The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites to Central Asia, 1880-1884, Fred Richard Belk, 1976

Wedel, and Wiens families.® With the arrival of three more families, this group dispersed to their various destinations in Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minne- sota. They constituted the last of the large immigrant parties, and the original aid committees were officially dissolved. Their remaining funds were distributed to the Indians and to Mennonite missionaries,” /Though the last of the great migrations was over, separate fam- ily groups continued to repeat the emigration experience until well into the twentieth century. For each had its unique story to tell. In 1892, for example, the families of Jacob Jantzen, Peter Quiring, and Jacob and John Becker left Ak Metchet for America/Jacob Becker had been married to Marie Epp, the only daughter of Claas Epp, but she had died and he married Ernestine Pauls. Jantzen married Becker's sister, Susanna, and had two children while in Ak Metchet, Lena and Johann. John Becker married Marie Dick in 1889, after the second coming of Christ did with Wilhelm Penner of- ficiating atthe wedding. These young couples drove their wagons to Petro-Alexandrovsk, took the steamer Czar Alexander to Astrachan on the Caspian Sea, and a German steamer up the Volga to see relatives in Sartov. When they reached Seelman, Germany, in July 1892, a cholera epidemic forced them to stay there until January 1893. Then they found out that they would have to return to Russia to get official passports. In the dead of winter, they boarded large sleds for Sara- tov. From here they went to Moscow, where they obtained their pass- ports, and went by train to Smolensk, Eidkuhnen, and to Bremen. In Bremen, they boarded the vessel Aller and after a nine-day voyage reached New York. After this trying and complicated trip, they ar- Migration to America 189 rived at Brainard, Kansas, in March 1893. The John Beckers later moved to Aberdeen, Idaho, while Jantzen and Jacob Becker moved to Beatrice, Nebraska and then to Marion, South Dakota. After the opening of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma, on September 16, 1893, Jantzen’s first cousin, also named Jacob Jantzen, chose to move fur- ther south to Bessie, Oklahoma, and became pastor of the Herald Mennonite Church. These two men named Jacob Jantzen have some- times had their names mistakenly used in some sources.3> Another example of a later group that came to America is the Siebert Gérz family, which left Aulie Ata in August 1893. With their one-month-old daughter, Katarina, they went by railway to the Cas- pian Sea. After reaching the sea, the young girl died and was buried in the town of Baku. After this tragedy, for a respite, they stayed two months in their old home in the Kuban. Then in November, after a two-week wait in Bremen, they completed a stormy, seven-day voyage to New York. They later arrived in Inman, Kansas, shortly before Christmas, 1893, after a four-month trip.” Leaving many brethren behind in Central Asia, other remnants