The Children

Mother and father now furnished their little nest according to their tastes. And when they were done the children started to come. First came Carl Christoph, born August 22nd/September 3rd, 1844 (the first date is always the old Russian calendar and the second the Gregorian calendar. His godfather was the Councilman Christoph Hollander, who with some friendly joking had already offered at the wedding to be the godfather. After that came Emilie Appolonia, born February 4th/21st, 1846. The stepmother was supposed to be the godmother, she herself had offered to be it. However, shortly before the baptism, she went out onto the ice and had a very bad fall. She broke her leg. The country doctor did not know how to treat it correctly and therefor she had to walk on crutches for the rest of her life. Now they had to search in a hurry for a new godmother, and found her in the neighbor next door, Mrs Meyer, nee von Bruemmer, a very respectable old lady. After that came my humble self. I, Charlotte Christine, was born August 23rd/September 4th, 1848. My godmother was a so-called friend of my mother, a Mrs. Charlotte Neuland, a rich childless woman, who did not pay any further attention to her godchild. I saw her only once when I was already a grown young woman. After me, came two more little girls, Sophiechen and Christelchen. But they were so delicate and frail, that neither survived their first year and died after a short illness.

I was also a very fail child. Mother told me herself, that shortly after my birth she was very sick with a very high fever. I, poor little worm, did not get enough to eat, and would have died, if not a wonderful woman had taken pity on me. A Mrs. Bruhns, a relative from father’s first marriage, lived upstairs in the old house. She also was nursing a baby, but had enough milk, to come down twice a day to let me nurse. Her son, Fritz Bruhns, became thus my milkbrother.

We children slowly grew up without knowing how difficult a life the parents had, who had a lot of worries. But for us our big beautiful garden was a true Eldorado, especially in the summer. What magnificent trees did we have! Oh you beautiful old linden tree! I sometimes still dream of you. Under the shadows of the branches sat a table and benches, and on Sundays or other festive occasions we often had our afternoon coffee time there. And then there was the high and slender birch tree, whose buds in the spring smelled of balsam. Under it stood the long, creaking family swing. There also where several fruit trees with magnificent fruit. A big apple tree had three different types of apples, summer, fall, and winter apples (they were probably grafted). We brought in the last apples when it started to freeze. We also had several pear trees with juice pears that tasted delicious.

In front, the street side, along the fence was an avenue of Zyrene bushes. The branches were bent and came together on top like a dome. Was that ever beautiful, when everything was blooming and one could loaf on the green grass bench! We also had a lot of vegetables in the garden to provide for the family: beans, peas, carrots, cabbage, salad, and spinach, also parsley and soup herbs. Everything was there in profusion; however, we children did not appreciate is as much as the fruit and the berries, beautiful “Stachelbeeren” - gooseberries and “Johannisbeeren” – red-currants.

I remember, when I was just starting to be conscious about my surroundings (probably at three or four years) I toddled once all alone farther and farther into the garden. Suddenly I stood before a bush with big beautiful white berries, that I had never seen before (they were white currants). Of course, I tackled them immediately and ate and ate to my heart’s content. When I could not eat any more, envy and jealousy awakened and I thought “Now I am not going to tell anyone what I found here, and tomorrow I’ll come back and continue eating.” Later I forgot about it, and when I did remember later on, what I had found in the back of the garden, I came back and found that other gourmets had found it and grazed it clean. To my astonishment not one berry could be found.

Of course the bigger kids had many friends in the neighborhood or other places. They also started school relatively early, and I, the youngest, was left alone and was very lonely. Most of the time I played with the big old farm dog, good old Mischka, my first friend. He was a beautiful specimen! Almost as big as a calf, red-brown, in front he had a mane that was hanging down. Therefore he looked like a lion. His backside was always cut very short in the summer. Mischka had his own dog house from which he looked out, or when he thought it was necessary he would jump out and bark at strange people. He was chained up during the day, otherwise the people would have been terrified, since he really did look mean. He especially didn’t like the chimney sweep and the mailman and, surprisingly, one of the doctors. When one of these people came to the house, he really tried to get off his chain and the gentlemen stood at a respectful distance and admired this angry lion. But he never threatened us children; he was meekness personified. I never heard that he had bitten anyone. In addition, of course, we had a cat in the house and several hens in the stable. Mother liked these especially because of the eggs. At the beginning we also had a cow, and sometimes a couple of pigs, which were fed. There was always a lot of life in the house and yard, but surely also a lot of work for mother who seldom had a maid to help her.

When late fall came, we had to spend more time in the house. Father came home earlier and immediately was surrounded by the children. First he got his supper, which always was warm rye mush, because it was supposed to be good for his chest, since he coughed a lot. In the morning he only drank a drink made out of rye, neither coffee nor tea. In the evening we children sat around him on the big leather sofa, and after he had eaten a bite of the rye mush, all the mouths of all the children were there and open. If Papa ate, we wanted to eat too, whether we very hungry or not. The spoon went around until the big bowl was empty.

Afterwards we sang, and father was a great teacher, although he had not been trained. But he was very musical, and he possibly could have accomplished even more in this field than he did as a mason. First were the simple songs on the program, like “Johann bring my boots, I want to take a walk” or “ There once was a little man, juchhe, who wanted to have a big wife.” The last one was a little pointed at Mom, who was a head higher than father. But she did not rule as the woman in the song, where the man because of fear ends up in the butter barrel. This song comes from Mecklenburg and probably is still known by many of the older people. After that, we sang more serious songs, like the hunter’s song “With arrow and bow the hunter comes through hill and dale early in the morning.” We even sang the difficult hunter’s song from the opera “Der Freischutz”: “ Was gleicht wohl auf Erden des Jaegers Vergnuegen”. Father had heard it a couple of times in the opera and sang it very exact and correctly and we children joined in. We also tried some student songs “Ca, ca geschust, Lasst uns nicht rappelkoeppisch sein, wer nicht mit saufet, der bleibe daheim.” Even the Latin chorus, “edite, bibite collegialis, pamulta secula pecula nulla.” We were especially proud that we could join in and sang enthusiastically. At the end came the evening song: “Oh how well I feel in the evening, when the bells are ringing, bim, bam, bim, bam.” And with this brother Bernhard could join in, who otherwise was not very musical. I remember well these earliest of our musical evenings, and the patience that father showed, when after a day of work he still had time to sing with us. After that he read the newspaper. And even here he was not undisturbed. Usually a child sat on his knees and learned the letters, including myself. An ABC-reader was not available, but I learned to read using the newspaper.

But it did not always go so smoothly, as with the singing. Life took care of that. During the day things were happening with us, and when mother reported it, father immediately got angry and punishment had to be. He was hot-tempered and at that time people followed the motto of the old Kaiser Fritz: “ God rules the world and the cane the people”. And so it happened at our house that the whip came immediately. If the boys or maybe only one of their friends had broken a windowpane, the Kantschuk (a braided Russian leather whip) came from the wall and the boys got a whipping. They were already lying in bed and had wrapped themselves in their blankets. Everyone was screaming together, we girls screamed out of sympathy until mother came from the kitchen and yelled “Are you crazy? Why are you whacking them like that?” And she may even have caught one on her back. Well, the Kantschuk was not all that bad. Worse was the cane. I remember, when I was seventeen, I go to feel it. A neighbor had in her arm a cute little dog. I bent down to caress it. Father came from the back with the cane and started beating. I had been forbidden to kiss animals; but this time I wasn’t kissing it. Luckily this was the time, when we wore petticoats. My petticoats stood out and I didn’t feel much. But the moral disgrace, since the caning was in the yard in front of everyone, was felt deeply.

Mother never used the Kantschuk. She gave every now and then a swat with her hand when it really was necessary. But she had only very little time to spend or joke with us or listen to our childish interests. That was not in her quiet nature. But she was fair to everyone and favored no one nor put anyone back. Nevertheless, she was tarred with the label of bad stepmother, especially by the relatives of brother Bernhard. When the old grandmother Sandkamp visited, she would ask her grandson “Well Batzing (that’s what she called him) how are things going?” He would answer in his surly manner: “How can it be going? I always have to eat the dammed beans.” - Then she would agree and say: “Well, after all, you have to deal with a stepmother.” And after these wise words, Bernhard would become even more surly. Oh well the beans, those damned beans grew in our garden and had to be eaten. Some liked them very well, for my sister Mila there was no better meal as green beans with herring or some other entrée. She enjoyed it until the end of her life. I didn’t like soups and preferred dry bread. But what was put on the table had to be eaten or one could remain hungry; there would be nothing else.

Mother ignored the words of the old Sandkamp, and remained always friendly. When the old lady died, mother baked a lot of cakes, packed her hampers full of everything that was necessary for a worthy mourning in honor of the dead, and took everything to the funeral home. And when Bernhard as teenager was sick with typhoid fever, she nursed him, like probably neither his mother nor grandmother would have done. The doctor himself gave this praise. Her life was not easy and there were lots of problems.