The Schmidts of Hartfeld, Galicia

Here are my great grandmother Elizabeth Eberwein Schmidt and great grandfather Wilhelm Schmidt standing in front of their house on Bridge Street in Medicine Hat. This little house has been pointed out to me many times while growing up. It is easily recognizable by the distinctive white clapboard and location adjacent to an automobile repair shop.

So, when I was touring family history sites with my Dad this summer, imagine our surprise when we could not find the house. We navigated by urban rockpile, of course, not thinking about the name of the street but not concerned at all that we would not be able to easily reach our destination. "I just saw it last year," I say, remembering the drive past the house after a family trip to the Medalta site. After driving up and down the street several times without success, we were left scratching our heads (as dad would say). Where the heck did it go?

Then we realized it was there - but now clad in beige stucco! I guess it's considered an upgrade?

Four generations in Hartfeld, Galicia

The scant family history I had written down about the Schmidts indicated that Wilhelm was born in "Limbruck, Poland". But when Wilhelm immigrated to Canada with Elizabeth and their eight daughters, he listed his place of birth as Hartfeld. Schmidt is such a common name, I honestly didn't think I would get anywhere with searching for this family history.  

But, thanks to researcher Manfred Daum (again!), I believe Wilhelm's birth may have been registered in Lemberg, aka Lviv, the capital city in a territory known as Galicia (part of which is present-day Ukraine). This would be consistent with Daum's research that places Wilhelm and the previous four generations of our Schmidt family in the nearby German Protestant colony of Hartfeld, Galicia. 

Johan Schmidt and Barbara Huber

Wilhelm's parents were Johann Schmidt and Barbara Huber. I have an amazing original photo of these two. The back of it reads, "1928", the year Wilhelm left for Canada.

Johann was born in 1852 and Barbara in 1859, both in Hartfeld. They married and lived in house number 114 there. 

Four children were born between 1879 and 1885. Shockingly, in the span of 10 days in August, 1886 three of the four children were dead. The cause of death is listed as "Braune" which translates literally to "tan" or "brown". It means diphtheria, a bacterial infection that spreads much the same way that COVID-19 does today. Diphtheria was once one of the major causes of death of children but, yay for vaccines, immunization has virtually eliminated the disease in countries like Canada that began to immunize for this in the 1930s.

Wilhelm was born the year after this, in 1887. At least three siblings were born after that, including Johann (John) who came to Manyberries, Alberta and married Wilhelm's sister-in-law Maria Eberwein.

Other Schmidt family in Canada?

While I don't believe that Johann and Barbara emigrated to Canada, at least one of Johan's brothers (Adam, his wife Christina Klee and their baby Wilhelm) appears to have come in 1892 and settled in Winnipeg. I had not heard anything before about this branch of the family.

I also have seen a photo of someone my mom labelled as "Leopold Schmidt", supposedly a brother to our Wilhelm. Leopold is said to have lived in Germany and so he may have been part of resettlement from Russia after World War II.

Back up the line of Schmidts in Hartfeld is Johann's father Jakob (b. 1823) and his mother Helena Magadalena Vetter (b. 1826); and,  Jakob Sr. (b. 1791-ish) and his wife Maria Margaretha Katharina Johanna Anna Rollauer (b. 1791-ish). Jakob Sr. wins the prize for longevity, dying of "old age" at about 86 years! Wow!  His wife Maria wins the prize for most given names... Maybe she was royalty, ha, ha.

Schmidts in Czech Republic

The furthest back the Daum research from Hartfeld goes is Jakob Sr.'s parents, Kaspar Schmidt (b. 1753-ish) and Elisabetha Margaretha Schwenk (b. 1753-ish).  Kaspar was born in the Bohemian area of Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic (known as Frauenberg in German) and moved to Hartfeld by 1791. Kaspar's birth place is the site of the famous 11-tower Hluboká nad Vltavou Chateau, whose history dates from the 13th century.

And so, I will leave this high-level tour of the Schmidt family for now. I have more information, many more questions, and much more work ahead of me!

Further Reading:

Diphtheria immunization in Canada

Lemberg/Lviv

German Protestant colony of Hartfeld, Galicia

Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic

Hluboká nad Vltavou Chateau

Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma! - Catherine Anne Schile

Holidays are traditional times for families to gather and see one another. My dad explains that as he and his siblings grew up, married and had families of their own, getting together for all the holidays got tricky with travel and in-laws pulling people in different directions. So, each year for at least a couple of decades, grandma Catherine (Schile) hosted Thanksgiving as her time to see all of us together. 

Since this weekend is Thanksgiving, this blog post is for you, Grandma! 

Catherine Anne (Schile) Schlachter

Catherine Schile was the fifth child of nine, born April 22, 1913 to Andrew and Elizabeth (Roth) Schile. She was born on the family homestead north of Foremost. I grew up on a farm south of Bow Island not that far from Foremost but, amazingly, I did not know that Grandma's house was standing there all that time. In fact, it's still there, and this year I went to see it.

Andreas and Elizabeth Schile Homestead NW-18-7-11-W4

I was able to spend a few days with my Dad this past summer, to focus specifically on family history, and we took a full day to drive around in the country. We visited lots of places that are very familiar to me, because it is "home". But then he showed me the house that his mother was born and grew up in. I took this picture from the road, but I wanted to get closer. It was a super hot day on the prairie and, though I was wearing my high rubber boots to guard against rattlesnakes, both Dad and I thought that it would be unwise to walk that far through the rustling wheat. So I will come back another day to get a better feel for the place. I'm still gob smacked that I didn't know this house was there.

Remainder School SE-6-7-11-W4

Catherine attended Remainder School, so-named because it was the last school district in the area to be organized. It was, literally, the remainder. There is Grandma, third from the left, in the second row. Her older brother Paul is sitting in the front row, second from the right. The photo caption indicates it was 1922 and so Catherine would have been eight or nine years old when this was taken. She completed grade eight and, at age 15, her school days were done.

St. Joseph's Cemetery

Directly east of the homestead is St. Joseph's Cemetery. There used to be a church there but that is long gone. The cemetery itself is in the middle of a field because the road allowance is now farmed over with lentils. Fortunately, the day Dad and I visited, the lentils had been harvested low and so we were able to drive closer to the cemetery without risk of starting a fire from the hot car. The cemetery itself was surrounded by tall wheat. I mentioned the rubber boots and the rattle snakes, right? In this case, I was determined to get into that cemetery so I grabbed Dad's cane and swished it ahead of me as I walked, trying very hard to believe that all the rattles I heard were only the ripe wheat.  I made it to the short prairie grass and then, at least, I felt I would have a chance to hear any snake's advance warning.

In this cemetery is the grave of Elizabeth (Roth) Schile, Catherine's mother, who died in 1931 at age 50.

Iron grave markers are common among Germans from Russia and can be found in the Dakotas, as well as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Each maker, usually a local blacksmith, had their own style and level of expertise. Some of these markers are elaborate and some of them are quite simple.

Marriage

Catherine married our Grandpa, Joseph Schlachter, February 9, 1932 in the church of St. Anthony at Granlea. Our family has a long history with this church, and I will be writing an upcoming blog post just about St. Anthony's.

Catherine and Joseph farmed two quarters of land at Granlea and raised seven children there. An infant son, Joseph, is buried at St. Anthony's cemetery.

Catherine and Joseph semi-retired to Bow Island in 1966, the year I was born. So I only remember them living there. Grandma would always welcome me to her round kitchen table with a cold glass of apple juice and the Serenity Prayer looming down from the wall. She was an avid reader and a homebody. I can still taste her apple pie, the crust so flaky. Grandpa would be tinkering with something in the garage or sitting in his easy chair listening to honky tonk piano with headphones on (he was deaf but, if the volume was up way-loud, he could hear the beat). When I slept overnight there in the living room, they would wrap the family clock in a blanket to dull the ticking.

Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa's

The Schlachter families gathered en masse once a year, for Thanksgiving, at that little house in Bow Island. 

This tradition carried on as the extended family grew larger and the house, mysteriously, still seemed to hold everyone. Part of the reason why it held everyone is that all of us kids, the cousins, were outside playing "kick the can" and drinking the case of multi-flavoured Pic-a-Pop that Grandpa bought for us each year. Later on, we'd go down in the basement and listen to the older cousins tell ghost stories or hover around the uncles while they played "smear". The women, of course, were in the kitchen. Every cousin has their own version of what went on at Thanksgiving and I have very fond memories of those times together at Grandpa and Grandma's.

Grandpa passed away in 1984 and Grandma moved to Medicine Hat, living there until her passing in 2010 at 97 years of age.

Family history and photos are collected from various sources, including:

• Jackie Doran scanned collection
• Shortgrass Country - A History of Foremost and Nemiskam
• Ancestry.ca homestead records

Elizabeth Eberwein (Schmidt) was our original Spa Lady

Truskavets, Ukraine, has been known for therapeutic water since the late 1500s and has been an official spa resort since the early 1800s. People still come there for the spas and Google search indicates it is one of the "7 Best Wellness Spots in Ukraine", and very good value :)

This is where the baptism of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein (Schmidt|) was recorded in 1893. In another blog post with a Google Earth map of the Eberwein journey from Germany to Canada, I was not sure if the family had actually lived in Truskavets (Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Galizien, Austria).

But now I am more sure that they lived there, as the family migrated from the German village of Neu Kupnowitz, Galizien, to the German village of Vranovac, Bosnia.

For those tracing family history, finding actual documents to verify information is ideal. I was given the clues to find the baptism record of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein. 

Call me a history nerd, but it was quite a thrill to find see her name written in script on a document.

The headings are written in Latin, so there are clues to figure out what they say, and there are lots of online translator apps. The rest of the document was a bit harder to read, as the written script was not so easy to decipher, and I wanted experts to help. I turned to a Facebook volunteer genealogy translation group for assistance and literally overnight I had the confirmation I was looking for! What a generous community of people online.

Below is the translation and transcription from 09/26/2020 by Carla Ratcliff and Valerie Baginski (Facebook Genealogical Translations group).

Greek Catholic Church records (births, marriages, deaths) for Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Galizien, Austria; later Truskawiec (Drohobycz), Lwów, Poland; now Truskavet︠s︡′, Drohobych, L′viv, Ukraine.

(Note that the baptism is recorded in a Greek Catholic Church, but her religion was Evangelical. Perhaps the Greek Catholic was the only game in town, at the time.)

GreekRecord #593
Year	1893
Month and Day born	26 December 1892
Month and Day baptized	1 January 1893, Evangelical
House Number	#7
Name	Elisabetha
Religion	Evangelical
Illegitimate/legitimate	Legitimate
Confirmation	-
Number of House	7
Name of the Father and Mother	Father: Mathaeus Eberwein, son of Joannes Eberwein and Catharina nee Bisantz Mother: Catharina daughter of Georgius Beszttof? and Maria nee Huget
Condition of the Father and Mother (usually what occupation they had)	Father’s Occupation: peasant _____? In Truskawiec
Name and Condition of the Godparents	Godparents: Ludovicus Issel, blacksmith in Truskawiec, and Theresia Laska, wife of Joannes, resident in Truskawiec

Further reading:

Historical background of Truskavets, with photos 

7 Best Wellness Spots in Ukraine

Elisabetha Eberwein birth and baptism record in FamilySearch

Google Earth: Eberwein Emigration from Germany to Canada

This project traces my grandmother's maternal ancestors, the Eberwein family, from Germany in the 1600s to Canada in 1928.

Google Earth is a pretty cool way to see the world. You can view the whole globe from space or zoom in and feel like you are walking in a forest or down a street.

This is my first Google Earth project and it is a little rough, but it was fun to do and I hope it gives you an overview of one part of our family's emigration journey over time. In time, I hope to add more detail and historical/geographical accuracy. It is a work in progress!

Click to go to the Google Earth Project

Below are a few tips on using Google Earth - note that it can take some time to load:

1. The presentation is like a slide show and you click the right arrow to move to the next part of the presentation.

2. Click the minus sign to zoom out and the plus sign to zoom in.

3. Change the view by clicking on the little person or 3D.

4. Scroll down to read more of the story that goes with the location.

Finding Vranovac, birthplace of Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber

It is Mother's Day 2020 when I write this post, and fitting that I have been able to put together another piece of my mother's family history puzzle. 

My grandmother, Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber pictured above at age 14, was born in "Vranovac, Yugoslavia" in 1914. This location name appears on the ship passenger list and in obituaries of Elizabeth and her sisters, but is elusive on any map I had seen. This is a place that I now have discovered no longer exists as a settlement, but that I have found on a map at last. 

Oral History

Along the way to this discovery I have been guided by clues in oral history. My grandmother always said it was "near Sarajevo"; a Google maps search near Sarajevo shows a mountain named Vranovac; our neighbour Joe Benolich used to say he and Grandma were born in the same country, as Italian borders shifted over time; I find a Vranova in Croatia and a Vranovac in Serbia that are strong contenders.

Germans from Russia

My mother's ancestors were Germans from Russia, so-called Volga Germans that emigrated from Germany to settle around the Volga river. These groups arrived in Russia prior to other groups, like my father's German ancestors that settled near closer to the Black Sea. There is a lot of information about these groups of people and I feel that I have already the basics in hand, learning by osmosis from my father and others over the years. And so I search the internet and find endless lists of German colonies in Russia, spelling variations, census documents, plat maps and photos - but no colonies in the former Yugoslavia and only the most basic clues that a German colony spelled "Vranovac" may have even existed. 

The Search

I dive in to Ancestry.com and pore over FamilySearch online, continually distracted by clues for this topic and others, rabbit holes too numerous and deep to allow a determined focus. I am quickly realizing that there is so much more to learn. 

I purchase memberships to two of the many Germans from Russia historical societies to gain access to their vast holdings. I attend local meetings run with German precision and witness a tense and passionate "bun fight" over the number of book shelves allotted to the society's library by a rival group. I read snippets of history and try to follow the complicated changes in borders as countries won or lost in conflict. I join Facebook groups and search for keywords, monitor posts and learn from others. I am too afraid to post my questions in the groups, as these people are serious genealogists and historians that don't appear to tolerate dabblers. 

And then I see the Daum lists. "The Germany Minority in Former Galicia 1750-1940" includes mention of the colony of Vranovac, and I find my way to sending German researcher Manfred Daum an email to order a custom package of information for the Eberwein surname. Eberwein is my great grandmother Elizabeth Eberwein Schmidt's maiden name. His response and the PDF arrive almost immediately. So many Eberweins were born or lived in a place called Vranovac!  

But, still, where is Vranovac?

A Breakthrough

My big breakthrough comes in the form of another stranger, a man in Germany. Uwe has a large Eberwein family tree online with names and dates going back to the 1600s. One branch of the tree shows promise and includes names that match my ancestors on other family trees I have seen. The tree ends abruptly with the name of my great grandmother, Elizabeth Eberwein...  She is the matriarch pictured above looking particularly weary, with her youngest child on her lap. The German family tree shows Elizabeth's birth information but nothing else. The rest of the tree is rich with information, documenting Eberweins back into the 1600s. I am thinking that Uwe knows what she is doing in genealogy and send him an email.

It is months before I receive a reply, and I smile at Uwe's guarded yet direct German phrasing in English, grateful that he has taken the time to respond to a stranger's offer of further information about the Canadian family of Elizabeth Eberwein. He does not seem particularly interested in receiving my information in return but, over the course of several more weeks, Uwe provides me with tantalizing bits to help me, three or four sentences at a time. It is as if he is testing my level of commitment and worthiness to receive the information.

Uwe reveals that he has been to Vranovac in the 1980s in his own search for the Eberwein ancestral village! It is a real place, although no longer a settlement with people in it. He tells me that he saw only a forgotten cemetery with just a few neglected gravestones and he does not send me any photos. Eventually, he provides me with an old map and I see the dot on it that makes everything else fall into place for me. And then she gives me directions for finding the present-day area on Google Earth.

Vranovac

Vranovac was a government-sponsored German colony established in 1895 in a heavily forested area. There were 20 founding families, among them three Eberwein families that include my great grandmother's. My grandmother, Elizabeth Schmidt Reuber was born there.  

Vranovac was situated between Johova and Tukljucani, by the Una river in present-day Bosnia. The location is nearly on the country's northern border with Croatia and is actually quite far from Sarajevo, although I can see why my grandmother would use that large city's reference as a close-enough landmark for us to visualize. 

The administrative centre for Vranovac was, and still is, Banja Luka where the Eberwein-Schmidt family obtained their passport in 1928. The photo of the family above is, in fact, their passport photo and you can see the outlines of two official stamps on each of the bottom corners.

Below is part of the old map, provided to me by Uwe from Germany. The dot of Vranovac is highlighted in yellow:

Below is a 2011 map, from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, showing the area where Vranovac was located, highlighted in yellow:

Next Up on the Blog... Google Earth

My next post in this family history blog will feature my Google Earth project showing more detail about the landscape around Vranovac. The Google Earth project link will show other areas as well, tracing the Eberwein family emigration over generations: from Germany in the 1600s to Russia by the late 1700s, Yugoslavia/Bosnia by the early 1900s and Canada by 1928.

When all is not what it seems - the Reubers emigrate to N. America

"Who wants to know all that shit?"

This line sums up many of our ancestor's thoughts on the past and moving on from hard times. Anyone who was lucky enough to know Grandpa Reuber (Henry) will smile when they learn this line is attributed to him. I can just hear him saying it.

Finding information about our family history is difficult. Relatives may never have spoken about the "old days" or were reluctant to do so. As young people, we're busy with the here and now and it's a big reach to consider people from 50 or a hundred years ago. Others who may have been interested didn't begin asking about it until the older folks (and any records in their belongings) were long gone.

Over the centuries, our families moved from one location to another, sometimes because of wars or economic difficulty. There are few actual documents in circulation and no paper trail that is easily accessed, leaving guesswork and puzzles to solve. And necessary assumptions. Like when you find a record that documents the family and all the names and dates seem to match - but then learn that all is not as it seems.

When all is not what it seems - the Reubers emigrate to N. America

Esther Reuber Schlachter (my mom) passed down information that the Reuber family emigrated from Russia, to the German port of Bremen and on to North America via the ship S.S. Professor Woermann in 1907. Final destination: Russell, Kansas. The voyage was about 25 days long.

I thought I had a solid start here. My online records search pulled up this list but also included some other sailing lists that showed Reubers, with a couple of the same first names, emigrating in a similar time period. Where did these people fit? Other branches of the family?

A ship's passenger list for emigration to North America is one of the first, and easiest, documents to find for our ancestors. There is usually a lot of information about the passengers, including their ages, where they were born, where their final destination will be, even physical characteristics. These passenger lists are often copied in typewritten formats to allow electronic searches and make it easier to read.

The typewritten passenger list for the S.S. Professor Woermann contained the information that Esther had. After getting access to the original handwritten copies of the passenger lists, however, here is what I figured out:

#1: April 10, 1907 - S.S. Professor Woermann (Bremen, Germany - Galveston, US)

The Reuber family travel from the German colony of Hussenbach, Russia and arrive at the port of Galveston. The following family members are on the passenger list:

• Michel and Elizabeth Reuber (Esther's great grandparents) and their children:
• Son - Michel Jr. (24), his wife Amalie (22) (Esther's grandparents) and 9 month old baby Pauline (Esther's aunt)
• Son - Alexander (15)
• Son - Jacob (26)
• Son - August (12)
• Daughter - Pauline (20).

But... you will see there is a stamp in the row beside Alexander (15 yo) and August (12 yo) that says, "DEBARRED" and a handwritten note further over in a medical column reads, "Dr. Cert. Trachoma". Trachoma is an eye infection that was not uncommon to get on the ships, with crowded and often unsanitary conditions. It turns out that these two boys were turned away at Galveston because they had red under their eyelids. And they were sent back to Bremen, Germany! Amazing that they would send two minors alone back across the ocean. Perhaps there were others going back as well, maybe from the same village or newfound ship friends, and they offered to escort them? We don't know.

#2: June 13, 1907 - S.S. Breslau (Bremen, Germany - NY - Baltimore, US)

The Reuber boys are listed to depart to the US again. Listed are:

• Alexander (now listed as 18 - needed to be legal age to travel alone?)
• August (13)

But again, there is a note beside their names: "...full" (overbooked?)

#3: June 21, 1907 - S.S. Frankfurt (Bremen, Germany - NY - Baltimore, US)

The Reuber boys try again. Listed are:

• Alexander (18)
• August (13)

Yep, another note beside their names: "Not on board". No explanation.

#4: July 18, 1907 - S.S. Rhein (Bremen, Germany - NY - Baltimore, US)

Listed are:

• Alexander (18)
• August (13)

Looks like the fourth time is the charm! Although, really, I don't have any documentation to confirm this was the final ship for them. However, later records in the US for Alexander and August indicate they arrived in the US in 1907 so hopefully this was it.

Name Game

As an aside, it seems every generation of the Reuber family AND every branch of the tree, used the same first names. So many Alexanders and Augusts.... it makes my head hurt trying to keep who-is-who straight in my mind. The Reubers were not alone in this. Wait till you see the endless Katerinas, Elizabeths, Johanns and Antons in the other family lists...

New Schlachter family history blog

I'm starting a family history blog for anyone in the family who is interested. Schlachter-Schile, Reuber-Schmidt.

I have been interested in family history and geneology here and there over the years but, to be honest, it was so vague and confusing. My current interest started late last year with talk about joining Lorne on a work trip to Vienna. Would be just a few days at a conference there, then a week or so to travel a bit. Maybe to Croatia, we thought. Wasn't that where grandma Reuber was born?

This could be my opportunity to visit the homeland of my ancestors. Wouldn't that be cool? Let me just quickly Google the town where grandma was born to confirm the location and plan our route... "Vranovaczs, Yugoslavia".

No results from Google. Nothing.

And so, I started to try to find out more.

I didn't think I would get to this type of research until I was a retired senior with time on my hands. But the carrot of a once-in-a-lifetime trip got me going (even when that trip fell through). Family history is interesting to me because I enjoy the world history I am learning along the way, as much as the personal connection to it.

I'm not sure who in the family is as interested as I am, so I am inviting those who are to subscribe to this blog. Feel free to come and go, my feelings will not be hurt. I am writing the blog for myself as much as anyone else.