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My
Grandma Bair's Great Story
When
I was around 15 years old (1986), I asked my Grandma (Lillian Mehrer
Bair) where her family came from. I knew they were not born in America. I
had always assumed they were German because Grandma spoke some German
and there was family talk about a trip to Germany.
What
I got in response to my question was that they were born in Romania. I
was shocked. I had images of starving kids living in Romania. I had seen
it on the news. I was thinking I couldn't have relatives that came from
such a place. Germany had such a different stigma in my mind. I could be
proud of being descendant from Germans but not Romanians.
Grandma's
parents are Gottlib Mehrer and Mary Ann Klain. Grandma told me that her
mother Mary Ann had been promised to marry one of Gottlib's brothers.
When they made it to Turtle Lake, North Dakota, she ended up marrying
Gottlib. I don't think Grandma had a reason for this change. Maybe that
Mary Ann didn't get along with the other man. And I am not sure of the
two brother's of Gottlib, to which one Grandma was referring.
She
also told me about the escape that Gottlib had to make to get on the
boat to come to America. The Jacob Mehrer family and the Ludwig Karl
Klain family were going to America on a boat. Well, Gottlib had been
drafted by the Army, but he wasn't planning on joining. So when it was
time for the boat to leave, he got on board and hid in a pile of rope.
The guards came on board the ship looking for him. Fortunately, they
didn't find him.
What
I can add to the story today.
Gottlib
Mehrer and Mary Ann Klain were born in Romania as grandma had told me.
What I didn't know was where my great grandparents were born. Gottlib's
father Jacob was born in Romania and his mother Katherine Roth was born
in Russia. Mary Ann's father Ludwig was born in Germany and her mother
Jacobina Bohnet was born in Russia. All of them reported their
"race of people" as German on the Cambroman ship
manifest. I find it interesting that they were not calling themselves
Russian.
From the little bit of family tree I have, I can see that the
Bohnet family came out of Prussia or Germany. They all probably
descended from Germans. And the Mehrer family previous to Jacob Mehrer
came from Württemberg (which became part of Germany in 1959). They just didn't stay in Germany.
I believe the war going on at the time caused them to move to the safer
land in Romania. There was a very large German population in Mamusle,
Romania.
In
a narrative that Rose Klain Sellon (my great grandmother Mary Ann Klain
Mehrer's sister) wrote in 1977, she states that her grandfather Bohnet
(Jacob Bohnet) was General in the French Army and they were a well-to-do
family. But they lost most of their wealth due to fleeing from one
country to another. She states that while in the Black Forest in Germany
they had no water and her mother would spread linens on the grass
overnight and squeeze the dew out for water.
Five
members of the Mehrer family and twelve members of the Klain family came
to America on the ship Cambroman. That ship left Antwerp, Belgium 9
November 1907 and arrived at Ellis Island, New York 24 November 1907.
Their destination was North Dakota.
My 3great
grandmother Christine Ann Klukes Bohnet (Jacobina Bohnet Klain's mother)
was already in North Dakota. She had come to America with three of her children
on 20 Mar 1902 on the ship Moltke.
Also my 3great grandmother Maria
Unknown Klain (Ludwig Klain's mother) was already in North Dakota. She had come to America
26 Apr 1906 on the ship Grosser Kurfurst. She was traveling with two
grandchildren Maria and Johann Klain whose parents had died of illness
in Romania. Also on the ship with her was her daughter Augusta Mehrer
and her family. She was married to John Mehrer who is the brother of
Jacob Mehrer (Gottlib Mehrer's father).
I
don't remember Grandma telling me anything about them coming to America
via Belgium. I have always imaged a wild chase scene where Gottlib is
being pursued by Russian military men. I just never thought about where
that ship was that Gottlib was hiding on and who exactly was after him.
I do know from an oral history that Mary Ann Klain Mehrer made in 1973
that there was war going on in the area at the time and all the young
men had to join the military. She says that all these families found out
that in America the men didn't have to join the military. So all these
people left for America.
Read
more about the immigration of the Mehrer
and Klain families to America.
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