Product Description
Steppes to Neu Odessa: Germans from Russia Who Settled in Odessa Township, Dakota Territory, 1872-1876, 2nd ed. - Cynthia Anne Frank Stupnik. The latest edition of this biographical and genealogical sketchbook of Plains’ pioneers includes many new family connections made available in part by the Odessa German-Russian Genealogical Library.

In the late 1700s and 1800s, the Russian government encouraged hardworking people from Western Europe to settle Russia in a number of locations, including St. Petersburg, along the banks of the Volga, and near the Black Sea. Along with inhabitants from other countries, thousands of German citizens answered the call.

Determined to maintain their own culture and nationality, many of the Germans eventually decided to relocate. The first three groups of German-Russians from the Black Sea area arrived in the United States in 1872. In the spring of 1873, they sent scouts to search for land they could settle as a group.

The scouts found rich homestead land about twenty miles northwest of Yankton, Dakota Territory [now SD] that was similar to the farmlands they had left in Russia. They sent encouraging letters back to family and friends in Russia, which resulted in a flood of German-Russians to America. Their numbers were estimated at one hundred thousand by the end of the century.

In many cases the biographical sketches in this volume include the settler’s date of settlement, occupation, place of birth, death, and burial, and names of parents, spouse, and children. Sometimes the biography is supplemented with newspaper excerpts. The surnames included are Auch, Bohrer, Dux, Engel, Frank, Friemark, Freier, Hermann, Horst, Jassmann, Kost, Kusler, Mind, Mueller, Mutschlknaus, Reister, Rude, Sayler, Schaefer, Schamber, Schorzman, Schramm, Serrr, Sieler, Stoller, Ulmer, Vaatz, Weber, Weidenbach, Werner, Winter, and Ziegele. The author’s sources have come from various German-Russian historical works, newspapers of the Dakota Territory, and German-Russian genealogical websites. 2002. 136 pp., illus., maps, index, $17.00 #S2120 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

interesting subject
I'm from a russian family from Odessa, Ukraine who wants find out members from my lost family. ... Read more

Product Description
The Black Hills have been famous ever since the gold rush days of the 1870s when General George A. Custer’s expedition in the summer of 1874 found and advertised placer gold in the Black Hills valleys and a rush to the Hills began. Indian claimants to the area were placated, defeated or ignored and by 1875 a gold rush that continues to the present was under way.The Homestake Mining Company in the Black Hills is today one of the largest operating gold mines in the world. Thousands of unknown miners, merchants, gamblers and soiled doves have come and gone during the century past. And hundreds of towns have boomed and busted, most of them before the beginning of the twentieth century.This book takes a look at the remains of those ghosts: the camps, the stage stops, the communities, the people who made the Black Hills famous. In extensive gazetteer fashion, the authors detail 600 towns and enrich the text with a lavish layout of historical and contemporary photos. Also included are maps and tips on how to locate the ruins of those ghost towns. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A lot of work went into this book, a history that will be reclaimed by Mother Earth.
All that have traveled the Mid-North West have found magic in the Black Hills, I believe because it truly exists there. I this book is captured the last 100 years of discovery, and what can still be found, for now. Protected as a National Treasure won't stop our Earth from doing her renovations. This is a guidebook, with much accurate work put into it, valuable to our time, but with a generation or two to be lost as memory and legend in the future.

book review
This is a great book on the basically unknown ghost towns found in the beautiful Black Hills area. I am originally from the area and still learned quite a bit!

Black Hills Ghost Towns
Watson Parker's book is a wonderful reference to use to understand the frenetic development of the Black Hills during its Gold Rush days.It also goes on to show the coming and going of little towns throughout the Black Hills.It is well organized and can easily lend itself to spending a day or more driving through the hills trying to find the remnants of the ghost towns.It is a book that I have gone back to year after year to learn about the Black Hills. ... Read more

Product Description
A celebrated poet transports readers to the heart of the Great Plains, examining her heritage, religion, language, and the land itself, revealing the contradictions of small-town life on the Great Plains. 10,000 first printing.Amazon.com Review
After 20 years of living in the "Great American Outback," asNewsweek magazine once designated the Dakotas, poet KathleenNorris (The CloisterWalk) came to understand the fascinating ways that peoplebecome metaphors for the land they inhabit. When trying to understandthe polarizing contradictions that exist in the Dakotas between"hospitality and insularity, change and inertia, stability andinstability.... between hope and despair, between open hearts andclosed minds," Norris draws a map. "We are at the point of transitionbetween east and west in the United States," she explains,"geographically and psychically isolated from either coast, and unlikeeither the Midwest or the desert west."

Like Terry Tempest Williams (Refuge), Norrisunderstands how the boundary between inner and outer scenery begins toblur when one is fully present in the landscape of their lives. As aresult, she offers the geography lesson we all longed for inschool. This is a poetic, noble, and often funny (see her discussionon the foreign concept of tofu) tribute to Dakota, including itsNative Americans, Benedictine monks, ministers and churchgoers,wind-weathered farmers, and all its plain folks who live suchcomplicated and simple lives. --Gail Hudson ... Read more

Customer Reviews (58)

A Disappointment for Me
I greatly anticipated this books arrival. I too live on the lonesome, wide open, windyplains and hoped to find a kindred spirit in her description of the place I call home. Instead it seems that she is inclined to paint her fellow neighbors with a wide brush....(in her view it seems that way too many of them have a resentment of ANYONE who has a professional title, from teacher to minister and all in between, to the point that those individuals, according to her, often downplay their level of knowledge or education) and though I am a religious person myself, I grew VERY tired of her continual comparisons of herexperiences at her local monastary with everything in life. If you are a fan of reading about theBenedictine monks and their life, with small samplings of landscape descriptions and generalizations of all the small mindedfolks in her town, you might like this one. But, forme, it is one of the few books that I will give up on this year.

Love it or Leave It
This book is a patchwork of writings, many previously published, inviting us to visit the plains of North America. Many of the pieces effectively transport you there -- to small towns set apart under the big sky, remote enough to challenge our cultural concepts.Others are more personal, taking you on the author's "spiritual journey," and in these you meet Kathleen Norris the seeker.I'm not sure if it all came together as she intended. I learned things I didn't know about the sparsely settled plains states of our country.If you also want to explore some inner territory, you might like this book.

Benedictines and small town living
This book came recommended to me during a spiritual retreat.I found it a thought provoking read in prayerfully reviewing my spiritual direction, as well as informative on small town, prairie living in a place dying, but unwilling to embrace outsiders.It also provided alot of information on the Benedictine monasteries. I took my time reading it and the book will be one I long remember.

America's own "Rub Al Khali"...
In Saudi Arabia there is a vast area, almost a fourth of the country, known as "The Empty Quarter," (Rub Al Khali), with perhaps a thousand permanent residents. It is the lack of good water that makes permanent inhabitation practically impossible. America has a similar region, although the conditions are not as dire. It is the area between the 100th and 105th meridian, roughly spanning a seventy-fifth of the world's circumference. Due to the lack of sufficient rainfall (less than 20 inches per year), John Wesley Powell (as well as others) said that the land should never be tilled. It was; one of the "fallouts" was the Dustbowl days of the `30's. Today, those who have not emigrated face a hard-scrabble existence, with the remaining farmers tapping deeper and deeper into the Ogallala aquifer. The area is called the High Plains, largely pancake flat, has strong winds, and unlike Saudi Arabia, particularly in the Dakotas, it can be bitter cold.

Why would anyone voluntarily move there? Kathleen Norris did. She left a life in New York City, and embraced the austere bleakness that is northwest South Dakota. Many of her friends were flabbergasted at the move, and this book is largely an answer to why she did it. There are three principal subject matters: the environment, which encompasses the land and the weather; the kind of people who struggle to live there; and, as indicated by the subtitle, "a spiritual geography," dollops of philosophical musings. Norris has brief chapters entitled "Weather Report", with a given date, and generally the reports are not surprises, save, perhaps, the extremes that they can cover. Early in the book she assesses the dynamic tensions and contradictions in the people with a: "...between hospitality and insularity....between open hearts and closed minds." Later she says: "Small-town society often reminds me of the old joke about academic politics--they're so vicious because there so little at stake." And one of the sadder observations that she makes, and counterintuitive in some ways, since you would figure that it is the remote places that reading is more likely alternative: "Many teachers here also seem to give up any thought of lifelong learning... why so many adults in a town like Lemmon stop reading. More than once I've been surprised to discover that people who show no sign that they've ever read a book in their lives, are in fact former teachers, college graduates from the days when an education was said to mean something." She fleshes out these general observations with pithy vignettes involving the very real people of the town.

Concerning how the inhabitants relate to the past, Norris says: "One popular form of writing on the Plains is the local history. These books reveal a great deal about the people who write them but do not often tell the true story of the region... As one old-timer told me, `people have been writing it the way they wished it had been instead of the way it was.'"But it this a "differential diagnosis" of the region's people, or a broader observation on how much of history is written?

As to the philosophical musings, her erudition shines through, and her referential points bounce from Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century to Carl Jung. Fitting for a place with `spiritual geography', she becomes involved with a nearby Benedictine monastery, and mentions the tales of Heloise and Abelard, when the "monk's face brightens, almost innocently, as he says, "It was the Benedictines who castrated him, you know.'" One might assume it was time to move on!Some of her spiritual geography might be too "new age" for some readers, but I was able to suspend some of my natural cynicism, and reflect on the impact of that "infinite horizon."

So few people live in this area, and only a hand-full have Norris's knowledge and perspective, which is the real strength of this book. Particularly for those on the coasts, looking out their windows as they do indeed "fly over," this book would make their journey much more insightful.

Plains Ponderings
'Dakota' was somewhat rambling but had several good nuggets of thought about how location affects our outlook.Broadens the mind to stretch now and then. ... Read more

Product Description
In this poignant collection of oral histories, four Indian elders recount their life stories in their own quiet but uncompromising words. Growing up and living in Minnesota and the Dakotas, Stella Pretty Sounding Flute and Iola Columbus (Dakota)and Celane Not Help Him and Cecelia Hernandez Montgomery (Lakota) share recollections of early family life interrupted by years at government boarding schools designed to eradicate tribal culture. Recounting their complex lives, the grandmothers reveal how they survived difficult circumstances to become activists in Indian politics, reconciling urban with reservation life and Christianity with native spirituality. Particularly memorable is one grandmother's detailed family account of the tragic events and consequences of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Defying stereotypes, these clear and forthright voices are unforgettable. As the traditional teachers and bearers of culture, the grandmothers also share their concern for future generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not New Age Garbage
"Honoring the Grandmothers" is a slim book, barely bigger than your average sized pamphlet. Edited by Sarah Penman, a video and radio commentator living in Minnesota, the book is a collection of musings by four Dakota/Lakota grandmothers about traditional Indian knowledge and customs and how they relate to today's fast paced world. Penman captured the stories on tape over a period of years, working hard to overcome many obstacles to get the stories to us, the reader. There is little commentary on the stories; Penman allows them to speak for themselves. Two of the grandmothers have since passed away, but their words do continue to speak about maintaining dignity and culture in a world that likes to forget about the Indians and their way of life.

Celane Not Help Him is the first speaker presented in the book. Celane did not have an easy life; she lived in poverty for most of her life, with little formal education. Her family lost their property when the United States Air Force confiscated it during WWII for use as an artillery range. Celane is the granddaughter of Iron Hail, a Lakota who survived the Battle of Little Big Horn and the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890. Celane provides an oral history of Wounded Knee that is both enlightening in historical terms and depressing in an emotional sense. It is hard to read Celane's account, as her speaking skills do not land easily on an English-speaking ear. It is best to read the account straight through, and then think about it for a time. When this is done, Celane comes across as clear as a star in the sky.

The next set of stories comes from Stella Pretty Sounding Flute, a Wahpekute-Hunkpati Dakota. The Dakota people, like most Indians, had difficulties dealing with the burgeoning white population of America in the 19th century. After years of declining fortunes, an 1862 uprising in Minnesota brought down every bit of force the American government could muster on the Dakotas. The Dakota did not disappear, but scattered throughout Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Stella does not concern herself with these events as much as she does with the traditions she learned from her own grandparents. Her grandmother passed on skills and knowledge that no school can teach. Stella discusses the loss of the Black Hills, the traditions of pipe carrying, and spiritual beliefs.

The third storyteller is Cecilia Hernandez Montgomery. Cecilia is part Mexican, part Oglala Sioux, and part firecracker. This is one tough dame. Cecilia spent time in a Catholic school (back when they REALLY used the ruler), studied music, and worked herself dizzy at a series of low paying jobs. Cecilia really came into her own when she started a career as an activist in South Dakota, working hard to improve the living conditions of poor people (all poor people, not just Indians). She sits on many boards, committees, and still pounds the pavement when problems arise. She did all of this into her seventies and beyond, not only exploding the myth of the lazy Indian but also causing irreparable harm to the conception that old people cannot do anything of value.

The last narrative comes from Iola Columbus, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota. Like many other Indians, Columbus spent time in an Indian boarding school, where military discipline combined with strict adherence to corporeal punishment attempted to erase the "Indian" from the Indians. Columbus's story is different from the others because she went on to become the first woman elected to tribal chair in the state of Minnesota. She later founded a grandmother's society, where women elders can gather to share traditional knowledge with new generations.

"Honoring the Grandmothers" is really a book about the elderly and their marginalized role in American society. This is occurring not only in white society but in Indian society as well. A couple of the grandmothers lament the fact that their knowledge is not passed on, but disappearing as older members of Indian tribes pass away. In short, the same mentality (of the doddering old fool who is well past his/her prime) that leads whites to toss the elderly into nursing homes happens in Indian society as well. The elderly are rich sources of knowledge and culture in every society. We ignore them at our own peril. ... Read more