Collection PP - Schroeder-Fast Letters from Ukraine Collection

Johann Gerhard Fast, born April 25, 1860, in Petershagen, Molotschna (Russia), and Helene Warkentin, born Jan. 25, 1859, in Rueckenau, Molotschna, were married on the Warkentin parental estate of Gruenhof, in the Schoenfeld district, Ekaterinoslav province, Feb. 10, 1883. Helene inherited the larger part of the estate. The couple settled in Gruenhof where their family of six sons was born: Jakob (Jasch), Johann (Hans), Gerhard, Heinrich, David, and Peter. In 1898 Johann was elected minister of the Schoenfeld congregation. He had a preference for village life, and a keen business sense. In 1907 he sold the property in Gruenhof and bought two farms, with numerous large buildings, in Memrik. They were spared the trauma of the Stalinist era: Johann died June 16, 1915, from a series of strokes, and Helene from typhoid fever, Jan. 11, 1920.

Peter Schroeder was born Oct. 4, 1859 on the estate of Neuteich, Taschtchenak, Melitopol district, which had been purchased by his ancestor, David Schroeder (1776-1834). Here Peter was taught by Hermann Janzen and later married his daughter, Katharina, on June 1, 1889. She was born in Ohrloff, Molotschna, Mar. 25, 1862, and trained as a teacher. The couple moved to Shelannaja near the Memrik colony, where Peter’s mother had purchased a Russian nobleman’s large estate in 1884. Here their six children were born: Peter (Petja), Margarethe (Grete), Katharina (Katja), Anna (Njuta), Agnes, and Agatha (Hasha). Following the Revolution of 1917, the family was driven off the estate and moved to Memrik the next year. Identified as a kulak (wealthy landowner) under the Stalin regime harassment intensified, including a brief imprisonment, and the couple took up residence with their son Petja and his wife Susi in Dolinovka, the Kuban, November 1932, where Peter died January 17, 1933. Katharina returned to Memrik in 1935, in ill health, to live with her daughter, Katja, where she died June 30, 1941, three months before the Mennonites were deported from Memrik to Siberia.