Family/Spouse: Stephan Bernhardt. Stephan (son of Franz Bernhardt and Christina Becker) was born in 1852 in Katharinenthal, Odessa, Ukrayina; died in 1933 in Halbstadt, Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BIOGRAPHY: http://basic1.easily.co.uk/02E010/02B019/fam00309.htm

Family/Spouse: Christian Renner. Christian (son of Johannes Joseph Renner and Franziska Berger) was born in 1854 in Speyer, Odessa, Ukrayina; died in 0Aug 1918 in Speyer, Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Joseph married Margaretha Kuhn on 4 Feb 1897 in Katharinenthal, Odessa, Ukrayina. Margaretha (daughter of Johannes Jakob Kuhn and Margaretha Schnell) was born on 16 Jun 1879 in Speyer, Odessa, Ukrayina; died on 19 Jul 1948 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BIOGRAPHY: http://basic1.easily.co.uk/02E010/02B019/fam00309.htm

Michael married Leogadia Maier about 1931. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Angela Kiefel. Angela (daughter of Georg Kiefel and Walburga Hirsch) was born in 1910 in Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Rosa married Florian Raimund Dauenhauer on 28 Jun 1920 in North Dakota, USA. Florian (son of Raimund Dauenhauer and Amelia Stein) was born on 15 Aug 1892 in Landau, Odessa, Ukrayina; died on 1 May 1954 in Richardton, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johannes married Veronica Stocke on 10 Jul 1923 in North Dakota, USA. Veronica (daughter of Nikolaus Stocke and Katharina Dauenhauer) was born on 19 Dec 1900 in North Dakota, USA; died on 24 Jun 1970 in North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Sebastian married Katherine Schmidt on 20 Nov 1928 in Hirschville, Dunn County, North Dakota, USA. Katherine (daughter of Adam Schmidt and Ottilia Loran) was born on 1 Oct 1908 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA; died on 17 Jan 2004 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA; was buried on 21 Jan 2004 in Saint Joseph Cemetery, Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Anna married Peter M. Magelky on 22 Jan 1925. Peter (son of Matthias Magelki and Katharina Gärtner) was born on 6 May 1894; died on 23 Nov 1956. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Anna married Joseph M. Miller on 21 Jan 1959 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Anna married Peter Kolling on 14 Jul 1962. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Beatrice married Johannes Christian Berger on 14 Feb 1928 in Hirschville, Dunn County, North Dakota, USA. Johannes (son of Christian Berger and Pauline Renner) was born on 11 Jan 1906 in Speyer, Odessa, Ukrayina; died on 11 Dec 1976 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA; was buried in Saint Patrick's Cemetery, Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Eleanor married John Jacob Reichert on 26 Jan 1932. John (son of Jakob Reichert and Katharina Lantz) was born on 12 May 1909 in North Dakota, USA; died on 9 Nov 1984; was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Billings, Yellowstone County, Montana, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Leo married Ann Erdle on 17 May 1943 in Richardton, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Margaret married William Joseph Hill on 1 Dec 1945. William was born on 26 May 1912; died on 20 Sep 1996; was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Arlene Vaagen. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Search for Siblings – Found in Russia: The Story Continues, Hope Fulfilled, Part 2

Tandberg, Kathy. "Search for Siblings – Found in Russia: The Story Continues, Hope Fulfilled, Part 2." Beulah Beacon, 3 November 2005, 6.

Valerie Ingram of Spokane, Wash., grew up looking at an old black and white photo of two children hanging on the wall of her childhood home. She had never met these children, nor played with them.
All she knew of the children was what she had been told – their names, Emma and Adolf, and they were her father, Michael Renner’s, first children who had been lost in Russia many years before.


Valerie Renner Ingram reunited recently at the local Germans from Russia meeting with many cousins from the area including Hazen resident Mel Beckler.
These lost children were assumed to have died during World War II, along with their mother. She knew by the look in her father’s eyes that he loved and missed these children very much. It was a thought that has never left her.

"As kids we asked Dad questions about them and he told us about them with tears in his eyes," Valerie said.

When Michael spoke of his first children he told them gently of how much he loved them, but of little else, leaving many unanswered questions in his children’s minds.

Valerie was raised in a loving home with five other siblings and her father and mother Angela Kiefel Renner. But Michael had always been quiet about his past life.

"He was a proud father, the best father. But he always made it clear to us he did not want the world to know he knew Russian (he wasn't Russian and would get really irritated if someone said he was) because he feared if they (the Russians) knew he was alive they would harm his family," Valerie said.

Because her father held his past life with Emma and Adolf secret in his heart, all Valerie knew of those siblings was their image. And she wanted to know more but didn’t intrude.

In 1992 one of her brothers decided to ask their aging father if they could search for Emma and Adolf. His request was met with an anger that shocked his grown children.

But the request must have laid heavy on Michael’s mind and a few days later, he called his children home.

No spouses, no grandchildren, not even his wife were allowed to hear what he had to say to his children. They sat before him waiting. And then their father, their hero, began to speak and didn’t stop for more than four hours as he opened his heart and told his story, his sad secret.

"He told us of life in Russia with his family. Drew us maps and showed us the family chutor (home). Then he told of his father’s arrest and death, of watching (the Russians) cut off all of his fingers, ears. How they burned him and poked his eyes out and then shot him in front of the villagers as an example," Valerie said.

Michael’s mother Barbara lived in fear of the Russian creed "Death to the cradle." Michael was the cradle of his family and so she sacrificed the ultimate mother’s sacrifice and sent her young son away with false documents (which made him 3 years older) to live with relatives.

Michael later wandered the countryside, on his own completely at the age of 19. He later married Leogadia Maier, the daughter of a German Russian and a Russian. They became parents of two children, Emma born in 1935 and Adolf, born in 1937.

Russia was in times of war and turmoil. Raids on German villages were increasing. German males were taken away from their homes and families by the truckloads.

Michael realized that for the safety of his family, they needed to leave the country. But his wife refused to leave her recently widowed mother. She believed that she and her children would be safe because of her Russian blood.

Michael left his home and family in 1941, finally arriving in Germany in 1944. He thought his family would one day follow and filed the appropriate documents that would allow them to enter Germany, but without further word.

He never saw or heard from them again. Trying to find them again would have put them in too much danger. His wife knew he was in Germany and was to try and come and find him but never did. So he assumed them to be arrested by the Russians and either taken to Siberia or killed.

A few years later, Michael moved on with his life and married Valerie’s mother. In 1952 Michael and Angela, already the parents of three sons, were airlifted out of Germany to the U.S. They moved to Solen, N.D. to make their home. It was there Valerie was born.

The family later moved to Spokane, Wash., had two more children and settled there for life.

After telling his sad story to his children he made them swear an oath not to search for their siblings until his death. He thought with him dead, the Russians would have no further interest in him. Sadly he died in 1995. He was 87.

Three months later the search began…

Valerie used whatever resources she could find, including records from the Germans from Russia organization with international headquarters in Bismarck, N.D. She began making phone calls and sending out letters to other researchers, looking for any Renner in the United States.

Valerie also posted inquires on the Internet on various sites. That led her to Michael Miller, an expert on Germans from Russia history and heritage with North Dakota State University in Fargo.

"My first reply was from Michael Miller," Valerie recalled.

Miller led Valerie to Dale Wahl and then she really got started. She ended up connecting with many cousins over the Internet. Together with new-found cousin Al Berger, she built a database for Catholic families from the villages of Speier and Sulz, where the family had once lived, and soon added more villages.

Valerie continued her search and it was in 1998 that she sent a letter to the Landsmannschaft in Germany, asking for their help in locating her lost siblings. She never received a reply, but tried again, this time sending information from her father’s EWZ documents (with German Russian information, names, dates, marriages, births, villages) enclosing copies verifying that he did leave his children behind and that he had made it into Germany.

A reply came in December from a man named Peter Mock who had read of her plight. Peter lived in Canada at that time, and had gone to Germany to visit his grandmother. While there he saw the query posted in "Volk Aug Dem Weg" and told Valerie when he returned to Canada.

A month later she received a letter from Germany that was written in Russian. After having it translated, she learned that the letter was from a first cousin, Selestina Renner Rau.

Rau, who had been born in the same village of Speier, was the daughter of her father’s half brother, Peter. While she did not know of the lost siblings, she wrote of the fate of the rest of Michael’s family after he had been sent away as a child of 10 with false papers.

"They (Michael’s family and mother) had been arrested and taken off to the labor camps in Kazakhstan in 1939, along with my grandmother. Finally I knew the fate of my grandmother, Barbara Bernhardt Maier Renner, whom my father had last seen in 1923," Valerie said sadly.

Michael’s mother had died on the march due to Siberia and was buried in the woods along the way. Like Valerie and her family searching for Emma and Adolf, Rau and her family knew nothing of Michael and his life after he left home at age 10. The search was a blessing two-fold.

Valerie continued her search, attending the 2002 Germans from Russia convention in Bismarck where she spoke with her cousin, Vera Hoff. Hoff had recently toured the Ukraine and convinced Valerie she should go as well to continue her search.

The trip was planned for September 2003 with Robert Schneider LLC Tours. Val’s cousin David Kilwien would travel with her. The tour schedule included the Catholic villages in Beresan, to see where Valerie’s father had gone to school, to church, to walk the same streets where her grandfather was murdered so many years ago.

Valerie had indicated to Schneider that she needed to visit all the Catholic villages, explaining why.

"I couldn’t go all the way to Ukraine and not check where I thought my siblings may have lived. I needed proof that they had once lived so I could put them to rest in my mind," Valerie said.

Schneider sent the list of villages and information on to Valentina Fromm of the Ukraine. Fromm worked with his tour company in Europe. Fromm volunteered her services as a researcher to see if any member of the Renner family could be found still living in the area.

Valerie was on the Internet in January 2003 doing her morning email when she opened a message from Fromm.

Fromm has sent the information from Valerie to the German Society in Nikolaev Region. She then looked through all information that was found and a miracle occurred.

Valerie scrolled down in the email and read the next line in shock.

"I have found your brother and sister!"

Emma and Adolf were both alive and living in Russia! Her trip to Russia would be more than a search. The lost was now found!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Look for the third and final story of Valerie’s reunion with her lost siblings in "Lost in Russia" in next week’s issue.

Family/Spouse: Unknown Ingram. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Bertha married Frederick Barton Hobbs on 6 May 1945 in North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

*Zita (Dauenhauer) Gieser, Dickinson, North Dakota
Ancestral Villages: Katharinental, Landau, Speyer [Beresan District]; Franzfeld [Liebental District]

Zita writes, "I was born the second child of Florian Dauenhauer and Rosa Bernhardt Dauenhauer. I had six sisters and two brothers and we lived on a farm near Taylor in southwestern North Dakota.

"My parents were of German-Russian ancestry with my father's family immigrating from Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, in 1809 to Russia. They helped found the colony of Landau in the Beresan Valley. My father immigrated from Landau to New Salem, North Dakota in 1912 at the age of 20. My mother's family also immigrated from Rheinland-Pfalz and helped to found the colony of Katharinental in 1816. My mother then immigrated to Glen Ullin, North Dakota from Katherinental in 1914 at the age of sixteen."

Zita graduated from Taylor High School and married in 1943, farming on her husband's family farm until she retired to Dickinson in 1981. She taught a rural school and raised seven children who blessed them with sixteen grandchildren, four of whom are already college graduates. During all this, Zita found time to participate in many community organizations and activities ranging from local to national duties. She presently serves as secretary for their local chapter of GRHS and is a village coordinator, for Landau and Katharinental as a member of their Stark County Historical Society.

"During our May, 1993, tour [to Russia and ancestral villages, she writes], we felt privileged to see childhood home colonies of our parents, Landau and Katharinental. Our parents often spoke of their old homes and shared many fond memories with us. Rosemarie [Zita's sister; see Rosemarie Hoff below] and I were happy their parents did not see how their beautiful churches had been desecrated. We are most thankful our parents had the opportunity and the courage to leave Russia and immigrate to the United States."

Zita married Raymond R. Gieser on 1 Jun 1943 in North Dakota, USA. Raymond (son of Sebastian Gieser and Caroline Lanz) was born on 21 Dec 1915 in North Dakota, USA; died on 19 Feb 2007 in Dickinson, Stark County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Bernard married Victoria Tuhy on 21 Jul 1953 in USA. Victoria was born on 5 Sep 1926 in North Dakota, USA; died on 4 Nov 1998 in Moab, Grand County, Utah, USA; was buried in Sunset Memorial Gardens, Moab, Grand County, Utah, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Emma married Emil John Braun on 14 Aug 1950 in North Dakota, USA. Emil (son of Joseph Braun and Theresia Unknown) was born on 28 Jun 1922 in North Dakota, USA; died on 12 Nov 2003 in Northfield, Rice County, Minnesota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Otto married Marilyn Prickett in 1966. Marilyn was born on 14 Dec 1936 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA; died on 13 Mar 2008 in Oregon, USA; was buried in Union Point Cemetery, Banks, Washington County, Oregon, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: George Clement Hoff. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Rosemarie (Dauenhauer) Hoff, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
Ancestral Villages: Katharinental, Landau, Speyer [Beresan District]; Franzfeld [Liebental District]

Rosemarie writes, "I was born to Florian Dauenhauer and Rosa Bernhardt Dauenhauer on a farm in western North Dakota. Florian had immigrated to the US in 1912 with his family. Rosa came to the US with her family in 1914. My paternal ancestors left Rheinpfalz in 1809 and settled in Landau, Beresan. My mother's ancestors were originally from Eußerthal near Bergzabern in the Pfalz. They were founders of Katharinental in 1817; the new colonists spent the winter of 1816/17 in the older colonies of the Beresan.

My parents were married at Hirschville, North Dakota, and farmed north of Taylor where they raised nine children. When I was in the sixth grade, we moved to Richardton. Three of my sisters and I completed grade school and graduated from St. Mary's High School. Maurice Hoff, also from Richardton, and I were married at Petaluma, California. We have three children.

In 1993, I had the good fortune to be able to visit the birthplaces of my parents with my daughter and my sister Zita [see Zita Gieser, above].

Rosemarie continues, "Truly, this was a gratifying experience to be able to visit Katharinental and Landau; to see the village my mother had spoken of so often. We saw the elementary school she had attended. The building is unused and in disrepair.

In 1994, Zita and I were members of the American delegation to the 1994 Bundestreffen in Stuttgart. More than 45,000 Germans from the former Soviet Union attended this gathering. Among all those people, we met and talked with former Landau residents and were delighted to meet descendants of our common ancestor, Valentina Dauenhauer of Landau."

Rosemarie married Maurice John Hoff on 6 Sep 1952. Maurice (son of John Peter Hoff and Anna Maria Derzapf) was born on 13 Dec 1931 in North Dakota, USA; died on 6 Sep 2005 in Littleton, Arapahoe County, Colorado, USA; was buried in Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Denver County, Colorado, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Ervin J. Amann. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Ralph R. Aman. Ralph (son of Johannes Amann Aman and Franziska Paul) was born on 7 May 1915 in Hebron, Morton County, North Dakota, USA; died on 10 Mar 1990 in Bismarck, Burleigh County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edman married Kalliope D. Peppas [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edman married Nina Shoemaker on 18 Mar 1967 in California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Annacleta married Roy Hartman [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown Hermanson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Vince Campo. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Georgene Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Wendell Thorell. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Gene Focht. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown Maresh. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown Kjerstad. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Mildred married Erwin Edwin Hoff [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Sam Marsh. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Walter Monson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: LeRoy Paulson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married Lois Metz on 24 Nov 1954. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married Gladys Rena Klein on 8 Apr 1983 in Montana, USA. Gladys was born on 5 Dec 1919 in Golden Valley County, North Dakota, USA; died on 15 Mar 2016 in Wibaux, Wibaux County, Montana, USA; was buried in Beach City Cemetery, Beach, Golden Valley County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Lawrence married Marcella Martin on 6 Apr 1959. Marcella died on 6 Aug 1991. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Lawrence married Carol Heble in Feb 2000. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Lee Swanson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown Hanson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Patricia married Fred Michael Granum [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]