Married William Schwindt on November 11, 1917 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
In Memory of
Mrs. Pauline Schwindt
Date of Birth Febraury 13, 1898 at Topeka, Kansas
Date of Death August 26, 1968 at the Rush County Memorial Hospital at LaCrosse, Kansas
Place of Service Columbia Avenue United Methodist Church in LaCrosse,
Thursday, August 29, 1968 at 10:00 a.m.
Interment Lone Star Cemetery at Bison, Kansas
Organist Mrs. J. Howard Morse
Clergyman Rev. Eugene Solomon
Casket Bearers Ferdinand Dumler, Clarence Schwindt, Abe Dumler, Pete Schwindt, Herman Schwindt, Charles Collins
Arrangements by: Hoover Funeral Home, LaCrosse, Kansas
~
Parents were Adam and Emmie Schmidt Jacobs.
Anna Marie (Emmie) Schmidt Jacobs 1871-1904
Emmie Schmidt died when her daughter, Pauline, was a young girl just a few years after immigrating.
Pauline was born on the train coming from the east coast to Kansas City. Emmie never fully recovered her health after arriving in western Kansas.
----------------------------------------
Written by son Joseph Wayne Schwindt
In the 1760's, specifically 1763-1767, a great number of German people left their homes in Germany to accept the invitation of Catherine the Great or Catherine II, Empress of Russia, herself a German princess, to settle in the Volga River area of Russia. Having been promised a rich land "flowing with mild and honey" with a great many special privileges, they arrived at their new home site to find raw land with an extreme climate. Under great hardships they established homes and small farms, only to be raided time after time by the nomadic peoples, descents of Gerkis Khan, who occupied the area east of the Volga River. After decades of hardships, suffering and isolation, they developed into a thrifty, somewhat prosperous, but clannish people, a people with a deep and abiding faith. It is said of them that they practiced their faith with a devotion that was marked and notable. But the influence of Catherine the Great was limited and the special privileges she had extended to these German speaking people caused jealousies among other Russians, and by the 1860's these privileges were gradually withdrawn. This caused great unrest in the German settlements on the Volga and by 1874 large numbers began to leave the area for the new world, for the United States and for Argentina, Brazil and Canada. The first group left the Volga area in 1874 and arrived in Liebenthal, Kansas, in February of 1876. This process carried on for several decades, until more than half of the population of 600,000 were gone. In Kansas they found similar conditions to what their ancestors had fond in the Volga area 100 years earlier, - raw land, a somewhat hostile climate but rich soil that could produce if properly cared for, and a social condition that made it possible to establish themselves firmly as part of the community.
On September 2, 1883, in the little village of Norka, which lies on the plans west of the Volga River some 150 miles due north of Stalingrad, a son, William, the fourth child, was born to Conrad and Anna Katherine Schwindt. The Schwindt family felt strongly the unrest and dissatisfaction of the German people in the Volga area. Already other members of the family and many friends and neighbors had migrated to the America's. Nicholas Schwindt, William's grandfather, had left the Volga in 1874. (one of the earliest Germans to come to Kansas from Russia. Why Conrad and Anna Katherine did not come at that time is not known, but possibly the young family couldn't meet the financial obligations such a move involved. Never the less, by 1886 the family came to Rush County, Kansas and settled in Rush County near Bison.
In the Volga area the people kept themselves in clannish villages. Those who were Roman Catholics lived mainly on the east side of the Volga, and those who were Protestant lived mainly o the west side of the Volga, and when they migrated to the new world they maintained the same clannishness. Bison and Otis i Rush County were village established by German people for the Volga with a Methodist background, and into this area the Schwndt family came. But by 1886 most of the land was taken and before long they moved farther west.
In Rush County WIlliam, or Bill as he was known, grew to young manhood. He established a homestead farther west in Kansas, but when he returned to it after a visit with his family in Rush County he found that someone had "jumped his claim." And so, he returned to Rush County. Working on farms wherever he could, he saved a few dollars here and a few there and finally was able to purchase 160 acres northwest of LaCrosse, Kansas, that was available because it consisted of 160 acres of prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Here, between the German settlements to the North and the Scotch Irish settlers to the South, he made his home.
On February 12 or 13 in he year 1898 or 1899 (we are not sure because the only records were destroyed in a church fire) in Topeka, Kansas, a baby girl, Pauline Anna, was born to Adam and Anna Jacobs. They had arrived in Topeka only weeks before from Pfeifer, Russia, a small village on the west side of Volga approximately 100 miles north of Stalingrad. Most of the area west of the Volga was settled by Protestants, but this village of Pfeifer and a number of surrounding villages were Roman Catholic with closer ties to the major Roman Catholic village some 150 miles further north and across the Volga than with their closer Protestant neighbors. The Jacobs family soon made their way to the village of Pfeifer i Rush County, Kansas. But by this time the land surrounding Pfeifer (a small village in northeast Rush County named after Pfeifer on the Volga) was all occupied, and so the family moved to Liebenthal and then on to Cordia (a Catholic rural parish, satellite of Liebenthal north of McCracken, Kansas) where they were able to obtain 160 acres of farm ground. When a town argument split the village the church of Liebenthal, the Jacobs were part of the group that established Schoenchen. By that time Anna Jacobs had died and Adam had remarried. As often happen, the home wit a stepmother was not a happy home, and the girl, Pauline, found it to her advantage to leave home. As a very young girl, she began to cook and keep house for other families in the area. This she continued to do until her teens. She was so occupied in the hoe of Ed Walker family who lived some five or six miles north and west of the home that Bill Schwindt had established on his 160 acres of prairie dog town when BIll, a bachelor in his thirties, came to visit the Walkers. Bill was attracted to this good looking teenager and a romance was in the making. But there were problems.Bill was a Protestant, a Methodist, and the Jacobs were Roman Catholic and Roman Catholic girls DID NOT marry Protestant men. Finally, in November of 1917, Bill and Pauline boarded a train in LaCrosse, Kansas, and traveled to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where they were married in the home of the pastor of the Methodist Church, A.N. Evans. How long they stayed in Excelsior Springs I never heard. They were married on November 13th and in the family Bible is a printed Order of Worship service dated November 11, 1917. The rift between father and daughter that this action brought about was never completely healed, but by the time the first son arrived on the scene there was at least some visiting and some communication.
And so, in the midst of the hysteria caused by World War I, Bill and Pauline Schwindt started their family.
Ad stated earlier, the Germans who settled in the Volga area were a people with a deep and abiding faith. Religion was a strong and central force in their lives. In their quiet, unobtrusive way, Bill and Pauline demonstrated that fact. They were never to try to force their religious beliefs on anyone. Religion to them was to personal and to important to become a subject for argument.But, their lives were ruled and controlled by their faith. They took seriously the admonition that "In much as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
And so, quietly they took into the circle of their friends those whom the community of LaCrosse looked upon with suspicion. A Mexican-American railroad employee and his wife regularly exchanged produce and recipes with them. A Negro family, a remnant of part of a part of a Negro slave colony that was established in Western Kansas after the Civil War, who farmed nearby was considered a friend, as were the town's leading lawyer and banker.
By dint of hard work and wise management, the farm size was increased. A 320 acre addition bought just before the crash of 1929, was painstakingly paid for with dollars earned peddling dressed poultry and homegrown horseradish to town inhabitants, this much to the displeasure of the mortgage holder who hoped to foreclose.
Although Bill and Pauline had limited opportunities for education (Bill thought he advanced to the second grade level and Pauline remembered getting through the fourth grade), they became well read and well educated for their times and they saw the need for a good education for their children. Two of their three children (all of whom attended college ) received advanced degrees. They were proud of their children's achievements.
They retired from active farm life in 1944 because of Bill's poor health. They moved to a home in LaCrosse and spent their remaining years there. They developed many friends and were beloved by all who knew them.
Bill passed away on December 1, 1964, after an extended illness which decimated the physical body ut util the end, his mind was sharp and clear and he loved to make puns and jokes. Pauline, missing her life partner n a very real way, lived util August 26, 1968. They were buried in a cemetery near Bison, Kansas, near the remains of Bill's parents, Conrad and Katherine and his grandfather, Nicholas.
Addition by the son Joseph Wayne Schwindt:
Before their deaths, Bill and Pauline often spent extended vacations with Dollie and me. They were always most welcome and whenever they were with us they became part of the parsonage family. The concerns of the church I was serving as pastor became their concerns and so they became a part of the Cortez church. They were aware of the need of the Cortez Church for a new building, and when a financial drive was =conducted, felt a desire to contribute to that drive. They shared the dreams of the Cortez congregation. Upon their deaths, a memorial fund was established and when this new building was completed, steps were taken to use the fund in a fitting way.
Lumber was purchased in 1968 from which to make hand-carved doors for the man entry and an artist, Doris Johnson, was commissioned to see that the project was completed. And now, in 1981, the door panels are completed and you see them before you, not yet in place, but ready to be mounted.
To you, Bob Morgan, Pastor, and your, Jessie Leonard, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, of the Cortez First United Methodist Church, I present these door panel as a memorial to my parents, Bill and Pauline Schwindt, two of the finest Christian people I have ever been privileged to know.
In Memory of
Mrs. Pauline Schwindt
Date of Birth Febraury 13, 1898 at Topeka, Kansas
Date of Death August 26, 1968 at the Rush County Memorial Hospital at LaCrosse, Kansas
Place of Service Columbia Avenue United Methodist Church in LaCrosse,
Thursday, August 29, 1968 at 10:00 a.m.
Interment Lone Star Cemetery at Bison, Kansas
Organist Mrs. J. Howard Morse
Clergyman Rev. Eugene Solomon
Casket Bearers Ferdinand Dumler, Clarence Schwindt, Abe Dumler, Pete Schwindt, Herman Schwindt, Charles Collins
Arrangements by: Hoover Funeral Home, LaCrosse, Kansas
~
Parents were Adam and Emmie Schmidt Jacobs.
Anna Marie (Emmie) Schmidt Jacobs 1871-1904
Emmie Schmidt died when her daughter, Pauline, was a young girl just a few years after immigrating.
Pauline was born on the train coming from the east coast to Kansas City. Emmie never fully recovered her health after arriving in western Kansas.
----------------------------------------
Written by son Joseph Wayne Schwindt
In the 1760's, specifically 1763-1767, a great number of German people left their homes in Germany to accept the invitation of Catherine the Great or Catherine II, Empress of Russia, herself a German princess, to settle in the Volga River area of Russia. Having been promised a rich land "flowing with mild and honey" with a great many special privileges, they arrived at their new home site to find raw land with an extreme climate. Under great hardships they established homes and small farms, only to be raided time after time by the nomadic peoples, descents of Gerkis Khan, who occupied the area east of the Volga River. After decades of hardships, suffering and isolation, they developed into a thrifty, somewhat prosperous, but clannish people, a people with a deep and abiding faith. It is said of them that they practiced their faith with a devotion that was marked and notable. But the influence of Catherine the Great was limited and the special privileges she had extended to these German speaking people caused jealousies among other Russians, and by the 1860's these privileges were gradually withdrawn. This caused great unrest in the German settlements on the Volga and by 1874 large numbers began to leave the area for the new world, for the United States and for Argentina, Brazil and Canada. The first group left the Volga area in 1874 and arrived in Liebenthal, Kansas, in February of 1876. This process carried on for several decades, until more than half of the population of 600,000 were gone. In Kansas they found similar conditions to what their ancestors had fond in the Volga area 100 years earlier, - raw land, a somewhat hostile climate but rich soil that could produce if properly cared for, and a social condition that made it possible to establish themselves firmly as part of the community.
On September 2, 1883, in the little village of Norka, which lies on the plans west of the Volga River some 150 miles due north of Stalingrad, a son, William, the fourth child, was born to Conrad and Anna Katherine Schwindt. The Schwindt family felt strongly the unrest and dissatisfaction of the German people in the Volga area. Already other members of the family and many friends and neighbors had migrated to the America's. Nicholas Schwindt, William's grandfather, had left the Volga in 1874. (one of the earliest Germans to come to Kansas from Russia. Why Conrad and Anna Katherine did not come at that time is not known, but possibly the young family couldn't meet the financial obligations such a move involved. Never the less, by 1886 the family came to Rush County, Kansas and settled in Rush County near Bison.
In the Volga area the people kept themselves in clannish villages. Those who were Roman Catholics lived mainly on the east side of the Volga, and those who were Protestant lived mainly o the west side of the Volga, and when they migrated to the new world they maintained the same clannishness. Bison and Otis i Rush County were village established by German people for the Volga with a Methodist background, and into this area the Schwndt family came. But by 1886 most of the land was taken and before long they moved farther west.
In Rush County WIlliam, or Bill as he was known, grew to young manhood. He established a homestead farther west in Kansas, but when he returned to it after a visit with his family in Rush County he found that someone had "jumped his claim." And so, he returned to Rush County. Working on farms wherever he could, he saved a few dollars here and a few there and finally was able to purchase 160 acres northwest of LaCrosse, Kansas, that was available because it consisted of 160 acres of prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Here, between the German settlements to the North and the Scotch Irish settlers to the South, he made his home.
On February 12 or 13 in he year 1898 or 1899 (we are not sure because the only records were destroyed in a church fire) in Topeka, Kansas, a baby girl, Pauline Anna, was born to Adam and Anna Jacobs. They had arrived in Topeka only weeks before from Pfeifer, Russia, a small village on the west side of Volga approximately 100 miles north of Stalingrad. Most of the area west of the Volga was settled by Protestants, but this village of Pfeifer and a number of surrounding villages were Roman Catholic with closer ties to the major Roman Catholic village some 150 miles further north and across the Volga than with their closer Protestant neighbors. The Jacobs family soon made their way to the village of Pfeifer i Rush County, Kansas. But by this time the land surrounding Pfeifer (a small village in northeast Rush County named after Pfeifer on the Volga) was all occupied, and so the family moved to Liebenthal and then on to Cordia (a Catholic rural parish, satellite of Liebenthal north of McCracken, Kansas) where they were able to obtain 160 acres of farm ground. When a town argument split the village the church of Liebenthal, the Jacobs were part of the group that established Schoenchen. By that time Anna Jacobs had died and Adam had remarried. As often happen, the home wit a stepmother was not a happy home, and the girl, Pauline, found it to her advantage to leave home. As a very young girl, she began to cook and keep house for other families in the area. This she continued to do until her teens. She was so occupied in the hoe of Ed Walker family who lived some five or six miles north and west of the home that Bill Schwindt had established on his 160 acres of prairie dog town when BIll, a bachelor in his thirties, came to visit the Walkers. Bill was attracted to this good looking teenager and a romance was in the making. But there were problems.Bill was a Protestant, a Methodist, and the Jacobs were Roman Catholic and Roman Catholic girls DID NOT marry Protestant men. Finally, in November of 1917, Bill and Pauline boarded a train in LaCrosse, Kansas, and traveled to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where they were married in the home of the pastor of the Methodist Church, A.N. Evans. How long they stayed in Excelsior Springs I never heard. They were married on November 13th and in the family Bible is a printed Order of Worship service dated November 11, 1917. The rift between father and daughter that this action brought about was never completely healed, but by the time the first son arrived on the scene there was at least some visiting and some communication.
And so, in the midst of the hysteria caused by World War I, Bill and Pauline Schwindt started their family.
Ad stated earlier, the Germans who settled in the Volga area were a people with a deep and abiding faith. Religion was a strong and central force in their lives. In their quiet, unobtrusive way, Bill and Pauline demonstrated that fact. They were never to try to force their religious beliefs on anyone. Religion to them was to personal and to important to become a subject for argument.But, their lives were ruled and controlled by their faith. They took seriously the admonition that "In much as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
And so, quietly they took into the circle of their friends those whom the community of LaCrosse looked upon with suspicion. A Mexican-American railroad employee and his wife regularly exchanged produce and recipes with them. A Negro family, a remnant of part of a part of a Negro slave colony that was established in Western Kansas after the Civil War, who farmed nearby was considered a friend, as were the town's leading lawyer and banker.
By dint of hard work and wise management, the farm size was increased. A 320 acre addition bought just before the crash of 1929, was painstakingly paid for with dollars earned peddling dressed poultry and homegrown horseradish to town inhabitants, this much to the displeasure of the mortgage holder who hoped to foreclose.
Although Bill and Pauline had limited opportunities for education (Bill thought he advanced to the second grade level and Pauline remembered getting through the fourth grade), they became well read and well educated for their times and they saw the need for a good education for their children. Two of their three children (all of whom attended college ) received advanced degrees. They were proud of their children's achievements.
They retired from active farm life in 1944 because of Bill's poor health. They moved to a home in LaCrosse and spent their remaining years there. They developed many friends and were beloved by all who knew them.
Bill passed away on December 1, 1964, after an extended illness which decimated the physical body ut util the end, his mind was sharp and clear and he loved to make puns and jokes. Pauline, missing her life partner n a very real way, lived util August 26, 1968. They were buried in a cemetery near Bison, Kansas, near the remains of Bill's parents, Conrad and Katherine and his grandfather, Nicholas.
Addition by the son Joseph Wayne Schwindt:
Before their deaths, Bill and Pauline often spent extended vacations with Dollie and me. They were always most welcome and whenever they were with us they became part of the parsonage family. The concerns of the church I was serving as pastor became their concerns and so they became a part of the Cortez church. They were aware of the need of the Cortez Church for a new building, and when a financial drive was =conducted, felt a desire to contribute to that drive. They shared the dreams of the Cortez congregation. Upon their deaths, a memorial fund was established and when this new building was completed, steps were taken to use the fund in a fitting way.
Lumber was purchased in 1968 from which to make hand-carved doors for the man entry and an artist, Doris Johnson, was commissioned to see that the project was completed. And now, in 1981, the door panels are completed and you see them before you, not yet in place, but ready to be mounted.
To you, Bob Morgan, Pastor, and your, Jessie Leonard, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, of the Cortez First United Methodist Church, I present these door panel as a memorial to my parents, Bill and Pauline Schwindt, two of the finest Christian people I have ever been privileged to know.
Married William Schwindt on November 11, 1917 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
In Memory of
Mrs. Pauline Schwindt
Date of Birth Febraury 13, 1898 at Topeka, Kansas
Date of Death August 26, 1968 at the Rush County Memorial Hospital at LaCrosse, Kansas
Place of Service Columbia Avenue United Methodist Church in LaCrosse,
Thursday, August 29, 1968 at 10:00 a.m.
Interment Lone Star Cemetery at Bison, Kansas
Organist Mrs. J. Howard Morse
Clergyman Rev. Eugene Solomon
Casket Bearers Ferdinand Dumler, Clarence Schwindt, Abe Dumler, Pete Schwindt, Herman Schwindt, Charles Collins
Arrangements by: Hoover Funeral Home, LaCrosse, Kansas
~
Parents were Adam and Emmie Schmidt Jacobs.
Anna Marie (Emmie) Schmidt Jacobs 1871-1904
Emmie Schmidt died when her daughter, Pauline, was a young girl just a few years after immigrating.
Pauline was born on the train coming from the east coast to Kansas City. Emmie never fully recovered her health after arriving in western Kansas.
----------------------------------------
Written by son Joseph Wayne Schwindt
In the 1760's, specifically 1763-1767, a great number of German people left their homes in Germany to accept the invitation of Catherine the Great or Catherine II, Empress of Russia, herself a German princess, to settle in the Volga River area of Russia. Having been promised a rich land "flowing with mild and honey" with a great many special privileges, they arrived at their new home site to find raw land with an extreme climate. Under great hardships they established homes and small farms, only to be raided time after time by the nomadic peoples, descents of Gerkis Khan, who occupied the area east of the Volga River. After decades of hardships, suffering and isolation, they developed into a thrifty, somewhat prosperous, but clannish people, a people with a deep and abiding faith. It is said of them that they practiced their faith with a devotion that was marked and notable. But the influence of Catherine the Great was limited and the special privileges she had extended to these German speaking people caused jealousies among other Russians, and by the 1860's these privileges were gradually withdrawn. This caused great unrest in the German settlements on the Volga and by 1874 large numbers began to leave the area for the new world, for the United States and for Argentina, Brazil and Canada. The first group left the Volga area in 1874 and arrived in Liebenthal, Kansas, in February of 1876. This process carried on for several decades, until more than half of the population of 600,000 were gone. In Kansas they found similar conditions to what their ancestors had fond in the Volga area 100 years earlier, - raw land, a somewhat hostile climate but rich soil that could produce if properly cared for, and a social condition that made it possible to establish themselves firmly as part of the community.
On September 2, 1883, in the little village of Norka, which lies on the plans west of the Volga River some 150 miles due north of Stalingrad, a son, William, the fourth child, was born to Conrad and Anna Katherine Schwindt. The Schwindt family felt strongly the unrest and dissatisfaction of the German people in the Volga area. Already other members of the family and many friends and neighbors had migrated to the America's. Nicholas Schwindt, William's grandfather, had left the Volga in 1874. (one of the earliest Germans to come to Kansas from Russia. Why Conrad and Anna Katherine did not come at that time is not known, but possibly the young family couldn't meet the financial obligations such a move involved. Never the less, by 1886 the family came to Rush County, Kansas and settled in Rush County near Bison.
In the Volga area the people kept themselves in clannish villages. Those who were Roman Catholics lived mainly on the east side of the Volga, and those who were Protestant lived mainly o the west side of the Volga, and when they migrated to the new world they maintained the same clannishness. Bison and Otis i Rush County were village established by German people for the Volga with a Methodist background, and into this area the Schwndt family came. But by 1886 most of the land was taken and before long they moved farther west.
In Rush County WIlliam, or Bill as he was known, grew to young manhood. He established a homestead farther west in Kansas, but when he returned to it after a visit with his family in Rush County he found that someone had "jumped his claim." And so, he returned to Rush County. Working on farms wherever he could, he saved a few dollars here and a few there and finally was able to purchase 160 acres northwest of LaCrosse, Kansas, that was available because it consisted of 160 acres of prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Here, between the German settlements to the North and the Scotch Irish settlers to the South, he made his home.
On February 12 or 13 in he year 1898 or 1899 (we are not sure because the only records were destroyed in a church fire) in Topeka, Kansas, a baby girl, Pauline Anna, was born to Adam and Anna Jacobs. They had arrived in Topeka only weeks before from Pfeifer, Russia, a small village on the west side of Volga approximately 100 miles north of Stalingrad. Most of the area west of the Volga was settled by Protestants, but this village of Pfeifer and a number of surrounding villages were Roman Catholic with closer ties to the major Roman Catholic village some 150 miles further north and across the Volga than with their closer Protestant neighbors. The Jacobs family soon made their way to the village of Pfeifer i Rush County, Kansas. But by this time the land surrounding Pfeifer (a small village in northeast Rush County named after Pfeifer on the Volga) was all occupied, and so the family moved to Liebenthal and then on to Cordia (a Catholic rural parish, satellite of Liebenthal north of McCracken, Kansas) where they were able to obtain 160 acres of farm ground. When a town argument split the village the church of Liebenthal, the Jacobs were part of the group that established Schoenchen. By that time Anna Jacobs had died and Adam had remarried. As often happen, the home wit a stepmother was not a happy home, and the girl, Pauline, found it to her advantage to leave home. As a very young girl, she began to cook and keep house for other families in the area. This she continued to do until her teens. She was so occupied in the hoe of Ed Walker family who lived some five or six miles north and west of the home that Bill Schwindt had established on his 160 acres of prairie dog town when BIll, a bachelor in his thirties, came to visit the Walkers. Bill was attracted to this good looking teenager and a romance was in the making. But there were problems.Bill was a Protestant, a Methodist, and the Jacobs were Roman Catholic and Roman Catholic girls DID NOT marry Protestant men. Finally, in November of 1917, Bill and Pauline boarded a train in LaCrosse, Kansas, and traveled to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where they were married in the home of the pastor of the Methodist Church, A.N. Evans. How long they stayed in Excelsior Springs I never heard. They were married on November 13th and in the family Bible is a printed Order of Worship service dated November 11, 1917. The rift between father and daughter that this action brought about was never completely healed, but by the time the first son arrived on the scene there was at least some visiting and some communication.
And so, in the midst of the hysteria caused by World War I, Bill and Pauline Schwindt started their family.
Ad stated earlier, the Germans who settled in the Volga area were a people with a deep and abiding faith. Religion was a strong and central force in their lives. In their quiet, unobtrusive way, Bill and Pauline demonstrated that fact. They were never to try to force their religious beliefs on anyone. Religion to them was to personal and to important to become a subject for argument.But, their lives were ruled and controlled by their faith. They took seriously the admonition that "In much as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
And so, quietly they took into the circle of their friends those whom the community of LaCrosse looked upon with suspicion. A Mexican-American railroad employee and his wife regularly exchanged produce and recipes with them. A Negro family, a remnant of part of a part of a Negro slave colony that was established in Western Kansas after the Civil War, who farmed nearby was considered a friend, as were the town's leading lawyer and banker.
By dint of hard work and wise management, the farm size was increased. A 320 acre addition bought just before the crash of 1929, was painstakingly paid for with dollars earned peddling dressed poultry and homegrown horseradish to town inhabitants, this much to the displeasure of the mortgage holder who hoped to foreclose.
Although Bill and Pauline had limited opportunities for education (Bill thought he advanced to the second grade level and Pauline remembered getting through the fourth grade), they became well read and well educated for their times and they saw the need for a good education for their children. Two of their three children (all of whom attended college ) received advanced degrees. They were proud of their children's achievements.
They retired from active farm life in 1944 because of Bill's poor health. They moved to a home in LaCrosse and spent their remaining years there. They developed many friends and were beloved by all who knew them.
Bill passed away on December 1, 1964, after an extended illness which decimated the physical body ut util the end, his mind was sharp and clear and he loved to make puns and jokes. Pauline, missing her life partner n a very real way, lived util August 26, 1968. They were buried in a cemetery near Bison, Kansas, near the remains of Bill's parents, Conrad and Katherine and his grandfather, Nicholas.
Addition by the son Joseph Wayne Schwindt:
Before their deaths, Bill and Pauline often spent extended vacations with Dollie and me. They were always most welcome and whenever they were with us they became part of the parsonage family. The concerns of the church I was serving as pastor became their concerns and so they became a part of the Cortez church. They were aware of the need of the Cortez Church for a new building, and when a financial drive was =conducted, felt a desire to contribute to that drive. They shared the dreams of the Cortez congregation. Upon their deaths, a memorial fund was established and when this new building was completed, steps were taken to use the fund in a fitting way.
Lumber was purchased in 1968 from which to make hand-carved doors for the man entry and an artist, Doris Johnson, was commissioned to see that the project was completed. And now, in 1981, the door panels are completed and you see them before you, not yet in place, but ready to be mounted.
To you, Bob Morgan, Pastor, and your, Jessie Leonard, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, of the Cortez First United Methodist Church, I present these door panel as a memorial to my parents, Bill and Pauline Schwindt, two of the finest Christian people I have ever been privileged to know.
In Memory of
Mrs. Pauline Schwindt
Date of Birth Febraury 13, 1898 at Topeka, Kansas
Date of Death August 26, 1968 at the Rush County Memorial Hospital at LaCrosse, Kansas
Place of Service Columbia Avenue United Methodist Church in LaCrosse,
Thursday, August 29, 1968 at 10:00 a.m.
Interment Lone Star Cemetery at Bison, Kansas
Organist Mrs. J. Howard Morse
Clergyman Rev. Eugene Solomon
Casket Bearers Ferdinand Dumler, Clarence Schwindt, Abe Dumler, Pete Schwindt, Herman Schwindt, Charles Collins
Arrangements by: Hoover Funeral Home, LaCrosse, Kansas
~
Parents were Adam and Emmie Schmidt Jacobs.
Anna Marie (Emmie) Schmidt Jacobs 1871-1904
Emmie Schmidt died when her daughter, Pauline, was a young girl just a few years after immigrating.
Pauline was born on the train coming from the east coast to Kansas City. Emmie never fully recovered her health after arriving in western Kansas.
----------------------------------------
Written by son Joseph Wayne Schwindt
In the 1760's, specifically 1763-1767, a great number of German people left their homes in Germany to accept the invitation of Catherine the Great or Catherine II, Empress of Russia, herself a German princess, to settle in the Volga River area of Russia. Having been promised a rich land "flowing with mild and honey" with a great many special privileges, they arrived at their new home site to find raw land with an extreme climate. Under great hardships they established homes and small farms, only to be raided time after time by the nomadic peoples, descents of Gerkis Khan, who occupied the area east of the Volga River. After decades of hardships, suffering and isolation, they developed into a thrifty, somewhat prosperous, but clannish people, a people with a deep and abiding faith. It is said of them that they practiced their faith with a devotion that was marked and notable. But the influence of Catherine the Great was limited and the special privileges she had extended to these German speaking people caused jealousies among other Russians, and by the 1860's these privileges were gradually withdrawn. This caused great unrest in the German settlements on the Volga and by 1874 large numbers began to leave the area for the new world, for the United States and for Argentina, Brazil and Canada. The first group left the Volga area in 1874 and arrived in Liebenthal, Kansas, in February of 1876. This process carried on for several decades, until more than half of the population of 600,000 were gone. In Kansas they found similar conditions to what their ancestors had fond in the Volga area 100 years earlier, - raw land, a somewhat hostile climate but rich soil that could produce if properly cared for, and a social condition that made it possible to establish themselves firmly as part of the community.
On September 2, 1883, in the little village of Norka, which lies on the plans west of the Volga River some 150 miles due north of Stalingrad, a son, William, the fourth child, was born to Conrad and Anna Katherine Schwindt. The Schwindt family felt strongly the unrest and dissatisfaction of the German people in the Volga area. Already other members of the family and many friends and neighbors had migrated to the America's. Nicholas Schwindt, William's grandfather, had left the Volga in 1874. (one of the earliest Germans to come to Kansas from Russia. Why Conrad and Anna Katherine did not come at that time is not known, but possibly the young family couldn't meet the financial obligations such a move involved. Never the less, by 1886 the family came to Rush County, Kansas and settled in Rush County near Bison.
In the Volga area the people kept themselves in clannish villages. Those who were Roman Catholics lived mainly on the east side of the Volga, and those who were Protestant lived mainly o the west side of the Volga, and when they migrated to the new world they maintained the same clannishness. Bison and Otis i Rush County were village established by German people for the Volga with a Methodist background, and into this area the Schwndt family came. But by 1886 most of the land was taken and before long they moved farther west.
In Rush County WIlliam, or Bill as he was known, grew to young manhood. He established a homestead farther west in Kansas, but when he returned to it after a visit with his family in Rush County he found that someone had "jumped his claim." And so, he returned to Rush County. Working on farms wherever he could, he saved a few dollars here and a few there and finally was able to purchase 160 acres northwest of LaCrosse, Kansas, that was available because it consisted of 160 acres of prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Here, between the German settlements to the North and the Scotch Irish settlers to the South, he made his home.
On February 12 or 13 in he year 1898 or 1899 (we are not sure because the only records were destroyed in a church fire) in Topeka, Kansas, a baby girl, Pauline Anna, was born to Adam and Anna Jacobs. They had arrived in Topeka only weeks before from Pfeifer, Russia, a small village on the west side of Volga approximately 100 miles north of Stalingrad. Most of the area west of the Volga was settled by Protestants, but this village of Pfeifer and a number of surrounding villages were Roman Catholic with closer ties to the major Roman Catholic village some 150 miles further north and across the Volga than with their closer Protestant neighbors. The Jacobs family soon made their way to the village of Pfeifer i Rush County, Kansas. But by this time the land surrounding Pfeifer (a small village in northeast Rush County named after Pfeifer on the Volga) was all occupied, and so the family moved to Liebenthal and then on to Cordia (a Catholic rural parish, satellite of Liebenthal north of McCracken, Kansas) where they were able to obtain 160 acres of farm ground. When a town argument split the village the church of Liebenthal, the Jacobs were part of the group that established Schoenchen. By that time Anna Jacobs had died and Adam had remarried. As often happen, the home wit a stepmother was not a happy home, and the girl, Pauline, found it to her advantage to leave home. As a very young girl, she began to cook and keep house for other families in the area. This she continued to do until her teens. She was so occupied in the hoe of Ed Walker family who lived some five or six miles north and west of the home that Bill Schwindt had established on his 160 acres of prairie dog town when BIll, a bachelor in his thirties, came to visit the Walkers. Bill was attracted to this good looking teenager and a romance was in the making. But there were problems.Bill was a Protestant, a Methodist, and the Jacobs were Roman Catholic and Roman Catholic girls DID NOT marry Protestant men. Finally, in November of 1917, Bill and Pauline boarded a train in LaCrosse, Kansas, and traveled to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where they were married in the home of the pastor of the Methodist Church, A.N. Evans. How long they stayed in Excelsior Springs I never heard. They were married on November 13th and in the family Bible is a printed Order of Worship service dated November 11, 1917. The rift between father and daughter that this action brought about was never completely healed, but by the time the first son arrived on the scene there was at least some visiting and some communication.
And so, in the midst of the hysteria caused by World War I, Bill and Pauline Schwindt started their family.
Ad stated earlier, the Germans who settled in the Volga area were a people with a deep and abiding faith. Religion was a strong and central force in their lives. In their quiet, unobtrusive way, Bill and Pauline demonstrated that fact. They were never to try to force their religious beliefs on anyone. Religion to them was to personal and to important to become a subject for argument.But, their lives were ruled and controlled by their faith. They took seriously the admonition that "In much as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
And so, quietly they took into the circle of their friends those whom the community of LaCrosse looked upon with suspicion. A Mexican-American railroad employee and his wife regularly exchanged produce and recipes with them. A Negro family, a remnant of part of a part of a Negro slave colony that was established in Western Kansas after the Civil War, who farmed nearby was considered a friend, as were the town's leading lawyer and banker.
By dint of hard work and wise management, the farm size was increased. A 320 acre addition bought just before the crash of 1929, was painstakingly paid for with dollars earned peddling dressed poultry and homegrown horseradish to town inhabitants, this much to the displeasure of the mortgage holder who hoped to foreclose.
Although Bill and Pauline had limited opportunities for education (Bill thought he advanced to the second grade level and Pauline remembered getting through the fourth grade), they became well read and well educated for their times and they saw the need for a good education for their children. Two of their three children (all of whom attended college ) received advanced degrees. They were proud of their children's achievements.
They retired from active farm life in 1944 because of Bill's poor health. They moved to a home in LaCrosse and spent their remaining years there. They developed many friends and were beloved by all who knew them.
Bill passed away on December 1, 1964, after an extended illness which decimated the physical body ut util the end, his mind was sharp and clear and he loved to make puns and jokes. Pauline, missing her life partner n a very real way, lived util August 26, 1968. They were buried in a cemetery near Bison, Kansas, near the remains of Bill's parents, Conrad and Katherine and his grandfather, Nicholas.
Addition by the son Joseph Wayne Schwindt:
Before their deaths, Bill and Pauline often spent extended vacations with Dollie and me. They were always most welcome and whenever they were with us they became part of the parsonage family. The concerns of the church I was serving as pastor became their concerns and so they became a part of the Cortez church. They were aware of the need of the Cortez Church for a new building, and when a financial drive was =conducted, felt a desire to contribute to that drive. They shared the dreams of the Cortez congregation. Upon their deaths, a memorial fund was established and when this new building was completed, steps were taken to use the fund in a fitting way.
Lumber was purchased in 1968 from which to make hand-carved doors for the man entry and an artist, Doris Johnson, was commissioned to see that the project was completed. And now, in 1981, the door panels are completed and you see them before you, not yet in place, but ready to be mounted.
To you, Bob Morgan, Pastor, and your, Jessie Leonard, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, of the Cortez First United Methodist Church, I present these door panel as a memorial to my parents, Bill and Pauline Schwindt, two of the finest Christian people I have ever been privileged to know.
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