Newsletter

Newsletter Subscriptions
Our Library Has Moved
Update on the 1906 Western Canada Census
The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project
German Russian Cultural Festival – Leader
SGGEE Convention
GRHS Convention Reminder
Essay Contest
German and German-American Easter

Bulletin #114 March/Apr 2004

Germans from Russia
Spring Fair

St. Mathew Lutheran Church
66 7th St. NE
Saturday 24 April

Library Resources Available at 11:00 am

Our GRHS Library
The AHSGR Library
The Mennonite Resources
The Volhynian Materials
“NEW” The Jewish Society Materials

Volga Boatman Sandwich at 12:00 noon (Bratwurst on a bun, sauerkraut, dessert square & a drink) Cost $7 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
GRHS Sausage Supper and AGM Starting at 5:30 pm (Home-made sausage and a bun, potato salad, coleslaw, coffee or juice and strudel) Cost $8 Call Don Krassman ph 288-8314 by April 22 to reserve your seats at a table

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Newsletter Subscriptions

Yes this newsletter will continue through the next year. Would you please attend to your newsletter subscription notice as soon as possible. If we do not hear from you quickly, we may have to assume you are not renewing. Consider the subscription as going from April to April of next year. Those who do not have a subscription form in this mailing can assume you have already prepaid for the next year.

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Research

Our Library Has Moved


Linda and Joe Elder have taken custody of the Chapter Library. It is now available for view at 143 Waskatenau Crescent SW. Those living out of Calgary may borrow materials by contacting Linda at PO Box 34088, #55 1610- 37 St. SW, Calgary, AB T3C 3W2, phone 403-242-7383 or email: hproc@shaw.ca The current list of library materials is on the Newsletter subscribers website and will be published in this newsletter next month.

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Update on the 1906 Western Canada Census

There are approximately 21 275 pages of data in the 1906 census and about 800 000 people who were living on the Canadian Prairies. At least 84 volunteer transcribers are currently working on the census. To date the site contains information for about 317 000 people. This breaks down as follows: 72% of the 200 000 Albertans, 27% of the 270 000 in Saskatchewan and 27% of the 370 000 people in Manitoba.
Efforts continue in the endeavor to urge the government to allow the 1911 census to be released to the National Archives as well. The same people who were successful with the 1906 census are directing their attention to the 1911 census. Any letter or email to your MP would help.

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The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project

The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project provides people from all over the world with immediate access to Alberta Folklore, Art, Aerial Photographs, early Alberta Newspapers, Alberta Legal Documents, Local and Alberta Histories.
It is a project begun by the University of Calgary Press in 2001 and has a rich co llection of resources on line. Principal among them, are the local histories of Alberta communities. The pages of these books have been scanned and they can be read at the website. You can search the site to find a place name or a surname. Not all books have yet been entered as this is a work-in-progress. I remember that once this project was begun, our Canadian Heritage Minister vowed to have the site eventually display local histories from all across Canada.

The Local and Alberta Histories collection consists primarily of books and books on microfiche. Provincial histories and histories of specific regions and communities are available. The content of the collection is based on A Bibliography of the Prairie Provinces to 1953 with Biographical Index compiled by Bruce Braden Peel and Alberta, 1954-1979 A Provincial Bibliography compiled by Gloria M. Strathern.

The Early Alberta Newspaper collection will contain all Alberta newspapers. Both dailies and non-dailies (weeklies, etc.) are in the collection. The majority of the newspapers have been scanned from microfilm and microfiche. Currently, the collection is organized by place and by the date of the microfilm roll. For dailies, you can get within three months of the date you're looking for. For weeklies and irregular frequency newspapers, selecting a roll will usually get you within a few years of the date you're looking for.

The Folklore collection includes many aspects of the history, tall tales, humour and stories of Alberta. Manuscripts, reminiscences, stories, plays, poems, photographs and other materials are included. The collection, which contains approximately 1,000 accessioned items, is housed in the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library. The archive was collected by the University of Alberta between 1942 and 1946 under the directorship of Robert E. Gard.

The Law collection provides you with access to retrospective Alberta Statutes from 1906-1990 and Alberta Bills from 1950 to 1990. The collection can be searched by full text, the statute/bill titles and by the year and chapter/bill number of the statute/bill. Retrospective Bills (from 1906-1949) and Gazettes were added to this site in 2003. Current Statutes can be found at the Alberta Queen's Printer site.

The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project website is accessible at http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/

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German Russian Cultural Festival – Leader

This is a reminder of the Leader Festival to be held June 17 to 20. Information about the planned program and registration was provided in the last issue of this newsletter. The website has been relocated to http://www.leader.ca

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SGGEE Convention

The Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe (Volhynia and Poland) have booked their 2004 Convention for August 5,6,7,8 in Calgary at the Coast Plaza Hotel and Conference Centre, 1316 -33 St. NE A tentative schedule and registration information is available by writing to
SGGEE
Box 905 Stn “M”
Calgary AB T2P 2J6
Canada
Email: convention@sggee.org
or visiting the website at http://www.sggee,org

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GRHS Convention Reminder

Remember the 2004 convention is to be held in Bismarck, ND 22 – 25 July. This year, the opening ceremonies will be held mid-morning on Thursday. Village Coordinators who are present will be introduced. The VCs will have an area set aside at the end of the library and Thursday evening at 9 pm the annual Village Night.The convention is sponsored by the GRHS Board of Directors. Membership in the GRHS provides a discounted registration fee. It also allows access to protected files on the GRHS website at http://www.grhs.com and a quarterly publication of the Heritage Review. A membership application is again attached to this newsletter and is available at the website as well.

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Essay Contest

The Hubert Zelmer essay contest is open to all Canadian high school students having at least one grandparent as a German from Russia. The theme is “Germany/Russia/America…Giant Steppes Toward Freedom” and the Chapter offers a prize of $100. The essay is also eligible for the Youth Essay Contest sponsored by the GRHS in Bismarck. That contest has an expanded entry requirement encouraging students of other ages to enter. See the following.

Youth Essay Contest

The contest promotes the goals of the GRHS by encouraging young people to learn about the history of the German-Russians. Genealogy is a rapidly growing interest in our society; exposure to the study of family heritage and to the history of the German-Russians helps to stimulate a lifelong interest in family and ethnic history. The winning essays will be announced at the 2004 Convention in Bismarck in July.
Eligibility
The contest is open to all students in public, separate, private or home schools or universities subject to the age categories below. The subject of the paper must be related to the German-Russian Heritage and must be the contestant’s original work; however, the student does not need to be of German-Russian heritage to enter this contest.
Categories
International winners will be chosen in each of the following categories:
Topics
Topics may include any and all aspects of German Russian heritage, including:
Format
Format for the paper may include:
Paper Requirements
Middle School
High School
University/College
Entrants are asked to write to the editor for the paper requirements.
Sources of Information
Judging Criteria
Only the essay’s text is judged; contestants will not be required to read or orally present their essay. Judges are impartial and will not know who wrote the essay. Winning essays will be judged on originality, creativity, clarity, style and evidence of serious research effort.
Awards
First place essays will be published in the GRHS News, and electronically on the GRHS website. Undergraduate winners will be published in the GRHS Heritage Review, the scholarly journal of the GRHS. In addition, winners in each category will also receive the following:
Middle School: First Place: 1st place trophy & $50 US. Second Place: 2nd place trophy and $25
High School: First Place” 1st place trophy and $50 US. Second Place: 2nd place trophy and $25
University: $100 US scholarship to be awarded through their university and a trophy.
Submission Date
Deadline: Completed essay and entry form must be postmarked by 30 May, 2004.
Please contact the editor for a copy of the official entry form.

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German and German-American Easter

From the website http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/customs.htm
It is not by chance that Easter is celebrated at the beginning of Spring. Easter and Spring go well together because the Resurrection of the Savior in the Christian religion is reflected in the "resurrection" of nature after winter. The Christian doctrines and feasts were being worked out at the same time as Christianity was spreading over Europe. Very often Christian missionaries in central, northern and western Europe deliberately used pre-Christian rites, holy places and holy times of the year to make the new creed meaningful to the people, by enhancing the old customs with new beliefs. The same may have been the case with Easter, the oldest Christian feast, first introduced in the early second century.

The early Christian Church and its missionaries then placed Christian celebrations and symbols on top of the early Pagan ones. But the older symbols refused to die.

There has been much speculation about the connection between the name "Easter" and an ancient Anglo-Saxon lunar and spring goddess named Eastre, Eostre, or Ostara. Her name has come down as Ostern or Easter, the English name of the Christian Holiday Season. Eostre, apparently is a European version of Astarte/Isis and some even associate her with the Hindu goddess Kali. Eostara is a lunar holiday, honoring a lunar Goddess at the Vernal Full Moon. The Church placed the Easter celebration on the Sunday, following the Vernal Equinox. Thus Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first full Moon, after the Vernal Equinox. If Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, Easter will be postponed to the following Sunday instead.

Eostre's chief symbols were the hare, both for fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon, and the egg, symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation. Related terms are "estrus" and "estrogen," the female hormone. Not only is estrus related to reproduction, it is also seasonal and in the case of humans (one of the few animals that does not exhibit strict seasonal reproduction) it is also approximately lunar.

Early Anglo-Saxon people at this time of year used to honor Eostre at the first Spring full moon, when mother Earth awakened and the first green and spring flowers appeared. Eggs were used in these celebrations because they represented the beginning of life. The Easter rabbit is most commonly believed to be a symbol of fertility, and in ancient Egypt it represented birth and new life. Because they have been associated with fertility for centuries, eggs symbolize the beginning of Earth's fertility period in many areas of the world. The hare (Osterhase) and the Easter bunny, eggs, newly hatched chicks,all are symbols of birth and rebirth. They are folk/cultural symbols and not religious ones.

Vernal Equinox rituals center around the annual warming of the earth and the renewal of her fertility; seeds sprouting in darkness after a winter of dormancy; and the rising of the spring constellations in the night sky. In German households there will be Spring cleaning and decorations are brought into the home, budding twigs, crocuses and daffodils, willow and birch, the first shoots of grasses, or wheat sprouts in an earthenware pot. Easter trees, small trees or branches, decorated with eggs, have long been a part of German Easter celebration. Recently they have shown up in some parts of the U.S. The Easter Bunny (Osterhase), so the story goes, arrived much earlier with Palatine immigrants (see below) and has become a part of the American Easter tradition.

Eostre is also the Goddess of women and young girls. In the dark of Easter night, girls would go in complete silence, to get Easter water (Osterwasser holen) from springs and brooks to wash with Easter water. If a girl was able to sprinkle her lover with Easter water, there would be a wedding soon. Easter is also a time for Easter fires. After Easter Service or in the evening before Easter Sunday, big bon fires would be lit (great image of a rolling-wheel Easter fire). The sun of spring would be greeted with sunrise services followed by an Easter breakfast. Or the family would gather for a big Easter dinner.

While many Easter customs most likely date before the Christianizing, they have been given new meaning by the Christian Church, and new traditions were added. The Passover lamb of the Old Covenant became the symbol for Christ's sacrifice. Easter music plays a large role in churches and an Easter play may be performed. There may be the traditional Easter promenade (see Goethe's Faust) or an outing. Colorful, painted, hard boiled eggs, but also wrapped chocolate eggs, marzipan eggs, Easter bunnies, sweets and other gifts will be hidden in the garden, so that children can hunt for them. Adults will write Easter greeting cards and give each other flowers, eatables and/or drinkables. More durable presents have also become part of the feast.

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THE CHANGING ROLE OF EASTER EGGS

Easter presents furnish interesting examples for a discussion of the history of cultural and social change. The first historical mention of colored eggs (although not Easter eggs) goes back to the 13th century. We know that in the 16th and 17th centuries colored eggs were given as Easter presents. In the Baroque period it became customary for young people who wanted to become engaged, to give each other colored and decorated eggs.

Elaborate techniques were used in decorating eggs. They were gilded, lined with paper, and adorned with inscriptions and ornaments. A popular method was to inscribe decorations and verses on the white eggs using liquid wax. Afterwards the eggs were dyed and the spots covered with wax remained and were clearly visible. This complicated technique is applied to this day in a few villages near Marburg/Lahn (in Hessia)-- although no longer for the romantic purpose described above but rather for people who wanted to have the eggs as decorations.

Why the Easter egg custom has become so popular, we do not know. One reason may be, that around Easter time the rural household had plenty of eggs handy. The hens--particularly the less productive strains of past centuries--began to lay eggs again in the spring. Another explanation would be that Easter marks the end of the time of fasting during which eggs and meat were forbidden. All this may have helped to further the custom.

In feudal society one's social standing was set from birth, and this meant that the different social classes had different rights and duties "by birth"--including the right to receive Easter presents or the duty to give them. This too has changed with the times. Presents are now exchanged between all individuals who want to surprise others and show them appreciation.

Children are not obligated to give presents at Easter. They only receive them. In some German regions, children virtually "collect" Easter eggs from their relatives, especially their godparents. In general however, the customs relating to children's gifts have also changed. What once were conventional little gifts have now become more or less "surprise presents," where the "Easter Bunny" has been placed between the child and the giver. Small children believe that the Easter Bunny has brought and hidden the items. The Easter Bunny is less of an "educational" figure than is St. Nikolaus, for the eggs are not given as rewards for being good.

The custom of the "Easter Bunny" (Osterhase) hiding Easter eggs can be traced back to the year 1682. Rabbits were also connected to other Easter customs, maybe because they have their litters at the time and so appear more often in people's gardens to nibble on the fresh greens. In the 19th century, the rabbit gradually became popular as the bringer of Easter presents, and in the first half of this century he finally won out over all competitors.

Some Easter egg games have been preserved at certain places in Germany and in the U.S., or they have been newly developed. Children try to outdo each other in rolling colored eggs down grassy slopes, or they knock the egg's pointed ends together (Eierpecken) and the child whose egg does not shatter gets the broken egg too. And the family would eat hard-boiled eggs for weeks afterwards. Eggs with green sauce (German Grüne Sosse or Beiguss) is a post- Easter favorite. Ruth M. Reichmann, Max Kade German-American Center, Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis

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DER OSCHTER HAWS / DER OSTERHASE

In his Eastertide in Pennsylvania-a Folk Cultural Study--Pennsylvania Folklife Society, 1960, Alfred A. Shoemaker tells us that the Easter Rabbit is foreign to England and large parts of Europe. "It was the Palatine immigrant of the eighteenth century who introduced him into our country and to our English-speaking neighbors... It must be remembered that the vast majority of the early English settlers in the Commonwealth--the Quakers and the Presbyterian Scotch-Irish--did not celebrate Easter. In fact, they even "shunned" it."

Childhood's greatest pleasure in the Dutch country, next to the visit of the Christkindel on Christmas Eve, has been--from the very first settlement in Germantown in the 1680's on--to prepare a nest for the Oschter Haws (Easter Rabbit)."

He goes on to mention that really ornately decorated eggs were "scratch carved", that is with a sharp knife or instrument one would scratch through the dye to the natural color of the egg shell. "Die alten kritzelten Tullpannen darauf" is reported of the Moravians in 1829.

The Easter Egg Tree appears to be an extension of a custom of impaling brown eggs on a bush at Eastertime and is known in Germany and Switzerland. These are still to be seen, but with bright colors here and there in the Springtime in Pennsylvania. Indoor Easter Egg trees appear to be a more recent development.

Lastly, to quote the late Dr. Shoemaker: "do you know what I mean by an oschter-foggel (Easter bird) or egg bird? Simple. Our Pennsylvania Dutch great-grandparents took a dyed egg, blew it and made four holes in it--one for the head; two in the sides, for wings; and lastly, one for the tail. And these egg birds served as decoration in the living rooms of long ago."

From Es Elbedritsch, Newsletter of the Pennsylvania German Society, March 1994

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Join the Germans from Russia Heritage Society online at http://www.grhs.org/membership
Minimum Annual Dues (US Funds Only)
Membership $40.00
Life ($100 per year) $650.00
Membership year is January 1 to December 31.

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