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

her signaled the time for moving out of their dugouts and building more permanent structures. Although adobe or clay loam served as the primary building material, wooden beams could be secured in a pine forest high in the mountains. When the settlers used the forest, however, they were required to replant a seedling for every tree they felled.*° In August 1882, Jacob Mandler, of the new village of Gnadental, wrote his relatives that houses were going up even though the summer harvest had been generally poor owing to the lateness of planting in the village area. With the vil- lage still mourning the deaths of six people from undiagnosed ill- nesses, Mandler begged his brethren abroad to pray for the poverty- stricken people of Gnadental.*! Even with the use of these native materials, the new houses be- gan to give their village the appearance typical of Mennonite settle- ments everywhere. Homes were plotted in an east-west orientation; along the streets canals brought water to the individual homes in order to alleviate the expense of a number of separate wells. Two rows of poplar trees were planted along the larger canals, and each house- holder dug a smaller canal into his garden at the rear of his house for irrigation purposes. Varying according to the owner's financial status and skill, the houses were neatly spaced and well con- structed. They were usually 30 to 50 feet long with some having attics over a seven-foot-high flat roof.” After most of the homes were constructed, harsh winter weather 142 The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites caught many farmers unprepared, their crops still in the field. In fact, on October 3, 1882, a heavy snow and hard frost froze even the grain for the horses, and the bulk of the crops in the field at that time were ruined. Then, as suddenly as it had snowed, a bright sun came out, and the weather remained pleasant long enough to give them a chance to finish building their homes.” Despite this respite, several families became completely discouraged owing to their extreme poverty and a new smallpox epidemic. Desperate, they moved to the city of Aulie Ata and later to Tashkent in order to find work. Each of them hoped to earn enough money in the city so they could come back and begin a profitable farm. But troubles con- tinued to dog them. One such family, the Siebert Goertzes, lost two sons to a renewed outbreak of typhoid fever in Tashkent. Another young man, Bernard Wiebe, was threatened by conscription, had to appeal his case to St. Petersburg, and was finally put on probation for a year.”® Meanwhile, the Aulie Ata settlers came through that first winter in better condition than they had entered it. Actually, only one child died of smallpox, and the pioneer farmers believed things were im- proving. The snow ended in early February 1883, and they were anxious to begin sowing. Friends in Nebraska and Kansas had sent money, as did Die Rundschau, an American M