Susannah Woychik's Letters -9 1888-1891

Independence, Wisconsin

February 5, 1888

Fried, Stutsman, North Dakota

Dear Kate,

You asked how the January blizzard affected us, well, about the same as you from what you said. January 12th, the day of the storm came unexpectedly on a warm day, and I noticed that lots of people weren’t even wearing coats on the day

The temperature dropped from around seventy to minus 20º. We had high winds and snow. The storm here didn’t start proper until later in the afternoon so we didn’t have so many children affected as in other places. But we did have some children who were reported out, and got scared and hid together in a hay stack. They survived, but were sure frightened by the experience.

The casualties we did have relate mostly to men who wanted to go out and check on their livestock, and hadn’t done the sensible thing, like we have, of putting a rope between the house and all the out houses, and then with the zero visibility in the storm, they couldn’t find their way back to their houses.

I heard that 500 people in all died across the region. We didn’t get back to normal for a few days after that.

I’m glad that none of yours was hurt by it. But we will be more wary of a sudden raise in temperatures in winter in future.

We are pleased that Pope Leo is making for better relations with Germany. William II paid him a visit this year. As a sort of quid pro quo Bismarck thought the pope ought to use his authority to prevent the Catholics from opposing some of his political schemes. As I understand it, (from Hyacinth) only once did Pope Leo interfere in a parliamentary question, and then his advice was followed.

We have a new priest here - Rev. R. L. Guzowksi. It is too soon to say if we will like him as well as his predecessor. A second rectory and a convent for the teaching sisters are being planned. The school will be staffed by the school sisters of St. Francis whose mother house is in Milwaukee.

In March last year trustee S. P. Cooke was instructed to furnish a hose cart for the fire company and in May other trustees were instructed to see that proper facilities were provided for draining the hose and that a shed be procured for the hose cart. Now, this February they agreed to furnish $100.00 for the purchase of firemen's caps and belts. (The actual cost was $96.15. It's nice to have friends who know all the details.) Also the board authorized the purchase of a 36 inch fire bell to be installed on top of the old Village Hall. Maybe now we will have a proper fire service.

And we’ve had our first Fireman's Ball - a masquerade held on Washington's birthday. It was a success. I dressed up as Little Bo Peep.

Best wishes

Susanna

Independence, Wisconsin

May 15, 1889

Pingree, Stutsman, North Dakota

Dear JA,

I wonder what you thought of the presidential election. I know you were always interested in politics when you were here. How some one could get the majority of votes from the people, like Grover Cleveland did, and then lose the election in the electoral college? I do not know. It certainly doesn't sound fair to me.

I see that the President has now made North Dakota officially a state. And you will be getting your homestead started this spring too. No wonder you want to get married. Yes, we would be very pleased to be at your wedding, and we look forward to seeing you then. We had heard about it from young Mary - and her mother, Rosalya, who you know I used to correspond with regularly when they were still in Poppelau.

Mary's father, Sam, plans to buy some land here. He says he can get land from W. Rogers, 200 acres for $1000. Where he got $1000 from I don’t know, but maybe he got the land on a bit down and a promise to pay off on it regularly.

I understand that Mary's brother, Andrew has homesteaded out there, and has just got married to Polly Nietchi from here. You remember me telling you about her coming here sponsored by my Lyga relatives. I've always thought he was the best of the bunch of the Suchla boys.

And talking of weddings, my brother Paul plans to marry his sweetheart Rosie sometime soon. She is a local girl too, and he has known her all of his life.

Looking forward to seeing you at Easter time.

Love from Cousin Susanna

Fried, Stutsman, North Dakota

May 20, 1889

Independence Wisconsin

Dear Susannah

You are always writing about your disasters, so I thought I would get in first with this one of ours – on May 8. Nothing like it has been seen for years, if, indeed, it ever was. The wind blew over the dry prairie fields, and as it went tore up the fine earth and bore it along as the wind drives snow in the winter.

The air filled until it clouded the face of the sky, which was sometimes hidden for and hour at a time by this eclipse of sand. It was almost impossible to live in the unprotected spots.

The excessive drought was the cause of the trouble. The fields were dry as a powder house from the long period of bright sunshine, and the soil, to a depth of four or five inches in some places, was torn up and whirled to the winds.

It was in no sense a hurricane or a tornado. It was a straight forward wind. But the feature of the storm which is regarded as phenomenal was that after three days of continuous blowing it brought no rain.

Such a long-drawn-out windstorm had never failed to get clouds enough together to give a copious fall of rain which had put down the dust and saved the fields from the tearing up they have recently had.

The dirt had been blown furiously and in some places, which were protected by buildings or fences, drifts as high as Peter's hip pockets had formed, of fine sand, which was packed together precisely as snowdrifts do in a blizzard. It would have been almost impossible to have lived out of doors at some periods of the storm.

I would much rather have taken chances of being caught out in the big blizzard of two years ago. It looked much like a snowstorm, and the sun was hidden. It was impossible to distinguished objects at a distance of more than a few feet away. Peter said there was so much electricity in the atmosphere that it was possible to get a spark from almost any metallic body. When the wind was raging most furiously the electric phenomena were most noticeable.

The stoves in the houses were so charged with electricity that one could hardly endure the shock that came from contact with them. If you touched your finger to a candlestick a spark came from it with a cracking noise. A neighbor with a barbed-wire fence on his farm became so charged with electricity that one day when the wire broke and one end of it struck the dry grass on the ground, the grass at once took fire.

There was even a representative of that magazine, the Scientific American, studying the nature of the winds at some parts of the State and he said the electrical phenomena which accompanied them, advanced the idea that the atmosphere was so charged with electricity that it only lacked two or three degrees of producing spontaneous combustion. All over the state there was enough electricity in the air to help along the fires that were burning there some weeks ago.

So you aren't the only ones that have bad storms. Just wanted to tell you about this one. Thankfully it's all over now.

Best wishes

from Kate

Independence, Wisconsin

June 20, 1889

Fried North Dakota

Dear Kate,

Thank you for your letter about the awful wind storm you had. We had read about it in the papers, so it wasn't news to us.

But now  the worst rainstorm in 17 years swept over La Crosse, just southwest of here. Nearly five inches of rain fell. It came down in sheets, doing great damage to railroad property. Practically all railway communication was cut off. Many families were compelled to desert their homes in boats, and over 100 head of live stock were drowned, and nearly every bridge in the La Crosse river valley is gone.

A couple from Onalaska, five miles north of there, were drowned while viewing the debris of a railroad bridge which had swept away. The flood had taken the earth from a portion of the roadbed and in walking over the ties which suspended from the rails, one gave away. They were plunged into surging waters while a large crowd witnessed the disaster.

A man and boy were drowned in the La Crosse river. They were in a boat which capsized. Their names are unknown.

Talking about my own family, my eldest, Johnny is nearly finished with school. He is very bright, and intends to go to Madison, to the University there. He will be the first from either of our family to go on to higher education, and we are very proud of him. He wants to be a lawyer.

And my brothers keep producing children, so our family continues to increase by leaps and bounds.

Best wishes,

Susanna

 

Independence, Wisconsin

March, 10, 1890

Fried, Stutsman, North Dakota

Dear Kate,

We have a new baby, Gertrude, born last November 21st . I am so pleased to have a little girl to fuss over and make pretty clothes for.

As I expect you know, JA has a homestead now, with a shack on it for Mary Suchla to move into with him. The wedding was very sweet and small. (pictured above) He asked Hyacinth to be his best man, which Hyacinth was very pleased about. It shows any hard feelings between them are gone. JA has often said how good a teacher Hyacinth was, and how he owes his good farming now to what he was taught. Mary had her friend, Julia Sobata as her maid of honor. She is friendly with Mary’s brother Frank. It was not at all my idea of a proper wedding, but they apparently do not have much money to splash around. Mary writes often to her parents, and she is very homesick. But her brother Andrew and his wife Polly Nietchi, as was, are thinking of going there, and now the whole kit and caboodle of the Suchlas are planning to go out there - and Simon, Thomas, John and Frank will each take a homestead in Pingree, on land right next door to Mary and JA.

As I think I told you before, Sam bought property here last year from W Rogers, and now he is going to sell it back to him, for almost the same price - but he is charging $1 and the tearing up of the mortgage. So he lived there for a whole year, and made a buck on it.

What do you think about all this Polish news we have been reading? Wilhelm II of Germany has fired Otto van Bismarck. And about time too. Horrid man that he is. It all had to do with Bismarck attempting to renew the law to outlaw the Social Democratic Party, apparently.

Jacob and Mary Kulig have a new son, Joseph.

In September we got another new pastor, Rev. August Babinski. There is now talk of building a new church, and we really do need it

I must rush. I will try to write again soon.

Best wishes from Susanna

Fried, Stutsman, North Dakota

January 10th, 1890

Independence, Wisconsin

Dear Susanna,

I am pleased to hear that you are building a new church, but you will never guess what? Jamestown is going to have a Bishop. And so our church when it is built will be a Cathedral. At the moment our church has been meeting in what could only be described as a converted boxcar. But all that will change.

Rt. Rev. Martin Marty, O.S.B., who is the Vicar Apostolic of North Dakota, appointed Rt. Rev. John Shanley to become Bishop of Jamestown. The plans also extend to having a Catholic school here come fall which will be run by the nuns of St. Joseph.

Later

We just heard that St James won't be a Cathedral after all but a Minor Basilica. I don't know if you know, but "Basilica" is a title assigned to certain churches by the Holy See because of their antiquity, dignity, historical importance, or significance as centers of worship.

A basilica is intimately linked to the Chair of Peter. It’s to be a center of special liturgical and pastoral ministry. Another activity proper to a Basilica is the holding of programs that make known the documents expressing the mind of the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church.

St. James is the 34th church in the United States to be designated as a Minor Basilica.

Your friend

Kate

Independence, Wisconsin

June 5, 1891

Fried, Stutsman, North Dakota

Dear Kate,

I really do think our new Pope is making a good job of things. Did you read his latest encyclical Rerum Novarum? Perhaps being a minor Basilica, you got your copy first. Hyacinth says it will result in the creation of many Christian Democrat Parties throughout Europe. It sets forth with the Christian principles bearing on the relations between capital and labor, and it gives a vigorous impulse to the social movement along Christian lines.

I was writing to you sometime ago now about the Nogosek sisters who settled around here. Now they have persuaded their parents and two brothers to come to America from Poppelau and settle here. Their father is John, and the mother Rosina, and their children include Gottfried and Charlie. They settled in Hale Township.

I seem to go on and on about the fire service, but it is a real issue with Hyacinth, having it properly organized They got pretty fancy at a meeting in January, and voted that the firemen wear uniforms of white shirts, red shields, dark pants with red stripes down the outside seams. There is almost no mention of equipment for fire fighting at that time, but the boys were really dressed up for the occasion.

Best wishes,

Susanna