by

ERIN RENEE DEIS

 

    This excerpt from my children’s story “Maria: A German-Russian Girl’s Journey to America” is the tale of my Grandmother’s journey from Kukkus, Russia to Fresno, California, 1921-23.

 

Although Kukkus was a village in Russia, Maria never had much to do with the Russian people. Her daddy died in the Russian army and Papa (her stepfather) spoke a little Russian, but Maria ate German food, spoke only the German language, and associated only with the German people in Kukkus. The one exception was a nice, old Russian woman who would come around during these hard times with a basket of eggs for the starving German children to eat. Maria and her friends nicknamed her “The Egg Lady”. They always looked forward to her visits because it meant they would not go to bed with empty stomachs.

    

The October before Maria turned eight, Mama and Papa decided that the family would move to a far away place called America. Mama’s Uncle George and Papa’s friend Mister Anton lived there. And they made it sound like a good place to live—unlike Russia, America did not have mean leaders, and no one there was star    ving. In fact, Uncle George made it sound as though the Americans were giving away huge amounts of money and acres and acres of land to whomever wanted it…and it seemed as if there were more money and more land than there were people to take it.

 

Living in America, Maria thought, would be like the time before Mama met Papa, when she lived with Grandma and Grandpa Felsing. She imagined herself and Cousin Ana dancing around in fancy American dresses, forced to eat second and third helpings, even when they were full. And instead of normal eggs, the American Egg Lady would come around giving children eggs made of gold!

 

The only place they could catch the train to start the journey was Saratov, a big, modern Russian city on the other side of the river. Maria’s family would need to take a tugboat to get there. That meant they would have to leave quickly if they were to cross the river before it froze over for the winter.

 

As they were leaving Kukkus, Grandma Felsing came to see them off with warm berrocks she had baked for the family to take on their journey. Grandma could not make the trek to America with them because she was much too old and the trip ahead would be too difficult for her. Grandma hugged and kissed her little Maria goodbye, knowing they would never see each other on Earth again. Maria started to cry—she loved her red-haired grandma so much, and she could not understand why she was not going with them on their journey. Grandma quickly wiped the tear, which had fallen from her own eye, as she held Maria in her arms and rocked her as she had when she was a baby. She whispered to Maria that it was okay, that everything would be all right, as she sang her lyrical lullabye, “Ahhhh-ha, ahhhh-ha.” And though it was difficult, Maria believed her.

 

The family boarded a tugboat with their old friends the Lungs, Maria’s aunt’s family—the Weigandts, and Cousin Ana and her family. Each traveler carried with them a backpack filled with clothes, a pillow and a quilt. But Mama had one extra package, she had to carry baby Johnny too. Once they crossed to the other side of the river, the women set up camp while the children played and the men went into the city.

 

Saratov was not at all like the simple German village they had come from—it was very sophisticated with electric lights and big streetcars. The men were very familiar with Saratov. They had been there many times before to drink and gamble at the bars, and to watch stage plays with characters they called “doll dancers”. Over the years the German women, who did not speak Russian, waited at home while their husbands ventured into Saratov, just as they did on this night. The men had learned enough Russian to get by okay in the city, well, at least enough of the language to get by in the bars. This night was the last the men would ever spend in Saratov, for the next day, they would begin their journey to America. They stayed in the bars belting out drinking songs and gulping beers into the early morning.

 

The men had throbbing headaches when their wives yelled at them to wake a few hours later—Cousin Ana was missing. She had been playing with the other children the night before, but no one could remember when they had seen her last. Everyone feared for the worst, especially Maria, who was afraid that bad Russian men had taken her cousin away. The men in their group ran through the city of Saratov and into the surrounding land to look for her, but Ana was nowhere to be found. As they heard a whistle in the distance, the men knew they must hurry if they were to reach the train station in time.

 

Maria began to cry, insisting they must not leave until Ana was found. Uncle Henry kissed Mama on the cheek as he squeezed little Maria’s hand. He knelt down, looked her in the eye, and promised Maria he would find their Ana, but Maria was not so sure she believed him. Uncle Henry stood on the platform, watching as the train and his family disappeared into the distance.

 

Inside the train, Maria’s sobs were muffled by the sounds of the rattling old boxcar they rode in. Mama handed the baby to Katie and held Maria in her arms. It made Maria cry even harder—in just two days she had lost both her best friend Ana and her special Grandma Felsing. Mama kissed Maria on her forehead, put her arms around her and whispered gently in her ear, over and over, “Ahhhh-ha, ahhhh-ha.” Maria never saw Ana or Uncle Henry ever again. In fact, they never again heard from anyone in Kukkus.

 

As Maria’s family could not afford to buy passenger train tickets, they were forced to travel in boxcars all the way across Russia during a bitterly cold and snowy winter. The family would sit on their backpacks in these freezing cars for many hours at a time. When the trains finally stopped to refuel, everyone would run as fast as they could to get out of the box to use the restroom and to get some water to drink. While waiting for their next train, Mama, Maria, Katie and the little boys would stretch out their quilts on the floors of the train stations and try to get some much-needed sleep. Papa and the other men would search the forest for wood, which they would use in the boxcar heaters to keep warm.

 

There was not much food available to eat during this long journey, and many fellow passengers died from the cold and starvation. Many years later, Maria could still remember the names of the families she traveled with across Russia that winter – the Heidsenleiders, the Lungs, the Ohlbergs. She even remembered a little boy in the Leiman family who sat too close to the heater in the boxcar, trying to get warm. He fell into the fire and died. These were very hard times for Maria and her family and those they traveled with. While riding in one of the many Russian boxcars in which the family traveled, baby Johnny died in his sleep. And by the time they had arrived in a country called Poland, little Peter had died too.

 

Poland was especially cold that winter, and when the train stopped there, Maria’s family and their traveling companions were invited to stay in old army barracks for the night. The barracks were run by nuns and an organization called The Red Cross. The nuns separated the adults and children into two groups, sending young Maria and Katie to a heated building where they could stay extra warm for the night. Maria did not want to leave Mama and was scared to be apart from her, but Mama promised she would come for Maria. Maria and Katie shared a cot in the warm building, and their bellies were warmed, by eating the hot soup the nuns had prepared for them. Even though Maria missed Mama, she was so exhausted, she did not have much trouble drifting off to sleep.

 

Mama missed Maria too, and that night she sneaked away from the cold barracks where she and Papa were staying and came looking for the two girls, to make sure they were safe. But she had trouble finding them—Katie had gotten so skinny during their travels that Mama did not recognize her—she thought she looked like a skeleton. Maria rolled over and opened her eyes just wide enough to see Mama’s face as she kissed her good night. With a full tummy and a warm bed, Maria smiled as Mama held her, and she drifted back to sleep to the soothing sounds of Mama’s “Ahhhh-ha, ahhhh-ha.” She slept better that night than she had in the whole time since they had left Kukkus.

 

As Maria’s family was preparing to leave Poland for Germany, they were surprised with a special gift. The nice people from The Red Cross bought the family tickets for the passenger cars, which meant they would each have their very own seat…no more standing and freezing in boxcars! Six months after leaving Kukkus, Maria’s family finally arrived in Germany. By this time, the snow had melted away, and it had become a beautiful, green spring.

 

The family lived in Germany for a year and a half in a city called Frankfurt. They had to stay there until their sponsors in America, Uncle George and Mister Anton, could get the family’s passports and papers in order. Papa, meanwhile, had to work to earn enough money to buy their boat tickets to America. While Papa was at work, Maria and Katie went to a German school and learned how to speak “proper” German. Their teachers told them they needed to learn the language of educated Germans—not the “low German” which was spoken on the Volga River…

 

While in Frankfurt on September 1, Mama gave birth to a baby boy who Maria named Jacob after her father. They nicknamed him Jack…and two weeks after he was born, the family took the train to a port in Germany called Hamburg. It was in Hamburg that they would board the boat, which would carry them to America. As they rode in the train from Frankfurt, via Berlin, Maria and Katie sat by the open window watching Germany fly by. They pointed at the scenery and enjoyed the warm sun on their skin as the wind blew through their hair.

 

Maria’s family had to go through a health inspection before they could board the boat. Their clothes were sterilized and their heads completely shaved because America did not want them to bring diseases or lice with them. Katie’s eyes had gotten so irritated from the wind and sun during the train ride to Hamburg, the health officials thought she had Pink Eye and would not let their family board the boat…Eventually Katie’s eyes cleared up, and Maria and her family were given clearance to go to America.

 

To anyone else, the United American Lines boat they were to ride on was just another old, rusted ocean liner, sitting in the dirty and smelly Hamburg harbor. But to Maria, the Mount Clay—with its two huge steam stacks—was the most grand and spectacular thing she had ever seen in her life. Maria’s family got on the boat on the afternoon of September 20, and it was several days before they got over their seasickness enough to feel hungry. When their stomachs eventually started growling, there were only oranges to eat for the women and children, while Papa and the other men drank beer. The amazing Mount Clay steamer took a little over a week to cross the Atlantic Ocean. And when Jack turned 1 month old, on October 1, Maria and her family arrived in New York Harbor, at Ellis Island, in America…

 

Once they were given clearance to enter the country, Maria’s family boarded a barge, which carried them to railroad terminals in New Jersey. And from New Jersey Maria’s family boarded yet another train, the last of many they would take on their long journey. This particular train took them all the way to the other side of America. They arrived at midnight in a town called Fresno in the state of California. Uncle George was there to meet them at the station. He brought with him gigantic grapes and a big, beautiful watermelon for the family to eat. Maria could not believe her eyes—she thought these were probably the best gifts she had ever received. It had been over two years since she was in Kukkus and had last tasted a watermelon. And this one was just as tasty as Grandpa Felsing’s had been. America, she smiled to herself, would be even better than she had dreamed!