Remembering

Three of us were conversing on-line about politics and it led to our sharing some of our background.  We came from differing backgrounds from several states with some facts in common, some not.  It occurred to me that what we talked about might be useful to others who might have similar curiosity about their own background and how their political beliefs evolved.  What follows is for anyone who might be interested.  We are two men and one woman and we are all in the senior citizen category.  There is no ‘rocket science’ in our writing – just a conversation remembering….  Perhaps an idea for you.

Here is a small gallery of photos of Berlin ND about 1910.: Berlin ND early pre-1910001  The photos were taken atop the local grain elevator.  When I did the family history, I learned that Berlins largest census population in any decade was the first, in 1910: 137 people.  Below is my grandparents their first child, and visitors and their farm about 1907:  (Grandma is holding Lucina at right, Fred is at center.  Fred’s Dad from Wisconsin is second from right, and his younger brother at far left.  Grandma’s sister is second from left.  Behind them is the land of the farmstead I describe.  The photographer is looking north.  Here’s an aerial map of that same farmstead today.  Berlin is about 4 1/2 miles to the southwest.

Busch farm summer 1907. From right: Rosa and Lucina, Wilhelm, Ferd, and Frank Busch and Lena Berning

Dick Nov 6

Back in the day, 1905, when my grandparents, age 25 and 21, took land about 5 miles from just birthed Berlin ND, many farms were being settled and little towns founded in ND.  Much of this happened about 1900-1910, most farms were 160 acres, four to the section, with many kids, whether wanted or not.

Fast forward to today, truly small farms have essentially disappeared.  One of my uncle’s lifelong neighbors apparently aspired to and probably achieved his goal of owning 36 sections (144 quarters) of farmland: a corporate farm on steroids.   When land came available, he bought it.

In a sense, ND is a rich man’s playground now, federal farm policy supports, etc. are sacrosanct, including for corporate farms.

When I had the responsibility of selling my Uncle’s ND property (three quarters), I carved out for purchase 63 acres of pasture and farmstead for a young farm family seeking a rural environment to raise their family and to raise a few Angus.  The young family seem to be still at it, living in the house occupied for years by my uncle and Aunt; their three youngsters bringing life to the old farm..

Meanwhile, in a sense the prairie is slowly reverting to buffalo prairie.   Farms are much larger operations and require fewer people.  There are a few kids rattling around who travel miles to a consolidated school, when in the old days, there was almost a one-room school per section of land.  What population growth there is, is confined to larger communities, like Fargo-Moorhead and a few others.  There is no need for a downtown Berlin, or any other small town, now.

Jeff, Nov. 6

In the election, the people (the volks) have spoken, indeed.  in the ag business for many years, I enjoyed my rural business partners and colleagues. Many were Democrats prior to the mid 2000’s, or at least the old moderate Democrats (a la Colin Peterson perhaps?  Earl Pomeroy?)  Many were good old boy’s partial to Coors Light and steak and potatoes, and you didn’t discuss politics…they probably didn’t completely trust me as a city slicker and trader/dealer…. but I have always been uncomfortable with the millennial old rural virtue/urban decadence and immorality that has become more pronounced of late.   I have gotten to say they are “the salt of the earth” in a snarky way. As if the rest of us in the suburbs and cities are just fops and rentiers…..besides transsexual illegal aliens getting government assistance while stealing cats and dogs for dinner and will be certainly be dragged out of girl’s locker rooms and off the playing fields forever right?  Huzzah!

Gramee, Nov 6

I’ve been a “big city girl” all my life. Visited some family farms in ND and Iowa over time. Got more and more interested in them as I got older. Now, I’m old!

My farm ancestry was far from typical, if such a thing as typical. But Dick’s remembrance about selling farmland popped up a lot of memories about my ancestry.

My mother’s North Dakota family was not politically committed, far as I know. Gramma’s ancestors were farmers in Illinois. I don’t know much about them. I was very close to my city-slicker maternal grandparents, who lived in (wait for it!) Fargo, ND.

My father’s parents were diehard, North Dakota Republicans. Grampa but mostly Gramma (far as I could tell, since Grampa was a man of few words) were diehard Methodists. She was actively involved in their community. Especially when they moved from the farm into town. Among other things, she was the church organist and a WCTU member.

Grampa had some chutzpa re money. He crop-farmed hard. Eventually added a silver fox farm. Bought land and businesses “in town.” He and my father clashed pretty much from the get-go. Mostly in the field, less often in their home. He served in the ND legislature as a representative.

A few years before Grampa died, my father and his new wife moved from the Twin Cities to Gramma and Grampa’s North Dakota town, where he set up a new dental practice. I assume this was a way for him to suck up to grampa’s money. But when Grampa died, he left his twin daughters (my father’s sisters) the best two-thirds of the farm, and gifted my father with the far end of the farm that included a low-land swamp. Also, very little money. My father’s sister and brother-in-law took over Grampa’s silver fox farm.

My father’s SW Iowa grandfather was apparently an active, radical Republican. Great-Gramma was a twin who was born in Scotland. I would LOVE to know how that came about, but too little curiosity, too late. They both died before I was born. A trusted, older family member confided to me as a certainty that he was part of the KKK. She had a vague memory of being with him at a Klan meeting as a child. Important to note that SW Iowa was/is part of the “Bible Belt.”

My ND aunts and uncles were almost certainly Republicans, but of a less rigid/aggressive type. Uncle One was a career military officer. He was posted in the Deep South long enough to become a mostly-but-not-entirely-vocal racist. This 10-year-old kid argued with him about that at the dinner table one night. Kinda gutsy, because I was a little bit afraid of him. He and my aunt returned to ND when he retired. Uncle Two was a salesman/realtor and Town Mayor.

I grew up among a collective of Republicans. And one staunch Democratic friend of my mother. None of that either a good nor bad thing, but definitely a thing! I’ve been amazed in recent years to learn that a couple of cousins from the ND bunch are staunch Dems.

My parents were Republicans. I think my mother followed my father into that altogether-different-from-now GOP (Grand Old Party).  Dad and Mom quietly worked on me to embrace being a Republican. For example, in my first voting, my father sent to me in the literal plain, brown wrapper a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo” in the mail with no enclosed note. I was not Democratically political until sometime in my 30s. Black sheep. Baaaaaa!

And how did I become such a bleeding-heart Dem? I schlogged along as a RINO for my early adult life. Worked on a few Republican campaigns in St. Louis Park, e.g., school board, mayor, state rep. Joined a small, VERY progressive church community in Burnsville (my home at that time). Had a literal epiphany about justice and peace and love and all that stuff. Sucked it up into my core, turned my back on the GOP, and never looked back. Until recently, with eyebrows knitted while trying to understand what has happened to our country.

And there, gentlemen, you have it.

Dick, Nov 7

I very much appreciate this reminiscence.

I can’t say for certain my bunch’s politics, since they didn’t talk about it much.  I would guess conservative would suffice, which would mean Republican.  Grandparents got an annual Christmas card from William Langer, long-time ND Senator and apparently on the Fascist fringe in the good old days.  Grandpa worried about the Communists in the Joe McCarthy era.  One of my dad’s relatives was a ND State Senator, I believe Democrat.

Grandpa Busch had pretensions about being a cut above ordinary in farming, but the Great Depression hurt them badly.  In my Oct 29 blog,  my story is about part of his experience.  He may have had a flirtation with the non-partisan league earlier.

North Dakota is an odd place, generally, politically.  For several years both U.S. Senators, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, were Democrats, as was the only Representative Earl Pomeroy.

Earlier William Guy was Governor for a long time and a very active Democrat, followed by Art Link, another Dem.  I know a former Agriculture Commissioner in ND, a farmer from my mom’s area.  He was and is a strong Democrat.

But for now, anyway, ND is deep red….

So, what led to my being a liberal, as I describe myself, a moderate, pragmatic Democrat who speaks from his heart in matters of family, justice and peace.

I wasn’t active politically in college. I was too young to vote in 1960, and graduated in 1961.

What made the difference for me, I’m certain, was my young wife’s critical illness which consumed our entire short marriage and ended with her death from kidney disease in 1965.  She was 22 and I had just turned 25.  In sundry ways I learned first-hand about what community means in real terms, about public welfare to pay massive medical bills, about helping networks, and on and on and on.  Our son is now 60 years old, so my experience is long and very personal.

Jeff, Nov 7

My maternal side emigrated here in the 1850-1885 period, all to the area around Fond Du Lac Wisconsin.  They had farms on very hilly land, not very great stuff….so by the time the first generation came around a lot of them were out of farming, and working in skilled trades, laboring, and retail businesses.

All were Germans, coming from Pomerania (conservative Lutherans) and the Rhineland/Swiss border area (mixed Catholic and Lutheran) .  I have no understanding of that early generation. My grandfather came of age just before WWI was nearly over (mom born in 1917), I knew him as a retired crabby old guy in the late 50s and 60s.  He was partial to whiskey and stories were that whiskey didn’t bring out the best in him, i.e. spousal abuse. By the Depression, times were very tough for them.  Living in town, he did get a job with the Chicago Northwestern as a railroad worker on the trains that moved mostly between Milwaukee and Manitowoc, sometimes further north.  Union job, they both were thankful to FDR for keeping them and their family alive (Hoover was not a good name in that house) …so that side and my mom were FDR Democrats.  She voted that way up till Alzheimers claimed her.

Dad’s side were Italians from Piemonte part of Italy…north of Turin, foothills of the Alps….lots of emigrants from that specific area ended up in the mining areas of Upper Michigan …. both the Keweenaw copper areas, and the Gogebic iron mining areas.  The earliest ones 1870s and 80s, did start mining, but by the early1900s most of them had moved on to be small businesspeople, then by the next generation same and professional areas as well.

My grandfather on dad’s side, passed well before I was born but I have never seen a photo of him in which he didn’t have a 3-piece suit and a tie …and a pocket watch with its gold chain. He and his brother owned an Italian bakery. So typical petit bourgeois small businessmen…and I have to assume solid Republicans ….

Dad was the eldest, born in 1914, wanted to go to OCS out of high school (1932) and a military officer career, Grandpa and Grandma , being from Italy and naturally biased against the military as a life, didn’t want any of that and he used connections with the Italian consul in Chicago to land my dad a  job with a big and growing Italian cheese company …he started on the line and quickly was managing areas of the plant and plant managing so moving across Wisconsin and Upper Michigan every 2 years.  He was a typical Eisenhower Republican, so I think up till 1996 mom and dad cancelled each other out…. he served as a small-town public contributor with stints as officers and members of the School Board, Chamber of Commerce and other civic organizations (as did Mom…Women’s Club, Ladies Aid Society, PTO etc.)    My dad switched to Dem in 1996 in Clinton’s 2nd term, I think the 1994 genesis of ugly

Republicanism (Newt Gingrich et. al.)  turned him off, Bush wasn’t his cup of tea.

So …my background is small town, no American farming to speak of….and split between moderate Dem and Moderate GOP when I am not in despair and considering moving to Ireland, I would describe myself as center left.  I am solid left on social/cultural issues, and moderate on $$ issues (neither party gives a hoot about deficits and debt and eventually with a declining population, climate change, and misinformation rampant it will catch up with us)

Dick, Nov 7

I find this most fascinating.  Very briefly filling in some personal blanks.

My Dad is 100% French-Canadian, his people – mothers’ side – first came to the St. Paul-St. Anthony area in early 1850s, the last about 1864.  Thence to Dakota Territory in 1878 about where Grafton ND is today.  His Dad emigrated from Quebec in early 1890s.

The French were in North America before Plymouth Rock (1620).  My first F-C ancestor came in 1618 – Jean Nicolet, prominent in Wisconsin History.  Mother of his first child was my earliest NA ancestor, a Nipising woman.  He’s sometimes described as one of the first in Wisconsin.  The line has been traced and verifiable and I think 18 generation back.

My Mom was 100% German American.  Her forebears came from northwest Germany, then called Westfalia and Hanover, near today’s Netherlands.

They settled in far southwest Wisconsin in the 1840s, a few miles from Dubuque Iowa, and not much farther from Galena Illinois.  The last emigrant came to the U.S. about 1870, about the time of the dream of the Second Reich in Germany, and all that follows.

This side came to south central ND in 1905 in the land rush of the early 1900s.  Several came west, not all stayed.

Mom and Dad were American born, but most of their earlier kin were native German or 1^stgeneration U.S.

I’m sure theirs was not an easy lot.  And there were stories of failure and success.

Jeff, Nov 9

Just looking at Ancestry today…Great Great Grandma Wilhelmina got on a ship in Hamburg in 1868 with her husband Karl and 2 kids, a 3-year-old girl (great grandma Augusta) and an infant son.  Karl up and died overnight on the first day…buried at sea.  Wilhelmina made it to Milwaukee and worked for a while, then remarried and ended up in Sheboygan WI.   The family lore was that a day after the burial at sea, she went to the ship’s captain and asked for most of her dead husband’s passage fare back, to which the German captain said “nicht ein pfennig”…. not one penny back explaining you pay to get on the ship….no money back if you don’t make it to the destination.

Wilhelmina born in 1832, the daughter of Christian and Helena.  Their town was Schonwald Pomerania …. today it is called Debina and is in Poland, just west of the city of Gdynia. (I have the entry from the parish record of the marriage in 1831….it says the town was Protestant, but there were 2 Catholics, making up 0.7% of the population.  I think it is a holiday area nowadays as it is near the beach on the Baltic Sea.  A description of the village today dates it back to at least 1495, it was “owned” by hereditary aristocracy well into the early 20th century.  Small village that with its economy controlled by aristocrats who bought and sold the land and the village, It is pretty obvious why younger folks looked to migrate somewhere…either to larger cities in Germany, or to the USA that’s for sure.

There is also has description of the area in late WW2, apparently there was a German air base nearby, the Red Army “liberated” the area.  What looks like a local historian account describes how women and girls tried to flee as the Russians came in, hiding in woods or getting out, as it described rape and assault was common…3000 Russian soldiers bunked in town for a while, when the war ended, they handed the village over to Poland and the name got changed to Debina.

COMMENT 

From Norm:  Regarding your assignment [not an assignment, rather an invitation] below that appears to be a request for a reflection or two on my background including growing up in a strong DFL family on a marginal farm in north central Minnesota, the following homework is brought to class.  My mom was a public-school teacher so I will try to respond consistently with her standards and expectations in mind.😀😁