outbuildings. The closest corners of the farms were only ½ mile apart, but by the road the houses were nearly two miles away. Both house were not needed so the family lived in the one on Lena’s farm and rented the other.

There was no Catholic Church nearby, the closest ones were in Topeka and Big Springs, both a days drive away. They attended one in Topeka, but "we just never felt comfortable there," Tillie recalled. A few times they went to the one in Big Springs, but because of the distance, eventually stopped. "We never intended to stop going to the Catholic Church," Tillie said, but they did. None of the children continued to be practicing Catholics, none were buried with Catholic rites.

The children grew up and married into local families. Gertie, the youngest, was the first. On 22 November 1922, a year and a half after arriving in Berryton, she married a local boy (of good German stock), Tom Fergel. The first year of their marriage they lived with his family and farmed with his brother Bill. Then they began to work Lena’s farm, moved there and eventually bought it. They had no children. Gertie liked music and played the piano. In her later years she developed a heart condition and had to slow her activities which was difficult. In her late 70’s she suffered a heat stroke and had to be hospitalized. She never recovered and died on 13 Jaunary 1987. She was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery not far from her parents.

On 14 April 1926 Tillie married Pearl Hill. They had met, like many others, at a dance at a neighbors. Pearl had grown up near Carbondale and after the marriage, farmed east of there. In 1947 they bought a quarter section farm near her family. This enabled their only child, Vernon, to attend high school because the Berryton school district was recently extended that far.

Vernon Richard Hill had been born on 6 January 1931 (his mother was later heard to say, "one is enough"). Vernon farmed with his father several years. On 28 July 1962 he married Shirley Ann Lynn at First Methodist Church in Topeka, the first Methodist wedding in this branch of the family. They had two children, Ronald Vernon (15 May 1966) and Joyce Ann (13 July 1969). He eventually left farming after getting a job with the postal system.

Carl married two years between his two sisters. He married a cousin of his brother-in-law, Tom, Anna Magdalena Lutz on 5 March 1924 (the Lutz and Fergel families were close, even back in Germany). They had met at a dance. "In the 1920’s one of the big events in our community was Bill Lutz’s barn dances," Lena recalled. Bill Lutz was a brother of her grandfather. "This is where Carl and I met. This must have been in about 1922 and we were married in 1924. Carl was about 26 and I was about 24 or so."

For the first years of Carl & Lena’s marriage there were two Lena Herrmanns living near each other in the neighborhood, but there was not a great deal of confusion about their identities. The "new" Lena Herrmann was the one people knew the most. She had been christened: Anna Magdalena Lutz, after her mother’s grandmother (Magdalena Beyer Gantz, wife of George Gantz and mother of Mathias Gantz who brought his family to America), and her father’s mother (Anna Magdalena Yoeman Lutz, married to Jacob Lutz). But, as she said, her mother didn’t want to call her "Anna" or "Annie" and her father didn’t want to call her Maggie, so they settled on "Lena." She was the second child of a German family long established in the neighborhood. Her father, George, had been born, she learned late in her life, in a small log home just a mile south of Stull.

Her father, George Lutz, senior, was a serious man who did not anger easily. Being a farmer, he expected his children to work on the farm also. Lena particularly remembered being on a hay wagon while he pitched hay onto it. Her job was to tramp down the hay. She resented his lack of accurate aim: "He didn’t have to throw it on top of me all the time!" George Lutz started his middle son, Emil, farming when he was about 5 or 6.

He had Emil ride what they called a "disk" that was built somewhat like a sled. It was pulled by two horses, which Emil drove, and made two furrows for planting in. A light-weight person was needed to ride the thing, otherwise it would dig into the loose soil. George followed with a single row planter pulled by a single horse.

For additional income, and because he was good at it, George also worked for neighbors stacking their wheat and oats into standing shocks after it was cut so the grain could be off the ground until the thrashing crew could arrive and separate the grain from the stalks.

Lena’s mother’s family came from Sundhousen, Alsace-Lorraine, the German part of France, and settled near Vinland south of Lawrence in Douglas County, Kansas. Some are buried near there, in the cemetery of Emmanuel Evengelical Lutheran Church a mile north of Worden.

Mathias Gantz, Lena’s grandfather who brought his family to America, was born in Duerrenensheim in Ober (Upper) Elsas (Alsace) on 19 April 1834 (he died 30 April 1904 in Oklahoma and is buried near Worden). He had fought under Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War. He hauled ammunition to the front and brought back dead and wounded soldiers. He did this for eighteen months and wanted to get far away when it was over. He sent his oldest sons, Jake and Eugene, to America to find some good land.

He had buried two wives and his third was pregnant when they left Europe with the eight youngest children. The ocean trip took ten days for the ship crowded with 2,700 immigrants. Sometimes the cook would smuggle treats to the youngest children. They landed at Castle Garden in New York in April 1883.

A letter from a family friend encouraged them to come to Willow Springs, Kansas where he lived, so that is the destination the family set out for. They went by train from New York to Lawrence, Kansas. They liked the land they found south of Lawrence, near Willow Springs, so that is where they settled.

Mathias bought an apple orchard (of about 1,800 trees and 14 acres of grapes) near Vinland (in southern Douglas, County) and made wine, apple cider and cider vinegar. At first they used a home-made wine press with real horse power. The young children would drive the horse. The wine was made in large tanks that each held sixteen barrels of wine. This was boiled down and sold. The price in the fall, when produce was plentiful, was ten or fifteen cents a gallon, but if they kept it until spring, it would sell for twenty cents a gallon.

Later they acquired a power press and larger vats that held 1,500 gallons each. During apple season they could sell two train carloads a week. Mathias’ grand daughter, Lena, proudly kept an unused label from the cider jugs all of her life.

Some of the neighbors resented the alcoholic drinks the family produced, but it was the occupation that they knew. They were also resented by some for being German. The family was thrifty and resourceful. All of their clothes were made by hand, except for the rare dress up suit. The children went bare foot all summer except when going to church.

The community was largely German, their Lutheran church was totally German. It was like being back home, comfortable and reassuring. Men and women sat on opposite sides of the aisle. The minister and deacon wore black robes and children did not dare make a sound. The worship service was totally in German.

Shortly after their arrival in Kansas the time approached for Mathias’ last child to be born. The older children became concerned. They knew that people born in the United States were Americans immediately, and they knew that Americans spoke English, which they didn’t. They then worried they would not be able to speak to or understand the baby!

They need not have worried. Not only did the family continue speaking German (and taught baby Will to do so too) but in their own homes they continued to speak German. Gradually the all learned English.

The family prospered. Mathias helped his children get a start on their lives. He helped his son George, homestead in Oklahoma. His daughter Maria, married another George: George Lutz.

Maria Gantz Lutz, the mother of Lena Lutz Herrmann, was a kind person and a good cook, especially when it came to pies. One of her specialties was making noodles. These she made thin, more French than German noodles which are very thick. The skill at making them was passed on the next generation. She kept a large garden and carefully planted by the signs of the moon, and she planted flowers. She was a very devout Lutheran.

Seven children were born to George and Maria Lutz but not all lived to adulthood. Lena’s clearest memory of her older brother, George junior, was the day he lay on the bed and would not get up to play. She remembered not understanding why. And the house was unusually filled with people. He never played with her again. Only decades later she realized her memory must have occurred after he had died and before the funeral. He was four at the time and she was only two. He was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, where he was eventually joined by many others of his family.

Lena was now the oldest child of the family. She was the first one tapped for farm work and, being a girl, she was also expected to do housework. She would work alongside her father in the fields during the day then go to the house and prepare the meals. The worst times she remembered where summers when they were making hay. "He didn’t have to throw it on me," she recalled of the hot scratchy hay.

German was the language spoken in the Lutz home. "We lived and spent time with other families who spoke only German," Lena later recalled. "We didn’t need to speak anything but German." The children did not learn English until they went to school. Lena was held back from starting school a year so that her younger sister Emma could begin at the same time. Lena was not happy with this plan but she could not change it. On the first day of school their mother brought both girls to enroll them; Emma cried at seeing so many strangers (and could not speak with them) and refused to stay. Lena had waited for nothing and now she was older and larger than the others in her class and felt very awkward.

The children learned English and taught their parents to speak it more and more. This was not uncommon; large segments of the American population spoke German and continued to do so until the Great War. In efforts to generate support for the war (with a large percentage of Americans being of Germany descent – or newly arrived with family still at home there – they didn’t see any reason to side with England against their homeland) the German language was proscribed. German language courses were dropped from school schedules, German language newspapers were attacked and people speaking German were looked upon with suspicion. It became un-American to speak German and people ceased using it publicly. Its use was not resumed after the war.

Like most people in this situation, Lena ceased using the language and consequently lost her ability to speak German. She astonished herself, very late in life, by reciting the Lord’s prayer in German – nearly all of it. The words, once started, came out in a rush. She was so excited by the experience and exclaimed, "I haven’t said that in eighty years!" Her eyes gleamed with delight – she hadn’t forgotten as completely as she had thought.

Her parents, George and Marie Lutz, bought an eighty-acre farm with a three story, three room rock house. Each level contained one room. In the walk-in basement was the kitchen. The main floor was the social room and the upstairs was the bedroom. Carved in the stonework in the date: 1874. In 1904, when Alvina was born, they built an addition that was twice the size of the original house (fifty years later the house would be expanded again). The expansion included a basement that was joined by a door to the original basement (the basement of the last expansion was not open to the earlier basements and it remained dry). Two years later they built a large barn north of the house. South and west of the house was the apple orchard.

George’s father, Jacob, and wife, Eve, lived a mile down the road to the east. Eve became the grandmother of the children when she married George. She felt like an outsider in the family until Maria instructed the children to call her "granma" and taught them that she was their grandmother.

When Jacob Lutz was elderly he walked with a cane. His grandson, Emil, wanted to be like him so he would pick up a stick and walk like his granpa with a cane. This would make Jacob angry and he would take away the stick and hide it. Emil, a resourceful little boy, would find that stick or another one and continue. This would happen several times a day.

Being German, they liked their beer. For special occasions, they would order a keg of beer from a brewery to be shipped to the farm. Then on Sundays, the only day they did not work, they would gather and drink together. To keep the beer cool before they could drink it, the keg was carefully (and securely) lowered into the well. This was the only way they could keep any food cool.

The Lutz children attended the eight grades of Lyons grade school. They walked across the fields or along the road every day. Lena regretted not being able to go to high school. The closest high school was at Berryton, but it was too far away, there was no transportation and the Berryton school district did not extend to her home, so the family would have had to pay tuition for her to attend. They would not do that for a girl. By the time her younger brother, Eugene, graduated from eighth grade, the Berryton district had expanded to include the family home and he was able to go to high school. She continued to educate herself as an adult but others, being deliberately cruel, would remind her from time to time that she had not been to high school and this upset her. It was only when her grandchildren were in college that she remembered she had had one year of high school courses at Lyons and she felt better about herself.

Lena was never sick. Even at different times when all the rest of the family was ill, she wasn’t. She never went to a doctor until in her 50s to have the varicose veins treated. She "was sort of the head of the family," a younger brother remembered. Not that she told her parents what to do, she was not bossy, but "when she saw that something needed to be done, she did it." Her parents were thankful for the assistance and did not object. When she could speak English better than her parents (about age 12), she began doing the family shopping (getting a ride with a neighbor to Topeka).

Lena loved babies, even as a young girl, and as she got older was often asked by neighbors to come help mothers with new babies. It was a relief from field work to be able to stay for a few days days with another family and hold and rock a new baby while the mother recuperated. She retained this love for babies and passed in on to future generations.

Lena wanted to go to high school more than the one year of high school courses she was able to study while still at Lyons School. No high school district extended as far as her home, and any high school she would attend would require the payment of out of district tuition. Her hunger for more education was so great that she decided to live in Topeka and get a job to pay the tuition. She even thought she could work and attend high school at the same time. When she found a full time job sewing at Pellitiers, a Topeka department store, and the quality of her work was praised and valued, she postponed the dream of high school and eventually gave it up completely. Later, she regretted this greatly.

When she and Carl married they bought the farm his father owned in his own name. To prepare the house for their new sister-in-law, Carl’s sisters cleaned and wallpapered the rooms. Lena was not consulted about the choice of colors or patterns, and there was no money later to do it over, so the house was never decorated to her liking.

The two bedroom house was small but adequate for a new family. In addition to the bedrooms (which were on the north) there was a living room (on the southeast, fronting the road), dinning room (facing south with a door on each wall (east to the living room, north to one bedroom, south to the porch and east to the kitchen) and kitchen. From the north and south of the kitchen were doors outside. On the north was a small stoop which led to the garden (northwest of the house) and south to the curved part of the porch leading to the larger porch outside the dinning room. Steps from the porch led directly to the driveway which went past the south of the house to the barn. The yard around the house was fenced.

They were married in a simple ceremony at the Shawnee County Courthouse then drove to Lawrence and took a train to Kansas City. They were gone three days, and family members relate that while they were gone Carl’s father moved himself into their house. If he told Carl he was going to do this, no one told Lena. They could do nothing about it because the deed to the farm indicated that he legally retained a "life estate" interest in the property, reserving for himself the ultimate decisions about use of the farm. He had sold it but, essentially, continued to own it.

But Andrew may not have moved in immediately. The state census of 1925 reports that Carl & Lena were living with his parents in their home, a year after their marriage. Carl and Lena may have moved to their own home in time for their first child to be born. And Lena herself told a grandson that Andrew did not live with them right at first. It seemed like forever though when he did.

He did not live consistently with Carl and Lena in the early years of their marriage; he would live with one daughter or the other from time to time, but, according to Lena, "never as much as a year. He always came back to my place - for the food." Eventually he stayed, keeping a bedroom for himself in the original house. He never lived with his wife again. No one was told if this separation was his idea or hers or a joint conclusion. It’s just the way it was.

This was not a usual arrangement but eventually became "normal." It lasted thirty years. Andrew was not an easy person to live, or farm with. He voiced his opinions on everything, loudly, and often in German. The family farmed with mules and his voice would carry over the countryside as he cussed them in German. Lena did not say much about this but did mention in a letter to her son that his presence was hard to endure, "(I) can hardly eat at the same table with him sometimes." and his personal hygiene was deplorable. His grand daughters remember how their mother had to insist that he change clothes so she could wash the dirty ones, they were filthy. When asked by an adult grandson about the living arrangement, she turned toward him, and vehemently exclaimed, "It was Hell!" The intensity and profanity were shocking and uncharacteristic but understandable.

Andrew’s wife stayed in her house on her farm. During these years Andrew would come visit her every Saturday evening. They never divorced. She lived there until the final months of her life when she moved to a small upstairs apartment at 627 Lime just off east 6^th street in Topeka. She did not live there long. Neither the 1935 nor 1937 Topeka city directories mention her residing in town (there was no directory compiled for 1936). Carl was with her in her apartment when she died on 6 April 1937. Her funeral was held at Pleasant Hill Evangelical United Brethren Church, the neighborhood church. She was buried in the cemetery there. The church no longer had an active congregation, but it continued to be used for special events such as local funerals and Bible study classes. After not being used at all for several years, it was demolished in the 1970s.

Dena remembered the day of her grandmother Herrmann’s funeral. She went to school as usual and her mother picked her up to take her to the funeral. What was most absorbing for the eight year old Dena was that a girl at school braided her hair for her before the funeral. The funeral itself was unremarkable.

Her family in Oregon was notified of her death by telegram. Her brother Mike Koch immediately telegraphed a reply and sent a letter two days later. The news of her death was a shock to him, but said she had looked very feeble when he had seen her the year before when he had come to Kansas. He was glad to have made the trip. In his letter he asked the family to "not forget to remember her in our prayers," and remarked that one sister, Mary, and he were the only family members left now.

In the late 1980s a cousin, George Koch with his wife Jean, came from Oregon to visit Carl & Lena and it was a bit of a surprise for the family here to learn that we were the mysterious, unknown branch of the family. A short time later Dena Rodell made a trip to Oregon to meet more of the family there.

Carl and Lena had three children, though brief mention was once made of a miscarriage in the years between the first and second. Lawrence Carl Herrmann was born 21 October 1925 in the middle of an unusually early blizzard. He was followed by a sister, Dena Marie, on 4 September 1929 and another, Erma Gene, on 12 August 1931. In traditional German fashion, Lawrence was favored over the girls. One German saying defines a man as one who has: "built a house, written a book and fathered a son." In this case, this son meant that the family name would continue another generation and Andrew’s separation from his family was justified.

Financial matters were strictly divided in the manner typical of the time: Carl managed the farm and it’s income and debts, Lena managed the house and related area: gardens, chicken house, etc. From this she was expected to provide all the food and clothes for her family. Money from the sale of eggs and milk was used to buy what she could not wring out of the land.

Some people may assume that growing your own food is a simple proposition. They’ve never done it. These were the days before piped water with outdoor hydrants and hoses and no insecticide; the only fertilizer was the smelly kind. And raising animals for food was even more difficult. One year Lena decided to raise a new batch of chickens, for eggs and eating. She ordered 400 baby chicks. When they arrived she put them in the only shelter available, the milk house. In two weeks nearly all of them were dead – killed by rats or some other animal that managed to get into the milk house at night. She tried again the next month, but could only afford 250. This time she insisted that the calves be removed from the brooder house which was more varmint proof. More of this batch of chicks survived.

After fifteen years of marriage, with her children becoming teenagers, it was obvious to Lena that the house they were living in was too old and much too small. They tried to adapt by changing the original kitchen into a bedroom for Lawrence and the dining room into a kitchen. This meant all family activities: cooking, eating, entertaining, etc. were limited to two rooms, the kitchen and living room. Andrew had a separate bedroom while Carl and Lena and the girls shared the other room. It was cramped!

The house had survived a lot. It withstood the monster tornado of 1892 which traveled a mile and a half on the ground on the second of May that year along what is now 69^th street. The house had been damaged, but not destroyed. The funnel of the tornado was a half mile wide and would have filled the land between the house and 69^th.

As the house aged more and more of it simply fell apart. Once, when the family was in Topeka, they returned home to find much of the ceiling plaster of the kitchen/dining room (about 1/2 of it) had fallen to the floor! That was the limit! Lena marked out space closer to the road for a new house over her father-in-law’s loud and prolonged objections.

The new house was huge. The ground floor was larger itself than the entire old house had been and it had a full basement (not a hole of a cellar) as well as a second floor with almost as much space. Every inch of space would be usable, even the tiny triangular space under the eves of the roof. This would be for some kind of storage – a necessity for a saving family..

The new house had four bedrooms, a modern bathroom (though the outhouse was used for years and years), and Lena insisted on it being wired for electricity (which the old house was not). She was certain that one day the power lines would reach the house. Electric lines were within a mile of the house when World War II broke out when all resources were diverted to the military. To heat the house they bought a second-hand wood furnace and kept it in use for over thirty years.

The children were excited about the new house. They explored it as it went up. And photographs were taken. One, taken when the chimney and roof were in place, shows an unusual shape on top of the chimney. It is Lawrence, about fifteen years old.

A contractor had been hired to do the actual building of the house and the basement was begun in November 1939. To provide rock for the basement walls and exterior finish Carl, with the help of his brother-in-law, Oscar Lutz, dug it from an old quarry on the farm. Many decades earlier, rock from there had been used to build a house a mile to the west and maybe even supplied rock for the local school. The hole for the basement was dug and the contractor told Carl he needed enough rock to fill the hole. Carl and Oscar brought wagon load after wagon load of rock to pile at the site of the house. The pile was huge and Carl was relieved that that job was finished. Then the contractor told him that rock was only enough for the basement – he would need twice as much more! In disbelief, Carl hauled even more rock. When finished, the house cost about $2000.

During the construction, Carl’s finger was impaled on a hedge thorn. Lena pulled out the thorn and they went about their lives. The wound did not heal properly and continued to fester. No remedy helped it to heal. The doctor was passing by one day and he was waved to stop in. He observed that gangrene had set in, apparently some part of the thorn had remained in the finger. Amputation of the tip of the finger, right then and there, was the only way to save the rest of the finger and Carl’s life! Later, only a tiny bit of the fingernail was able to re-grow. It looked fascinatingly somewhat like a claw.

Andrew never accepted the new house. After the family moved into it, in the summer of 1941, he remained in the old house. He would sleep there but ate in the new house, Lena refused to take food to the old house so he had to come in to eat. As individual rooms of the old house decayed, they were shut off or torn down. First the original kitchen and the rounded part of the porch beside it, and the back stoop, were dismantled. Finally even the old man had to admit that staying in the house was not practical and he moved into the new house – but only to the basement. In 1953 Lawrence began to dismantle the house but only managed to take down most of one room before other jobs needed his attention. Three rooms remained and were used for storage. The kitchen/dining room, over the cellar, gradually sank until it was obviously unsafe. Finally, after the farm was sold, the last of the house was demolished.

Once, after Andrew’s living in the basement had become normal, the family received visitors. Andrew did not care to socialize and none of the rest of the family thought to mention that he was down there. After the visitors returned to their home the daughter exclaimed, "There was somebody down in their basement! I just know it!!" In the last years of his life, when he could no longer go up and down the stairs easily, Andrew consented to sleep in the ground floor bedroom.

The children attended Lyons School one mile directly west of their house across the fields, the same school their mother had attended. The family was involved in school affairs. Carl served more than once on the school board and a neighbor, who became the children’s Aunt Mabel Lutz, taught there for a time. As times and educational standards changed, the school was eventually closed. When she had completed the eighth grade, Erma Herrmann was in the last class to graduate from Lyons School. Her oldest son, John, curiously, shared a similar distinction when he and his cousin, Mark, were in the last eighth grade class to graduate from Berryton Elementary School. Their school was not closed but the seventh and eighth grades were moved to the new Shawnee Heights Junior High School.

Lawrence was an active boy and participated in school sports; Berryton High School was a small school, so it was hard not to participate. He lettered in both football and basketball, the two major sports.

In a high school English class Lawrence was assigned to write several essays. Some of them were kept by the family and a few reflect incidents in the family’s life. One told about a time he had run away from home when he was very young. The family had been in Topeka shopping and he had seen a toy car in a shop window that he was passionately attracted to. He was told they could not afford the car, but his little boy’s mind could not accept that economic reality. When they returned home he decided to run away.

First he ran into the cornfield – where no one would find him. The cornfield became hot and boring but he was undecided where to go from there. After a while he decided to walk to a friend’s house, he knew the general direction from the cornfield. On the way he had to cross a creek with a few inches of water. The day was hot and the water was irresistible to a little boy.

Being conscientious, he took off his shoes and socks before playing in the water. A passing neighbor saw him from the road and assumed an adult was with him because he was too young to roam the countryside alone. When his mother realized he was missing, she phoned the family of his friend to see if he had gone there. This neighbor had just arrived home and happened to be the one who had seen Lawrencey playing in the creek.

Carl went to the creek to bring him home. He found the little shoes and socks, but no boy. He looked and looked, but no one was there. His little boy was gone. Carl was distraught. He picked up the shoes and socks and returned to the house – what would they do now?

When he arrived at the house he found his son calmly eating supper with the rest of the family, the little adventure was over.

Another essay was about a time when he was a little older and Lawrency and his friend decided to make a circus. They invited the other closest neighbor child, a girl, to join them. Together, the three, Lawrency, Floyd Bishop and Flora Bell Dreier, decided how to make their circus. They thought of assorted solutions for the need for circus animals. The boys went to capture sparrows they knew were nesting in a hay shed. Flora Bell hunted for box "cages" to put them in. The sparrows they found did not yet have feathers so they decided to advertise them as "featherless chickens," rare and unusual creatures for a circus.

After the birds were in their cage, the children realized they needed more than just one kind of animal and decided to hunt for mice. They knew mice nested in bits of paper, dry and protected, in such places as boxes and buckets and hidden corners. Their search turned up a bucket with paper in the bottom and in the paper a nest of baby mice. They put a lid of tin over the bucket and brought it to their circus. The baby mice were tiny and furless, so they were designated "midget pigs."

To be complete the circus needed a ferocious beast. They settled on a cat.

When all the animals were in their proper places (the cat was in the lions cage), the children took up their circus duties. Lawrencey was the circus manager, Flora Belle was in charge of tickets and Floyd was the lion tamer. After practicing, they were ready for an audience. The only other person around was Lawrencey’s mother. They went to the house to ask if she would be their audience. She could not take that much time from her work, but it was nearly lunchtime so she offered a picnic lunch. The circus was momentarily forgotten as they helped prepare the picnic.

After eating the children returned to the circus and found disaster: The "lion" had escaped its cage and eaten the featherless chickens and midget pigs. The circus was ruined. They would have to try again another time, there wasn’t time to start over again that day.

Farm life in the 1930s and 40s was not like farm life at the end of the century. One obvious difference was the lack of electricity. Electricity began to reach rural homes in Shawnee County during this time but, like many things, was interrupted by the war. After the war the process was resumed. In July 1946 a representative of the power company stopped at the farm to see what would need to be done to connect its buildings to the supply lines. He thought it would be spring before the necessary supplies could be available.

Even before electricity arrived, the family was able to buy their first refrigerator. This was a cause for great celebration. Before the refrigerator they had an icebox which had to be regularly supplied with ice to keep food cool. After the ice melted, the food spoiled. A neighbor retired from farming and sold everything, including their refrigerator, a Superfex. Ten people wanted to buy it. It could not go to the highest bidder because the Federal Office of Price Administration (established during the war to prevent inflation and still in effect) had set "ceiling prices" on most things. The ceiling price on this refrigerator was $110.00 – a lot of money for most people, but they were desperate for the relief it would bring.

The names of the eager buyers were put in a hat – and Lena’s name was drawn. They could buy their first refrigerator! Not only would they no longer have to supply it with huge blocks of ice, but it could make ice cream! The first morning after it was installed, they had ice cream for breakfast!

It was not an electric powered refrigerator, the power lines did not yet come to the house. It was a refrigerator that required careful, adult maintenance: a kerosene refrigerator! A kerosene powered refrigerator looks different from others with a top piece sticking above the rest of it. The top piece looks somewhat like a turbine above the roof of a house to pull heat out of the attic.

The family also had a washing machine which, like the refrigerator, was not powered by electricity. It had a gas motor. Water for washing, and all other household uses, had to be pumped by hand from the cistern. It was not unusual for all the water to be pumped (and heated) – and the motor would not work. Unfortunately it often did not work and Lena would have to take her laundry to her mother’s where there was electricity and an electric powered machine.

The Herrmann family was a saving family (you never knew when something might come in handy). Some of the objects saved found no further use, but some proved to be invaluable. In the 1980s some letters were found that opened a window to a distant time and place: Germany of the 1930s. The letters had been written a half a century after Andreas had left Germany and were discovered and translated a century later. Information from these letters was put into a little book of family stories, Andrew Herrmann Family in America, to share with the rest of the family. Contact had then just been established with family in Germany and a copy of the book was sent there. The Germans were also delighted with the information in the letters, it was news to them too.

The earliest letter is dated 16 November 1933, from Andrew’s younger sister Margareta Schramm. "Why don’t you write sometimes?" She asks. "Don’t you know me anymore? With Christmas coming, it’s going to be very hard for us, alone and forgotten. I wish I could spend at least one hour in your company. I would be so happy if we could all be together." A half of a century is a long time not to see your older brother. She had been a very little girl when he went away and remembered the family’s sorrow when he left.

She tells about local events, giving a brief glimpse into that time in Bavaria. "There was no procession to the cemetery this year on All Saints Day because it was raining. All the graves were nicely decorated with white sprays and wreaths. I wished you could see it."

"When you have children at home," she shares as a parent. "You have worries, and when they leave home you have more worries. Our late mother didn’t like the children to marry early, and I can see now that she was right. Children marry much too soon."

There was other correspondence among the siblings. On 17 August 1935 Eva Gales in Toledo wrote to her brother Andreas in Berryton. The letter, with a return address of 812 Western, survives.

Eva begins by saying that she had received his letters. She mentions, "The Travis girls still think of you and the old homeplace," in Iowa? One wonders. "You would all have a good time if you could get together there sometime. Auntie Schmidt sometimes spoke of the old homestead in Germany. But we will probably never see it again." None of the siblings ever did. "According to what we read here in the paper, they must be having a difficult time over there," this was the midst of the depression which was worse in Europe, and Germany especially, than in the States.

She writes about her garden, "We have had almost too much rain here. We don’t have a lot of tomatoes, the rain washed the blooms off but the stalks were as high as the fence. I already planted beans three times and still don’t have any. I have gotten some apricots. Mari had some too. They aren’t even white yet."

She continues about her sister and nephew (Mary’s husband had died six years before), "Herbert is very busy in his business. Mari has to tend to the phone and helps out in the shop on afternoons. The young woman (most likely Herbert’s new wife) doesn’t know too much about the business. The young folks live separately from Mari. This is better, otherwise there could be problems sometimes."

She mentions the Fleishmanns, "Georg Fleishmann is not very well. Just recently he was very very sick. I don’t go much to the Fleishmanns anymore – I am too nervous!" And continues with her own condition, "I don’t even like to go to the cemetery anymore, I get so dizzy sometimes. I guess its the age."

In closing the letter she uses his German nick name, "Dreser, if you want the letter and photos back, please let me know. I will save them....write again soon. Greetings to all, Eva Gales."

A few months later, in December 1935, Andrew left Kansas to visit his sister Eva in Toledo, Ohio who had become gravely ill. While there he wrote two letters home which were kept. Reading them one should remember that he never had any formal lessons in English (insertions for clarification have been kept to a minimum in parenthesis). In the first, after reporting on the weather (always of interest to farmers), "found the ground covert with snow, 2 inches," he relayed that, "my sister is dangeres sick. can’t tell how she will come out, but she has improoft since I have been here. she feels more condent."

He exemplifies the common suspicion against the medical establishment of the day when he says, "I got the hospital headet off. I told the (doctor) theres no us(e) sending a old person to the hospital. if the doktor (German spelling) cant help her any here (at home,) the(y) cant help her any in the hospital either. (There) she will just worry herself to death." His conclusion about his sister and his visit are that, "I am the nurse and I think I have done a good job so far."

He adds a note about prices, "40 c(ents) for eggs. pint of milk 6 c."

Shortly into the new year of 1936 he wrote again and reported, "Ev(a) is getting better, is up part of the time. some one has to be with her yet. I am only one that is with her most of the time. the rest are all bussi with there business. all going good(,) none (problems) we cant handle."

This letter ends with a wistful note about his grandchildren, "how is Lawrence, diena and Erma. if the(y) were here it would not be so lonesome."

There are no letters from Germany during the period of World War II. One, written by Andrew early in the war, remained here after it was returned by postal authorities – no mail could be exchanged with the enemy. It did not matter that he was writing a family letter to his younger sister. A few letters written after the war do survive.

A letter, again from Margarete, dated 14 November 1948 begins, "Dear Dreser (a diminutive of Andreas), I have received your letter and money and wish to thank you very much. There is no money here now. The old money is worthless and none of the new money to be had. We don’t get any support payment, not even for the children. A pair of shoes costs 40 Marks."

The money printed by the National Socialist (Nazi) government was worthless because that government no longer existed. New money, printed by the new government was not yet in wide circulation. When people could trade or barter among themselves, they could manage, but you couldn’t barter for everything. The present scarcity of wildlife in Germany is a silent testimony to these times of extreme desperation.

Margarete writes about their siblings, "Dear Dreser, there are now just the three of us left. Our dear Eva had to suffer a lot but now the dear Lord has given her peace and rest. Panger has also been ill for three months with a cough. He died an easy death."

She also mentions others with concern, "Dear Dreser, our Hans has not returned from Russia yet. If I didn’t have to worry anymore! He’s been a prisoner of war now for over four years and I haven’t heard from him since August 5^th. I hope he gets to come home for Christmas."

The war also affected the family in Kansas, but less directly. Lawrence was too young to fight in the war (his father had been too young also, to fight earlier in the Great War), but there was a lot of peer pressure for him to be part of the action. Shortly after his 20^th birthday, he enlisted in the navy. This decision so distressed his father that it was the first time his sisters had seen their father cry.

He was missed terribly by his parents. His mother commented in letters to him, "Hope to hear from you again today. We always like to hear from you." "Seems like a month since we heard from you, has been two weeks." "There isn’t a day goes by but what we think of you. We have only four pictures of you in the dining room so can’t help but see you."

The military service resulted in one little personal change. All his life, before he went into the service, he was called "Lawrency" by everyone in the family, friends and neighbors (some even used this name decades after he had died). Afterward he was just plain "Lawrence." "It just didn’t seem right," Dena explained. "After all, he’d been in the navy!"

Another consequence and "privilege" of his time in the navy that had historic and scientific but otherwise dubious value, was a trip to Bikini Atoll where he was stationed several months. Before two-piece bathing suits were given the name, Bikini was merely the name of a tiny bit of an island in the Marshall Islands group. The people who lived there were moved off by the U.S. government (and half a century later, were still not allowed to live there). The island was used in 1946 to test the effect of atomic bombs against ships. Damaged, surplus U.S. ships and captured enemy ships and submarines were placed in various locations in and around the atoll, many with recording equipment, to determine the effects of the blast. Shiploads of sailors were sent to watch the explosions. Some considered them to be guinea pigs in a marvelous experiment. For one test the sailors were given dark goggles to protect their eyes, but no concern was given to protecting the rest of their bodies or DNA. Many with less exposure developed some form of radiation caused cancer as they aged, resulting in a long, painful, lingering death. Lawrence’s later tractor accident saved him and his family from that.

These tests were very important. These were only the fourth and fifth atomic bombs ever to be exploded. The first had been experimental, simply to see if it would work. When it did explode the decision was made to use the next one in the war in hopes it would shorten the war and save American lives. The third was also used in the war and it ended soon after. No explosions had occurred under controlled conditions with predetermined observation and measuring equipment so the effects could be observed. The tests at Bikini would be the first.

High ranking military and civilian officials, such as U.S. Senators, flew to the area to watch. With navel personnel and the press (over 200 reporters), the audience was estimated at 34,000. The most unusual observers were goats who had been specially trained not to be frightened of loud noises – they calmly ate their hay through the testing.

Many of the high-ranking people from the east stopped in Topeka on their way to the Pacific. This gave rise to several news articles in the local papers, in addition to nationally released news in print and over the radio. One locally published newspaper article stated that the sound of the explosion could be heard by people at home. The sentence finished by saying that you had to turn on your radio at a certain time to a certain station to hear the broadcast (but who finishes reading each sentence?).

After the day of the test his mother wrote, "Well the big test is over with now. We heard all the news on the radio. I thought we would hear a big explosion but didn’t hear any. How close were you to it?"

Lawrence was stationed on the USS Palmyra ARS(T)-3, a fleet support ship. It was an LST (for: "Tank Landing Ship") that had been converted for salvage operations (the "R.S." indicate "rescue and salvage"). It would pick up and transport pieces and equipment after the test. The general ignorance of the time is evident by some inaccurate terms he would use.

He wrote about it to he family at home:

May 27: "There are more and more ships coming every day now and will continue to do so for some time to come. They have both Jap and German ships that were captured during the war. The jap ship (I saw) is torn up and looks like it is (only) about half there. I have not had a close look at the German ships yet, but they say that they are in fair shape."

June 10: "The German cruiser came in the past few days and is anchored right behind us. It sure is a pretty ship, it is much prettier than any of our ships. I sure would like a picture of it but I guess that is out of the question."

July 2: "The first test is over and everything seems to have been on schedule. We were 28 miles away and we could hardly feel the concussion of the bomb. We all had our eyes protected with our arms so that the flash would not hurt our eyes. right after the blast we all looked to see what we could see. There was the prettiest pinkish white cloud you ever saw and it reached the height of 50,00 feet in a few minutes."

July 29: "Speaking of heat (he had written earlier about the heat in Hawaii), the last bomb sure did heat up things when it went off. We were anchored about five miles from the target area but were closer for a few days. Some of the (target) ships are so hot that a man is not supposed to stay aboard more than a few hours at a time, and the (ocean) water is still plenty warm. Salvage parties have been spraying one of the target vessels for the past couple of days and it is still plenty hot. There is also a lot of radio activity in the target area and on most of the target vessels. I still cannot seem to realize that so small a piece of material and so small a bomb could ever do such a great thing (as the explosion and damage)."

August 3: "There sure was a lot of damage done when they had the last test. I saw the Aircraft Carrier USS Saratoga sink. We were about five miles away at the time, but at that, we were about the closest ship to the target area at the time. We were about for miles from (where) the target ship was at the time of the test. They have beached the ships that they could get close enough to, and cut them from their anchors. There was such a great amount of heat created by the bomb that most of the target ships are still too hot to stay aboard for more than just a matter of a few short hours. There sure is a lot of Radio Activity on and around the target area and ships."

August 9: "This Operation Crossroads sure has damaged an awfully lot of valuable and scarce equipment."

Despite his bewilderment at the heat and damage and waste, he was caught up in the excitement of the event. In closing one of these letters he signed himself, "Your Sailor Son, the Atomic Kid."

Each of the two bombs used in Operation Crossroads released the energy equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. About seventy ships were located at differences from the target site to determine the difference in the effects of the bombs. The first bomb, released on 1 July, exploded in the air. The second was detonated 90 feet under the water. It produced a million-ton hollow column of water, 2000 feet in diameter that rose more than a mile above the lagoon. It all fell back into a storm of waves, steam, radioactivity and debris from the ships it destroyed. The level of radioactivity in the lagoon remained extremely high for several days afterward.

These experimental detonations, under controlled conditions (as well as analysis of the effects of the bombs dropped on Japan) taught the world that the problems caused by radioactivity were far greater in actuality and potential than anyone had anticipated. The human race was venturing into actions that have the potential to destroy all life on earth – never had that been possible before.

Similar tests were conducted from time to time through 1958. The later bombs were larger (because bigger is always better, right?), getting as large as 750 times the first ones.

While Lawrence was in the navy each of his parents visited him. In November 1946, his mother rode the train to Los Angeles when he was stationed in San Francisco. He rode a train to L.A. to meet her. They spent their visit in Turlock, California (near L.A.) with his mother’s aunt and family. His father visited him in July 1947 when Lawrence was stationed in Orange, Texas. Carl rode to Texas with his brother-in-law, Eugene Lutz, his niece Darlene Witte Holiday and her new husband, Herb Holiday. During the trip, Carl took notes (commas are line breaks, parenthesis are added information): "Kilgore (Texas) oil wells thick, Nacodoches (Texas) 4:45 – 674 (miles) Gas 9 gal; (cost) 2.00, KOSF station (radio). Paper mill Lufkin (Texas)." It was a brief, succinct itinerary.

After his tour of duty, Lawrence returned to farming and periodic other employment, but did not completely let go of the navy life. He enlisted in the Navel Reserves and remained the rest of his life, reporting one night a week for duty and spent two weeks each year on a cruise (almost a vacation). He did take movie pictures to share his trip with the family, but after he died no one could remember the details (such as location) of where or what the movies were about.

He later made a list of his employment beginning when he began working in the fields. Since he did not get a salary for farming, he listed that as "self employed."

self employed June 1940 - Oct 1943

James Sowers Oct 1943 - Feb 1944

self employed

James Sowers Oct 1944 - Feb 1945

self employed

James Sowers Oct 1945 - Nov 1945

US Navy Nov 1945 - Nov 1947

self employed Nov 1947 -

These post-war years were not much easier than the war years. The fighting was over, but military forces were functioning in an occupational role in various parts of the world and the rationing and economic restrictions (to prevent inflation) were still in effect. It was difficult or nearly impossible to obtain luxuries such as film and chewing gum, and some necessities, such as bread, butter, home appliances, farm implements, batteries, or new tires for cars and trucks. The tires of the time had inner tubes and after so much patching a tube just couldn't be patched anymore. The Herrmann family owned a 1931 model A Ford sedan and an old pick up truck, both were frequently in need of repair. Late in 1947 they were able to buy a four door Ford sedan that was only six years old – they were moving up!

Most of the family farming was done with three mules and a hoe. Lots of hoeing was done because the cultivator couldn’t get all the weeds (not the ones real close to the plants) and once the crop was high enough, it would damage the crop instead of save it. Also, there were no herbicides to prevent the growth of weeds, so they had to be hoed out by hand. There were no pesticides so bugs just ate as much as they wanted, nor was there any commercial fertilizer. The only fertilizer was the natural (and smelly) kind. After drying in the sun and being rained on a few times, the smell was not noticeable.

Crops the Herrmanns planted included wheat, corn, oats, sargo and kaifer corn. Much of this was used to feed the cattle and other livestock. Green corn (before the kernels had hardened or dried) was chopped and stored in the silo, along with kaifer corn and sargo. After these crops were chopped they were called silege – sort of a chopped plant stew for animals. Oats was cut with a binder and the bundles shocked together throughout the field the wait for the threshing crew to remove the grains from the stalk. Corn that was let to mature and dry on the stalk was often shucked and shelled by hand. The family had no combine to harvest crops, nor bailer – that was hired done.

Three years after returning home Lawrence married Sylvia Juanita Boaz. She was young, pretty and vivacious. They had met while roller skating shortly after he had returned home. She had fallen while skating and he helped her up. With her he started his family and began earnestly pursuing his life’s goal of being a farmer.

One last letter arrived from Germany. The occasion was the death of Andrew Herrmann. He had died on 20 November 1956 and the German family had been notified. The letter to them was probably written in English and they would have had to find someone in Germany to translate it, so a reply was not quick in coming. Margareta wrote on 1 May 1957. She mailed the letter to Carl, but wrote it for all three: "Dear children: We got your letter with the sad news that your dear father passed away so quickly and unexpectedly. I had been dreaming of my brother Andreas last fall. I told my Hans about it and said: ‘I don’t know what to think. I always dream about Dreser. I don’t know whether he is dead or alive.’ Hans said that you would have written. I prayed every day that the Lord may give him eternal rest, and may the eternal light shine for him."

She tells a little of the family news, "Young Hans will have to join the army next year, then Hans will be alone. Gustav works at the castle. The two girls are still in school and twelve years old."

Then she tells her nephew and nieces a little about herself and others in the family. "I will be eighty years old in July. I was the youngest child. I remember very well when my dear brother Andreas left and how my father and mother cried. I have only one sister left, she is Maria. My brother Dreser looks just like his brother Pankratz on a photograph that I have. Pankratz has been dead now for six years."

She shares her concern for the welfare of the American side of the family, "How has the weather been there? You must have had a terrible winter as we read in the papers, with lots of storms and snow, and many people froze to death. I hope you are all in good health. Dear children, please stay well. We send you greetings in old friendship, from Hans and Anna and the children, Gustav, Mathilda and Maria.

"I am thinking of you and greet you. (signed) Your Aunt Margarete Schramm, from Reckendorf, near Bamberg in Bavaria."

No further communication is known to have occurred between the two sides of the family. When this letter arrived in 1957 there was no one in the family in Kansas who could read or write German. It is quite possible that, without Andrew to read it, this letter was never read until it was found and translated in the 1980s.

Whether in Germany or America religion was important to the family. Lena Lutz Herrmann had been raised Lutheran though there was no Lutheran church close by her home. She and her brothers and sisters had been sent to Pleasant Hill Church for Sunday School because it was close. Her parents had a few times attended some services in the German Lutheran Church at Stull (in the cemetery, now in ruins – Lena remembered going to a funeral there once as a child), but with a horse and buggy it was an all-day event and not practical to go often. When her parents bought their first automobile in 1919, they began attending St. John’s Lutheran Church in Topeka. At first it was not practical to go every week but eventually her mother would pick up Lena and her children to take them every week.

In 1943 Lawrence and Dena were old enough to formally become members of the Lutheran Church. The night before the confirmation class was to begin Lena had a private talk with Carl. He had never shown an interest in the Lutheran church and had not attended church with the rest of his family, nor did he go elswhere on his own. He had been raised Catholic and had not seen any reason to change. The next morning, without a word to the children, he got in the car with them, went to church, attended the confirmation class with them and became a member of the church. Cousin Darlene Witte and Aunt Mabel Lutz were also in the class. Carl never gave an explanation of his decision, it just was.

While in the navy, Lawrence attended church services when possible and wrote home assuring the family that he had done so. In one letter he even suggested that when he was back home, he would like the whole family to take communion together as a family group (the family portrait from that time was also his idea).

In 1948 the family became founding members of Hope Lutheran Church in Highland Park (a developed area southeast of Topeka). They had not intended to start a new church, but membership at St. John’s had become so large that every service was crowded; you had to come well before the service was to start in order to get a seat, and that might even be in the aisle. The church board decided that not only was a new church necessary, but two were needed: one in the east and one in the west. As a result Hope Lutheran and Faith Lutheran were started at the same time.

The membership list of St. John’s was examined by the church board and those who lived in the southeast part of town were told to start Hope and those in the south west to start Faith. One Sunday those who lived in the two areas were told to meet at the vacant land that had been purchased for the new churches. When the two groups met, they learned who also would be part of their new church. At that meeting in the pasture, Hope Lutheran Church was born.

Carl & Lena, several relatives and others where among those families who met in the vacant lot at 27^th and Minnesota. Her brother, Emil, was in the group and found it amusing to start a church in a pasture where he had once milked cows!

Several of this group, including Carl & Lena, agreed to look at an empty school house someone knew about that was located south of Berryton. It had been closed recently enough that it was still a usable structure. They agreed to buy it for $300.00 and move it to Topeka. Carl and Lawrence were among those who helped move it to the site in Highland Park and Erma recorded the event with her 16mm camera. Members of the congregation also did a great deal of the work of transforming the school into a church.

The church was soon a major focus of family life. Different members served on various boards and guilds and Lena taught Sunday School for 35 years (under five of the church’s seven pastors). Her dedication to the church was honored with a "Lena Herrmann Sunday." All three of Carl and Lena’s children and several grandchildren were married in that church.

In 1998 Hope Lutheran Church celebrated it’s first fifty years as a congregation. One commemorative project was a video of past, present and planned activities. The video used historical and more recent film footage, photographs and interviews. Lena and Lawrence appear clearly in one very early photograph while Carl, Lena and Erma appear in a mission support activity, Juanita appears in a current Sunday School class and several members of the family appear at 50^th anniversary activities.

God’s ways are not human ways and the video is testimony of that. In the video very few individual members of the congregation are mentioned by name (though Emil Lutz is one of the surviving founding members who was interviewed) but one name is mentioned and praised more often than any other: Lena Herrmann. One Sunday the longest serving minister asked for a show of hands of those who had once been in her Sunday School class and his satisfaction was obvious that a sizable percentage of the congregation raised their hands. She was also mentioned by the first pastor of the church and again by his wife for her efforts to welcome them to the new church.

One name was conspicuously absent; that of Lena’s nemesis. For half a century or more one individual at the church made sure that Lena was never elected to head any church activity. In every other sphere of her life she was often and sometimes repeatedly elected president of the organizations that she served, but not at her church. This hurt her more than she would ever say. The animosity of the other individual stretched back to a feud between their fathers! And Lena was often reminded that she was an "uneducated country girl" while the other individual had lived in town and attended high school.

But God has the upper hand and now, for as long as the commemorative video will be watched, the praise of Lena Herrmann will be broadcast. "Man may plot, but God is the best of plotters."

After graduating from Berryton High School Dena and Erma worked in Topeka and shared an apartment but came home on weekends. Erma met Ronald Arthur Payne in 1951 and was soon engaged. While he was away in the army Dena met Bernard K., or "B.K." Rodell (he kept his middle name a secret) and they, too, became engaged. B.K. was in the navy. The two young men had never met each other and the sisters became anxious lest they would not like each other. It was not long after the two future brothers-in-law met that the sisters regretted their concern. Neither of the fiance’s had a brother, and here was an instant brother, and another. They frequently teamed up, "boys against the girls." Dena married "Bernie" on 20 March 1955 and Erma married "Ronnie" three months later, on 12 June 1955. It is curious that the fathers of the spouses of all three of Carl & Lena’s children worked for the Santa Fe Railroad. Bernie worked for Kansas Power & Light, Ronnie worked for Adams Business Forms.

Though she was the youngest, and the last of the sisters to marry, Erma was the first of the two have children. John Arthur Payne was born 27 August 1956, Dan Carl on 9 August 1958, Keith James 12 December 1961 (only after Keith was named did the family learn, to his dismay, that Bernie’s middle name was "Keith") and Teresa Ann on 8 December 1964.

John was the first of his family to marry. The ceremony took place in Hays (the hometown of Wilma Joan Zimmer, his bride) in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. This was the first Catholic wedding in the Kansas branch of the family since his great grand parents married a century before. John and Wilma have two children: Brian Carl (23 July 1984) and Amy Lynn (22 September 1986). They lived in Colorado at the beginning of the marriage, then several years in Great Bend before John was able to work in Topeka, then they built a home near his parents.

Dan was the next to marry. He married Carol Dean Simons in Oklahoma City on 19 March 1983. They had three daughters: Amber Dawn (29 July 1983), Megan Renae (4 January 1986) and Michelle Nichole (12 March 1988). The marriage ended after several years. On 21 September 1996 Dan married Roberta, or "Berty" Poteet in Mulvane, Kansas.

Teresa married Greg Douglas Smith on 5 April 1986 at Hope Lutheran Church. They have two daughters: Kirsten Faye (2 July 1989) and Seanna Raquel (1 May 1992). They lived south of Berryton until they bought Carl & Lena’s farm.

Keith James married Nena Gray on 2 November 1991. They have no children.

After Dena had worked for the Kansas School Retirement System for fifteen years, she and Bernie had a son (Carl Robert, 10 September 1963) and adopted a daughter (Paula Kay, born 3 March 1968). Carl had a short marriage before marrying Karen Wood on 5 November 1994, they have two children, Nicholas Carl (22 Sept 1995 – his great grandfather Carl’s birthday) and Rebecca Marie (27 April 1997).

Carl & Lena’s grandchildren liked playing together and they were easy companions as they naturally formed pairs by age or gender. Mark and John were a pair of the same age, as were Dan and Bill. Keith and Carl formed a pair of boys while Elona Sue and Teresa were a pair of girls, later when Elona Sue left home Teresa and Paula teamed up as the only girls.

One night in 1967, the night of the annual Berryton Alumni banquet, Lena was able (without the others knowing) to tell each of her children that she would watch their children. It would be an evening with all her babies. As her children dropped off grandchildren by the carload, they objected to leaving her with all nine little children – they would be too much. Lena dismissed their objections and sent them on their way. All the grandchildren played quietly in their pairs (except Duane who read a book) and Lena spent the evening just beaming, looking around the room, watching her babies from wall to wall.

Valued as sons were to Germans, the Herrmanns had not had much success in that area; Carl and Lawrence had been the only males of their separate generations. This situation changed when Lawrence fathered three sons and a daughter. On 1 October 1950 Lawrence Herrmann had married Junaita Boaz.

Her family had been here longer than the United States has existed as a country. The first ancestor of hers that is known to have come here was Thomas Boaz who arrived from Ireland in the 1700s. It is said that he was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1721, but it is not documented. Much information about him remains unknown but it is likely that his wife was the Elenor Boaz whose death on 25 January 1787 is listed under his own death in the family Bible. He had died 15 August 1780.

Not only is his date of birth uncertain, but so is the date he arrived in the colonies and what city he came to. Nothing is known about his family background. It is known that he arrived before the Revolutionary War because he deeded 100 acres of land to his son, Thomas Jr., on 9 November 1758, some twenty years before the war. The land was in Albemarle County, Virginia.

The deed, typical of many country land deeds, identified the boundary of this property by natural objects. It said, "one parcel of land containing by estimation one hundred acres more or less situate on the North side of Appomattox River in County of Albermele and bounded Beginning at a hickory saplin on Mallery’s Creek thence up said Creek to a burned down Hicory being the old corner Thence crossing the Creek to a white oak thence to a corner pine on the old line thence to the first station, etc." (Albermarle County, Virginia, Deed Book pp.74-75) In those years spelling was not standardized.

Later, this land became part of Buckingham County when the boundaries were altered in 1761. Three years after that a list of tax payers in Buckingham County mentions the two Thomas Boaz’ (but spelled Boaze) owning land side by side; the father owning 500 acres and the son 100.

As near as can be determined, Thomas the elder, had twelve children. The one that concerns this branch of the family is Abednego, the youngest of the twelve. He was born 6 February 1760, in Buckingham County, the eighth son (one reason there are so many Boazes) and last child of the family . Abednego Boaz was about four years old when his parents moved the family to Pittsylvania County, Virginia. He grew up in time to fight in the Revolutionary War as a private in the "Continental Line."

The Continental Line was the army raised by the Continental Congress formed of units from the individual colonies. On 15 February 1776 the "First Virginia Regiment," authorized by the legislature of Virginia the summer before, became part of the continental army. On 16 August 1776 the Regiment marched north from Virginia to join General George Washington’s army at Harlem Heights. The Regiment was with Washington at Valley Forge during the bitter winter of 1777-78.

Abednego enlisted on 9 February 1778 for one year in the First Virginia Regiment. He joined Captain William Cunningham’s Company commanded by Colonel Richard Parker (this was later sometimes called "Colonel Richard Parker’s Company," or simply "The Colonel’s" company). Abednego arrived in Valley Forge that April. The army has just survived its worst winter at Valley Forge and he was part of the process of rebuilding the army to continue the fight for independence. It is very likely that he knew George Washington, though as a private, he would probably have had little direct contact.

His initial service record, then called the "muster roll," from morning roll call (or "muster"), indicates that he was "under inoculation." This likely means he was not able to report for roll call due to being sick from the vaccine for small pox, a recent medical advance which had not yet been refined sufficiently to prevent people from getting sick from the cure. At least the cure did not kill people. The first small pox inoculation was performed in 1714 and was still primitive (by our standards) sixty years later.

During June through August 1778 Abednego is still listed as sick, but now in Princeton, New Jersey. His pay was docked for those months he was ill. During this time the regiment participated in the longest battle of the war at Monmouth courthouse. The toll was heavy and the survivors were organized into the First Virginia Detachment which fought until most were captured at Charleston in 1780, some continued till 1783. Abednego missed this battle and, since his enlistment was for only one year, he was out of the regiment before it moved on.

By that fall Abednego had recovered and was transferred to Ball’s (later, Dickinson’s) Company with the same Colonel Richard Parker in command. He was last on the muster roll for 5 February 1779, so it seems he was discharged on schedule.

Throughout the war the Regiment fought together with the First Continental Dragoons (originally called the Virginia Light Horse – a cavalry unit). And they had cannon. Early in the war the members of the regiment wore an early style hunting shirt, of linen, with the distinctive Virginia round hat. Later they wore regimental coat and cocked hat. A sign of the times is the spelling of his name. It appears on his record variously as "Ebednego" and "Boze" and "Boaze," which may give a clue to the pronunciation.

For this service he received a land grant (see Historical Register of Virginians in the War of the Revolution, p. 72).

After the war Abednego returned to Buckingham County. He married Frances (or "Fanny") Matthews, the daughter of James Matthews. The dates of her birth and marriage are unknown, but she died on 10 March 1810 (he died fifteen years later). He was twenty-two years old when his name first appeared on the tax rolls there. His name reappeared every year until 1797 except for the two years when he moved back to Pittsylvania County and bought his first farm (1786 & 87). On the tax rolls for those two years he is listed as owning three horses and seven cows.

His farm in Pittsylvania County was described in the deed dated 18 March 1786. The farm consisted of 190 acres, but given the extensive nature of the native climax forest of the eastern half of the continent, he would likely not have farmed all of it. Eleven years later he sold it after he had been back in Buckingham for some time.

In 1810 the Governor of Tennessee signed a land grant to him for 374 acres in Sevier County in return for payment of $374.00. Abednego’s older brother, Edmond, also lived in the area and may have encouraged the move. Three years later Abednego bought another 87 acres on the North side of Little River just across the river from land his son James had bought in March 1812. Abednego sold this second piece two years later for the same price he paid for it: $250.00.

When he died Abednego Boaz owned 177 acres north of Maryville on the road to Knoxville which he had bought on 28 April 1819. He died there, in Blorent County, Tennessee on 26 September 1825 at age 65. His estate sale was held in November that year.

Abednego and Fanny’s fourth child (and second son), Mignon, is the next in the family tree. His name is French and means roughly, "pretty little one," or something along that line. There is some speculation that Abednego heard of the name sometime during his military service in the northern colonies where there were more French speakers. Mignon was born 2 February 1792 in Buckingham County, Virginia and married Sarah (or "Sallie") Pope on 29 November 1812 (she was born 7 February 1792 in South Carolina and died in July 1849 in Indiana). They had seven children.

Family information from Abednego’s Bible is published in: East Tennessee Roots Vol. III, No. 3, on page 142. In addition to listing his direct children there are "several births that appear to be some of his slaves." One wonders if the births of all slave children were recorded or just special ones? In some families the births of certain slave children were recorded separately from other slaves because they were sired by the owner. Sufficient information is not available to determine if this is the case here.

Mignon was a private in the war of 1812 in Booth’s 5^th Regiment of the East Tennessee Militia with his brother, Abednego Jr. Booth’s regiment was deployed as garrison troops and did not see combat. Their brother James also fought in the war but with another regiment and was killed. When James’ property was sold, Mignon bought something but the record of the sale doesn’t identify what it was.

Evidence that Mignon could not read or write can be concluded from the fact that on various legal documents his name is spelled different ways, indicating that different writers did the spelling without his instruction or correction. Several times it is spelled "M-i-z-n-e-r." This is likely a reflection of the way his name was pronounced. On the census listing when he lived in Sarpy County, Nebraska, the last name is spelled "Boze."

Several years after the war, about 1818, he went as a Baptist missionary preacher to Bartholomew County in the new state of Indiana. On his journey he crossed the Ohio River on horseback near present day Madison, then went north to Columbus (in Bartholomew, County). At that time Columbus consisted of only two small stores for trading goods. He selected a site for a home six miles north. Later this area became known as "Haw-patch." Here he cleared land and built a log cabin. He donated two acres of his land for a church and cemetery and established a Baptist church there. He preached at the church and, in addition to farming, traveled the countryside preaching and establishing additional Baptist churches. He later became pastor of Flat Rock Baptist Church and remained there twenty-four years.

He did not write down his sermons, he could not write, nor could he read the Bible to preach from. His wife could read, so she would read the Bible to him and each week he would memorize the verse that he would preach from. If he preached from the inspiration of the moment, as many itinerant preachers did, he would not have written anything down. Gradually with her help he began to learn to read and write.

When his father died, Mignon was instrumental in assisting in the orderly sale of the land. All of the children were give an equal interest in the land but for it to be sold easily, one owner was necessary. Mignon deeded his interest directly to a D.D. Foute, who was acting as a land agent. He also acted as "attorney in fact" for his sister Agnus Sims and her husband to transfer their interest to Foute. The two families lived near each other in Bartholomew County.

Mignon had seven children. His second child (and second son) is the one of major interest to this story. This was Elijah Calloway Boaz, born on 10 February 1817 in Tennessee. It has been told that Elijah eventually became a Seventh Day Adventist preacher and remained so the last two decades of his life. He lived and preached in Crawford County, Indiana before moving to Schuyler County, Indiana about 1848. On no census did he claim to be a professional minister, nor do records of the Seventh Day Adventist Church indicate that he was an ordain or official preacher, itinerant or otherwise. If he did preach it would have been in addition to the farming which he did claim (and is listed as his occupation on his death certificate). He was also a surveyor for a time before his marriage.

On 25 August 1836 he had married Mary J. Watts whom everyone called "Polly." She had been born 14 September 1814 in Indiana. Oral tradition maintains that she was Cherokee, but no documentation of that has yet been found.

Martin and Polly had twelve children. In their old age they appear to have lived with their daughter Elizabeth and her family (Oliver P. Lewis). Polly died in their home 2 September 1880 in Papillion, Nebraska. Elijah died 22 years later, on 16 November 1902, also at Elizabeth’s home, but by then the family was living in Spokane, Washington. He is buried there.

The youngest of the children of Elijah and Polly (and the third son) is our next ancestor. His name was Joseph Martin Boaz and he was born on 14 July 1857 near Des Moines, Iowa. On 6 October 1881, in Douglas County, Nebraska he married Mary Ann Field. She had been born on 4 February 1865 in Papillion, Nebraska in Sarpy County near Omaha. She was the daughter of Thomas Willis and Armilda (Nicholson) Field. Written in her Bible is information that her father "was poisoned" and died 16 August 1881 and her mother died "of paralysis" (a stroke, perhaps) on 29 February 1904.

Joseph and Mary Ann had eleven children, the youngest of whom became the father of Sylvia Juanita Boaz.

Joseph Martin Boaz moved around the country quite a bit and died on 25 February 1932 in Kansas City, Missouri but was buried in Mt Hope Cemetery in Topeka (his youngest son was later buried next to him). He had moved his family from Papillion, Nebraska (where the first child was born) to Hiawatha, Kansas (where the next three were born) to Sidney, Nebraska (where he may have homesteaded and three more children were born) to Blue Mound, Kansas (where one child was born), then to Xenia, Kansas (where his last three children were born), and he kept on moving (to Wilsey and Topeka). He is said to have lived for a time in North Platte, Nebraska but evidence has not been found to support this, nor has evidence been found to support the tale of homesteading near there. He was a farmer and carpenter (listed on the 1885 census when he lived in Hiawatha), and may have been a surveyor in Colorado before his marriage.

There are many stories of his unbridled temper. Once when he was angry with a man, he went to the man’s farm and found a wagon full of pumpkins by the well. Obviously this was a crop that had been harvested and was ready to be taken to be sold. In his anger, Martin, dumped all the pumpkins into the well: ruining the crop, making the well water unfit to drink as the pumpkins rotted and depriving the family of the income from the sale of the pumpkins. It is very likely that his temper, and its expression, were one cause of his moving from place to place so often. He was never likely satisfied with where he was, and he certainly was not a good neighbor.

He had a dream in late 1880 that his mother had died. He quit his job and traveled home. When he arrived there he learned that the dream was true: his mother had died.

On 23 September 1903, his youngest child (of twelve, but one died in infancy), Clarence Merle Boaz, was born near Xenia and Blue Mound in Bourbon County, Kansas. Not only was he the last child, and after a baby who died, but he came some years after the four girls. He was taken special care of so that he would not be the second baby to die, and the girls found him to be a live doll to dote on – and that’s just what they did. His sisters and mother pampered him to no end.

If the weather was bad, his mother insisted he stay home from school so he would not become ill. He may not have minded at the time, but it delayed his completion of the eighth grade. He eventually graduated with much younger children, but did not learn a great deal after having missed so much class time. He was intelligent but largely uneducated. He learned grammar but his reading interests did not go beyond Zane Gray westerns.

As with most pampered children he had no patience and so was not able to teach his children patience. If one of his children made a mistake in speaking, he would laugh and ridicule them instead of help them learn to correct their mistake. He was also neither generous nor demonstrative and his children ached for that lack.

After leaving school he decided to come to the big city of Topeka to get a job and go to business school – he was not going to farm. His parents couldn’t bear for him to go away (all their other children were grown with families of their own) so they decided to come with him. They bought a large two story house on five acres north east of Topeka, in the community of Kaw Valley. He could live with them, and take care of them as they become older, and he could have the house after they were gone.

He attended Strickland Business School and obtained a job as errand boy with the Santa Fe Rail Road. He took his job very seriously. He may have hurried to do the errands, to show that he was a good worker, and that rushing or buzzing around, combined with his name of Boaz, led to the obvious nickname of "Buzz." The entire forty-four years he worked for Santa Fe he was known there as "Buzz." The railroad was his only employer when he retired in 1969.

Unlike many millions of people during the great depression, he was not laid off. When the depression came, he had been with the railroad long enough that others were laid off instead and he was shuffled down – but he was still employed. He was moved from the office building to the unclaimed freight house. The decrease in pay was not welcome, but the new position allowed more freedom to move around the building instead of being chained to a desk all day. That was a pleasure. When the economy became healthy again, he eventually worked his way up to claims adjuster and stayed there several decades.

He married Lelia Marian Yoho on Easter Day (31 March) 1929 in Oklahoma City. They had met on a Sante Fe train between Topeka and southwest Oklahoma; Clarence could ride free as an employee of the railroad, she was on a trip visiting relatives. He saw her sitting by herself when he went to get a drink of water. The water dispenser had paper cups and he filled two, then offered her one on the way back. She had worn a large hat that day and placed it on the seat beside her. She moved it so he could sit beside her. That was the beginning of their courtship.

Marian had been born 5 March 1903 in a dirt floored sod house near Hinton, Oklahoma west of Oklahoma City. She was the oldest of the two daughters of William and Sadie (McAllister) Yoho. The McAllister line can be traced back to John Samuel McAllister Sr. who was born 5 August 1816 in County Tyrone, Ireland. He was Irish (of Scottish descent) and Catholic and through him we can claim membership in the McAllister clan with the legal (Scottish) right to own and wear the McAllister plaid (it’s colors are black and green). Tartan plaids were a means of identifying people, much like uniforms. The colors and pattern of the plaid identified who you could kill, or should not kill, in battles between clans. Evidence has been found in Central Asia that plaids were made as long 10,000 years ago.

John Sr’s wife was Sarah Miller, but she was called "Sallie." She was born 5 June 1815, in or near Cork, Ireland, and died 8 June 1912.

Their child, John Jr, (called Sam) was born 3 May 1849 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and came to Kansas where he died on 14 November 1936 at Osawatomie. He married Anna E. Elder in 1872. She had been born in 1851, and died in 1888.

Their daughter, Sadie McAllister was born in 28 December 1877 in Philadelphia. She married William Harrison Yoho (born 3 November 1877 near Wheeling, West Virginia) the son of Rolla Yoho and Jamima Jane Laughlin. Together their ancestors included families named: Hartley, Rush and Goddard. The Yohos had come to American before the Revolutionary War and one served as an Indian scout. William’s father is said to have been offered all the land for thirty miles along the Ohio River from Wheeling, Virginia to New Martinsville in exchange for a horse. The horse was more valuable and was not sold. It is believed that Zane Gray, the western author, based a novel on his life.

William Yoho was named for William Laughlin and Harrison Yoho. He was the youngest of his family and was pampered by his sisters immediately older than him. As a result he was rather egotistical with little foresight, but perfect hindsight. In his later years he spent considerable time, to his grandchildren’s exasperation, regretting and lamenting some opportunity he missed or advantage he could have had, "if only I had known then what I know now."

His big adventure in life was participation in one of the Oklahoma land runs in the Cherokee Strip in September 1893. The 16^th of that month, the day of the run, was terribly hot, coming toward the end of a long drought with a fierce dry wind blowing from the southwest. The "run" was to begin at noon. To qualify to participate, settlers had to register at special booths managed by the U.S. army. The army was charged with maintaining civil order because there was no government yet in this empty land. And the army was the keep people from entering the territory early. Those who entered too soon were escorted out.

From August 19 that year, when President Cleveland had issued the proclamation declaring the land would be open the next month, people began preparing in earnest. Some had lobbied for this decision after they had been escorted out more than once. Ranchers and cattlemen who had previously grazed or herded cattle on the land reviewed their knowledge of the land, selected sites they remembered and planned the shortest routes to be able to claim their piece first. Some settlers bought and studied "Homeseekers Guides" that gave maps of the countryside, explained the homestead laws and deciphered surveyor’s symbols on the property markers that had been set when the land was surveyed. Many people camped the night before on a tiny strip of land along the edge of the empty territory. Some sneaked in the night before and hid till noon. They were the true "Sooners."

During the night before the run, prairie fires were set in the empty land which made the property markers more visible, but created choking ash to ride over. No one admitted setting the fire. Some were still burning at noon when the run began.

Prospective merchants (because town sits and lots had already been marked out and were open to be claimed) brought stockpiles of merchandise (especially lumber and other building materials) to the border to be within easy reach once the run was over and they could open up shop. A few very optimistic people built small cabins that could be easily dismantled then reassembled on the claim.

Contrary to the law, the run did not begin at noon. The hundreds (or thousands) of pocket watches carried by individuals along the border were not synchronized, such a feat would have been impossible. Because no one had the same time, someone began early. When one went early, they all began early. No one waited for the soldiers’ gun shot signal. Everyone in the run became a "Sooner" and so Oklahoma became "The Sooner State."

The ground shook as thousands of horses’ hooves pounded simultaneously. A few people rode wagons, but they were slower going. If a family was aiming for a claim, usually only the father rode while the family waited at the camp for his return after staking a claim. No one knows where along the border William Yoho began, but he was successful in claiming a piece of the prairie.

The clams had to be registered at the "courthouse" of the new county. A small shack had earlier been erected at the site of the proposed county seat for this purpose. On arriving at the courthouse the settlers were given appointment days to return to properly file the claim. When William arrived the line was so long (and it was hot) that he did not want to wait. He was not desperate for the land, he had no family yet and, when he learned that he could go to a shorter line at the back door and pay a higher fee – he left in disgust.

He later married Sadie McAllister from the area of Holton, Kansas. Her family has an interesting story too. It happened on their way to settle near Holton (they had a prosperous dairy in Pennsylvania which they had sold and so carried a considerable amount of cash – in gold coin – with them to start their new life in Kansas). Almost to their destination, they were camping the night of 20 August 1863 on a hill across the river from Lawrence, Kansas. That evening some travelers passed by and stopped to visit a while. The travelers went on and the family proceeded to Holton.

Later the family learned that the "fellow travelers" where headed to Lawrence where, the next morning, they were part of William Quantrill’s band that burned the town and murdered nearly all the men and boys. It was a narrow escape!

Sadie McAllister Yoho, was the daughter of Sarah Miller and Adam McAllister. They had met on the ship coming to America. In this country he was successful and once loaned a person $9,000 to start a business. The business was a success and the loan was repaid. If you think interest rates are high now, this loan was repaid three for one: $27,000. And this, all in gold coin!! It was this money, and money from the sale of their farm, that they carried with them to begin a new life in Kansas.

Their son Sam, was very close friends with a girl before they left Philadelphia named Ann Stinson. The two wanted to marry but her parents objected to his smoking and drinking and married her off to a Mr. Eldon. They had four children, two of which died. Mr Eldon was inspecting a well one day (a dangerious mission), down in the bottom of it, and died. Ann wrote to Sam and they were soon married. Together they had five children.

Sadie McAllister Yoho died in Oklahoma on 13 August 1911 and was buried near Holton, Kansas. At the time of her death her daughters (age 8 and 6) had scarlet fever and never knew what disease killed their mother. Their mother’s sisters, Anna in particular, refused to believe that their father could raise the two girls alone (and farm) and urged him to come live near one of them, (one lived in Oklahoma, the other in Kansas). He gave in, sold his farm and moved to Kansas where he farmed with his brother-in-law but it did not work out. Later he moved himself and the girls back to Oklahoma to the other sister.

He was said to be more educated than many people on the frontier of that time and in one community where he lived, he was the most educated individual there. As a result he ended up helping people with their wills and other legal documents.

Later in life he helped his younger daughter run a boarding house for college girls while she herself attended college. In his last years he split his time between his daughters: living with Reba in the winter (where it was not so cold in Oklahoma) and summers in Topeka with Marian (where it was not as hot). William died 6 May 1954 at Marlow, Oklahoma.

Marian (the name she used and assumed was her first name until she applied for retirement) did not learn much about housekeeping or motherhood. Her response to many situations was to go to bed. This pattern started early. When her father would send her from the field where they were working to the house to fix a meal, he and her sister would often come in to eat and find her asleep in bed with no meal prepared. In later life she reminisced that her life would have been totally different if her mother had lived and that is true. She was sure her mother would have guaranteed the financial success of the family, her father could not manage money. Her father was once offered a job paying fifty cents a day (a good wage at the time) and he refused so as not to leave his daughters alone. The youngest daughter mused, "we would have been better off with the money."

Marian later planted flowers in with the vegetables in her garden because her mother had loved flowers.

When she was 18 years old, Marion Yoho began to teach school in order to support herself. This was almost the only occupation available to single young women in the early decades of the 20^th century. But the school schedules also presented difficulties. Teachers were paid only while the school was in session and they were not expected to return to the same school year after year- they had already taught all the children in that school one year, what more could they teach in a second or third year?

When school was out for the summer, the teacher was out of work with no income. In addition to finding another school for the next fall, the teacher often had to find a place to live during the summer (teachers were single and unmarried, so they were expected to move from place to place). Marian often spent her summers with her sister and her family in Virden, Oklahoma.

Thinking back on those years, she recalled that the first school where she taught, in 1921-22, was Hopewell School in Caddo County, Oklahoma. She taught all eight grades in an eight month term. The next year she taught in Anadarko, Oklahoma, again all eight grades for eight months. The next year she did not teach.

She resumed the next school year, 1924-25, when she took a position with Ft Cobb School for a nine month term. The next year she began at the Alex School and taught there four years. The first three of those years she taught only the eighth grade, the last year, the seventh grade. She taught through the spring of 1929 and quit. She had married that March and married women did not teach. She married Clarence Merle Boaz who she had met while traveling by train between Kansas and Oklahoma.

Marian had attended two years of college at Southwestern Oklahoma State Teachers College in Weatherford, Oklahoma with a major in Spanish. Teachers did not need a degree when she first started teaching. When her youngest children were teenagers, she returned to teaching in 1953. She taught one year at Twinville School, just west of Auburn, the next year she taught at Big Springs, east of Tecumseh; both were one room schools where she taught all eight grades. The next year she entered Washburn University, traveling with her son Don, to complete her degree. She was delighted to learn that all her credits from Weatherford were accepted by Washburn. She graduated in 1957. She then taught full time for Topeka Public Schools, at Belvor Elementary until she retired, then taught part-time at Our Lady of Quadalupe Elementary a few years. Five of her six children also became teachers.

Marian & Clarence had six children: Stanley Erwin (11 April 1930 ), Sylvia Juanita (7 July 1931), Donald Allen (17 June 1934), Sadie Marie (with a stillborn twin, 24 June 1939), Clarence James (23 December 1936), and June Eileen (13 December 1943), who had a total of nine grandchildren and five step-grand children. Stanley did not have any children of his own but raised two, Juanita had four, Don married Hazel Marie Goff Ramsey, a widow with three children, and they had one more (Donetta Marie, 15 March 1960, married Kent Joseph Colbach 19 October 1984), Sadie married Walt Rome and had Brenda Kay (6 November 1962, married Wayne Vaughn Whitney in May 1984) and Brian Eugene (who married Tammy and has two children of his own: Jennifer Anne, 22 April 1993 and Andrew Michael, 9 November 1996), Jim and Karen had James Daniel (6 March 1970, married Ashley Lynne Foster 16 September 1973) and June and Bill McCarty had Kelly Rae (26 August 1973).

The first years of Clarence and Marian’s marriage were difficult. In addition to a new life with a new husband, and not having the independence or freedom she had before the marriage (social standards did not allow her to teach school any longer), Marian was stuck with her husband’s elderly parents. Clarence had ten older brothers and sisters, but of them all only he had a job with a steady income, and he did not yet have children, so he (and his new wife) would take care of Mom and Dad. Neither they nor Marian liked each other.

During the first years of the marriage they lived with his parents in their house at Kaw Valley. It was not long before Clarence built a little house of his own on the land for his own family (his older brothers did most of the building of it – they needed the work and income). He retained ownership of both houses after his parents had died. This opened new possibilities. Sometimes, for variety sake, Marian would decide to move the family to live in the other house for a while. Clarence would not know, when he came home from work, which house he might find his family living in that night!

Flooding was a problem as a creek that fed directly into the Kansas River ran very close to the house. In good times this produced an abundance of lightening bugs to the amazement and delight of the children, but when the river flooded, the creek and their house flooded. The flood of 1935 was the worst while they were there, and may have been a reason they moved a few years later. The 35 flood occurred shortly after his mother died and ruined or washed away much of the ground level furniture, including the pump organ that his mother particularly loved. Remembering that organ was one reason Juanita wanted and bought one of her own.

Juanita has only two other memories of her grandmother: taking flowers to her while she was in bed one day, and watching her being carried out of the house on a gurney to the waiting ambulance. Her only remaining grandparent was her mother’s father who would later live with them for parts of the year.

When the flood control levee was built after the 1951 flood it took the north edge of the property and the original two story house. The little house remains standing at the end of the century, it is north and west of the brick schoolhouse that the children attended.

After the birth of her first two children Marian decided that she could not take any more of the situation and planned to leave and take the children, maybe to live with her sister. Before she could put this plan into operation, she discovered she was pregnant again. She knew she could not leave while pregnant nor with an infant and two toddlers. So she emotionally gave up.

Clarence was a distant parent but he did find some activities that entertained both himself and his children. One of these was a tiny toy cannon. It came with one cannon ball, made of rubber, about the size of a ping pong ball. If a tiny firecracker was used as a fuse, the cannon would shoot the ball. It was not a toy for the little children, but they enjoyed looking for the ball after he lit the "fuse." There was only one cannon ball, so most of the time was spent by the children looking for the ball, but it was a family activity.

Later he started a tradition at Easter. It may have begun to commemorate his wedding anniversary (because they were married on Easter Sunday and sometimes Easter would be their anniversary), or to give the children something (again) to hunt for, but he continued it every year with his grandchildren and sometimes their cousins up to maybe thirty. It was an Easter egg hunt, but not with boiled, dyed eggs. These eggs were chocolate and you could find only one – the one with your name on it. If you found someone else’s egg you could not touch it, pick it up, or move it in any way, neither were you allowed to tell that person where it was (and no one told you where your egg was either): you had to find your own. He would climb trees (as long as he was able) to hid eggs in the limbs, or the hayloft. He sought out the most unexpected places, such as the bottom tire in a stack of tires still with water in them from the last rain (but the egg would be dry and clean in its see-through box). Other unlikely places were a windblown bag caught in the weeds or in a tiny space under rocks of a landfill! It was no ordinary Easter egg hunt!

When Juanita was about eight, Marian bought the first sewing machine she ever owned, a special model for the time because it was one of the first that could stitch backwards. She first made a suit for herself, figuring that larger pieces of fabric would be easier to manipulate and assemble than small ones. The suit was navy blue.

After the suit was completed, she made a dress for Juanita; it was a red plaid. Juanita loved plaids and loved that plaid and loved the dress. She wore it until she outgrew it. At that time Marian took off the top, let out the hem and made it over as a skirt. Juanita wore the skirt until she outgrew it. Then Marian used bits of the skirt fabric to highlight buttonholes of a winter coat she made for Juanita. The plaid fabric was used beyond normal expectations.

Later, after the family moved, they could no longer sew at home because that house in the country did not yet have electricity. Marian briefly traded sewing machines (her electric for their pedal one) with a relative so she could continue to sew, but the pedals were too much for Juanita so she would ride into Topeka with her father on a Saturday, he would work in his office while she sewed at the cousin’s.

He also did this later once, when Juanita had a ticket for the Community Concert series, and a concert occurred during a snowstorm. She remembered how unusual it was that he did that for her.

In December 1941 Clarence & Marian looked at an 80 acre farm near Tecumseh, Kansas. The day was remembered because news came later, on the radio, that changed American history: a distant naval base had been attacked by Japanese, at Pearl Harbor. The United States entered World War II. The farm was bought and the family moved that March. They lived there until the 1970s when they bought an addition 80 acre farm a half mile to the south. It was the first time in thirty years that she had moved and Marian was as thrilled as a child to have a different house to live in.

After Clarence retired she began raising chickens and turkeys and strawberries to sell and managed to involve nearly everyone in the family in some way. As one daughter said one year during butchering time when she had come home for a visit, "From socialite to scullery maid overnight, my mother is amazing!"

In the spring of 1975 Clarence went to Phoenix to visit his daughter Sadie and her family there, and to get away from the Kansas humidity. His health had not been good for several years. It continued to decline and he was hospitalized in Phoenix then transferred to the Santa Fe Hospital in Topeka. He died there in August of that year and was buried next to his parents.

The move to the Tecumseh area brought the Herrmann and Boaz families closer together. The story of the family started by Lawrence Herrmann and Juanita Boaz would eventually follow. Both the Herrmann and Boaz families were involved in 4-H. It was the major non-school activity for rural children. Their children were very involved. Not only attending meetings (and serving as officers), completing projects for the county and 4-H fairs, but also going to as many 4-H sponsored social events as possible. It was at one of these events that Lawrence and Juanita actually met. It was a skating party. Lawrence helped up a girl who had fallen. She was Juanita Boaz. The rest is family history.

Lawrence had wanted to be a farmer all his life. It was the life he had been born into and one he loved. He began his preparation in earnest by joining Future Farmers of America. This added knowledge onto his 4-H experience and his own observations of his father and grandfather. In FFA he learned farming practices very different from what he had seen at home.

When he tried to share what he had learned, he encountered German stubbornness. Andrew had been farming far longer than young Lawrency had been alive – how dare this inexperienced child tell him how to farm! He’d been doing fine for decades! There was no reason to change!!

Lawrence, on the other hand, had been used to getting his way most of the time but now he was venturing into new territory. He could see that farming methods could be improved: this wasn’t the 19^th century any longer – it was modern 1940’s American! The energy of youth met the certitude of old age. The clash of wills echoed from the barn and fields and house and back. Carl was caught in the middle.

Undeterred, Lawrence began on his own. He went over his grandfather’s objections and, while still in high school, bought his own tractor. The uproar was tremendous. Mules were good enough for farming! The German family pattern (where the oldest male ruled) was challenged by modern American technology. In this case, technology won.

The old man didn’t want that infernal machine in his fields! So Lawrence sought other land to rent and farm, a field here and there. Before graduating from high school he and a friend combined their savings and bought a corn picker and started a custom corn picking business. Self-propelled combines that had their own motor and would pick and shell corn were a ways in the future. This was good, but it wasn’t like having his own farm where he could do things his own way. The battle raged at home.

Finally the battle of wills peaked on 20 November 1946. The shouting match reached a point at which Lawrence stormed off and disappeared for several hours. No one knew where he went. He had come into the house, cleaned up and put on clean clothes, so he was going "to town," but no one knew any more than that. It was not the first time he had had to leave his grandfather’s presence, so no one was particularly alarmed. No one dreamed what he was doing.

When he returned home he announced that he had driven to Kansas City and enlisted in the United States Navy. He would report for active duty in six days!

The family was stunned.

His father was so upset it was the first time his children saw him cry. The pain of his mother’s distress cut her deeply. She was angry at the insufferable old man and anguished by her son’s rash decision.

It was a rash decision, but one Lawrence had thought of for some time. Even though the war was over, he felt he had missed out on the excitement of his generation. Boys in the neighborhood were measured by their war service – and he had been to young for that. There was a lot of peer pressure to be part of the action and the draft was still in effect. He didn’t want to be drafted, he didn’t want to be left out and that old man was intolerable! One decision solved it all!

While in the service he sold his tractor, getting a higher price for it than he or his father had thought. They sold a few other things with prices being high and availability being scarce. While he was gone it would just sit and rust, he would get more stuff after the war – if he returned to farming. He had a desk job in the navy and some aspects of that kind of work were appealing: a steady paycheck, no worries about the weather. Nor was it physically demanding. But his lifetime dream won out and he returned to farming afterwards.

Acquiring new farm equipment after the war was neither simple nor quick. It was a long time before he could buy another tractor. There were simply no tractors to be bought. No farm equipment had been manufactured during the war and the switch from military production back to domestic items took several years. Those who wanted tractors had to sign up for them and wait years. Lawrence was away in the navy when the first people were able to sign their names to the list. His father signed them up at various implement dealers and eventually he was able to buy a tractor and his own farming became more possible.

Lawrence and Juanita were married 1 October 1950. To begin farming they were able to rent the farm one half mile north of his parents, by road the houses were more than half a mile apart and around the corner. He worked part time elsewhere and farmed some with his father and shared implements.

On the rented farm Lawrence and Juanita began their family. Their first child was born on 30 November 1951, Duane Lawrence. Just as Lawrence was given his father’s name for a middle name, Duane was also given his father’s name for his middle name. Later, Duane did the same. This baby was the first of the third generation of Herrmanns to be born on American soil to carry on the family name: further confirmation that the immigration to America was successful. His arrival was the brightest spot of the last years of Andrew Herrmann’s life. Each day he would ask if "THE BOY" was coming. When Andrew was hospitalized for pneumonia, the baby was brought to the hospital, into his room, for him to see. Sight of "The Boy," helped his recovery, some thought, as much as the medical care (remember, he didn’t have much use for hospitals).

When the owners of the farm Lawrence and Juanita were renting returned to live there, they were able to rent another farm, just across the road south of his parents. When 120 acres beside this farm came to be for sale they bought it with the help of his parents. There was no house on this land so when Lawrence learned that two parts of former barracks of Forbes Air Base were for sale, he bought them with the intention of joining them together to make a house.

At the time the barracks had already seen a second life as a chicken house. The young family was hopeful. Before work could be started on the new house, they learned that the owners of the farm they were renting had decided to sell. Lawrence & Juanita made an offer and they bought that 160 acres with a house, barn, chicken house several other outbuildings and ponds. Part of the barracks became the garage, the other part collapsed. The anticipated new house was never built; the old house was patched up, adapted, and patched some more. At the end of the century its destruction was finally a fact. .

Lawrence and Juanita had a total of four children, a fifth pregnancy did not develop to term. Two years after Duane was born came the girl, Elona Sue on 1 January 1954, Mark Andrew on 6 August 1956 and William Emerson on 7 October 1958. Following the custom of "Lawrency," the younger boys were "Marky" and "Billy."

Farm life revolved around the crops, weather and rising or falling prices. As Duane reached his teenage years, he was taught to operate more and more farm equipment so that by the time he was in high school a tractor and field were usually waiting for him when he got off the bus after school. Carl helped and so did Ronnie after his farm was added into the operation. They farmed Lawrence’s farm, Carl’s farm, Ronnie’s farm and Alvina Witte’s farm, plus custom baling on the side going all over southeast Shawnee County.

Farming was the beginning and the end of life. One year Lawrence and Juanita decided to go into chickens in a big way and bought about 500 baby chicks. When the chicks arrived the weather had stayed too cold for them to be in the chicken house, so cages were set up in the living room and for several weeks the family was entertained (around the clock) by 500 baby chicks – and they were seldom quiet all at the same time! Several other years new-born pigs might be too small to survive in the cold barn (or so small their mother might roll on them and smother them) so they were brought into the house and kept in the slightly warm oven!

And there were baby raccoons that were found and brought into the house and adopted as pets. One of these soon learned that while the human family was at the dinner table it could walk from lap to lap and food would appear! What a wonderful life!

One of these raccoons became so tame that it did not like to be left at home alone and would ride in the car with the humans. If only one human went to town, the raccoon did not like to be left alone in the car when that human went into a store, or wherever it was going. So, one time, Juanita took the raccoon with her into the store. It liked to ride on people’s shoulders – then it could see (like being up a walking tree!). The raccoon was facing backwards when a lady came up to Juanita and remarked, "What a lovely fur piece you are wearing." At that point the animal turned around to see who was speaking. When the lady saw the face and eyes, her scream was heard quite well.

Another animal that would have caused even a greater commotion was picked up from the road one day. Lawrence was on his way to Richland with Mark and Bill. He saw a family of skunks by the side of the road and stopped to let the boys see them close up. The mother skunk and her family ambled under the car. To prevent them from deciding to stop and take a nap there, Lawrence started the car. This sudden noise startled the animals so much that they hurried away; the mother and some babies into the ditch, at least one other baby went the opposite way, out into the road.

Lawrence was excited! "Boys, do you want to keep a baby skunk?" Of course they agreed, what an exciting idea! Their daddy was wonderful! Quickly Lawrence got out of the car and captured the baby skunk. The car did smell a little with the skunk inside with them, but breathing outside the window was a small price to pay for the thrill of having a baby skunk!

When they returned home, they put the skunk in a cardboard box in the unfinished garage. In two days, when the vet opened, Lawrence would take it in to have its scent glands removed. The morning after the capture of the skunk the boys ran out to see their new pet – and found the box empty. The excitement was over, there was no skunk but the memory remained.

In the list Lawrence made of his employment, he didn’t indicate that, even in those periods of time when he was not farming, or "self employed," he continued to farm. He just farmed less for other people. He lists: Self employed Nov 1947 - Oct 1962

US Navy Oct 1962 - May 1964

Self employed May 1964 - Nov 1964

Martin Milk Transport Nov 1964 - April 1965

Self employed April 1965 - Nov 1966

Sears & Roebuck Co. Nov 1965 - April 1966

Self employed April 1966 - Oct 1966

US Navy Oct 1966 - Dec 1966

Lawrence did most of his farming with large Cockshut tractors (later the company was acquired by Chase) that were fine for large jobs needing power, but they were not easily maneuverable. For little jobs that required quick turning on a small radius, he eventually was able to acquire a smaller tractor. He used it for spraying, mowing and similar small jobs. In the summer of 1968 he was spraying on his father’s place and one of the wet large back tires caught the wet flap of his pant leg and pulled him off the tractor. Suddenly he was on his back under the tractor and it was proceeding forward over his body. He quickly twisted sideways so it only rode over (and broke) his ankle and pelvis. The tractor drove on.

Lawrence was unable to move and knew he would not be missed for several hours, so he waited in the hot sun. Eventually a neighbor was passing on the road and heard the tractor, which didn’t sound quite right, so he set off across the pasture to investigate. The tractor had continued to drive itself until it got stuck and then it continued to try to go forward, but could not. It was the strain on the engine that the neighbor had detected. He found Lawrence, the ambulance came and he spent several weeks in the hospital. His body healed well and a discharge date was set when Juanita got a call in the middle of the night that he had died.

For his family, the world ended and turned upside down.

Duane, Elona Sue, Mark and Bill were taken in by different families for a few weeks. The funeral was the largest the church had ever held, people were even sitting in the basement. The procession to the cemetery was over a mile long. That fall a sale was held of the farm equipment and most of the tools so they would not be stolen before they could be used again. The farmland was rented out.

Years later Carl summed up the family’s farming experience saying, "We tried many different things on the farm. We had many different types of grain crops. We milked cows by hand for many years; no special breed, just stock cows. My dad did his farming with horses and mules, and even though tractors came to the farms before he died, he never cared to drive one – and never did."

"The biggest change I’ve seen in farming is the machineries. When I started farming it was horses or mules and simple machineries. Now look at what you’ve got to have in order to farm. I don’t think I would tell a boy to go into farming now, not unless he grew up on a farm. There is just too much to learn, too much to invest in. And besides, it’s a risky business. But for me, it was my kind of life."

For three generations the family of Andreas Herrmann in America owned and farmed land as their principal occupation. The farming succession was uncomplicated as each single son followed his father, but this came to an end as the twentieth century closed. None of Lawrence’s children farmed full time. Bill was able to buy part of his parent’s farm, later the four children owned another part of it but the land was largely rented out.

As Duane approached the age of his father when he died, Duane had the opportunity to realize a childhood dream – going to Germany. This came about through the efforts of Irma Kearny, a cousin of his father who had not been in contact with the family for fifty years. A copy of Andrew Herrmann Family in America had been sent to Germany a few years before and the Germans were glad to meet some American relatives.

In September 1993, one hundred and ten years after Andrew Herrmann come to America one of his descendents returned to his hometown, and the house he was born and raised in. Irma Kearny, a niece of Andrew’s, had recently made contact with Marga Schulz, grand daughter of Andrew Herrmann’s sister, and Marga had given her Duane’s address. Irma had found discount flight tickets and wanted someone to go with her. Duane was reluctant to go into debt for the trip, but had wanted to go to Germany for thirty years, so decided to go. Days before the trip Irma’s brother returned home from a camping trip and he joined the group. This was the first return visit of any family member since the "Auslanders" departed the century before.

The day they arrived, Duane was surprised to learn that the book, The Andrew Herrmann Family in America, had been translated and printed as a German edition of the book. When the three Americans were taken to the homes of various German relatives the Germans knew that one of the three was the author of the book, but who? To answer their dilemma they knew that only female names ended in the letter E so "Duane" must be…the elderly lady? They were startled to learn that "du-ahnna" was the young man. All eyes in the room turned to him in surprise and delight – here was the one who gave them their family history. Not only did the book provide information they had never known about the American branches of the family, but also about their own parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles before their own time. Much family information had not survived in Germany.

When Duane brought out the family tree he had made before the trip, their excitement could not be contained. They had heard of family trees, but none had seen one, and the idea that a family tree had been made for their own family – was simply amazing! "Mich!" different ones would exclaim as they found their own name on the tree. "Are these people relatives?!" exclaimed one of the English speaking Germans. He had known many of the Germans only as neighbors in Reckendorf and had no idea they were part of his own family.

The first morning of that first trip to Germany began with a drive to a newly renovated castle a few kilometers inside the old East German border, but Marga had hurt her shoulder and could not drive, so she handed the keys to Duane. He quickly learned the difference between "rechts" and "links" and that many narrow intersections were supplied with mirrors on the outsides walls of buildings so that traffic could be seen from opposite directions.

Different family members were their host for different days and took them different places. One day when no trip was planned, a Baha’i from Australia living in Germany, whom Duane had contacted before the trip, came to the house in the afternoon to act as translator. Many of the stories of the German family members contained in this book are the result of that afternoon. The Germans were so impressed with her friendliness that she and her daughter were invited to stay for supper.

After visiting the home of Andrew Herrmann, an unplanned visit was made to the Burgermeister of Reckendorf who presented the visitors with commemorative plaques. That happened to occur on Carl Herrmann’s birthday.

In 1994 the son and grandson of Barbara Herrmann Ankenbrand (daughter of Pankratz Herrmann), came with Marga Schulz, to America to visit the family in Kansas. They were the first of the family to visit any of the family in America. They stayed with Duane in his apartment in downtown Topeka and spent different days visiting with different relatives.

In October 1997 Joachim Schulz, youngest son of Ferdl and Marga, stopped in Kansas for a few days with a friend while they were driving across the country. They were also dined and entertained.

As 1999 began Duane Herrmann and his two sons, Justin and Trosten visited the family in Germany on their way to Israel and pilgrimage at the Baha’i World Center. It was the first trip away from America for the boys and they were overwhelmed! On the way they spent a week with Marga & Ferdl, on the way back they spent the night with Georg Ankenbrand and his family – his wife had an aunt living in Manhattan, Kansas and she had spent the summer of the great floods with her aunt, and spent time filling sand bags against the flood like everyone else!
One side trip in Germany which Duane and his sons were able to make was to visit the Baha’i House of Worship near Frankfurt. The Baha’i who been the translator on the earlier trip met them in a city near where she worked (they rode a train there), then drove them to the House of Worship. It was a bitterly cold and windy day. That night they had supper with another Baha’i and his family who Duane had met on the earlier trip.

Duane, as the oldest child, had received a major share of housework to do when his aunts, who had helped out a lot, left home. By the age of 14 his work was moved from the kitchen to the fields. In the next two years his allergic reaction to dust became so severe to render him unable to farm. His father’s death and subsequent sale of farm equipment took his future farming out of the question.

While driving the tractor he was inspired to write poems about the natural world around him and his reflections. Some of these were received favorably by his teachers and a few were published in the high school literary journal. For his senior year drama class he wrote a play that the teacher wanted to produce, but he lacked the confidence to agree. The script was not able to be retrieved from the school.

After graduating from Shawnee Heights High School he attended Washburn University until January 1971 when he moved to Hays and attended Ft. Hays State University. While a student at Washburn he entered the Baha’i community. Surprisingly, the Baha’i connection with the family predated this decision by several decades. The connection lies through the Davis family, longtime friends of the Herrmanns. When Dan Davis retired as shop foreman for Santa Fe Railroad, his coworker and successor, Arthur Schulte, was Baha’i. Art had entered the Baha’i community in 1943, following his wife, Cora, by two years. Many decades later, Cora remarked to Duane, to his utter amazement, that she had been informed of his birth because it was office news.

The first members of the family to visit the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois were Lena and Junaita Herrmann. Together they took a Farm Bureau wives tour of Chicago the year the House of Worship was dedicated. Juanita took movie pictures during the trip and included the House of Worship (it was a wet and rainy day). Watching these and other movies became a favorite winter treat of the children. On the film of the House of Worship (right before it) is a scene of a tiny dancer on stage in a circle of light – the children were fascinated by the tiny figure moving.

When Duane transferred to Ft Hays in 1971, he helped build a Baha’i community there. By the time he graduated from Ft Hays in 1974, he had helped form the first local Baha'i Spiritual Assembly of Hays. He also helped form the first Baha’i club on the Ft Hays campus and several times traveled a circuit to visit other Baha’is in extreme northwest Kansas and a few times to the south west, once to officiate at a Baha’i wedding in Garden City. He also visited Baha’is and gave Baha’i books to libraries on many of his trips between Topeka and Hays.

In the fall of 1973 he lived briefly in Garden City, with a cousin of his maternal grandfather, while completing his student teaching requirements and helped the Baha’i community there. The cousin appreciated his company and remarked about it for years.

At the end of his last semester at Ft Hays, in April 1994, he went on pilgrimage to the Baha’i World Center in Haifa, Israel and experienced a tremendous confirmation that he was acceptable to God. Needles to say, it was a profound experience.

On 27 September 1974 he married Susan Marie Roth. Together they had four children: Hilari Ann-Laurince born 21 June 1977, Justin Duane-Janabi on 9 January 1980, Trosten Bijhan-Alaric on 23 March 1987 and Corinne Marie-Parvani on 31 August 1990. The first years of the marriage they lived in Topeka, then they moved to Richland Corners where Duane finished the construction of their home, mostly by himself. A company had erected the shell and provided most of the rest of the materials for finishing the house.

While building the house Duane accidentally learned that he was only six hours from obtaining a degree in history from Ft Hays. Eventually he was able to complete that. He also began to concentrate more on writing.

When living in the country a story was accepted for "child’s way" magazine giving Duane a great sense of relief that his belief in his ability to write was justified. When "Farm Woman News" bought an article a few years later, his faith in himself was confirmed. Through his involvement with the Baha’i community, Duane eventually earned for the family an international reputation. In 1990 he was speaking with a friend who had just returned to the United States after several years abroad. "When I arrived in Guyana," the friend said, "and I said I was from Kansas, one of the Baha’is there replied: ‘Kansas? Do you know Duane Herrmann?’ I was surprised. Later, when I was in Czechoslovakia, and again said I was from Kansas, a Baha’i asked: ‘Kansas? Do you know Duane Herrmann? I read everything he writes.’ How did you do that Duane?" Duane was speechless.

Gradually over the years other pieces of writing were published in various countries: England (a compilation on fasting), India (about 19^th century missionaries in Iran), Australia (historical articles and a short story), New Zealand (historical article), Canada (poetry), the Netherlands (poetry and critique), Germany (family history – in German), Israel (poetry and a report of his history work), Wales (poetry). Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan (both history) may soon be added. His poetry and/or historical papers have been read or presented on his behalf at conferences in Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago. With the centennial of the Kansas Baha’i community in 1897 and his research into that history, Duane became the authority on Kansas Baha’i History – a history second only to Chicago of all Baha’i communities west of Egypt. In 2000, when reading the translation of a book originally published in German five years earlier, he learned that his work had been cited in a footnote. A centennial history of the Topeka Baha’i community is planned for 2006.

Other consequences of Duane’s literary work include a travel grant from Kalimat Press, receiving the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship, a Kansas State Poetry Society prize, an issue of Forum magazine (published in New Zealand) dedicated to him, inclusion in the International Authors and Writers Who’s Who, Who’s Who in US: Writers, Editors and Poets and American Poets of the 1990’s as well as a forthcoming profile in a book by Art Dialogue (in the Netherlands). His poems, short stories and historical pieces have been published so far in ten countries. He has been asked to write stories for a textbook for the US Baha’i National Task Force and assist in preparing the memoirs of the individual who established the national Baha’i community of Kyrgyzstan. Not bad for a dyslexic who couldn’t read and still can’t spell!

Elona Sue also had a major share of the housework while she was a child, but she had less responsibility for the care of Mark and Bill. In addition to work, she played the clarinet for five years and carried it in the high school and Ft Hays State marching bands. After graduating from Shawnee Heights High School she spent a horrendous summer selling Bibles in the hills of Tennessee. When she returned home she attended Ft Hays State for two years. From there she went to Indiana University and then the University of Kansas.

In 1980 she married Dennis Alt and they lived in Lawrence until moving to Corsa Canna, Texas. She left the marriage and Texas and moved to California where she met Dan Benefiel and married him on 3 June 1989 in a simple, relaxed wedding.

She worked for K-Mart in Kansas, Texas and California, transferring from one warehouse to another. In California she moved on to True Value where she worked her way into management. She quit that to go "on the road" with Dan. Both had learned how to drive the big rigs. Dan found this a stimulating relief after twenty years of accounting. A year on the road was enough for Elona Sue. "I want my own shower," she decided and they rented a house near Sacramento while Dan continued to drive.

In California she ventured into several interests that she not been able to explore before, the first of these was photography. She surprised herself to discover she was quite good at it. Another interest was the stage. She began as a stagehand at a community theater and gradually took on small and then more challenging parts. In the next decade and a half she had appeared in eleven productions ranging from such well-known works as "Damn Yankees" and "Inherit the Wind" to original works with titles like: "Mystery of the Dark Castle" and "The Sensuous Senator." Reviews of her performances contain such comments as: "Elona Benefiel does well as the persistent reporter..." (Sacremento Bee), "with her gingham dresses and bobby pin-filled hair, Betty (Elona Benefiel) looks as innocent as the one-lines she drops, ‘I had a pet skunk once, and he used to understand me,’ Betty said while shouting at Charlie so he’d understand her better. ‘In fact, you remind me of him.’" (Woodland, CA, Daily Democrat) and "Benefiel has just the right acerbic touch to her role (as Kate in ‘Sylvia’) to serve as the bad guy in this play, and likely the only one in the house who isn’t fond of Sylvia (the dog) one bit. However she doesn’t cross that line so far that she doesn’t become a one-dimensional villain. Her frustration, hurt and jealousy come through in a sympathetic way." (Winters, CA, Express).

The power of her performances increased to such a level that she was nominated for "lead Actress" of the Gene A Chesley Awards. It was her first nomination. First presented in 1989, these awards, in honor of University of California, at Davis, professor of theater design who had led the fight to save the Woodland, California Opera House from demolition in the 1970’s. She won. Her photograph was in the newspaper with the announcement of the award.

Mark Andrew was named for his great grandfather who died a few months after Mark was born. Mark learned early during his mother’s next pregnancy, that he could do no wrong. He spent much of his time playing with whatever he saw that was around, wherever he wished – along the peak of the barn roof, the top of 40 foot pine trees, etc. It is amazing that he was never seriously injured. In high school he specialized in gymnastics.

His greatest pleasure as a little boy was to ride the tractor with his father in the fields. He would sit entranced for hours riding back and forth and back and forth. Daddy would point out to him exciting things to see, such as a big bird or plane flying in the sky, or a bunny or turtle at the side of the field. Sometimes they would plow up interesting things – like the billfold that had fallen out of Dad’s pocket one year and was plowed up the next! The water from Daddy’s jug tasted better than any other water in the world, no matter that it had sat in the jug for two days and now would be warm and stale: it was Daddy’s water and it was special.

Mark holds two distinctions in his elementary schooling. He was in the first Berryton Kindergarten which was held the summer before he attended first grade. It was conducted on an experimental basis. Parents of preschoolers were invited to enroll their children, but the class size was limited. The experiment was considered a success and Kindergarten became a regular part of Berryton Elementary School. The other he shared with his cousin John Payne. Both were in the last eighth grade class to graduate from Berryton Elementary School. The next year the seventh and eighth grades were moved to the new Shawnee Heights Junior High School.

After graduating from Shawnee Heights High School Mark attended Kansas University briefly before transferring to Kansas State University where he graduated in 1982 with a degree to teach Vocational Agriculture. While at K-State he met Karen Francis Edwards and they were married in 1980 while Mark finished his degree. In 1978 he had entered the Baha’i community and a year later Karen did also. Both served on the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Manhattan and later were founding members of the Spiritual Assembly of Shawnee County.

After graduation from K State Mark became a professional hog farmer with Lone Pine Farms and worked there several years starting a family. Lauren Ashleigh was born on 28 January 1982, Le Anna Nichole on 9 November 1984 and Sarah Elizabeth on 12 June 1987.

Gradually Mark realized that his high school interest of being a chiropractor could not be ignored. He eventually decided the risk of going into debt to go back to school was worth his desire to help people have better lives free of pain. They were able to buy a house in Tecumseh so that Karen could continue to work in Topeka and the children could stay in the same school district, then, in 1991, Mark began a weekday life living and attending class in Kansas City and coming home on weekends. His grades were consistently high and he graduated in 1994. Unfortunately it was harder to begin practice as a doctor of chiropractic than to do the class work. He opened his own clinic in Topeka but did not do well in an out-of-the-way neighborhood then worked for two other chiropractors in Missouri and Kansas. Late in 1999 he found an opportunity in Cincinnati, Ohio and commuted even further (but not as frequently). That first attempt lead to another and another for nearly two years when he decided that empty promises of a viable clinic there would never be fulfilled and he returned to Kansas.

Quite unintentionally Mark’s photograph got on the front page of the Lawrence Journal World one day when he was a little boy. It appeared the day after he had been to the Richland Fair. His father had taken the children to the fair and did not notice that neither clean clothes nor washed faces accompanied them. It happened that the special activity of that afternoon was a Tom Sawyer look-a-like contest. Mark showed up as his normal dirty, ragged self – and won hands down! All the other boys, who had prepared for the contest, wore clean clothes and clean faces.

Mark has the distinction of owning one of the largest private collections of Cracker Jack toys where the owner has eaten all the candy! He loved his Cracker Jacks! He also collects coins. With his father he shares a talent for working with wood. He has worked as a cabinet maker and found a great deal of satisfaction of building useful, beautiful objects.

William Emerson (Bill) was the fourth son and the largest baby of the family at birth: 11 lbs, 12 oz. As the youngest of the family he was exempt from responsibilities, but he was also left out a lot especially when he and Mark were not on good terms with each other which was a great deal of the time.

He held one distinction in the family throughout his childhood and that was a trip to the hospital every other year to be stitched up. One year he stepped on something and cut a vein in his foot and blood gushed out with every step. Another year he and Mark were changing a playhouse that Duane had built causing it to fall apart which resulted in a rock falling on Bill’s head and cut his scalp. Such events continued until he was an adult resulting in him being the one to carry into the third generation (at least) the trait of having one or more mutilated fingers.

At age 13 Bill was confronted with an opportunity not available to many boys that age. He could have walked away from it altogether and no one would have noticed. He took on a task most men would have never accepted and doggedly persevered to a successfully conclusion. It took four years to complete but he had the years available while he grew up. He looked at the car his sister had tried to wrap around a pole and thought, "maybe I can fix it."

He had to remove nearly every part of the car from the firewall forward and began to patiently rebuild the car from scratch. He was in no hurry, he knew it would be years before he would be old enough to drive it even if it was drive-able.

Long, long hours were spent in the shed with that car. Years passed. Reconstructing the car was not easy and time and again he encountered obstacles that appeared insurmountable, but problem after problem was overcome. Bill grew up and the car was complete.

Time came when it was possible to test the car to see if it would run. A few minor details weren’t complete, the car should have started but it wouldn’t. Duane and Bill began to pull it to Topeka where someone more experienced could look at it when they came to a hill where Duane was not comfortable being in front of an uncontrolled car (yes, it had brakes but they were as untested as the driver – Bill). Duane suggested unhooking the car to let it coast down the hill then resume the towing.

While going down the hill Bill decided to pop the clutch and just see if it would start. It did. Both boys were incredulous with joy! It was amazing! Little Billy had accomplished what many adults had considered an impossible fantasy – he had built a car from a junked wreck.

The car died when he attempted to stop it, but another hill got it started again. Bill drove the car a few miles to charge up the battery, with Duane following in case any further problems arose. The car continued to start only if it was already rolling. For several months Bill made sure the car could be rolled down hill from the place he parked it, or a friend was handy to help push.

After one push that lasted nearly half a mile, the idea came to check the starter. It was dead. When it was replaced, the car started fine – and another lesson was learned in automobile restoration.

Another car he restored somewhat later (he bought it in 1987) was a 1940 Pontiac Business Man’s Coupe. Only a limited number of these vehicles were made. They were specially designed for traveling salesmen. It has no back seat. Instead it has storage places for clothes and other supplies (paperwork and samples of the products being sold). This car was not a wreck and was much easier to rebuild. Bill disassembled it, cleaned all the parts and reassembled the car and painted it. In September 2000 he entered it in his first parade (in Harveyville) and he received the second place trophy. The other winner and entry, owned by a local elderly man, as Bill said, "came in next to last."

Bill attended Washburn University one semester after marrying Debra Kay Henderson in 1980. He married her with the cast still on his leg from an accident on his motorcycle that sent him to the hospital for several days. His work career has been spent at Hallmark cards. For many years he continued one of his father’s occupations by doing custom baling.

Bill and Debbie have two children: Chad William born on 29 June 1984 and Heather Paige on 1 September 1987.

In 1999 Bill dismantled the barn to make way for a new house overlooking the pond. They moved in that winter.

The next generation of the family opened after Hilari Herrmann went to Texas and began her family. Justice Ray Delarosa was born in Houston on 24 November 1998. His father is Ramon Delarosa III. Hilari and Ramon were married on 21 August 1999 in Wichita.

Ramon adds a wider diversity to the family tree. He has started preparations to be a professional baseball pitcher. His family is Hispanic, but they did not come to the United States from Mexico. They became citizens of the United States when the Republic of Texas entered the union. As natives they had no voice in this decisions, it was the white people who voted Texas in. They did not come to the U.S., the U.S. came to them.

Ramon’s father, Ramon Jr, was born on Christmas Eve 1947. By age five he was working in the fields driving a tractor for his father. In addition to grain crops they raised cattle, goats, hogs and chickens. During his high school years he worked at a gas station and delivered furniture. After graduating he worked for Orken Pest Control a year then joined the army in 1966 at age 20.

He was sent to basic training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, then to be trained as a Ranger at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and last to Ft. Hood, Texas. He was selected by name to go to Vietnam in 1968. He was shipped out of Oakland, California headed for Bin Hoa airport. Fighting was too heavy to land so they stopped in Honolulu to wait till the fighting ended. When the plane tried again, they only got as far as Guam. Finally the troops were so desperately needed that the troop carrier went in under cover of darkness and landed in the midst of the battle. Under heavy fire, the soldiers were instructed to jump from the plane into the nearest bomb crater for protection. He survived the landing and eventually made it to his assigned base at Cuchi, north of Siagon.

He survived the war to return home and in 1971 married Linda Garza (born 15 July 1946), daughter of Eliseo Garza and Encarnation Rosales, migrant laborers. They had four children, one boy and three girls (one of which died in infancy).

His first occupation after the war was to sell life insurance. He began with American National Life Insurance Co. It was not long before his sales qualified for the Million Dollar Roundtable and held this position for two years. He went to Universal Life to set up a Rio Grande Valley regional office. He was there two months when American National made him a better offer and he took it. His volume of sales soon qualified him for the Presidents Club. Insurance sales consumes all hours of the day and evening and he eventually tired of this schedule, wanting just a 40 hour week and a more normal life. For this, the family moved to Houston.

His first job "up north" was in a machine shop for Schlumber J. Well Services. In a year and a half he had worked his way up to Production Supervisor of the graveyard shift. He worked this four years before moving on to Quality Assurance Manager where he stayed for three years, when he was promoted to Superintendent of Manufacturing.

The family moved back to Harlingen where he works for Keystone, Anderson and Greenwood. He began as a machine operator, then was promoted to programmer, then supervisor, then shop production supervisor. The marriage ended in 1991.

His father, Ramon Delarosa (the first), was a farmer who owned 100 acres near Harlingen, Texas. He was born 21 January 1916 and served as a medic in Germany in WW II. He saw action in Munich and Frankfurt. He died of a heart attack in 1968 while mowing a neighbor’s lawn. He went to rest in the car and was found there.

He married Ignacia Allen who was born on 21 May 1928. She has worked as a "domestic engineer," a restaurant assistant and as a vehicle broker of farm equipment and large trucks. She is the daughter of Francisca Narvaiz and John Allen.

The father of Francisca was Octaviano Narvaiz, a Spaniard from a wealthy family who left Spain and came to northern Mexico. He settled near Sebastian where he eventually owned thousands of acres and a store. He was known as "the richest man around" and tight. In the store he would not let anyone, not even the members of his family who worked there, touch the cash register. He had seven sons and five daughters, one of these, Francisca, married John Allen.

"John" was not his given name but John is the Anglicized version of Juan. His full name was Juan Bisharro Trador Karam. He added the "Allen" sometime after coming to the United States. He was a Lebanese Christian born in Syria. He left home at age twelve and gained passage on the Titanic. Because he was short and so young, he was assigned to the lifeboats with the women and children, otherwise he would have gone down with the ship. He landed in New York, knowing no one and no English. He knew he had cousins in Texas and set his goal to join them. He eventually made his way to St Louis, then to San Antonio. His cousins took him in and set him up as a traveling peddler selling clothes mostly. One of his business stops was the store owned by Octaviano Narvaiz where he met Francisca. They never dreamed that one of their descendents would also be part of a (nearly) German family.

This is the end of this book but it is not the end, nor the last story of the Herrmann family. Once Lena and Carl were telling a grandchild of some of the changes they had lived through. The vast amount of time (nearly the entire twentieth century) they had witnessed and survived impressed them. To find out just how much time had passed Lena asked Carl, "How old are you?"

"About a hundred." he answered.

"Don’t you know what year you were born!?" she was indignant, she never forgot the year she was born (but it’s easy to remember two zeros).

"Nope," was his emphatic answer. "I didn’t write it down." That is the purpose of both this book and the earlier one, to write it down so that more is not lost and forgotten. Unfortunately more could not be included due to lack of time, lack of money and lack of being able to find the family tree (temporarily buried in some pile of papers). The history of the family will never be complete or finished until there is no more of the family – by then who will care?

What will be added to this story in the next decades, generations and centuries is up to each of us who are in the family now. It should be obvious that, just like decisions made by our ancestors that directly influenced our life (such as Andreas Herrmann coming to America), some of the decisions we make will have a similarly direct impact on the lives of our descendents. What we do will directly shape the next chapters of the family story. What will you do?

Sources:

Barbarian Europe, Philip Dixon, E.P.Dutton (Elsevier Publishing Projects), 1976

From Berry Creek to Berryton, Joan M. Hrenchir, Ed., The Berryton Historical Committee, 1986.

Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization, Koppel S. Pinson, The Macmillian Co., 1954.

Elk City Daily News, Elk City, Oklahoma, 28 June & 3 July 1966.

The Recorder, Westmorland, Kansas, 29 July 1909, pp. 1 & 3.

"A Brief Sketch of the Family of Duane L. Herrmann," Duane L. Herrmann, unpublished class paper, 1 December 1972.

"Reading the Sign Posts along the Trail of Our Herr-Mann to Herrmann," Walter R. Mullens, unpublished manuscript, 1985.

"You’re in the Navy Now, You’re Not Behind a Plow," Compiler, Erma Payne, 2000.

letter from Margareta Schramm to Andreas Herrmann, 16 November 1933 (dated by internal evidence).

letter from Eva Herrmann Gales to Andreas Herrmann, 17 August 1935

letter from Irma Kearney to Erma Payne,

public records, Platte County, Columbus, Nebraska.

public records, Aurora County, Plankiton, South Dakota.

diary of Lawrence Carl Herrmann, 1951-1952.

diary of Dena Marie Herrmann Rodell, 1939-1944.

high school essays of Lawrence Herrmann, circa 1941.

sketch of family members, by Lisa Kinnee, undated.