My grandfather made a trunk for my mother for her to start collecting items to take with her when she moved off their farm in North Dakota. In 1917, she was to finish her sixth year of school and move to the small town of New Leipzig for high school. But, there was a poor crop that year and no money for my mother to pay for lodging, so the move to New Leipzig did not look promising. I was told that Grandpa cried harder than mom.
Many years earlier, Grandpa and a cousin had escaped from the Russian Army with the help of their fathers and a church in the Dakota Territory in America. The boys were 17 at the time. Now, he wanted the American dream for his daughter.
In the end, Grandpa saw to it that Mom took her trunk and made the move to New Leipzig. She got a job in a restaurant baking pies – 20 every day at 4:30 a.m.!
By Evie Hoeven
