Interview with
Pauline "
Immigrated from
Date
of Interview:
Edited
version:
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Pauline Beer/Baer Kircher and her husband
Joseph Kircher; Mary
Fastner (Mohelnitzky Bauer) on the right. |
Pauline
"Lena" Beer/Baer Kircher Photo
taken |
The Interview:
Pauline Beer Kircher describes her life
in Glitt and Solka,
Transcription of the Interview:
This document is a shortened, edited transcription
of an interview which took place at the
Genealogy Information:
Pauline (also known as "
Mary Fastner was born on
Present at the Interview:
Pauline "
Eleanor
"Ella" Kircher Huber of
Dean Blau
family of
Q: = Questions
(asked by Dean Blau family and Ella)
A: = Answers
(given by Pauline, unless otherwise specified)
{Parentheses - italics} = information
added later for clarity
Q: {Where did the Fastner family live?}
A: They lived in
Q: When you came to this country on the
boat, how old were you?
A:
I was about seven or eight.
Q:
Do you remember the old country?
A:
I remember some.
Q:
Do you remember where you came from over there?
A:
From Glitt {pronounced as "Gleet"}. And your Grandpa
and Grandma {Fastner}, they lived in
Solka. At that time I couldn't even write and read, couldn't do anything.
Q:
That was in
A:
In
Q:
Is that kind of like a state?
A:
Oh, that was just a little burgh.
Q:
A:
Yah. And, they would live together, you're all neighbors.
Q:
Do you remember when they decided to come over here? Why they decided to
do this? It was quite a big step, wasn't it, to pack up?
A:
Oh, it was, yah. There was about 14 families.
Q:
There was 14 families that came all at one time?
A:
Yah, but there was some of them that were young, they got married and so
that was a family. That's why they had fourteen. But, of course, we had all
children. You're grandpa had children and my father had children, and there was
Kunzmanns.
Q:
Do you remember coming on the boat?
A:
Oh sure!
Q:
Do you remember what the name of the boat was?
A:
That I don't know. But the boat, when we came, it run into a, one of
those y'know, those, I can't think of the word.
Q: Iceberg?
A: Iceberg. Yah.
Q:
You ran into one?
A:
Yah. Oh my goodness, that was terrible, terrible. Everybody was crying
and praying, and crying and praying. It run into...and was a big hole in the
ship. And then the water came rushing in and that started to fill up and then
everybody was praying and praying that they could fix it. And they had the, on
the boat they had the sea, big fish. They were lying in there and we run into
that iceberg and that water was comin' in there and that fish was lying in
there. The old kids had pillows and stuff over our heads {flotation devices?} and everybody cried and cried. We thought we
were gonna drown. The ship was sinking and it was starting to sink already and everybody
was working, trying to get that ship to close up. Otherwise we was very close.
Q:
How did they ever get it fixed?
A:
Well, they had everybody help and they worked so hard, the captain and
his bunch worked so hard to get that fixed and then finally, when they had it
fixed so that water was gone, they was pumping it out as fast as it was coming
in. And so we all thought that we was gonna drown and everybody prayed and prayed,
the little and the old people. Everybody had something on their head they
wanted to take care of so not to get it into {their} mouth. Well, then when they got it fixed then we could move
again but, oh my gosh, that was an awful excitement. Everybody cried and cried,
they thought they were gonna go down.
Q:
So then you finally made it to, where did you...
A:
Then when we got to
Q:
You must have landed in
A:
Yah.
Q:
Stayed in
A:
Yah. Because they had the children yet, they all had to have school,
too. And it was good, all the children had a education, but we, all those kids
that went out to
Q:
A:
Yah.
Q:
A:
Yah. And we stayed there and we stayed in
Q: That's why he didn't go out there.
A:
That's why he couldn't go.
Q:
My grandpa never went, he never left
A:
No.
Q:
He never went to
A:
No.
Q:
The Fastners, they never did, huh?
A:
Well, ya didn't have, there was always a job, you could get work here
but we wanted to get on a farm and, of course, they didn't have enough money to
go so they stayed here {
{NOTE: Later in the interview,
Q:
What was your maiden name?
A:
Baer
Q:
B-A-E-R?
A:
It was Beeta bleear {sounds like}. My brother changed the name
but it was Beeta bleear.
Q:
What was your dad's first name?
A:
Anton. Anton Beer. {Baer}
Q:
So, see all these years I heard that our Fastners went to
A:
No, they didn't. Because they couldn't go any further. They hated to go.
They wanted to be with the whole bunch, y'know, it was such a little
settlement.
Q:
So you stayed out there.
A:
Then when we got there they had to get horses and they plowed and made
sod, and from that sod they built our sod house. But your people didn't have no
sod house because they didn't get that far. And then, we had in McCook, we had
that agent and he said, "Now
you people will have to buy something when you get out there because there
isn't much there." Well, they was all right so they had to buy a stove and
they had to buy utensils for cooking, and we had to buy things to cook and to
do, and to work with that they bought in Nebraska.
Q:
They bought it cheaper but {it
cost} a lot of money to ship {the
goods}.
A:
They had a lot of money and too much, nobody had...
Q:
How did you get from
A:
Well, when we got to
Q.
And the Fastners were with you at that time then? The Fastners were on
that same train that you were on?
A:
No. No, they were when we came, yes. In
{NOTE: Sister Alodia (Amelia Faster) life
story says that Wenzel Fastner had a tailor shop in
Q:
Do you remember what year that was?
A:
Uh, huh. {yes}
Q:
But you were about seven or eight?
A:
Yah, I was about seven and a half. Yah, I must have been eight. I think
I was only seven when we left
Q:
What year were you born? Well, you're 98 now...
A:
1879.
Q:
How long did that boat ride take? Did that take months?
A:
Boat ride? Oh, I don't know, about, I guess, about three days. We were
on the boat a long time. I don't know, was it three or four days.
Q:
Oh, I thought it would be longer.
A:
It might have been longer. Ach, y'know, I grew up afterwards and I
forget a lot of that stuff. When I was a kid, I...that stuff, some of it stays
with you but some of it don't. Too many years ago and I was a little kid. Well,
I was eight. I must have been eight anyway, about eight. Seven, or seven and a
half, something like that.
Q:
Was it in the spring or the fall or summer or winter, do you remember
that?
A:
We came here the fourth of July.
{Zeugniss (Morality Certificates) from
June 18, 1887ship passenger list - Fastner
and Baer families arrived in
Q:
That's when you got to
A:
Yes, when we came to
Q:
To
A:
Yah, it was just the fourth of July and they were all running around
with masks, y'know, here. We never had saw anything like that. So, we were just
wild about it, y'know, and they had big doings on the fourth of July and so we
had a good time with the rest of 'em. Well, then from there, when they got the
sod house built, then we could get in, well, then we moved to, and that, sixty,
no, hundred and sixty acres land (160), but there was cactus there. Boy, my,
that was full of cactus and rattle snakes. We didn't have any coal or anything
like that. We had to burn that manure from the cows, biscuits what the cows...
Q:
That's what you burned for fuel?
A:
Yah, we had to go out with bags, gunny bags, and pick them. And the
cows, and then you'd bring them home and then we'd put 'em on a pile, when you
have as many as they could pick. We had to go every day, we had to pick cow
manure. Oh, well they had to burn that cow manure and then we had, we didn't have
no water. They had to take it and go by anybody that had a windmill here, they
had far to go for water. They had those big barrels, y'know, those big barrels.
And we had about five...
Q:
How long were you in
A:
Seven years.
Q:
And the Fastners stayed in
A:
Yah. They {were} there. You
mean Merie's people?
Q:
Yah.
A:
Yah. They stayed here in
Q:
So then you came back to
A:
Yah.
Q:
How old were you then?
A:
Then my father, they were writing back and forth, back and forth and
they went up to
Q:
While you were in
A:
No, while, when we left Colorado seven years after we lived in, on the
prairie, and my dad got sick and tired of going back and forth, to earn some
money. So then they decided they would maybe go to
Q:
Did they have to buy it or was this a homestead?
A:
Well, I don't know, but I guess they took up homestead, too, after a
while. I don't know, that I don't know. But, it's so long ago.
I can't think.
Q:
You were telling about when you were corresponding.
A:
Oh yah. When we lived there and they lived {Fastners} here and they always corresponded with each other. We
all really got kind of homesick for one another. So then, of course, they
stayed here {in
Q:
White lightening? Brew?
A:
No, no, you gotta buy that. It was, I don't know what they call it, and
we'd dilute it with water and then that's what we'd used to drink when we have
dances like that.
Q:
Just alcohol, I suppose, huh?
A:
Yah. Well, you had to dilute it, sure, so it got down. Otherwise
everyone woulda got drunk. That stuff is awful strong. What is that anyway? They
used to get that in a tavern. What would they call that? Oh, I forgot that
name, it was awful strong and we'd take brown sugar and then put water in there
and have brandy, but of course, I don't know how good it was. I don't remember
that, but that's what we had when we wanted to have a party or so we'd get some
of that stuff, brown sugar that made it a brown drink then. Then we'd dance,
we'd jump around like animals.
Q:
So then, did the Fastner's ever go out there {to
A:
Yah, they wanted to go, but they didn't have enough money. They had to
stop here {
Q:
They never had enough {money}?
A:
So, everybody advised them, "You better stay here {
Q:
Like my grandma {Mary Fastner},
I suppose, she had a little schooling over there.
A:
Yah.
Q:
She should have been nine, ten years old when they came.
A:
Well, Mary was, she was, I was three years, I think, no, I was two years
older than she. But Marie {Mary Fastner} wasn't born then. {Mary was born in 1881;
Q:
No, my grandma Mary was born over there, far as I know. She was born in
A:
Yah. They must have came with us.
Q:
They came with you, then, you said.
A:
Yah.
Q:
Were you friends over there, too, or did you just meet when you came?
A:
We were friends there, too. We used to go to church. They lived in
Solka. That was just, oh, maybe five blocks, five miles from, we had to go to
church from Buc...from
Q:
You went to church from
A:
To Solka. We always went to church there. But then we had a little bit
of a church in our neighborhood that we used to go. But when we wanna go to
Mass, so we always went there, to Solka.
Q:
Is that where the Fastners went?
A:
But that was about two, three blocks.
Q:
And the Fastners went there, too?
A:
Oh yah! They lived in Solka {pronounced
as "Sulka"}. And we lived in Glitt.
Q:
But it was pretty close?
A:
Oh yah. Maybe a mile or so.
Q:
Why did they come over here? Do you know? Couldn't they make a living
there?
A:
Well, I don't know. But, it's just, my dad always said, "When they
grow up you can't get them anything because there wasn't enough to give."
Q:
Over there {in
A:
And he said he didn't think that we ought to go to
A: I don't know how old grandpa was, that
was their grandpa. He was blind in
Q:
He was blind in
A:
Yah. And he used to give out...
Q:
Did he go to
A:
They brought him from, he came with us.
Q:
The grandpa, just the grandpa?
A:
No, the grandma, their grandma. Well, that was your grandma's,
great-grandma's father.
Q:
He was blind.
A:
They take him, they brought him along.