This is the story of the settlement of the prairie and plains of the United States of America by hundreds of thousands of Germans during the last half of the 19th century.
More specifically, this is the story of our own ancestors, Prussian immigrants who settled in Minnesota and Wisconsin between 1853 and 1884. Common among their surnames are Arndt, Dahlke, Eyffer, Grimmelt, Happel, Matz, Ost, Potthoff, Rusch, Schatzke, Wanke, Warnke, and Weckwerth.
Most left the villages of Buchwerder, Neuhofen, Putzighauland, Gembitzhauland, or Runau in the "county" of Czarnikau in the province of Posen. Most finally settled in the counties of Chippewa in Minnesota or Marquette in Wisconsin.
They were aggressively recruited by sophisticated campaigns largely funded by U.S. railroads. They were enticed by offers of land, much of it free, made available by the Swamplands Act of 1850 and the Homestead Act of 1862.
They left behind a rigid class system rent by economic, ethnic, ideological, political, and religious conflict . . . which is the history of Prussia. They brought with them cole slaw, hamburgers, kindergartens, and labor unions.
Regarding the latter and taking liberties with the lyrics from the third verse of Ralph Chaplin's old union hymn, Solidarity Forever:
"It is we who plowed the prairies;
built the cities where they trade;
dug the mines to find the iron,
many acres of swamp we drained . . ."
Fred and Sally Comer and their daughter Allison Ring are school teachers (political science, biology, and mathematics in that order). They represent the two most recent of at least four consecutive generations of school teachers in the family. This is their fourth book in a series of four, one for each of Allison's grandparents.
