We grew up with the story of our great-great grandmother 'Besorge Ankela': the mysterious disappearance of her husband, how she was left alone 'on the prairies' with three children, and how she then joined the colony at the invitation of her brother. The story would invariably finish with: "And that's why you're in the colony today, children!"
But the telling always left us with more questions than answers, always left us wondering at many things. And, as we made some discoveries about her life and times; the story of a woman called Sarah emerged from the shadows of a not-so-distant past.
Sarah was a child in a Ukrainian village; a teenage girl crossing the ocean to a new life in America; a hopeful young wife; a mother of three; and then a woman alone with her children, living in a time of great social and religious change for her people, the Hutterites. This is her story.
This story begins in the Ukraine, a country in north-eastern Europe, north of the Black Sea. Sarah Stahl was born to Paul and Kathrina Stahl on July 19, 1863. She was their seventh child.
She grew up in a village called Johannesruh, one of 5 Hutterite villages in the Ukraine. Johannesruh was named after Johann Cornies, a Mennonite appointed by the government to oversee the Hutterites. This village, which Cornies designed, was orderly arrayed; with sturdy brick houses on either side of a wide main street. A masonry fence enclosed the front yards of the homes, which were beautiful with flower gardens, ash and fruit trees. The entrance to each yard was a gate with brick pillars.
The doors of the houses opened to the side, and if the doors in every house in the street stood open, you could see clear through to the end of the village. Barns, (often added onto the house) and grain storage were in the back farmyard, looking out over the vast Ukrainian plains known as steppes. Rich black topsoil, up to six feet deep, and the temperate climate made this some of the best farmland in the world. The fertile soil yielded many bushels of wheat to the hardworking villagers.
Each family had its own plot of land, milk cows and other farm animals. They shared some seasonal work such as seeding and harvesting. Every day one person would take all the milk cows to pasture and in the evening the herder would bring them all home again. The cows plodded down the broad street of the village and each cow would turn off at its own yard to be milked. (It was considered a great embarrassment if you overslept and didn't have your cow milked and waiting when the herder came through the village at dawn.)
On Sundays, Sarah and her family joined the other villagers in the meeting house where the minister read the sermons that the Hutterites had brought with them as they fled from country to country. Throughout their journeys through many lands, they had always brought their faith and history with them. Ukraine was now the place where they listened to the sermons their ancestors had written, sang their martyr songs, and sought to live a life pleasing to God; a life worthy of the many sacrifices their ancestors had made in order to keep the faith.
Most Hutterite families at this time lived in private ownership, including Sarah's family. Community of goods in the Ukraine was originally practiced only in Hutterdorf, where both the Dariusleut and Shmiedeleut took their beginnings. Johannesruh was where the Lehreleut lived,and after a brief attempt at community of goods in which they had difficulty convincing their women to participate, they returned to private ownership.
Sarah's father died in 1867, when she was just 4 years old, leaving behind a widow and 6 surviving children. Kathrina Stahl remarried again a few years later, Johannes Wipf, the widower of her sister-in-law Anna. Within a few years, Sarah had two half-siblings, Jacob and Maria.
In 1870, when Sarah was 7, whispers of change filled the peaceful village. The Russian Tsar, Alexander II decreed that nobody would be exempt from military duty anymore. The Hutterites as well as the Mennonites were told to obey the new law or leave.
"Leave our villages?" everybody wondered, "our farms, houses and yards? But where will we go?"
"America, America," was the answer. "In America we can have freedom."
Within 3 years of the decree, two Hutterites, Paul and Lorenz Tschetter went along with a group of Mennonite delegates to investigate the prairie regions of this new land. When they came back with a favorable report, the preparations to move began.
In 1874, the first ship bearing Hutterites left for America. On board the Hammonia were many of Sarah's friends and relatives, as well as her future husband Franz Wollman, who was 14 years old. Darius Walter, who would found Wolf Creek Colony in South Dakota, was also included.
Paul and Zacharias Wollman, ancestors of the Schmiedeleut Wollmans and second cousins of Franz were on board too, as well as Daniel Wollman, who was cousin to Franz’s father and the ancestor of the Ayers/Ponteix Wollmans. The Hammonia can be said to have brought most of the Hutterite Wollmans into the New World.
Back in the Ukraine, all the Hutterite villages were slowly emptying, the families selling their properties and preparing for their great journey over the sea. The journey their ancestors had begun over three centuries ago in the mountains of Tyrol was resumed again, this time to the New World. Only a few Hutterite families chose to stay. Some were too poor to pay for the passage and others had intermarried with the Mennonites.
Sarah's family left Johannesruh in 1879, as part of the last Hutterite group to leave the Ukraine. They travelled by train to the harbour of Bremen, Germany; and there boarded the ship Mosel; joining their fellow Hutterites on the exodus to America. On board were many of Sarah's relatives, including her mother's brother Michael Hofer, known as 'Rutschild' and who lived to be 103 years old.
Two days after Sarah's 16th birthday, the ship arrived in New York harbour. As they entered the bustling city teeming with immigrant of all different creeds and tongues, their new life in the 'melting pot' of America had begun. They surely must have wondered whether they would be able to keep their faith, their culture and their identity in this strange new world.
The Hutterites travelled by train to Yankton, Dakota Territory and from there to Freeman by oxcart. Although the main reasons for leaving Russia had been because of the government’s edicts, some Hutterite leaders also felt that the Mennonite influence was too strong. They looked upon this migration as a chance to get away from what they felt was a harmful influence to the Hutterite people. However, on arrival in the Dakotas, they found they had little choice but to settle on places where Mennonites would be their nearest neighbours.
The majority of Hutterites had lived non-communally in the Ukraine, and about the same percentage did so in America. For those who wished to live communally, three colonies had been established. Darius Walter and his followers at Wolf Creek, Michael Waldner and his followers at Bon Homme, and Jacob Wipf founded a third colony, Elm Spring. These became known as the Dariusleut, the Shmiedeleut and the Lehreleut, respectively. Two thirds of the Hutterites chose to homestead and live in private ownership. They became known as the Prairieleut.
Most of Sarah's immediate family did not choose communal living. Only her brother Johannes eventually joined Wolf Creek Colony, bringing with him two 160-acre parcels of land. Sarah's mother and step-father took a homestead near the James River. This was about two miles from the Wolf Creek Colony, and two miles from where Tschetter Colony would later be built. Her sister Kathrina, who had married Paul C. Gross in the Ukraine, homesteaded 3 miles north of the Wolf Creek Colony.
In the first years, the settlers faced many difficulties. Instead of the well-cultivated Ukrainian soil, the virgin prairie sod of South Dakota had to be ploughed up and developed. Stone picking was a constant chore. Ukraine had been quite temperate, with mild winters. South Dakota winters were harsh, and given to sudden snowstorms. The deadly tornados and fierce lightning storms that came with the heat of summer were frightening for the settlers. Grasshoppers sometimes damaged the crops, and snakes hiding in the long prairie grasses were a dangerous threat.
Also, the Hutterites had never lived on individual farms before. Even those who had not lived communally in the Ukraine had been part of the villages which consisted of close knit families. In America, the Hutterites who chose to live in private ownership now lived on scattered homesteads.
The new immigrants worked long and hard to make a home for themselves in this new land. They built their houses, sod at first, on the treeless plains, even as they thought longingly of their brick houses, fruit trees, and fertile fields which they had left in the Ukraine. The non-communal Hutterites met in homes to worship and had much fellowship with the colonies since they shared the same unique beliefs, background and sermons. Almost everybody had sisters, brothers, parents or children who had chosen to live on either side of the communal/non-communal divide.
Sunday afternoons were for visiting. The settlers often visited their relatives in the colonies on these afternoons, travelling in ox-drawn carts. Sarah too had close familial ties to the communities. Darius Walter, the founder of Wolf Creek, was her cousin; and her uncle Benjamin Stahl had 5 children who joined Wolf Creek Colony. Her stepfather had 3 brothers at Elm Spring, including the founder Jacob Wipf.
Sarah was baptized into the Neu Hutterthaler Church on March 21, 1880 by Rev. Paul Tschetter. This Paul was one of the two Hutterite delegates that had been sent to the New World.
Franz Wollman's family also homesteaded. Franz was a dashing young man. He loved making his team of horses prance as he drove his buggy down the main street of Freeman, causing the young ladies to look at the handsome driver. One young lady especially caught his eye, Sarah Stahl.
And so it happened that Sarah eventually married Franz in approximately 1882. They had 3 children. Kathrina was born in 1883, Jacob was born in 1884 and Frank, who was born in 1886.
The future of this family was forever to be affected by a decision made by Franz when his youngest son was just 8 months old. Franz had a rich uncle in Russia, Andreas Wallmann, part owner of an implement factory known as Lepp and Wallmann. Andreas' second marriage had been to a Mennonite girl, Kathrina Lepp, and he had chosen to stay behind when the Hutterites moved to America. However, he had helped finance their journey. Now years later, he notified his kin in America that he had money that was available to them if they needed it. So it was that Franz Wollman decided to make the journey to borrow money. He bid his family good bye and set off for Russia to his uncle.
From Russia, Franz wrote letters home to his wife, telling of how he longed to come home and be with her and the children again. He especially longed to see his 'little Franzela.' Sarah kept these letters for many years afterwards, a granddaughter who read them remembers them as being 'real love letters.'
The last known letter was posted from Vienna, Austria, in July 1887, where he told his wife that he was ill. This was the last Sarah ever heard from her husband. Later, a trunk containing a large Russian fur coat and some money were forwarded to Sarah by a hotel in New York, but she received no further letter from him.
A ship list records that Franz Wollman departed from Bremen, Germany on the ship Trave and arrived in New York on August 19, 1887. Investigations by his uncle Andreas showed that Franz returned to New York with the money and purchased a train ticket to Freeman. From there his trail vanished into thin air. Soon the Hutterite communities and the surrounding area swirled with rumours of the young man who vanished without a trace.
Some said: "He must've bragged about the money he got, and the wrong people heard him."
Others declared: "Always proud, that one. I knew something like that would happen."
And some speculated: "Maybe it was that gold watch chain he always wore around his neck. Could be he let that hang out and somebody saw it!"
There were other rumours, but none of them were ever proven to be true.
Sarah, 23 years old and left alone with 3 children, returned to her parent's home where she lived for the next 6 years. In all this time she never gave up hope that someday her husband would return home. A family picture taken at this time shows Sarah sitting with the youngest child in her lap and her other two by her side, solemn-faced and young. She looks at the camera with a quiet resignation and yet an air of strength.
Two years after their son's disappearance, Franz's parents and siblings left for Canada. His brother Joseph settled near Nipawin, Saskatchewan with his wife Susie Janzen and family.
Sarah stayed with her parents but she was worried about her children who were growing and needed schooling, but the school was too far away. She waited to hear news of her husband and wondered what to do next.
Of her and Franz's siblings, only her brother Johannes had joined the community. The Wollmans had a reputation for being a proud people. Later it was said of Franz Wollman: 'He would never have joined a colony.' This family of Wollmans also had no close relatives in the communities.
One night Sarah had a dream. She was walking through a dark forest, leading her children by the hand. Darkness was all around her but in the distance she saw a light. Hastening toward it, she found it led her out of the wood and to Wolf Creek Colony.
The next morning she told her mother about the dream and asked what it could mean. Her mother replied, "Dear daughter, it means the light for you and your children is at Wolf Creek Colony. Go and join them. Your brother has asked you often enough."
Her mind made up, she moved to the community with her children.
At this time, the colony people and the Prairieleut were still both referring to themselves as Hutterites. Their ministers exchanged sermons with one another and there was considerable movement back and forth with some people leaving for the prairies and others joining the colonies. Therefore Sarah did not have to be re-baptized when she joined Wolf Creek Colony, but was accepted with her confession of faith and the laying on hands. Her first baptism, by a non-communitarian Hutterite minister, was considered valid.
In time, as their population grew, the Dariusleut established more colonies in South Dakota. Besides farming, they had flour mills and herds of cows and sheep, as well as flocks of geese and ducks. Carpentry, shoemaking, blacksmithing, and bookbinding were trades practiced by Hutterite men.
From their bountiful garden the women filled the root cellars with potatoes. They dried the peas and corn to eat in the winter months. Sometimes they shared their garden produce with their Prairieleut relatives.
Sarah liked community life but she often felt lonely and cried when she thought of her missing husband. In her great need, she prayed to God and asked for a sign that she might know if he was alive or dead. That night, she felt a cold hand being pressed to her forehead, and she took it as a sign that he was dead.
She received marriage proposals but the Elders told her: "No, you cannot marry because we do not know if your husband is living or not."
Her mother and step-father died within a year of each other, around 1900. They were buried near their homestead on the banks of the James River. Their son Jacob (Knox) Wipf and his family lived in the wooden, two story house built by his parents. The house had been built into a hillside on the homestead. Like his father before him, he too farmed the land.
In 1906, Sarah wrote a letter to her husband's cousin Elisabeth Martens in Russia, who had asked for news of his family. The letter was published in the Mennonitische Rundschau, a Mennonite periodical. She writes of her decision to join the colony, where 'each Sunday and evening church service could bring me comfort', and where her children could have schooling. Almost 20 years have gone by since her husband disappeared, and still she hopes for some news of him. Her heavy heart is apparent, but she writes that the dear Saviour has helped her carry the burden.
The onset of the First World War in 1914 brought many problems for the Hutterites. Their English neighbours looked suspiciously on these German-speaking settlers, and were not pleased that they refused to fight or to support the war in any way. Some residents of the Yankton area stole 100 cattle and 1000 sheep from the Jamesville Colony where Sarah was now living and sold them in order to donate the proceeds to the war effort.
The United States Government did not grant the Hutterites or the Prairieleut conscientious objector status, and in 1917 some of their young men were drafted. In addition to scores of Hutterite men kept at Fort Riley, Kansas; four Hutterite men were sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Alcatraz in California. Here they were badly mistreated and eventually moved to Fort Leavenworth, KS where they arrived sick and near death. Eventually two of these young men, Joseph and Michael Hofer, died as a result of the brutal treatment they received.
Once again, the Hutterites were faced with the question: Should they leave behind their homes and farms in order to be able to do what they believed was right? The answer was the same as before: Yes.
As a result, the Dariusleut leaders went to search for suitable farmland in Canada. The Canadian government had promised them exemption from military service, the right to hold their land in common, as well as other privileges.
Sarah's son-in-law Jacob Wurz, who was the minister at Jamesville Colony, also went looking for land in Alberta along with other Hutterite leaders. They purchased land near Rockyford, northeast of Calgary. In the fall of 1918, the Jamesville Colony sold their land in South Dakota and moved to their new land in Canada. The financial cost of this move to the Hutterites was huge. They had to sell their land for much less than it was worth.
Sarah, along with her children Kathrina and Frank as well as their families were among the Hutterites who made the long train ride to their new home. From South Dakota they travelled to Minneapolis, Minnesota and from there up to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Leaving Winnipeg, they crossed the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and arrived in Calgary, Alberta. Their journey across the prairie took them through the young city of Saskatoon. In later years, some of her descendants would settle near here. But what must she have felt as she left behind yet another home to travel to a new country?
Their new home in Alberta, called Springvale Colony, had wide open cropland with rich soil; well suited for farming. The Rosebud creek ran past the colony, alongside which grew clusters of wild poplar, willows, saskatoon and chokecherry trees. Sarah lived with her daughter Kathrina and her family. She faithfully performed her colony duties and helped out wherever she could.
Meanwhile, back in the Ukraine, the Revolution of 1918 was taking a terrible toll on the Mennonites and the few Hutterites that had remained behind. The communities of Johannesruh and Hutterthal were attacked, and many people ended up losing their lives. Others lost all of their property, and were homeless and hungry. Andreas Wollman, the millionaire heir to the Lepp and Wollman factory, lost the family fortune and factory to the Revolutionists. His family faced terrible persecution because of their wealth. His son Paul Wallman ended up immigrating to Canada and settled down in St. Catherines, Ontario. Through this Andreas Wollman (or Wallmann) the Wollman name was brought among the Mennonites.
Although some Prairieleut had immigrated to Canada, a large number stayed behind in the Dakotas, including most of Sarah's siblings. As the elders had feared, without the boundary of communal life, the Mennonite influence proved to be too strong for the independent Prairieleut churches. After the death of their elder Paul Tschetter in 1919, they stopped reading the ancestral sermons, and dropped the German language. Much of the religious and cultural distinctiveness was lost; and all Prairieleut churches eventually joined the Mennonite Conferences.
On the Alberta prairies, the Hutterites worked hard to establish their new colonies. Sarah became known as 'Besorge Ankela' for the way she cared for others. Springvale, which was also known as Jamesville after the old place in South Dakota, was rather poor in the early years. Their brethren at Rosebud had received a better price for their land back in South Dakota, and were much more prosperous. The people from Jamesville sometimes made trips to Rosebud for shoes and other materials. Despite calling the Jamesville Bethlehamiter since they always had to give them supplies, the Kutter (Rosebud) people were very generous and helped out. Some of these trips to Kutter were made by Besorge Ankela, who would then make sure everybody at Jamesville received a fair share.
Her grandchildren remember her as their 'refuge'. One granddaughter recalls when she ripped her apron she would get her kind-hearted Grandma to fix it so that she wouldn't get into trouble at home. Sarah also taught some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren Russian phrases: Dobroy Utro (good morning) Ya Tebya Luybluy (I love you) and how to count to ten in Russian: odin, dva, tre, choture...; patiently repeating until they got it right. The Hutterites of Sarah's generation spoke very little English, mostly German and Russian.
When the mothers at Springvale returned to their home colonies to visit their parents, Sarah would help out in their homes while they were gone. She would take the piles of mending to do and gave a hand with the laundry. Sometimes she travelled to different colonies such as Pincher and Stahlville to help her granddaughters with their growing families.
In 1936, it was time for Sarah to move again. The Springvale Colony branched to Sandhills Colony, located 15 miles to the west along the same Rosebud Creek, near the town of Beiseker. Trees and clumps of sagebrush dotted the sand hills after which the colony was named, but the farmland was fertile and level. In the summer, wild strawberries grew in a sandy pasture south-west of the colony, along with crocus and tiger lilies. The ladies planted hollyhocks, poppies and bachelor buttons in the front yards of the homes and saved the seeds to sow the following year.
Coal-burning stoves warmed the houses. The men brought the coal home from the mines at Drumheller, and each family had a shack in front of their house to store it. A Booker coal stove with a hot plate stood in the living room, on top of which there was always a kettle of hot water, and sometimes a pot of coffee. Much of the water used in the homes was either rainwater or melted snow, depending on the season. Water could also be carried home from the communal kitchen. Smaller stoves stood in the bedrooms, which needed only a bit of coal.
During the day, the front room of their house was often filled with children in their wagons, Sarah and her daughter Kathrina would babysit when their mothers had work to do. When her granddaughter Rebecca Wurz married Chris Gross in August 1942, Sarah went to live with her son Frank and his family to make room for the married couple. There she spent her last years.
She was well taken care of and never had to be alone. A grandson's wife braided her hair on Saturdays, and her great-grandsons refilled the coal bucket for her stove. In the evenings she would sometimes go visit her grandchildren and their families, and her great-granddaughters would carefully walk her home again at night.
In the winter of 1950, Sarah was 86 years old. She had lived to see all of her siblings except Johannes, and many of her relatives, friends and neighbours from the Hutterite villages of Ukraine move far away from their roots. She had lived widowed and yet not widowed for 63 years, left alone at the age of 23 with 3 children. She had lived to see her children's children, yes, even to the third generation.
One day that winter, her family sensed the end was near. They sat by her bedside; her daughter, sons, grandchildren, even a great-grand daughter. They watched as Sarah folded and lifted her hands, as if in prayer.
"She wants us to pray," someone whispered. They all knelt on the floor in prayer. When they arose, they saw Sarah had died. Her earthly pilgrimage was ended. A life of devotion and love, of partings and sorrow, it was now over. The girl from the Ukraine died at the age of 86, surrounded by her family. God had not forsaken the forsaken.
Many relatives and friends from various colonies came to the funeral, but no Prairieleut. Most of her siblings had already died, and the rift between the Hutterites and their relatives who had chosen to live non-communally was almost complete. Despite their shared ancestry and history, the Hutterite church from the Ukraine had divided itself upon coming to America and the two paths had led in opposite directions.
The burial took place on a bitterly cold winter's day; the women hung the backs of the vehicles with bed sheets in an attempt to keep warm on the way to the Friedhof. The journey begun many years ago and half a world away in the village of Johannesruh now came to an end as Sarah was laid to rest in the frozen Alberta earth. The crowd gathered and watched as the coffin was lowered, and the minister recited a final prayer.
Sarah Wollman left behind many descendants. Today, most of these live in Hutterite colonies.
Kathrina, her daughter, married Jacob Wurz, who later became a minister. They had 14 children, 11 of whom survived. Their descendants can be found in many colonies, including Birch Meadows, Craigmyle, Codesa, Eagle Creek, Huxley, Morinville, Mountain View, Riverbend, Sandhills, Stahl HB, Stanfield, Viking and Warburg.
Her eldest son, Jacob, married Elizabeth Walter, daughter of Jacob Walter and his third wife Maria Kleinsasser Wurz. They had 9 children together. He moved along with his wife's family, eventually ending up at Pincher Creek Colony in Alberta. Many of his descendants now live in Washington colonies. After the death of his wife in 1941, he married again, Maria Walter, daughter of Rev. Elias Walter at Standoff, with whom he had 1 son.
Her youngest son, Frank, married Sarah Walter. She died in the Spanish influenza of 1918, leaving behind 5 children. Frank remarried again, 22 year old Sarah Tschetter from Standoff, and together they had 9 more children. Frank's descendants now live at Blue Sky, Cluny, Hairy Hill, Hillcrest, Hillview, Leask and Lost River, among other colonies.
With inter-marriage and colony splits, Franz and Sarah Wollman have descendants in over half of Darius Hutterite colonies today.
The legacy she leaves behind for her many descendants is one of courage in the face of hardships, a heart that gave unselfishly of itself to help others, and an unwavering faith and trust in the Lord.
This story is the product of many contributors. Many thanks to all who helped.
P Debbie Stahl and Melissa Wollman
