Dear Family & Friends,
The final week of my journey is counting down and much is happening
very fast. As has been the case with nearly every day of this trip, the
best is happening by accident, not by design.
Tuesday afternoon I was free so I decided to take a tour of Odessa. I
have seen little more than the marketplace, train station, and nightlife hangouts. I booked onto a tour that turned out to be me, the guide,
a driver, and a mini-van.
As the guide and I are traveling around the city I mention that my
German family lived near Odessa in the 1800's but I had not been able to
locate the village. In 1939 Russia expelled all of the remaining Germans
in what is now Ukraine, changed the village names, and moved Russians
into the German homes. Sergey, my guide, asked if I wanted to find the
village. Of course, I said, "Yes!"
After a walking tour of the oldest part of the city we picked up the
van again and headed off to a historical museum. The director of the
museum lamented that during the German occupancy of the area all records
of the Germans in Russia were taken back to Germany. There is a
Bessarabia museum in Stuttgart that would have all the information I
needed. She did offer to look at what few copies of artifacts she still
had available.
A photocopy of an old map located the family village of Gnadental
(meaning: Mercy Valley or Hope Valley) and comparing current roads and rivers we had a
general idea of where it might be. She produced a book with a listing of
the German villages and their current Russian names. Gnadental was
listed, but there were two villages with the new name. I recalled from
my research that it was near the town of Artiz, so we assumed the
village nearest Artiz was Gnadental.
While still officially on the tour, we stopped a taxi driver with a
nice car and made arrangements to have a car and driver for the next
day. I offered Sergey a fair amount for his services and at 8:30 the
next morning they picked me up for the 2-1/2 hour ride to what may or
may not be the village of my ancestors.
Having driven the road to Kiev, the trip to Gnadental seemed to be
more of the same until we crossed the Dniester river - the historical
border between Ukraine and Bessarabia. Bessarabia is a delta and the
landscape was significantly different. Low, flat, black soil excellent
for farming. Even the climate was different.
When we pulled into the village we hoped would be what I was
searching for, we asked the first people we met if they knew the
original German name of the village...Gnadental. I had found the place
where my family lived from 1833 to 1887. We stopped at the store where
we met the mayor of the town of about 800 people who volunteered to be
our guide and introduce us to the locals. He knew of one woman who was
of German decent where we made our first stop.
Yes, she remembered the Hagele families who lived there, but she was
uncertain exactly where they lived. She did, however, have a map that
had been given to her by another German family that had traced their
roots back to Gnadental. The map showed the family name of the owners of
each lot in Gnadental. The names of my family and in-laws jumped off of
the page.
The home of one Hagele had been leveled during the war. All that
remained was the cellar. Gnadental was not an important wartime target,
but it was in the way and saw a significant amount of action. Two other
Hagele homes still stood.
With Alexander the mayor, and Sergey the translator, we approached
the home of my third great grandfather's second wife. The Russian family
invited us in with open arms.
As was the case when I visited the homestead in South Dakota, I was
surprised at the size and comfort of my ancestral home. The walls were
quarried stone and about ten inches thick. This gave a cooling effect
that was enhanced by a very large cellar that vented into the home. The
master of the house insisted we toast to my arrival with homemade wine
and the mistress insisted that we stay for lunch.
As we continued our visit, we found the home of my fourth great
grandparents. The 87 year old Russian woman who now lives there invited
us in for tea. Nearly identical in size and layout to the other homes,
it too was large and very comfortable in the hot August afternoon.
We strolled around the village taking photos of the remnants of the
German graveyard that had been destroyed by the Russians years ago and
the homes of other families related to me by marriage.
As I took the long ride back to Odessa I realized that my journey had
come full circle. Almost exactly one year ago I had decided after
visiting South Dakota that I wanted to see where my family lived in
Russia. In the process I fell in and out of love with a Russian woman,
gained a Russian family, had some extraordinary experiences, and have
met many wonderful people - perhaps even my future wife. Although I was
a bit distracted along the way, I had finally completed the original
purpose of my trip.
Attached is a photo of Alexander the mayor of Gnadental, Sergey the
translator, me, and the Russian family currently living in the home of
the second wife of my third great grandfather.
Glenn
