Last Updated:  14  Nov 2009

Editor's Notes:

Holidays At My Grandparents' Farm

My maternal grandparents: Ludwig and Christina, nee Schweickert, Hein

On a personal note.  

I grew up in Lodi.  At the age of about 4 and 5,  (1947-48)  my maternal grandparents had a vineyard just north of Clements. I loved their farm.  And, it was on this farm that we often had our holiday meals. 

As we were driving east from Lodi and through the country side toward Clements and my grandparents farm,  I'd take a deep breath and say,  "Ah,  fresh air."  I was being sarcastic. The smells of farms upon which were raised cows, sheep and chickens smelled terrible, I  thought as a town kid, especially when we passed the pigs because they had the worst odor.  My nose had to get accustomed to all the oders away from town.  My grandfather grew clover and that was sweet smelling.  They had a few milk cows and their milk was the best tasting.  

On my grandparents farm I learned a great deal about life.  Of course that included the knowledge of knowing the difference between a wet meadow muffin and a dry one. There was nothing worse then getting our shoes all uky my making a mistake.

With the holidays drawing near, again,  I remember the huge family dinners on the farm.  I didn't know then how many hours my grandmother,  Christina, nee Schweickert, Hein had cooked before we had arrived in the morning but I do , now, and it took many hours because her kitchen table and cupboards were covered with warm fresh coffee cakes, pies, cookies, etc. etc.....  

I have a German-Russian House Recipe web site which gives you more than just recipes.  It gives you a life style of the American-German-Russians,  history and photographs.  Here is an example:    

My grandmother was the best cook I knew then and even after having eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world,  the kind of food she cooked matches the best chefs.  She had learned from her ancestors more than the common German food but it was a combination of what the women had cooked as she grew up and having lived in two different worlds, Russia and the USA from the Dakotas to California.  And,  she always used fresh ingredients and nothing came out of a box or can, accept, of course, the spices. I'd say it was a mixture of German, French, Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Polish and American.

Both of my mother's parents were born in 1885 in the same Russian village of Borodino in an area known as Bessarabia which is by the Black Sea. It was my grandmother's family who were descendants of a huge host of bakers.  I've traced one of our ancestors back to Grossapach / near Schwabish Hall, Schwabish Hall District, Baden [-Wuerttemberg, Germany] in the 1600s.  His name was Joerge Butz  [also spelled Buzz and Buss], who was the owner of the "Weissen Roessle" [White Horse] Inn.  This particular family were bakers and brewers.  The family name Buss refers to an early beer which the Crusaders drank.  They and other family members handed down the best coffee cake recipes which my grandmother and then my mother Americanized.  My mouth waters just thinking about coffee cakes (kaffe kuchen]. Her father,  however, as was his father ..... were successful blacksmiths and wheelwrights.

My grandfather, Ludwig Hein, had always wanted to be a vineyardist and he finally was after he retired from ranching in Montana and moved to California.  His father, Michael Hein, had vineyards in Bessarabia.  His father's wealth, however,  came from breeding and raising horses for the Tsar's Army not wine.  When my grandparents said they were coming to the US,  my grandfather gave them enough money to buy land suited for grapes in California's Russian River area.  But my grandmother on the ship to the US told my grandfather that she did not want to go to California but to North Dakota where her uncles and aunts lived.  My grandfather gave in to his pregnant wife and they homesteaded near Kulm / N. Dakota in 1910.  My grandfather had known how to pick the right farms areas in the Dakotas, then Wyoming then ranch lands along the Yellowstone River  in Montana.  And,  he was aware of how to pick the best breeding stock for his animals.  He prospered like  his father had in Russia. When he retired, my grandparents moved to Lodi, California and after a few years bought the farm near Clements where he had planted his first vines at long last.  

In Russia,  many farmers were knowledgeable about animal husbandry and techniques of farming.  Much of what they knew had been handed down through the generations but some, like my grandparents and their fathers were also discovering new ways in almost everything surrounding a farm.    The Industrial Age was blooming in Russia at the turn of the 20th century.  My grandfather's father  was progressive and bought the first tractor in Bessarabia.  It was my grandmother's father, Karl Schweickert,  who had purchased tractors from the US and shipped them to Bessarabia.   Unfortunately, the stories about the farmers hating those new fangled machines (tractors and thrashing) are very true.  The loud roar of puffing and hissing scared the farm horses.  And, the farmers didn't want anything to do with those "machines which must have been invented by the devil himself", or so they believed.  We can laugh about the old timers ignorance but it wasn't a  laughing matter to Karl Schweickert and the others who were trying to modernize farming but found the farmers unwilling participates.

Course,  I have to laugh.  We still own a 1947 Ford tractor that is like the energizer rabbit.  It goes and goes and goes....  No sense in buying a new one as long as the old one is good.  Right?  Right.

Anyway,  back to the holidays on my grandparents farm.

Because we arrived early at my grandparents,  my mother would help with things that still needed to be done before everyone else arrived.  I was still too young to be of much help so I was free to roam.  One of things I did was follow my grandmother out to the  chicken coop where she'd pick out a couple of stewing hens for the chicken noodle soup or a couple of geese if it was Thanksgiving.  She killed and cleaned them.  And soon the chickens were in the pot and the  stuffed goose was in the pan in the oven.

At some point in time,  probably when my uncle Dan, who was about seven or eight years older than I,  was given the duty of killing a chickens for a Sunday meal, I saw my first headless chicken running around the yard.  I thought it was soooooo very funny the way the chickens ran without their heads.  I doubt anyone would tell anyone they've done such a thing these days because a person might get arrested for the inhumane treatment of an animal.  At the time,  I thought chickens were the dumbest bird on earth and never gave it a thought about their rights as a living creature on this earth, who deserve a quick ending.  No, I haven't turned into animals rights fanatic nor a vegetarian, my attitude is like that of farmers, the food is grown to consume and I do enjoy my chicken in soup, BBQ chicken as well as more elegant recipes.  I, now, raise my own chickens. Why would I add chicken to my days.? Well, that's a story for another time.

.....

Judy's Chicken Coop

&

Judy's Chicken

There wasn't any part of a butchered animal that wasn' used.

In my minds eye I can still picture my  grandmother pulling out the down feathers from her geese to make the filling for her pillows. I remember when visiting one of my aunts homes in Montana that her bedding (everything from pillows to bed spreads) were made from goose down and I sank into her bed and it felt like I was sleeping on a cloud.

Living in and around Lodi there were plenty of our family members who arrived  around noon on the farm for the holiday meals.  Sometimes relatives who lived in  Montana or the Dakotas would join us. The house was always full of  the old and young.  

My perspective of what is old and young has certainly changed through the years. At the age of four and five, I thought my grandparents were ancient.  So the year I'm remembering was 1946 would mean my grandparents, who were born in 1885,  were 61. Need I say more on the subject of age?

Finally, it was time to eat.  As the little kids and babies, including myself,  were ushered into the kitchen and told to sit at the table,  I started to find my usual chair, when suddenly,  I thought, "Wait a minute.  If I sit here with the little kids,  I'm going to be missing all the conversations which would be occurring at the dinning table where the adults were taking their seats."  I turned on my heels and headed for the dinning room and then to my grandpa. I took advantage of my position as the eldest grandchild living in CA.  With a sweet smile on my face and a few "Pretty please"  I was , soon, placed next to grandpa....  

Grandpa loved to tell stories a bout the "Mother country", Tsarist Russia.  [The Father country was Germany.] Everyone spoke German so I missed a lot of what was being said, especially the jokes.  Whenever I'd ask what was so funny, someone would reply, "It's not the same if told in English."  When Grandpa started to tell one of his stories he switched to English because of me.

My grandma was better with languages than my grandpa.  She spoke seven languages.  He spoke three plus enough Spanish which he had needed when giving orders to his Latino labours when they lived on their various ranches, the last one being near Sidney, MT.

Back to the holidays at my grandparents' house.

Since I was horse crazy from cradle to teenager,  I loved the story about grandpa and his favorite horse which left his hoof print on the top of my grandfather's skull which by  1947-8 was balding with a halo of grey hair.  [I could actually take my fingers and trace the hoof mark left in  his skull.]  And,  without hesitation, he told us what had happen.  He had ridden out from their ranch house in the early morning to check a fence.... At the fence he had dismounted.... His horse became skiddish and back away.... The next thing my grandpa knew,  his horse had reared on  his hind legs and when he came down the horse's hoof had struck him on the top of his head... He must have laid on the ground for a long time before he regained conscious.  His horse's mussel was pushing at my grandfather's face. It took some time and a great deal of effort, but my grandpa managed to get back into the saddle, he took his rope, put it around  himself, tied himself to the saddle horn and the next thing he remembers was hearing voices. His horse had taken him back to the ranch house.  As he was being carried to his bed he gave the order, "Do not shoot my horse."  Then my grandma chimed in to tell how long my grandpa laid unconscious and that the doctor said there wasn't anything anyone could do but wait and see.  I don't recall the length of time my grandpa was unconscious but it was a few days, maybe more.  Since all of you know he had been the one telling the story it's obvious,  he survived.  

One of my mother's brothers, Richard Hein,  has written a book about his years in Montana.  He always had the gift of gab.  He wrote more than just family stories.  As a kid he knew a lot of the old times who settled Montana Territory. One of the stories I recall:  He knew the man whom Gen. Custer left behind with the cannon that was slowing them down on their way to the Little Big Horn.  In fact,  after the age of ninety,  Richard has written two more books.

Richard Hein's book YELLOWSTONE COUNTRY

Back in the 1940s very few people had bought a television, so,  the art of conversation was still in full bloom.

The last few stories would always be the ghost stories.  One was about poor dead  "aunt Elisabeth" who drug her chain through the village street one more time....

Since it was a  holiday,  grandpa convinced my parents that I could stay the night.

In the morning I was awake when grandpa got up and after his coffee,  I followed him into the vineyard where the vines were autumn gold, yellow, red and brown touched with a slight frost.  What a marvelous sight it was as we stood on top of the hill looking down.  

Copyrighted Photo and produced here with the permission of the photographer Roland Schweizer / Wohlfahrsberg 34 74245 Lowewenstein

Telefon: 0 71 30 / 89 21.  His "Impressionen".

A sight my grandfather must have shared with his own father in Bessarabia, Russia and their ancestors when they lived in Germany before the time when the French invaded the German states and Napoleon rose to power and marched all the way to Moscow in 1812.

My grandpa's  grandfather Georg Hein at the age of five was in Moscow in 1812 and told the story to my grandpa Ludwig Hein how they fled Moscow, which the Russians had set on fire so Napoleon would leave,  and  he and his mother traveled south to a place called Kischnev in Bessarabia where his paternal ancestral family, the Radiswill , had a huge estate.  Meanwhile. my grandma's grandfather had deserted Napoleon's army, which held a huge number of Germans whom Napoleon had taken into his armies,  and  Jacob Schweickert headed to Gross Liebental near Odessa, a port city by the Black Sea, where the Schweickert's had migrated earlier.

I truly wish I could remember all the stories I heard from my grandparent's and the others of their generation.  I cannot even make a guess as to how many stories I heard from  the old people as they remembered the "old times".

A huge number of our classmates have German-Russian ancestry.

I remember the town of Lodi had it's sections of various communities in the 1940s.  There were the Japanese who lived near their temple which was not far from the old part on Elm St.  Then their were the Italians who were Catholics and they went to the same church as the Catholic German-Russians.  My Dad's family were "Envangelican Reform", which was different than the "old" Lutheran which my mother's family were a part.  The Evangelical Reform church was at the other end of the block where we lived.  Since I knew most of the kids who attended,  I went there.... Many of the kids were neighbors and cousins who's families had migrated to German to Russia then to the Dakotas and later to Lodi. On the east side of Lodi near Cherokee Lane was the Seven Day Adventist Academy and church.  There must have been a Baptist Church,  but I don't recall where.  When I have time,  I'll look up the churches in several of the Lodi History books that I have.   Across from the old Lodi park was a group we called "The Holy Rollers" who seemed like a real happy group because their music would be loud and cheerful.  When driving through Lodi, now, there are a lot of new and very large churches, including a Mosque for the Muslims, who have migrated from the war zone of Iraq and, I believe, from Iran, too.... The only Iranian I remember going to school with us was Khosro Djananbani.

Old Lutheran Church n. Lodi Ave...

Evangelical Lutheran Reform on West Elm St.

See my web site that gives the history of my family's religious background.

I like that big old brick Evangelical Church's architecture. When I can,  I'll dig out our confirmation photo which is still in a box and I'll see if I can remember who else is in the photo.

I certainly found a lot to talk about today.  Hope I didn't bore you.

It would be great to hear from my fellow classmates and what they remembered about their holiday and maybe send us a few photos.

It's time for me to do some yard work.

What a beautiful autumn day with a little breeze .

Our oak trees are raining leaves.

Hope all of you have a very happy and memorable holiday season!

Judy A. Remmick-Hubert

8 Nov 2009