Bolshevik Booze

 

Mike Reuber Jr. is shown above with his trademark pipe, sitting on the steps at the big house on Third Street in Medicine Hat, Alberta. This is the kindly grandfather my mother recalled, the one who looked after his rooming tenants with care, tending to them when they were sick by providing a little nip of alcohol “for medicinal purposes”.

The descendants of Michael Reuber Jr. and Amelia Fuchs owe our lives in Canada to 50 quarts of liquor and a quantity of mash.

Mike Jr. was born 147 years ago on St. Patrick’s Day, 1876 and whether he was lucky in life, or not, depends on your perspective. The Reuber family came from Samara Province near the Volga River in Russia and settled in Russell County, Kansas in the spring of 1907. The family included Mike Sr., his wife Anna Elizabeth Meuller and four children - including Mike Jr., his wife Amelia Fuchs and nine-month-old baby Pauline. It can easily be assumed that they came to North America with the proverbial “nothing”. And so, from nothing, the extended Reuber family built a life in Kansas as farmers and watched their three generations grow and thrive. 

Some of the Mike Jr. and Amelia Reuber kids in Kansas: (l-r) Pauline, Lizzie, Alex, August and Marie.

Prohibition Primer

The state of Kansas had been "dry" since 1881, forty years before national prohibition, limiting the legal manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor to “medicinal, scientific and mechanical purposes”. The challenge of enforcing the laws in those early years was a difficult matter. Liquor still flowed into the state on the rail and was openly dispensed at saloons for those who enjoyed imbibing. Via a legal loophole, physicians provided prescriptions for a host of ailments to which the cure required liquor dispensed by druggists “for medicinal purposes”. In 1917, the state passed the “Bone Dry Bill'' to further prohibit alcohol by also making the possession of it illegal, seeking to stem the flow from the borders. Meanwhile, a swirl of historical conditions — including the growing intolerance of social problems associated with liquor consumption, the temperance movement and World War I — were sweeping across the rest of the nation. By 1920 the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution meant alcohol was prohibited across the whole U.S. It seems that a rise in homemade alcohol and bootlegging followed the legal drought.

Hootch Factory Headlines

While researching the history of the Reubers in Canada, one of the hardest family lines for me to verify information about, my dad mentioned to me that I wouldn’t find a border crossing record for Mike Jr. There was a bit of talk about “rum running” that generated a chuckle or two, but I didn’t think too much more about it. It was March 17, 2021, St. Patrick’s Day and the anniversary of Mike Jr.’s birthday, that I came across an interesting headline from 100 years prior in the Kansas newspaper archives. “Authorities Grab a Hootch Factory - Ellsworth Co. Booze Hounds Got Supply from Russell County Gin Mill.” I scanned the page and, sure enough, Mike Reuber Jr. was featured as making “Bolshevik Booze” during a raid on his farm four miles from Russell, Kansas. The last paragraph had me laughing out loud, as “Reuber’s wife was in bed when the authorities arrived, feigning sickness. It was discovered that she was merely concealing the whisky and a part of the “plant” in the bed-clothes.”

Reading the century-old news article in the context of the year 2021, this story was no more than amusing evidence of a juicy tidbit of family gossip and a personal connection to a part of U.S. history. The idea of prohibition of alcohol seems quaint to think about today and the lengths to which Mike and Amelia went to conceal their lawbreaking was comical to me. I searched on in the newspaper archives, eager to add to the colourful story for my next blog post.

What I read next in the headlines laid out the arrest and aftermath in more detail, and filled in gaps of knowledge I didn’t even know I had about how and why the Reuber line that I am a part of came to Canada when the rest of their family remained in the U.S.

The Russell Record is one of several local Kansas papers that featured news about the Reuber case.

Here are some of the headlines:

• Child a Victim of Booze - Man Hauling Liquor Seriously Injures Kannapolis Youngster 

“...it was learned he [one of Mike Jr.’s customers] had got considerable liquor from an illicit still a few miles northeast of Russell…” (Salina Evening Journal Mar 30, 1921)

• Charged with Making Liquor

“...Mike was arrested and later released on bond…” (Russell Informer Mar 31, 1921)

Farmer Leaves Chickens Before Trial on Liquor Charge - Sheriff Sells ‘Em

“...Mike Reuber, Russell county farmer, who was arrested several weeks ago on a liquor charge, is now missing and probably penniless.” (Topeka Daily Capital May 1, 1921)

Public Sale - His Place Went at Auction

• “...His cattle, horses, growing wheat, implements and household furniture were sold by the sheriff…Wheat growing in the field sold at $3.60 an acre. Cattle and horses sold well though not as high as a few months ago. Several hundred persons were present.” (Salina Evening Journal Apr 29, 192)

Big Battle for the Property 

• “...nearly a dozen claimants of different kinds of liens as well as executions carried on the trial for two days.” (The Salina Evening Journal Jun 13, 1921)

This large advertisement for the Reuber property sale appeared in the Russell Informer April 21, 1921; the family rented “the Robert Kaps place 3 miles east and 1-2 north of Russell”.

By this point my original enthusiasm for relaying the juicy story had waned. The steady progression of facts demonstrated the economic, social and personal impact of the still and homemade whisky operation that Mike Jr. and Amelia had been operating. I began to feel a great sadness for them for losing the life they had built from nothing.

Mike Jr. was charged with three counts of sales, possession and nuisance under prohibitory law (Amelia seems to have avoided charges). I don’t know what the penalty would have been for him, if he had remained to face them. Mike Jr. was far from the only individual to have been charged with such violations of prohibitory law and there are many examples in the news clippings from the time. A Kansas man was given a fine of $100 and costs and sentenced to six months in jail in 1921 for possessing a still — a penalty cited as the maximum for that infraction. That the sheriff had already sold Mike Jr.’s possessions — and that several lawsuits were pending as liens against the sale when the community realized that Mike had left the area — tells me that the family was in financial ruin from this dark episode, even before any sentencing could begin.

Mike Jr.’s siblings and parents remained behind in Kansas and appear to have gone forward unscathed by the association. And, as my dad predicted, I found no records documenting the family’s crossing into Canada.

They surface in recorded history in 1922 near Coaldale where, over several years, they rented land and continued to farm and run a custom threshing business. Few in the family knew about the troubles in Kansas and mostly certainly nobody talked about it. The Canadian relatives maintained links with the U.S. branches of the Reuber clan and the younger members, including my mother, visited. 

And so, from nothing, the Mike Jr. and Amelia Reuber family had rebuilt their lives again — this time in Canada. They were immigrants and, like most, risk takers and survivors. Stay tuned to read more about the next chapters of their lives and those of the generations that came after.

Read more about the Reubers:

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

The Michel Jr. and Amelia Fuchs Reuber Family

Read more about prohibition in Kansas:

Kansas and Its Prohibition Enforcement

Liquor Wars and the Law  - Decisions of the Kansas Supreme Court, 1861 to 1920

Prohibition - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society

The Michel Jr. and Amelia Fuchs Reuber Family

 

The following was written by my mother and included in a family history scrapbook I prepared for her and dad in the early 2000s. This was the sum of the information known about the Michel Jr. and Amelia Reuber family at the time. Since then I have been searching for more and have found some that mom would have been interested to know. I’ll add that in future posts, so stay tuned.

By Esther Reuber Schlachter

Michel M. Reuber Jr. Born March 17, 1876 in Samara, Russia. Died March 1, 1956.

Amelia Fuchs Reuber. Born November 11, 1883 in Samara, Russia. Died January 19, 1953.

In the following story of my grandparents, Michel and Amelia Reuber, I’ve pieced together memories from conversations with them, my parents (Henry and Liz),  my aunts Pauline and Marie, and uncle August. Had I known that a history of their lives would someday be written, I’d have asked more questions. It seemed that when they left Russia and came to North America, they didn’t talk much about the past but preferred to concentrate on everyday life and their future here.

One day, when I asked dad why the Reuber family came to North America, he said that his Grandma Reuber didn’t want her sons to have to go into the Russian army. Since Catherine the Great’s promises to the Germans that they would not be conscripted were no longer being honoured, the Reuber boys would definitely be called into armed service if they remained in Russia. Ironically, one of their sons ended up serving in the U.S. army during WWI.

The Reubers, German-speaking immigrants from Russia, migrated to the U.S. with their extended family in 1907. The family members were: Michel Reuber Sr. aged 62; his wife Elizabeth aged 56; son Michel Jr., his wife Amelia and their daughter Pauline aged 9 months; another son Jacob; daughter Pauline; and two younger sons Alexander and August. They boarded a ship named “Professor Woermann” on March 15, 1907 and arrived in Galveston, Texas on April 10, 1907. (Mom would have been very interested to learn the rest of the immigration story as described in this blog post.)

Moving to a foreign country and not knowing the English language must have been very traumatic for them, to say the least. Aunt Marie quoted Grandpa (Michel Jr.)  as saying, “I can speak six languages and can’t go to the store and buy a dozen eggs.” In the ensuing years, they adjusted to their new home in a new land, teaching themselves to read and write English, as well as to speak it. There were no adult education classes to help them in those days.

While in Galveston, Grandpa worked for a German storekeeper as an interpreter. He was offered this job on a more permanent basis, however the lure of independent farming took the family to Russell, Kansas. Over the next 14 years, Michel and Amelia’s family increased to include, along with Pauline: Henry (my Dad), Marie, Elizabeth, Alex and August. 

The Reuber children in Kansas, l-r: Pauline, Elizabeth, Alexander, August, Marie (Henry is not pictured).

They farmed near Russell until 1921 when Michel, Amelia, their six children, along with Michel’s brother Jacob, migrated to Canada. Jacob mysteriously vanished after leaving home on his horse one day and was never seen again.

Upon their arrival in Canada in 1921, Michel and Amelia farmed in the Lethbridge area for several years. As well as farming, Grandpa did custom harvesting in partnership with Conrad Weiler from Nobleford. Dad (Henry) operated the threshing machine while sisters Marie and Lizzie (Elizabeth) cooked for the threshing crew. While on the harvest circuit, the sisters lived on-site in what was known as the “cook car” that looked something like a boxcar on wheels. Marie and Lizzie slept in the cook car on a cot that folded up against the wall during the day to make room for the eight- or nine-man crew at mealtime. They were fed four or five times a day: an early breakfast, midmorning lunch, noon dinner, afternoon lunch and supper. They cooked the meals on a coal and wood stove. Water was stored in a barrel beside the cook car and filled as they moved from farm to farm. Grandpa Michel and Mr. Weiler did the sales and public relations work and kept the machinery (and the harvest help) running smoothly. Alex and August generally looked after the livestock at home and readied the land for the following spring’s planting. Although August remembers that he, too, sometimes went along and had a job to do in the threshing days. His job was to keep the Rumley [tractor] fuelled with kerosene.

The Reuber threshing outfit may have looked like this one, with a Rumley steam engine pulling a threshing machine and cook car, Cass County, N.D., 1920s. (Photo credit North Dakota State Library, Digital Horizons.)

Grandpa Michel “wore many hats” to make a living in his lifetime. In Russia, he worked as the foreman of a large crew of laborers on a farm. Perhaps that led to his dream of owning a farm in America. He told me that he taught school for two years in Russia. I suppose that anyone with a high school education qualified as a teacher in those days; the curriculum was fairly straightforward (three Rs). He was trained as a steam engineer and earned a certificate in that field. Grandpa Michel’s father Michel Sr. was also well-educated for the day and, at one point, was magistrate (J.P.) of the town in which they lived.

Grandma Amelia’s parents had a large farm in the Samara area of Russia (Sarondonski Gubernia). Her parents remained in Russia until their deaths. One sister came to the U.S. but, because there was little opportunity for travel, their only communication was by mail after Grandma came to Canada.

In 1948, I travelled with my grandparents and the rest of my family to visit their former home in Russell, Kansas. I remember driving past the attractive little farmhouse where Dad spent the first 12 years of his life. It was built of fieldstone and wood. The fields surrounding the house were fenced using stone fence posts, hewn from local sandstone. These were very resourceful farmers who used the materials at hand.

The Alexander Reuber farm site near Russell, Kansas, pictured above, features a fence with stone posts. (Photo credit Richard Krug, grand-nephew of Alexander Reuber.)

I’m told that Grandma was an excellent gardener even on a dryland farm. I know from personal experience that she was an excellent cook. I can still taste her apple and blueberry kuchen and her apple strudel. Wonderful stuff! She was also good at making a house a home and had the opportunity to do so on the many occasions that the family moved from place to place. I can remember a vase of dried oats, the seedpods of which she painstakingly covered with silver gum wrapper paper.

In 1929, the family moved to the Frank Ream farm (later called the Halpin Stock Farm) south of Bow Island. A couple of years later they moved to the Morley Bowen Place, which was the site of the original Maleb Post Office and General Store. One of Haig School’s teachers, Viola Lange from the Burdett district, boarded at their house.

Amelia Reuber stands on the west side of their Morley Bowen Farm home,
19.5 miles south of Bow Island.

The Reuber children grew up, married and had families of their own; several lived in the Bow Island area for many years. Pauline married John Hyrcuik and raised four children: Bertha, Mike, Ruth and Helen. Henry married Elizabeth Schmidt and they had two children: Esther (me) and Herman. Marie married Marcello Valentini and raised three children: Lucille, Malvin and Ernest. After Marcello died, Marie married Alvin Alexander whom she met as a young girl in the Lethbridge area. Elizabeth (Lizzie) married Fred Wutzke and raised two children: Lillian and Alvin. Alex served in the Armed Forces during WWII and later married Jessie Stratton. They had three children: Dawn, Heather and James. August (Gus) married Violet Woelf and they had three sons: Glen, Richard and Donald. August lived in Oregon in his later years.

Back row l-r: Marie, August, Alex and Elizabeth.

Front row l-r: Henry, Michel Jr., Amelia (Fuchs) and Pauline.

Eventually, Grandpa and Grandma moved to a ranch near Vale, Alberta leaving Henry to take over the Bowen Farm. In 1946 they retired to Medicine Hat and bought a house at the top of Third Street hill.

Amelia Reuber at the back of the house on Third Street in Medicine Hat.

Michel Reuber, 1955. A typical pose with his pipe.

Grandpa Mike was not completely retired, donning yet another “hat”. He looked after the steam heating system for Medicine Hat Green Houses for many years. As part of their large house was converted into rental suites, he and Grandma had the house and tenants to look after as well. After Grandma and Grandpa died, the house was sold to Mr. Dederer. Subsequently, the house was torn down and an apartment complex was built on the site and is still there. Whenever I pass it on the way to downtown Medicine Hat, I think of them. Driving out of Medicine Hat heading west past Hillside Cemetery, two white marble grave markers engraved with their portraits are clearly visible; the final earthly resting place of Michel and Amelia Reuber.

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.

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...