|
Gottlieb and Christena Knodel and seven children started the trip on November 20, 1906 to America. I am Eva Knodel Schaal. We came from Josephdorf, South Russia. My sister Mary was 16 years old, Edward, 13 Gottleib, 10; David, 8; Eva 6; Benjamin 4; and Gustave, 2. We went by train to Bremen, Germany, and spent a week there for physical examinations, shots and so on. Then we were loaded, on a freighter ship; that's how poor people traveled. It took us 16 days and nights to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It was a tiresome trip when you don't see nothing but water and sky. Gottlieb and David got scarlet fever and were real sick. We never saw them for days. The rest of us never got it. Dad took us kids on deck on nice days and the sharks swam along the ship to grab anything that was thrown overboard. Sometimes the sea was really rough and the waves splashed against the port hole or windows. Mother prayed aloud that the Lord be merciful if it's His will to bring us to shore safe. Finally one clear day word spread all over the ship, "We can see the Statue of Liberty". Soon we landed in New York. Another physical for health's sake. Mother was expecting her eighth child and got sick there and was put in the hospital. Our Uncle John and Dora Knodel and their children were on this trip with us so we went on by train to Burlington, Colorado. We left Mother and Dad behind to have the baby. When we came to Burlington, Dad's cousin, Peter Knodel was there to meet us in the wagon. That night nearly everything was moved out of the kitchen to make beds on the floor for us fourteen visitors with our feather ticks which we brought with us. I want to say this: we called this cousin Uncle Peter and his wife Aunt Christena and they were worthy of being called that. Who would do such a good deed for so many people at once today? Dad and Mother came a week later with baby Andrew but he died. A month later we moved in an old house belonging to a family named Martin Stahlecker, total strangers but really good Christian people. Uncle John's moved into a granary at Uncle Peters until our soddy, one room, was built on our homestead. We were terribly poor and that hospital bill took everything Dad had. Here we were a family of nine and nothing to go on. But the good people which were poor too, shared. They brought food to keep us until we moved in our soddy and dad went to work for a big rancher to help support the rest of us. The worst of all happened after a couple of weeks that we left Uncle Peter; their six children got scarlet fever and three died inside of a week. The other three got well; they were Ted, Lydia, and Emil. The school was closed and no one else got sick. But since we're all older we realize with a grief and heartache that must have been on Uncle Peter and Aunt Christena. No one will every know. The first years were awful, drought, no rain but gradually things picked up. Oh how homesick the folks used to be for Russia. They left a paradise, everything grew there because of the rich soil and plentiful rainfall, fruit of all kinds and grapes, the very best. But never enough to own a home because each farmer had a few acres, just enough to make a living. Our parents have been gone for years. Mother died in December, 1935, at the age of 66 from sugar diabetes. Dad died in 1940 at the age of 71 from cancer of the bowels. Mary died at the age of 44 due to heart trouble in 1941. Brother Gus died due to cancer of the lungs in 1967 at the age of 62. Sister Lydia died due to hardening of the liver in 1954 at the age of 46. Brother David died on March 6, 1982 at the age of 83. Brother Ed died on February 22, 1983 at the age of 88. Sister, Eva Schaal, lives in Loveland, Colorado with her husband Bill. |