13.  THE CARLS ARRIVE IN AMERICA

Schleswig-Holstein was a land that went back and forth between Denmark and Germany for many decades.  Many wars were fought over this land, so another reason for leaving Germany for America was so that their sons didn't have to participate in any more wars.  Maybe they wanted their sons to go to America as soon as they could to escape the fighting, and they probably had only enough money to send their two eldest children at first.
  

Their oldest daughter Margaret Elisabeth, age 15-1/2, but claiming that she was 18, emigrated to America on the "S.S. Suevia" in May 1882.  The following September George Christian Carl, almost 12, but saying that he was 16 and with an occupation of "smith", made his voyage on the "S.S. Rhein" out of Bremen, Germany.  Margaret and George must have matured really early to look three or four years older than their real age, but were mighty courageous to each sail all alone to a strange country and also travel halfway across that America to the Midwest.  

(On an 1893 Schleswig-Holstein list online was the name of our Great-uncle "George Christian Carl, born in 1869,  accused of not showing for military service and of leaving the country without the required permit.")

It is interesting to note that daughter Margaret Carl immigrated just three weeks after her Uncle John William Albers's family, including her cousin, Nick Albers, whom she would marry in four years.  They first settled in Iowa for a few years.  This John W. Albers and our Great-Grandma Annie Alberts Carl had the same parents listed on their Minnesota death records, Claus Albers and Elizabeth Dorothy Hansen, so they must have been brother and sister.  Was there an attraction between Cousins Nick and Margaret back in Germany?

It's hard to see how a medium-sized, or smaller, man like Jacob Stamm Carl could make a successful living as a blacksmith - there was another blacksmith on the island - but on the ship's manifest, he is listed as a "Taylor".

Perhaps the Carl family would have immigrated earlier than 1889, but the selling of their big house and blacksmith business may have delayed their journey to America.  The remaining Carls finally met the requirements for the trip seven years later than their older children, Margaret and George, as they are listed on the German government list with permission to emigrate.  The ages of the five children are incorrect -- instead of their real ages -17, 15, 13, 9, and 8, their ages were listed in order as 14, 7, 6, 5, and 4.  Obviously, Marie, Magda, Adolf, Bertha, and Emma were not present for that listing! 

The Carl family set out of Hamburg on May 26, 1889, on the "S.S. Wieland", with a stop at Havre, France, and then continued to America.  In a family compartment in steerage, they were passengers numbered 186 through 192, and they had four pieces of luggage among them.  After ten days at sea, they got to see the new Statue of Liberty as they entered New York Harbor on June 8, 1889.  They still had to complete the harrowing processing at Castle Garden, much like the Fusts did seven years earlier.

(To read all the requirements for obtaining permission to leave Germany, what the voyage in steerage was like, as well as the experience at Castle Garden, you may read my blogs numbered 4, 5, and 6 in the Fust stories.)

12.  THE CARL FAMILY IN GERMANY

Now we'll go on to the German state of Schleswig-Holstein where our Grandma Bertha L. CARL was born.

Schleswig-Holstein is also in Northern Germany bordering Mecklenburg's western border and Denmark's southern border, as well as the North Sea on the west and the Baltic Sea on the east.  Schleswig-Holstein's northern area is part of the Jutland Peninsula on which all of Denmark sits.  Much of Schleswig-Holstein was a lowland used mainly for farming.

Several generations of the CARLs lived within or near the Eiderstedt Peninsula.  Jacob Stamm Carl was born February 11, 1839, and baptised on April 6, 1839 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Witzwort near the Eiderstedt.  He was given the exact same name as his father who was born in Kreis (like a county in US) Eiderstedt in about 1798. Little Jacob's mother was Maria Lucia Bundies who was born about 1812 in Tating on the Eiderstedt and who died April 12, 1842, when our great-grandfather was just three years old.

About 1866 at age 27, Jacob Stamm CARL II, the son, married Anna Elisabeth Katrine Albers, daughter of Claus Alberts and Anna Elisabeth Dorothy Hanssen.  As a day laborer, he may have worked on other family farms.     

They had five children by 1876 born in the Witzwort area of the Eiderstedt Peninsula.  Margaret Elisabeth Carl was born on September 13, 1867; George Christian Carl was born on October 24, 1869; Maria Magdalena Dorothea (Marie) Carl was born on March 11, 1872; Anna Friedrica Magdalena (Magda) Carl was born Septermber 29, 1873; and Adolph Stamp Carl was born February 6, 1876.

Somehow, our great-grandpa, Jacob Carl, had saved up enough money to buy a large, thatch-roofed, brick house that included Jacob's blacksmith shop at one end.  This house was located on the island of Nordstrand, which is very close to the mainland at Husum.  It is accessed now by a driveable mile-long and high causeway connecting to the German mainland.  On this island, Bertha Catharina Lucie  was born on October 18, 1878.  Two years later on September 9. 1880, our Great-aunt Emma Sophie Wilhelmine Carl was born.  Both girls were baptised in the Evangelisch Lutheran Church on Nordstrand.  

(In 1985 when Larry Woodwick and I made a trip to Germany, we visited with the current owner and resident who was the third generation of the buyers of the Carl home, now run as a guest house.  Had we known that ahead of time, we would have stayed in Grandma's birth home!)

Nordstrand was part of a much larger peninsula called Strand.  However, a disastrous storm tide tore the peninsula apart and washed away one-half of the land in 1634.  That created smaller islands such as Nordstrand and Pellworm, over 200 years before the Carls moved there.  A total of 6,123 people drowned, and 1,339 farms and houses were washed away, as were twenty-eight windmills and six clock towers.  The estimated loss of livestock was 50,000.  Nowadays, homes and farm buildings are built on mounds of earth to provide some protection in the event of a break in the dyke during a storm. 

Reminiscing about Germany while in the US, Grandma composed a lovely song about her childhood where she played with her friends on the Leiderdyke with the sound of her blacksmith father's anvil nearby.

11. THE BUNGERS IN AMERICA

Marie Bunger Fust's young sister, Sophia Bunger, married Hans Christoph Heinrich Huenemoerder in Germany on August 17, 1883, and almost immediately immigrated to America.  Their ship was the "Westphalia" which sailed from Hamburg and Havre, France, arriving in New York City on September 11, 1883.  Sophia's husband was a brother to Sophia Hunemoerder Bunger, her step-mother, so Hans was Johann Jochim Andreas Bunger's brother-in-law as well as his son-in-law!  Hans changed the Hunemoerder name (meaning "giant killer") to Hummiller in America. Hans and Sophia lived near the Fred Fust farm near Dysart, Iowa.  So besides her brother John Bunger, Marie Fust also had her sister nearby!

On September 20, 1884, Marie Bunger Fust's father, Johann Bunger, his second wife Sophia, and their two little sons, Heinrich and Hermann, half-brothers to Marie Fust, Sophia Hummiller, and John Bunger already in Iowa, arrived in New York City on the "S.S. Hammonia".  They went directly to Iowa, settling on a farm whose inner corner touched the inner corner of the Fust farm in the same section of land.  We can imagine that our Grandpa William Fust and his sisters, Aunt Frieda, Aunt Erna, and Aunt Emma, often visited with their young uncles, Henry and Herman Bunger, as well as their Grandpa Johann Bunger, Step-grandmother Sophia, and Aunt Sophia Hummiller.

Hans and Sophia Hummiller (also spelled Huemoeller) raised a large family:  Fred H., born 1882 in Germany; Julius John, 1885; Martin, about 1887; twins Amanda Marie and William, 1890; Emma Mina, 1891; John Henry, 1893; George Gustav, 1900; Hans William, 1903; Harry John, 1905; and Elsie Mathilda, 1906.  The Hummillers moved to Pipestone, Minnesota in about 1892, about the same time that Fred and Marie Bunger Fust moved to Rock County, Minnesota, just south of Pipestone County, north of Iowa, and west of SE South Dakota.    

The patriarch Johann Jochim Andreas Bunger died at age 72 on February 8, 1895, and was buried at Clutier, Iowa.  Then that same year, 1895, his 52-year-old widow, Sophia Hunemoerder Bunger, married Alfred Erickson, who was 6 years younger than Sophia, and they moved to Carlton County, near Barnum, Minnesota, where the Bunger boys, Heinrich and Hermann, grew to manhood.

In the meantime, Marie's brother, Uncle John Bunger, lived in Iowa for about seven years before he bought a farm near Hardwick, Minnesota.  This is the farm he rented out to his nephew, Grandpa William and Grandma Bertha Fust, newlyweds in 1900, which became the birthplace of the first five Fust children -- Marie, Jacob, Rosa, Alfred, and Huldah.

Our great-grandmother, Marie Bunger Fust passed away on February 18, 1919 at Hardwick, Minnesota, of dropsy and Bright's disease.

Then, John Bunger, always a bachelor, lived with Fritz and Erna Fust until Fritz died in 1927 at the home of Mrs. Hans (Sophia) Hummiller.  Then both Uncle John Bunger and Aunt Erna Fust lived with William and Bertha Fust and their family on the Cayuga, North Dakota farm until Uncle John Bunger passed away there in 1934.  He is buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Luverne, Minnesota.

10.  THE BUNGERS IN GERMANY

Besides the Fritz and Marie Bunger Fust family, another immigrant ancestor is Marie's father and our great-great-grandfather, Johann Jochim Andreas Bunger, mentioned briefly in the previous stories.

He was born May 2, 1823 in Cambs, Mecklenburg, to Jochim Christoph Bunger and Katharine Sophia Dorothea Hunemoerder.  (Hunemoerder means "giant killer".)  At age 27 on November 14, 1850, he married Maria Catherine Magdalena Schoof.  On August 31, 1851, our great-grandmother, Maria Sophia Dorothea Elisabeth Bunger was the first child born to this couple.

When she was five years old, Maria's little 3-year-old brother died (1853-1856).  The next year her brother Johann Ludwig Jacob Carl Bunger was born on April 8, 1857.  This is the brother who joined Marie and Fritz Fust on the voyage to America, commonly known to us as Uncle John Bunger, but he was really our great-uncle.  When Marie was 9 years old, another baby brother, Heinrich Christoph Johann Bunger, was born on August 23, 1860, but died at only 1-1/2 months of age.  Finally, 11-year-old Marie gets a little sister, Sophia Dorothea Henrica Bunger, on December 22, 1862. 

When Marie was 17, her mother died at 45 years and 9 months old on September 30, 1868, leaving their 45-year-old father to raise Marie, 13-year-old Uncle John Bunger, and 6-year-old Sophia.  Only two months and eight days later, on January 8, 1869, the widower married Sophia Dorothea Elisabeth Johanna Hunemoerder, his younger daughter Sophia's future sister-in-law, so you can imagine that there is a wide age difference.  We should be glad that our great-great-grandfather carried on a tradition. His father, Jochim Christoph Bunger, married Katharina Sophia Dorothea Huenemoerder just three months and 22 days after his first wife, Anna Maria Dorothea Wegner, passed away, leaving him a one-year-old daughter to care for.  This second marriage resulted in our ancestor Johann Jochim Andreas Bunger's birth in 1823.

Then more Johann Bunger children were born to him and his second wife.  Wilhelmina Maria Dorothea Johanna Bunger lived for only five years (1870-1875).  Later their two sons were born, Heinrich Emil Friedrich Hans Bunger on July 4, 1879, and Hermann Theodor Martin Bunger on October 24, 1882.

Next, read about the Bungers who immigrated to America!

9.  LATER YEARS IN HARDWICK

Fred and Marie Fust enjoyed their retirement life in the village of Hardwick, Minnesota, with their adult children and young grandchildren living nearby.  

The 1910's decade started with the birth of George John Piepgras on New Year's Day.  Five more grandchildren were born:  Raymond William Fust on January 11, 1911; Alroy Detlof Piepgras on June 30, 1912; John Lorenz Hoeck on March 2, 1912; Norman Adolph Fust on March 22, 1913; and Gilbert John Fust on December 29, 1917, making a total of 15 grandchildren for them by 1920.

However, not all grandchildren were nearby for their grandparents' love, as the W. H. Fust family had  moved to Idaho in late 1909 or early 1910.  It is interesting to note that back on April 19, 1903, W. H. Fust was listed on a Manifest of a train from Latah, Idaho, to the Port of Admissions at the Port of Kingsgate, British Columbia with $60.00.  This is our W. H. Fust, "age 37, a farmer, born in Germany, a Citizen of U.S.A., going to Penhold, Alberta, Canada."  Penhold, right by Red Deer, is in the vicinity where Grandma Bertha's sister and brother-in-law, Margaret and Nick Albers and family, moved to in 1910. He may have also been scouting land to buy in Idaho and Alberta.

After returning to Minnesota to farm the land owned by his Uncle John Bunger for a few more years, Grandpa W. H. Fust auctioned off some farm equipment and household goods.  The whole family moved to Latah County with baby Huldah and the older four children, taking some important possessions and animals along in the train car they rented.

After our Great-grandmother, Marie Bunger Fust, passed away on the 18th of February in 1919 from kidney disease at age 62-1/2, Fred retired from all farming activities.  He and Aunt Erna were living in Hardwick in 1920 along with Uncle John Bunger.  In 1925, Fred and Erna made their home with our Grandpa William Fust on their farm near Cayuga, North Dakota, for a year and a half until Fred began to grow feeble due largely to his advanced age. Then Fred came to Pipestone, Minnesota, to live at the home of his cousin, Mrs. Hans Hummimuller.  There he passed away from heart failure on June 17, 1927, at age 78 years, 9 months, 16 days.

According to his will, he bequeathed $4,000.00 cash to his daughter Erna, and each of his four children, including Erna, would receive 1/4 of the remaining estate.

Both of these great-grandparents are buried in the beautiful Maplewood Cemetery in Luverne, Minnesota.  Their obituaries and death records can be found in Stories 18 and 19 on this blog site.(You can check out the website <FindAGrave.com>  to see pictures of their tombstones.) 

         

8.  LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM IN MINNESOTA

After eleven years in Iowa, when Grandpa William was 19 years old, Erna was 6, and Emma was 4, the Fred Fust family moved to a Rock County, Minnesota farm in Denver Township near Hardwick in 1894.  Shortly after their move, news was received of the death of Marie's father, Johann Jochim Andreas Bunger, on February 5, 1895, in Clutier, Iowa.  Then on June 4, 1895, Marie gave birth to Ella Marie Fust.  Sadly, she died within her first year on March 26, 1896.

The Fust family of Fred, Marie, Willie, Erna, and Emma is listed in the 1900 Federal Census on June 7, 1900, on the farm near Hardwick, while Frieda is listed with her husband, John Piepgras, age 22, in Rose Dell Township, just west of Denver Township.  That's the year when Frieda, at age 21, was married on February 22 and Willie, age 25, married our Grandma Bertha Carl, age 22, on November 30 in Luverne, Minnesota.  I wonder if the siblings ever double-dated?!

Soon the Fred Fusts became grandparents when on November 30, William Fred Piepgras was born.  Then Marie Magdalena Fust was welcomed on February 2, 1902.  Nine more grandchildren followed that decade:  Mary S. Piepgras on May 7, 1903; Jacob George Fust on December 10, 1903; Rosa  Frieda on April 17, 1905; Elmer Peter Piepgras on March 13, 1906; Alfred Carl Fust on November 26, 1906; Huldah Emma Fust on February 14, 1909; George Fredrick Hoeck on December 7, 1909; and Alroy Detlof Piepgras on January 1, 1910, closing out those ten years with eleven grandchildren!

Did you notice the Hoeck baby in that list?  There was another wedding that decade when Emma Rosine Fust,  just shy of 18, married John Henry Hoeck, age  26, on February 27, 1908, and they welcomed their first child, George Fredrick, in late 1909.    

Fred and Marie Fust were living in the village of Hardwick along with their single daughter Erna and Marie's single brother, John Bunger.  The 1910 Census shows that Fred Fust owned both his farm and his Hardwick home "mortgage free".  They were living the American Dream -- a dream nearly impossible back in Mecklenburg, Germany.

7.  THE FUSTS IN IOWA

Soon after their processing ordeal at Castle Garden in New York City, the Fusts probably took a train west  into Iowa, even though their initial destination on the ship list was Wisconsin.  They first settled on a farm in Oneida Township in Tama County near Dysart, Iowa.  This change was probably decided upon because Iowa lies in a more direct route from New York than Wisconsin.  They might have liked the flat land they noticed out the train windows, reminding them of Mecklenburg's flat land.

The Fred Fust family was listed in the 1885 Iowa State Census, which showed that Marie Bunger Fust's father was living nearby.  In fact, according to the land descriptions on the census, their farms touched at the inner corners of the same section. 

Jochim Andreas Bunger, his second wife, Sophia Huenemoerder Bunger, and their two small sons, Heinrich and Hermann, arrived in America in May 1884, one and a half years after his daughter Maria's family.  When the Fusts left Germany, Heinrich was three, and Hermann was a one-month-old baby.  We can imagine how happy Marie was to be reunited with her father, step-mother, and little half-brothers!

In January 1888, twin girls, Erna and Mary, were born to Fritz and Marie Fust.  Mary died in infancy, but two years later in May 1890, Emma Rosine Fust was born. We all remember our Great-Aunt Erna who lived with our grandparents Fust for some months of each year after her father's death in 1927. 

In October 1888, Fritz Fust took out his first papers, or Declaration of Intention, to start the process to American citizenship.  He became a full citizen of his adopted country within 10 years of his immigration in November 1892.  Then his wife Marie and all their minor children, William, Frieda, Erna, and Emma, automatically became American citizens too.

It was in Iowa where William H. Fust and his sister, Frieda, completed their schooling.