Memories of Portland
When my son Adam and I arrived in Portland in 1922, we got off the train at Union Station but nobody was there to meet us, so we stood around looking dismayed and dumbfounded. It was obvious to anyone looking at us that we were foreigners by our dress. We stood amongst the people in the depot, lost and bewildered, wondering what we would do next. After an hour or two of this standing, we picked up our baggage and went outdoors where we set the baggage down and leaned against the building, hoping someone would show up to find us. A redcap, who had tried several times to communicate with us, finally brought over a cabby. This man asked if we spoke German, because the redcap thought we were speaking the same language that many others used in the area, including the cabby. We told him "Yes, we have just arrived from Russia." He had already guessed as much. He asked whom we were going to see in Portland? When I told him we were to go to my aunt Lena and her husband Henry Weidenkellar, he informed me that he was also a Russian German named Sinner and if we would get into his cab, he would take us to the Weidenkellar's. He was acquainted with them. Needless to say, this relieved our minds and made our day.
Within the matter of a few hours, we were visited by my brother Conrad, sister Elizabeth and many nearby neighbors, all clambering for news of their loved ones left behind in Russia, as well as the exploits of our travels and misfortunes on the trip from Norka to Portland. My sister Lena was in Ritzville, [Washington] but would come visit immediately. While we were in the displaced persons barracks in Germany, we had sent our Russian clothes, which were heavy sheepskin and cold weather clothes, home to Norka to my brother Johannes. When they wrote to acknowledge getting the clothes, they had informed us by mail that my sister Katherine Lehl had died shortly after we left Norka, so we all had our grieving to go over again, here in Portland when we informed them of this fact. They of course were also friends to the rest of our group who returned to Norka from Minsk and felt at a loss because so many never made it to America.
Adam and I spent the night at my aunt and uncles, then we moved in with my sister Elizabeth and her husband Jacob (Yoske) Schleining and their family. Their oldest daughter Kate was born in Norka before they left there on a day that we had one of the worst blizzards I ever saw, in January of 1906. They had six children, when we arrived, so it made quite a house full. In the meantime we were frantically awaiting word from my wife Anna, whom I had married in Germany, but who wasn't allowed to take the trip with us because of her eye condition. Now the condition is easily explained and a lot of people like my wife Anna got over it and were allowed into this country, but many weren't so lucky. There were families broken up at the docks, when some member wasn't cleared to leave Germany. Some infected child would return to Russia with its mother, while the father and several more children went on ahead without them. In many cases the mother and child would never get to come to America. There were instances at Ellis Island where some people would be sent back, while the rest chose to come on. In many cases whole families would return to Europe rather than break up. It was a trying time and sometimes greed on the part of some official would be the cause. My wife Anna wrote us from Ellis Island, stating that we were to send more money before she would be cleared to leave there after she had gone through eye treatments in Germany and finally allowed to get on a ship for America. I went to discuss this with a Pastor, who took me to a German speaking lawyer, who wrote that her husband and son were here in Portland, her fare had been paid in advance and there was not going to be any more money sent.
They allowed her to leave, and she arrived in Portland on December 27, 1922 on my aunt Lena Weidenkellar’s birthday. She had left Hamburg Germany on November 22, 1922 and got to Ellis Island about December 3rd. She had been detained at Ellis Island until about December 22nd before she got on the train to Portland.
We three stayed with the Schleining's for about a month, then we rented a small house on Vancouver Avenue, from an old man who was also a Schleining from Norka, and friend of our family. The old couple had two houses on one lot, and we rented from them for about three years. Portland was full of relatives and countrymen, who would visit us regularly to ask about various people still over there. Most of our folk had come over prior to World War I, so they and their children who were born in Norka were real interested in visiting us, but to their offspring who were born in this country after their arrival here, we looked like something from prehistoric times. Many of our own relatives who had been young enough so they went to American schools only, kind of looked down their noses at our dress and the fact we could only speak Norka dialect German and no English. It was especially hard on Adam who was eight years old. His cousins, his age had been born here and probably shunned him, while teachers weren't too eager to have to contend with this foreigner either. Needless to say he didn't fare too well in school, but having been born to our system, he was always eager and willing to work for what he got and I am proud that he raised seven children without ever needing to be on welfare.
After we had been in Portland for awhile, I was approached by a man named Gottlieb Riegert and his brother, concerning the execution of the young men in Norka, who had stabbed the Russian Commissar to death. It seems that the man named Schneider, who was from Dinkle and served as the interpreter for the Russian officer at the time of the executions, was here in Portland, on a trip concerning aid and communications, between our German speaking people in Russia and their relatives in the United States. He had been invited to speak at the church. The Riegert's informed me that a brother of one of the lads executed was forming a gang to shoot, or beat this man Schneider to death, when he came to speak to the Russian Germans at the church. I went with the Riegert brothers and talked to three men who were part of this plot. I told them how Schneider had only interpreted for the Russians, and that he had even told the assembled persons, that the Russians were seeking only five or six persons, and how he got Conrad Schlitt back out of the line of those to be executed, when old Heinrich Glantz told Schneider that the Vorsteher had ordered Conrad Schlitt to drive the young men over to the Russian village, in his wagon, only because he was there with his wagon, when they were ready to go. Old Heinrich Glantz had gotten additional courage after the Russian officer had released Conrad Schlitt from execution, and started begging the officer to release the Hahn boy, son of the tailor, because he was an only child, but the officer curtly rejected him and said that the dead Russian was also the only father of his children and if old Heinrich Glantz opened his mouth again, he too could be executed.
One of the three men, who was a brother to one of the boys shot, was appreciative of the true facts of the case, and gave me a silver dollar, which was the first one I had in America. The rumble that had been started by some of the church members to the pastor, because the man Schneider was to speak to the people in the church, was so great that the pastor decided this man shouldn't be allowed to use the church for his speech.
A lot of members figured he was a communist, because the Russian soldiers had brought him along to Norka as interpreter, for the apprehension of the men who killed the Russian Commissar, and we shouldn't allow a communist responsible for the death of those boys to speak in our church. Other members thought the man should speak, so the population could find out what was taking place in Russia since the revolution was over, and to take back tidings to their relatives in Russia from here, because Schneider was returning to Russia after completing a tour of Volga German areas of the United States. The Reigert brothers and pro speech factor of the church got together and rented a hall on Williams Avenue, where the speech and discussions took place.
I can't begin to remember the many helpful and interesting people and the impressions they made on us, upon our arrival to this country. I will compile some of their names and brief history so it won't die off with the years as the people themselves have. They had been here long enough to set up business, beneficial to their countrymen, as well as for themselves. Mr. Weimer was himself a poor immigrant, who repaired and re-blackened staves for his fellow countrymen, after coming from Kraft. He made rounds from house to house. He had roomed and boarded with a family, whose daughter he then married. He bought an old tumble down place on Union Avenue where he set up a repair shop and dealt in new and used stoves. Later he would build new from ground up, with financial loans from fellow Germans, which were transacted with a handshake. He went on to become one of the most successful businessmen in our community, selling on the installment plan. His customers were mostly Volga Germans.
Another man from Kraft was Mr. Geist, who most folk remember from his dry goods store. He probably extended more credit to his fellow countryman than the local bank. He had been such a good friend to my family, that for Christmas our family made purchases of clothing which we packed and mailed to Michigan for my eldest sons family, because we wanted Mr. Geist to have the business and to know how much we thought of him for his past generosity. Mr. Geist loaned many countrymen several hundred dollars on a handshake. We utilized the Geist Store even after the old gentleman had died and his son Bob was running the business.
In 1925 I got very sick. I turned yellow, got thin and ran high fever. I was taken to many doctors. Most of them suggested it was cancer and I was a goner. They took me to the hospital where they had most of the staff doctors examine me, and then a Doctor Sommers came to see me. He asked me to lay out my past life, where I had been and what I had done. The next day he came back and told me he was almost certain that I had something wrong with my liver and he would like to do some exploratory surgery the next day. He said that my symptoms coincided with a few rare cases he had read about, which were native to Turkey, where I had spent my years in the Czar’s Army. They operated and discovered I had a worm about the size of a caterpillar or your small finger, on my liver and two bags of puss, which contained eggs of this worm. The puss bags were the size of hen’s eggs. Needless to say I got better fast after they removed these. Dr. Sommers became very well known and his standing in the medical field went up rapidly, in the next few months.
In about 1926-7, I, my brother Conrad and Gottlieb Reigert, were setting on Mr. Riegert's front porch just south of the Geist Store, when a man drove up in a car, leaned out over the door, and asked in German, if there was any office space available in this area, that a man might rent as a doctors office. Gottlieb Reigert told the man that Doctor Bastron had just moved out of an office above the Geist Store, so it may be available. This man was Dr. Otto Uhle, he rented the space, and my daughter Marie was his first patient at this office. Mr. Geist and Doctor Uhle got along splendidly and when Mr. Geist ran ads in The Oregonian and Oregon Journal in those days, he usually mentioned that there was a doctor’s office upstairs over the store.
When Mr. Weimer built his hardware store, they built a large dancehall above it for communal dances. A group, including Mr. Weimer, Mr. Geist, Dr. Uhle and others formed a German American Club and there were many good times at Weimer's dancehall. When WWII started these clubs were frowned on as much as the Japanese peoples right to live on the West Coast. Dr. Uhle was a very outspoken man who got into several arguments at the hospital with one specific Jewish doctor. He was accused of being un-American for his outspoken feelings and the German American Club was named as un-American and closed up. Dr. Uhle was sent east as far as Chicago. The others explained to the authorities that they were German speaking people who actually were from Russia and not German Nationals, so other than closing the club all went well for them. Upon his return to Portland after the war, Dr. Uhle was never allowed to practice at any of the bigger hospitals of Portland, so had his clinic on N.E. 7th and Fremont and placed his patients at the Sellwood or Holladay Park Hospitals.
There were several of our fellow Volga Germans, or Russian Germans, as some preferred to be called, in the grocery and/or meat business. Like most grocers of those days, they did most of their business on credit, or on the books. Usually it depended on a person’s job and how often he had paydays, which determined how often he paid his grocery bill. There was very little cash and carry business, which came into being mostly with the so-called supermarkets in the late thirties. Most employers paid their employees twice a month or every two weeks, then it was usually on Friday. When you paid your grocery bill, you usually got a cigar and a sack of penny candy to take home to the children if you had them, but which German family didn't? The grocer had wooden barrels of dill pickles, sauer kraut, pickled pigs feet, drums of kerosene, 100 pound bags of potatoes, sugar, flour, rice and beans. He bought from wholesalers, farmers and even neighbors who had good fruit, berries or vegetables. Farmers brought eggs and live chickens usually on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. My son killed and plucked about 50 chickens in a store basement every Friday night after the store closed, which were sold to our noodle soup makers on Saturday. He and his employer also made about 200 pounds of bratwurst on Friday afternoon before killing the chickens.
They would sack up potatoes, which were sold by the peck, or bushel, rather than the pound. Fruit was sold that way too. There were hundreds of Grade A raw milk dairies around and the price of milk was six cents a quart. Any bulk items, which came in barrels, could be bought by any amount you wanted, scooped into a grocery bag. Some of our countrymen in the grocery/meat business were Repp Brothers, Danewolf's, and Krombein's. During Prohibition you could even buy a little bootlegged whiskey at some stores. Usually it was put in a sack under a peck of potatoes and the supplier wasn't stupid enough to sell to someone he couldn't trust.
A few years later when we moved east, to Michigan, we discovered that grocers there and in most all of the other farming areas that we came into contact with, actually carried a farm family on the books for credit, until the grain, corn, beets and beans were harvested in the fall of the year. I never heard of one charging interest either. When you think back over this and consider that there was a small independent grocery store every seven or eight blacks apart, you can see how the coming of the supermarket (cash & carry) destroyed the Ma and Pa store, eventually this also in turn killed the small dairies which produced our milk and replaced these small Ma and Pa stores with banks every few blocks apart, which have gotten very big charging us interest for the use of bank cards and the credit, that the Ma & Pa store gave interest free. Even the furniture stores sold on the installment plan, as did clothiers, without an interest charge.
There were always too many churches. The reason I say this is because when we had a full church congregation, invariably one faction or the other would get into serious differences. When they did this at the neighborhood beer joint, they got out in the alley and slugged it out, but when it was at church, they would usually have a big split and one side withdraws and builds another church, rather than patch up their differences. As some of our people got richer they even chipped in large amounts to create these new churches. I know of two families who almost single handedly paid for most of the cost of a new church, over petty differences, so they could hire their own minister and they pulled half of the congregation away with them.
Reverend Hopp was an influential preacher on the style or reputation of our preachers in Russia. As we built more churches, the pastor’s powers seemed to recede too. Most families having problems in the old country, usually sought out the pastor for advice, help, or counseling generally his word was law. At first it was this way over here too, then not having power or authority to settle a dispute by making himself judge and jury though, the pastor would advise, or even take a countryman to see a proper lawyer. It has been said that he was usually rewarded with money for arranging these things, just as he would be for performing a wedding ceremony. In the Thirties [1930’s] he actually helped two women from our neighborhood get their husbands committed to the asylum for the insane at Salem. The one lady told me she gave him $20.00 for his help, which she didn't think was wrong. In about six months or so she decided that although her husband was violent and mean, (he died of a brain tumor later) having him home working and bringing in his salary, was better than having no husband at all. She went back to see the pastor, who informed her that putting him away was easier and cheaper than getting him out. I am sure that he meant for attorney fees and all, but the neighbor’s suggested that he meant to make extra by this, so he was referred to in many instances as an "ambulance chasing preacher doing leg work for attorneys."
One of the most colorful of our folk in the area was Gottlieb Riegert. He lived in a house on Union Avenue between Failing and Shaver. He had diabetes and later had both legs cut off, but was usually thought of as one of our more notorious citizens. He had card rooms, gambling, moonshine and was always doing well because of his friendly nature and the fact that men and women seeking an evening out having a friendly drink or game of cards could come and enjoy themselves. He would sometimes loan money to widows or divorcees and it was said he could supply male or female relationships. Like the barber is always inquisitive of his customer, Riegert was with his, and because he sold moonshine there, he usually knew more of the personal side of many folks lives, than did the barber or the preacher.
Most of the people burned wood for heat. In late summer the wood started being piled on the strips of city owned land between the streets and sidewalks, where it sat until dried properly, then it was usually thrown into the basements and re-stacked until the basement couldn't hold anymore. Some folk had it brought out cut to the proper length, some bought cheaper slabwood in 8 foot or 16 foot lengths, depending on the storage room they had in the yard. We had an old fellow countryman, who came around with a horse and wagon with saw attached and he used his horse to work a treadle which run the saw to cut the slabwood. The area of Portland that was our Volga German area was always one of the cleanest neatest areas of Portland and visitors always remarked how good and clean it even smelled when the wood was piled along the streets drying. Many people who visited from coal burning areas usually had that picture pop into their minds when they heard the name of Portland, Oregon. The ashes created hauling jobs for our people and these ash haulers eventually turned into garbage haulers. I worked as a garbage hauler upon arrival, until I got a job at Nicholi Mfg. Co.
A lot of our people worked at Doernbecker Furniture, or some of the other furniture or door making operations in the area. Many started garbage businesses. Many people thought it a degrading type of job which only a Russian German with many kids and no money, or an Italian immigrant in the same fix would do, until in later years when others realized it was hardest of work, but was also very healthful being out in the fresh air in the early hours of the morning and paid better than furniture making. At first it was small and slow with many using horse and wagon. There were also fruit and vegetable peddlers as well as junk collectors roaming the streets with horse and wagon. Some even came with hand, push carts. I worked on a garbage route for some Spady brothers from Norka, on a part-time basis when I was searching for a steady job. We hauled away many things which were salvageable, that we could still use ourselves. On one occasion I remember during a rainstorm, a grocer’s basement got water up high enough to wet the bottoms of several 100-pound sacks of sugar, so the grocer had us haul it away with the garbage. We made a nice spot for it and dropped it off at a neighborly bootlegger's house, and it was used without waste, as well as making a little extra profit for the folks I was working for.
Vetter Hannes Spady lived near neighbors to the bootlegger, and the Spadys' had four boys as I remember, Henry-John-Louie, and the other slips my mind at this time. The boys watched where the moonshine was hidden, and one night swiped six gallons. They had garbage-carrying cans set upside down in the yard, airing out most every day and night. They sold me a gallon, and Henry Schreiber a gallon, then hid four gallons under the carrying cans in the backyard. The bootlegger came over to Spadys' as soon as he discovered his loss, accusing the boys of the theft. Mr. Spady went through the house and garage looking for the six gallons of booze, but couldn't find it. When they got out to the yard, he just on a whim tilted a carrying can over, and there was a gallon of moonshine, so they recovered four gallons and he apologized to the man for his boys petty larceny.
I finally got a job working for Great Northern Railroad. We had to move to Wendlin, Oregon, where I worked on a section line gang. There were quite a bunch of us Norka natives working together. A man called Schwindt's boije was our crew boss. A fellow employee was Conrad Weidenkellar, who was brother to my aunt’s husband Henry Weidenkellar. Conrad Weidenkellar had been seriously injured, when a handcar or sidecar; which the rail crew traveled on, was derailed going around a sharp curve and he was thrown out against a solid stone wall of rock in the downhill curve and he was badly broken up and unable to work for many months. Conrad didn't sue the company or give them any problems, because the District manager told him that if he didn't make waves, he would have a job for life. Many countrymen had thought and advised him to sue, but he didn't do that.
A lot of families of our countrymen, would pick berries, hops and other crops, to help garner more money for the expense of raising the large German families. Conrad Weidenkellar’s wife was picking hops in St. Paul, Oregon, so he would go to there on weekends to help her and spend the weekend with the folk there. Many of our people did the hop picking every year, until their families were raised. On the weekends that Conrad went to St. Paul, he usually didn't get back to work until Tuesday. This went on the whole time that his wife was in the hop yards, and being as I and Conrad rode to work together and lived practically together, Schwindt would ask me where is that old guy? I would tell him that he went to be with his wife for the weekend and hadn't made it back yet. Finally one Monday when he wasn't back, Schwindt told me when he got back to tell him he wasn't needed anymore. When I got off work and went home, Conrad was there and I relayed the message. He stayed home then, until payday, and when he went in for his check, he stopped in to see the District Manager, who told him to go back to work and he would be paid for the days he lost, then he came out to the job and berated Schwindt and told him that Conrad was not to be messed with as the other employees.
We were really starting to get ahead in this new land of ours. I was working hard, but getting good pay too and saving. If one could have seen into the future a little better, we would have probably stayed in Portland and gotten financially sound, but there was the matter of getting my wife Anna together with her brother and sister and their families, was always uppermost in Anna’s thoughts. They had left the Oklahoma farms and moved to Michigan, where the automobile industry was going great at that time. Of course we missed the people we left behind in Russia, but there being only a brother Johannes still alive there and the fact things were so terrible at the time of our leaving, it never was a temptation to return to Russia, but my promise to Anna to get her to her relatives won out, and we planned our trip, or move, believing that if all didn't go well, we could return to Portland.
Within the matter of a few hours, we were visited by my brother Conrad, sister Elizabeth and many nearby neighbors, all clambering for news of their loved ones left behind in Russia, as well as the exploits of our travels and misfortunes on the trip from Norka to Portland. My sister Lena was in Ritzville, [Washington] but would come visit immediately. While we were in the displaced persons barracks in Germany, we had sent our Russian clothes, which were heavy sheepskin and cold weather clothes, home to Norka to my brother Johannes. When they wrote to acknowledge getting the clothes, they had informed us by mail that my sister Katherine Lehl had died shortly after we left Norka, so we all had our grieving to go over again, here in Portland when we informed them of this fact. They of course were also friends to the rest of our group who returned to Norka from Minsk and felt at a loss because so many never made it to America.
Adam and I spent the night at my aunt and uncles, then we moved in with my sister Elizabeth and her husband Jacob (Yoske) Schleining and their family. Their oldest daughter Kate was born in Norka before they left there on a day that we had one of the worst blizzards I ever saw, in January of 1906. They had six children, when we arrived, so it made quite a house full. In the meantime we were frantically awaiting word from my wife Anna, whom I had married in Germany, but who wasn't allowed to take the trip with us because of her eye condition. Now the condition is easily explained and a lot of people like my wife Anna got over it and were allowed into this country, but many weren't so lucky. There were families broken up at the docks, when some member wasn't cleared to leave Germany. Some infected child would return to Russia with its mother, while the father and several more children went on ahead without them. In many cases the mother and child would never get to come to America. There were instances at Ellis Island where some people would be sent back, while the rest chose to come on. In many cases whole families would return to Europe rather than break up. It was a trying time and sometimes greed on the part of some official would be the cause. My wife Anna wrote us from Ellis Island, stating that we were to send more money before she would be cleared to leave there after she had gone through eye treatments in Germany and finally allowed to get on a ship for America. I went to discuss this with a Pastor, who took me to a German speaking lawyer, who wrote that her husband and son were here in Portland, her fare had been paid in advance and there was not going to be any more money sent.
They allowed her to leave, and she arrived in Portland on December 27, 1922 on my aunt Lena Weidenkellar’s birthday. She had left Hamburg Germany on November 22, 1922 and got to Ellis Island about December 3rd. She had been detained at Ellis Island until about December 22nd before she got on the train to Portland.
We three stayed with the Schleining's for about a month, then we rented a small house on Vancouver Avenue, from an old man who was also a Schleining from Norka, and friend of our family. The old couple had two houses on one lot, and we rented from them for about three years. Portland was full of relatives and countrymen, who would visit us regularly to ask about various people still over there. Most of our folk had come over prior to World War I, so they and their children who were born in Norka were real interested in visiting us, but to their offspring who were born in this country after their arrival here, we looked like something from prehistoric times. Many of our own relatives who had been young enough so they went to American schools only, kind of looked down their noses at our dress and the fact we could only speak Norka dialect German and no English. It was especially hard on Adam who was eight years old. His cousins, his age had been born here and probably shunned him, while teachers weren't too eager to have to contend with this foreigner either. Needless to say he didn't fare too well in school, but having been born to our system, he was always eager and willing to work for what he got and I am proud that he raised seven children without ever needing to be on welfare.
After we had been in Portland for awhile, I was approached by a man named Gottlieb Riegert and his brother, concerning the execution of the young men in Norka, who had stabbed the Russian Commissar to death. It seems that the man named Schneider, who was from Dinkle and served as the interpreter for the Russian officer at the time of the executions, was here in Portland, on a trip concerning aid and communications, between our German speaking people in Russia and their relatives in the United States. He had been invited to speak at the church. The Riegert's informed me that a brother of one of the lads executed was forming a gang to shoot, or beat this man Schneider to death, when he came to speak to the Russian Germans at the church. I went with the Riegert brothers and talked to three men who were part of this plot. I told them how Schneider had only interpreted for the Russians, and that he had even told the assembled persons, that the Russians were seeking only five or six persons, and how he got Conrad Schlitt back out of the line of those to be executed, when old Heinrich Glantz told Schneider that the Vorsteher had ordered Conrad Schlitt to drive the young men over to the Russian village, in his wagon, only because he was there with his wagon, when they were ready to go. Old Heinrich Glantz had gotten additional courage after the Russian officer had released Conrad Schlitt from execution, and started begging the officer to release the Hahn boy, son of the tailor, because he was an only child, but the officer curtly rejected him and said that the dead Russian was also the only father of his children and if old Heinrich Glantz opened his mouth again, he too could be executed.
One of the three men, who was a brother to one of the boys shot, was appreciative of the true facts of the case, and gave me a silver dollar, which was the first one I had in America. The rumble that had been started by some of the church members to the pastor, because the man Schneider was to speak to the people in the church, was so great that the pastor decided this man shouldn't be allowed to use the church for his speech.
A lot of members figured he was a communist, because the Russian soldiers had brought him along to Norka as interpreter, for the apprehension of the men who killed the Russian Commissar, and we shouldn't allow a communist responsible for the death of those boys to speak in our church. Other members thought the man should speak, so the population could find out what was taking place in Russia since the revolution was over, and to take back tidings to their relatives in Russia from here, because Schneider was returning to Russia after completing a tour of Volga German areas of the United States. The Reigert brothers and pro speech factor of the church got together and rented a hall on Williams Avenue, where the speech and discussions took place.
I can't begin to remember the many helpful and interesting people and the impressions they made on us, upon our arrival to this country. I will compile some of their names and brief history so it won't die off with the years as the people themselves have. They had been here long enough to set up business, beneficial to their countrymen, as well as for themselves. Mr. Weimer was himself a poor immigrant, who repaired and re-blackened staves for his fellow countrymen, after coming from Kraft. He made rounds from house to house. He had roomed and boarded with a family, whose daughter he then married. He bought an old tumble down place on Union Avenue where he set up a repair shop and dealt in new and used stoves. Later he would build new from ground up, with financial loans from fellow Germans, which were transacted with a handshake. He went on to become one of the most successful businessmen in our community, selling on the installment plan. His customers were mostly Volga Germans.
Another man from Kraft was Mr. Geist, who most folk remember from his dry goods store. He probably extended more credit to his fellow countryman than the local bank. He had been such a good friend to my family, that for Christmas our family made purchases of clothing which we packed and mailed to Michigan for my eldest sons family, because we wanted Mr. Geist to have the business and to know how much we thought of him for his past generosity. Mr. Geist loaned many countrymen several hundred dollars on a handshake. We utilized the Geist Store even after the old gentleman had died and his son Bob was running the business.
In 1925 I got very sick. I turned yellow, got thin and ran high fever. I was taken to many doctors. Most of them suggested it was cancer and I was a goner. They took me to the hospital where they had most of the staff doctors examine me, and then a Doctor Sommers came to see me. He asked me to lay out my past life, where I had been and what I had done. The next day he came back and told me he was almost certain that I had something wrong with my liver and he would like to do some exploratory surgery the next day. He said that my symptoms coincided with a few rare cases he had read about, which were native to Turkey, where I had spent my years in the Czar’s Army. They operated and discovered I had a worm about the size of a caterpillar or your small finger, on my liver and two bags of puss, which contained eggs of this worm. The puss bags were the size of hen’s eggs. Needless to say I got better fast after they removed these. Dr. Sommers became very well known and his standing in the medical field went up rapidly, in the next few months.
In about 1926-7, I, my brother Conrad and Gottlieb Reigert, were setting on Mr. Riegert's front porch just south of the Geist Store, when a man drove up in a car, leaned out over the door, and asked in German, if there was any office space available in this area, that a man might rent as a doctors office. Gottlieb Reigert told the man that Doctor Bastron had just moved out of an office above the Geist Store, so it may be available. This man was Dr. Otto Uhle, he rented the space, and my daughter Marie was his first patient at this office. Mr. Geist and Doctor Uhle got along splendidly and when Mr. Geist ran ads in The Oregonian and Oregon Journal in those days, he usually mentioned that there was a doctor’s office upstairs over the store.
When Mr. Weimer built his hardware store, they built a large dancehall above it for communal dances. A group, including Mr. Weimer, Mr. Geist, Dr. Uhle and others formed a German American Club and there were many good times at Weimer's dancehall. When WWII started these clubs were frowned on as much as the Japanese peoples right to live on the West Coast. Dr. Uhle was a very outspoken man who got into several arguments at the hospital with one specific Jewish doctor. He was accused of being un-American for his outspoken feelings and the German American Club was named as un-American and closed up. Dr. Uhle was sent east as far as Chicago. The others explained to the authorities that they were German speaking people who actually were from Russia and not German Nationals, so other than closing the club all went well for them. Upon his return to Portland after the war, Dr. Uhle was never allowed to practice at any of the bigger hospitals of Portland, so had his clinic on N.E. 7th and Fremont and placed his patients at the Sellwood or Holladay Park Hospitals.
There were several of our fellow Volga Germans, or Russian Germans, as some preferred to be called, in the grocery and/or meat business. Like most grocers of those days, they did most of their business on credit, or on the books. Usually it depended on a person’s job and how often he had paydays, which determined how often he paid his grocery bill. There was very little cash and carry business, which came into being mostly with the so-called supermarkets in the late thirties. Most employers paid their employees twice a month or every two weeks, then it was usually on Friday. When you paid your grocery bill, you usually got a cigar and a sack of penny candy to take home to the children if you had them, but which German family didn't? The grocer had wooden barrels of dill pickles, sauer kraut, pickled pigs feet, drums of kerosene, 100 pound bags of potatoes, sugar, flour, rice and beans. He bought from wholesalers, farmers and even neighbors who had good fruit, berries or vegetables. Farmers brought eggs and live chickens usually on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. My son killed and plucked about 50 chickens in a store basement every Friday night after the store closed, which were sold to our noodle soup makers on Saturday. He and his employer also made about 200 pounds of bratwurst on Friday afternoon before killing the chickens.
They would sack up potatoes, which were sold by the peck, or bushel, rather than the pound. Fruit was sold that way too. There were hundreds of Grade A raw milk dairies around and the price of milk was six cents a quart. Any bulk items, which came in barrels, could be bought by any amount you wanted, scooped into a grocery bag. Some of our countrymen in the grocery/meat business were Repp Brothers, Danewolf's, and Krombein's. During Prohibition you could even buy a little bootlegged whiskey at some stores. Usually it was put in a sack under a peck of potatoes and the supplier wasn't stupid enough to sell to someone he couldn't trust.
A few years later when we moved east, to Michigan, we discovered that grocers there and in most all of the other farming areas that we came into contact with, actually carried a farm family on the books for credit, until the grain, corn, beets and beans were harvested in the fall of the year. I never heard of one charging interest either. When you think back over this and consider that there was a small independent grocery store every seven or eight blacks apart, you can see how the coming of the supermarket (cash & carry) destroyed the Ma and Pa store, eventually this also in turn killed the small dairies which produced our milk and replaced these small Ma and Pa stores with banks every few blocks apart, which have gotten very big charging us interest for the use of bank cards and the credit, that the Ma & Pa store gave interest free. Even the furniture stores sold on the installment plan, as did clothiers, without an interest charge.
There were always too many churches. The reason I say this is because when we had a full church congregation, invariably one faction or the other would get into serious differences. When they did this at the neighborhood beer joint, they got out in the alley and slugged it out, but when it was at church, they would usually have a big split and one side withdraws and builds another church, rather than patch up their differences. As some of our people got richer they even chipped in large amounts to create these new churches. I know of two families who almost single handedly paid for most of the cost of a new church, over petty differences, so they could hire their own minister and they pulled half of the congregation away with them.
Reverend Hopp was an influential preacher on the style or reputation of our preachers in Russia. As we built more churches, the pastor’s powers seemed to recede too. Most families having problems in the old country, usually sought out the pastor for advice, help, or counseling generally his word was law. At first it was this way over here too, then not having power or authority to settle a dispute by making himself judge and jury though, the pastor would advise, or even take a countryman to see a proper lawyer. It has been said that he was usually rewarded with money for arranging these things, just as he would be for performing a wedding ceremony. In the Thirties [1930’s] he actually helped two women from our neighborhood get their husbands committed to the asylum for the insane at Salem. The one lady told me she gave him $20.00 for his help, which she didn't think was wrong. In about six months or so she decided that although her husband was violent and mean, (he died of a brain tumor later) having him home working and bringing in his salary, was better than having no husband at all. She went back to see the pastor, who informed her that putting him away was easier and cheaper than getting him out. I am sure that he meant for attorney fees and all, but the neighbor’s suggested that he meant to make extra by this, so he was referred to in many instances as an "ambulance chasing preacher doing leg work for attorneys."
One of the most colorful of our folk in the area was Gottlieb Riegert. He lived in a house on Union Avenue between Failing and Shaver. He had diabetes and later had both legs cut off, but was usually thought of as one of our more notorious citizens. He had card rooms, gambling, moonshine and was always doing well because of his friendly nature and the fact that men and women seeking an evening out having a friendly drink or game of cards could come and enjoy themselves. He would sometimes loan money to widows or divorcees and it was said he could supply male or female relationships. Like the barber is always inquisitive of his customer, Riegert was with his, and because he sold moonshine there, he usually knew more of the personal side of many folks lives, than did the barber or the preacher.
Most of the people burned wood for heat. In late summer the wood started being piled on the strips of city owned land between the streets and sidewalks, where it sat until dried properly, then it was usually thrown into the basements and re-stacked until the basement couldn't hold anymore. Some folk had it brought out cut to the proper length, some bought cheaper slabwood in 8 foot or 16 foot lengths, depending on the storage room they had in the yard. We had an old fellow countryman, who came around with a horse and wagon with saw attached and he used his horse to work a treadle which run the saw to cut the slabwood. The area of Portland that was our Volga German area was always one of the cleanest neatest areas of Portland and visitors always remarked how good and clean it even smelled when the wood was piled along the streets drying. Many people who visited from coal burning areas usually had that picture pop into their minds when they heard the name of Portland, Oregon. The ashes created hauling jobs for our people and these ash haulers eventually turned into garbage haulers. I worked as a garbage hauler upon arrival, until I got a job at Nicholi Mfg. Co.
A lot of our people worked at Doernbecker Furniture, or some of the other furniture or door making operations in the area. Many started garbage businesses. Many people thought it a degrading type of job which only a Russian German with many kids and no money, or an Italian immigrant in the same fix would do, until in later years when others realized it was hardest of work, but was also very healthful being out in the fresh air in the early hours of the morning and paid better than furniture making. At first it was small and slow with many using horse and wagon. There were also fruit and vegetable peddlers as well as junk collectors roaming the streets with horse and wagon. Some even came with hand, push carts. I worked on a garbage route for some Spady brothers from Norka, on a part-time basis when I was searching for a steady job. We hauled away many things which were salvageable, that we could still use ourselves. On one occasion I remember during a rainstorm, a grocer’s basement got water up high enough to wet the bottoms of several 100-pound sacks of sugar, so the grocer had us haul it away with the garbage. We made a nice spot for it and dropped it off at a neighborly bootlegger's house, and it was used without waste, as well as making a little extra profit for the folks I was working for.
Vetter Hannes Spady lived near neighbors to the bootlegger, and the Spadys' had four boys as I remember, Henry-John-Louie, and the other slips my mind at this time. The boys watched where the moonshine was hidden, and one night swiped six gallons. They had garbage-carrying cans set upside down in the yard, airing out most every day and night. They sold me a gallon, and Henry Schreiber a gallon, then hid four gallons under the carrying cans in the backyard. The bootlegger came over to Spadys' as soon as he discovered his loss, accusing the boys of the theft. Mr. Spady went through the house and garage looking for the six gallons of booze, but couldn't find it. When they got out to the yard, he just on a whim tilted a carrying can over, and there was a gallon of moonshine, so they recovered four gallons and he apologized to the man for his boys petty larceny.
I finally got a job working for Great Northern Railroad. We had to move to Wendlin, Oregon, where I worked on a section line gang. There were quite a bunch of us Norka natives working together. A man called Schwindt's boije was our crew boss. A fellow employee was Conrad Weidenkellar, who was brother to my aunt’s husband Henry Weidenkellar. Conrad Weidenkellar had been seriously injured, when a handcar or sidecar; which the rail crew traveled on, was derailed going around a sharp curve and he was thrown out against a solid stone wall of rock in the downhill curve and he was badly broken up and unable to work for many months. Conrad didn't sue the company or give them any problems, because the District manager told him that if he didn't make waves, he would have a job for life. Many countrymen had thought and advised him to sue, but he didn't do that.
A lot of families of our countrymen, would pick berries, hops and other crops, to help garner more money for the expense of raising the large German families. Conrad Weidenkellar’s wife was picking hops in St. Paul, Oregon, so he would go to there on weekends to help her and spend the weekend with the folk there. Many of our people did the hop picking every year, until their families were raised. On the weekends that Conrad went to St. Paul, he usually didn't get back to work until Tuesday. This went on the whole time that his wife was in the hop yards, and being as I and Conrad rode to work together and lived practically together, Schwindt would ask me where is that old guy? I would tell him that he went to be with his wife for the weekend and hadn't made it back yet. Finally one Monday when he wasn't back, Schwindt told me when he got back to tell him he wasn't needed anymore. When I got off work and went home, Conrad was there and I relayed the message. He stayed home then, until payday, and when he went in for his check, he stopped in to see the District Manager, who told him to go back to work and he would be paid for the days he lost, then he came out to the job and berated Schwindt and told him that Conrad was not to be messed with as the other employees.
We were really starting to get ahead in this new land of ours. I was working hard, but getting good pay too and saving. If one could have seen into the future a little better, we would have probably stayed in Portland and gotten financially sound, but there was the matter of getting my wife Anna together with her brother and sister and their families, was always uppermost in Anna’s thoughts. They had left the Oklahoma farms and moved to Michigan, where the automobile industry was going great at that time. Of course we missed the people we left behind in Russia, but there being only a brother Johannes still alive there and the fact things were so terrible at the time of our leaving, it never was a temptation to return to Russia, but my promise to Anna to get her to her relatives won out, and we planned our trip, or move, believing that if all didn't go well, we could return to Portland.
Source
An excerpt from Memories of Norka an unpublished book of stories told by Conrad Brill to his son George Brill who compiled them as a tribute to his father. Conrad Brill was born in Norka, Russia. Used with permission of the Brill family.
Last updated November 12, 2016.