Remember to Tell the Children: A Trilogy Book One: the Pioneers

By Henry A. Fischer

The Children of the Danube were on the move again.They were the descendants of the settlers who had joined the trek down the Danube River in the Great Swabian Migration from Germany to the Kingdom of Hungary in the early 18thcentury.Perhaps like their forebears, adventure may have been the driving force for some of them, while desperation drove others as they sought to make a life for themselves and their families.They were faced with limited options if they remained in their original settlements: whereland was running out, restrictions against the Lutherans and Reformed were becoming more intolerable and the increasing and often unjust demands of the nobles made it more and more difficult to provide for their families. The Pioneerstells this story through the lives and loves of three generations of the Tefner family in the unfolding story of Drnberg where their lives intersected with the families who would eventually become part of the authors extended family and which they shared with all the others who were part of their life together.

They found themselves isolated, confronted by a wilderness and created an economic miracle.Destructive fires and raging floods, famine and drought, bandit raids and epidemics tested them but did not overcome their indomitable will, which was sustained by their faith.A faith that was outlawed but continued underground unabated until the Edict of Toleration granted them freedom of conscience.Nor would they simply cower before the injustices inflicted upon them by the nobles and authorities without protest.Their lives were lived within the broader scope of the history of their times that played a vital role in their development, destiny and character.Emperor Joseph II, the Bishop of Veszprm, Martin Bir von Padny, Anton von Kaunitz, Count Styrum Limberg, the Empress Maria Theresia, the three Counts von Mercy and countless other notable personages all make their appearance and leave their mark onThe Pioneers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 12, 2006
• ISBN: 9781463449643

Henry A. Fischer

Henry A. Fischer is the author of several genealogical and historical studies of the descendants of German families that migrated into the Kingdom of Hungary during the early 18th Century. Born in Kitchener, Ontario in Canada, he is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. Following over forty years in the pastorate he began research on his own family history that led to his career as an author. He is married to his wife Jean, the father of Stephen and David and the grandfather of Julianna, John, Evan and Luke the next generation of the Children of the Danube now transplanted to Canada.

Book preview

Remember to Tell the Children

A Trilogy Book One: The Pioneers

Book One:

THE PIONEERS

Henry A. Fischer

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© 2007 Henry A. Fischer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/1/2007

ISBN: 978-1-4259-3920-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4259-3919-9 (hc)

ISBN: 9781463449643 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

CHAPTER L

Glossary of Terms

About the Author

For our grandchildren:

Julianna

John

Evan

Luke

Canadian Children of the Danube

Preface

In the Afterword to my previous book, Children of the Danube, I indicated that a sequel would be forthcoming, fulfilling the promise I made to my mother, To Remember To Tell the Children. The writing of this sequel has taken on a life of its own and become a Trilogy. This is the first volume in the series. The Pioneers is focused on the experiences and lives of the first three generations of my family after their arrival in Hungary that closely parallel those of many of the other Children of the Danube at that time, who are also an essential and integral part of the same story.

At my son Stephen’s suggestion, I have adopted a different approach in the style of my writing, in order to breathe more life into the history that unfolds. He encouraged me to use the technique I used in telling Konrad Tefner’s story in Children of the Danube. One of my readers, Dan Drew, commented to me personally, that I wrote from the right and left side of my brain, using both intuition and deductive reasoning along with historical fact to give the reader a sense of being there. Telling my readers how it was even though I had not been there. It is flesh and blood people and their lives that best convey the essence of history and for that reason the trilogy has become a work of historical fiction, but one that is as detailed and factual as it is possible to be.

The characters are of my own creation, based on and emerging from the stories and reminiscences that have been handed down in various family circles that are part of my extended family and those of others. The social, religious, political, economic and historical context in which they lived their lives as I present them are shaped by decades of research and study and personal interviews as well as several visits to Hungary and the various communities that play a part in telling the story. All references to others outside of my extended family are actual persons and the information associated with them, with only a few exceptions, are factual, coming from numerous sources including: the Roman Catholic Church Records in Törrökkopany and Karád, the early Lutheran Church Records in Somogydöröscke and Ecsény, all located in Somogy County and from numerous Lutheran congregations in the Tolna.

One of the primary resources that proved invaluable in establishing the historical framework in the Trilogy is the Heimatbuch der Norschomodei, to whose authors and researchers I am indebted. Nor could I fail to express my gratitude to my mentor, the late Johann Müller of Bietigheim-Bissingen for his encouragement, support and providing me with countless sources of information, reference materials and documents when I first began this personal pilgrimage in search of my identity, heritage and spiritual roots. For those interested in a more detailed bibliography I would refer them to the extensive one provided in the Children of the Danube.

I acknowledge my thanks and appreciation to my son Stephen for acting as my editor: for his insights, challenging questions and literary ability that greatly enhanced the final version of the manuscript. I would also like to express my gratitude to J.R. Harris of Authorhouse, both for his counsel and personal support and the friendship we have discovered in working together.

For most of the past year I have been living in 18th century Hungary, while residing in 21st century Oshawa, to which my wife Jean recalled me for lunch and the other necessities of life on an almost daily basis; and without her support and understanding this book would have never been written.

CHAPTER I

Then we will still go ahead with the wedding as we planned, Catharine said quietly, seated across the room from Sebastian. She bowed her head and looked down, clasping her hands nervously together resting them in her lap on her dark blue apron. Her bottom lip trembled as she waited for him to answer, as tears welled up in her blue eyes.

Sebastian remained unmoved, standing with his back to her, as he stared blankly into the open fire in the base of the chimney that formed the kitchen hearth as if searching to find the answer to her question there. Then turning slowly to face her, his haunting amber eyes met hers as she timidly raised her face and their eyes met.

He swallowed hard, almost audibly, and wetted his lips before he spoke.

Yes, just as we planned, the soon to be eighteen-year-old prospective groom replied, with a trace of a catch in his soft caressing voice, that Sebastian always used in speaking to her in moments like this when they were alone.

Sebastian could not help but see the tears in her deep blue eyes. As always he was captivated by the long single braid of glistening blonde hair that seemed to nestle on her shoulder offering a sharp contrast to the black shawl with long silk tassels that she wore around her shoulders and tied crisscrossed at her waist. He felt a twinge of regret knowing he had caused her this pain. But now a smile began to emerge on her soft warm lips as he approached her. He began to experience a strange exhilaration as she arose from the kitchen bench to meet him. In the next moment they found themselves in each other’s arms. Their bodies were joined in an embrace neither had ever known before. Her warm cheek against his own stirred up deep feelings within Sebastian as he crushed her body against his own, meeting no resistance on Catharine’s part. Both of them knew that if either of them still had any doubts about what they felt for one another, it was now forever a thing of the past.

Reluctantly, Sebastian withdrew from their embrace and placed his hands around her narrow waist and looked down into her upturned face. Her moist thin lips, up turned nose and porcelain fine features gave her beauty a semblance of daintiness that belied her inner strength that Sebastian had recognized that first time he had seen her. But then there were her eyes. Blue. Deep blue. They were eyes into which he could so easily lose himself. Framed with long curly lashes and eyebrows that were strangely much darker than her radiant blonde hair and fair complexion.

Their lips met in a lingering kiss as Catharine ran her fingers through his thick auburn hair, something she had longed to do ever since she had first met him. The golden sheen of his auburn hair only became obvious in the sunlight and was replicated in his heavy eyebrows and curly lashes. His handsome boyish good looks had intrigued her from the start. Sebastian’s bright stunning amber eyes and broad forehead were all part of his Tefner legacy as well as his round face, high cheekbones, fine chiseled nose, even white teeth, firm chin and his warm smiling lips that she now felt against her own.

Sebastian was the first to withdraw his lips from hers and stepped back momentarily composing himself and feeling a bit awkward about what had transpired between them. For no reason she could discern, Catharine nervously smoothed out her blue apron and adjusted her layer of three skirts, all the while avoiding looking into his eyes. When she did, she took the initiative as she often did in their relationship.

Will you go and see the pastor in Tab and make the arrangements? Catharine asked, referring to the Lutheran pastor in the Slovak village twenty-five kilometers distant to the north.

Both my father and your uncle feel the time is not right. Nor does Philip Kelpin. We still have to be careful, Sebastian answered.

Then I suppose it will have to be the priest from Koppan, Catharine stated matter-of-factly referring to the nearby Hungarian village of Török-Koppany that the German- speaking settlers in Dörnberg had simply reduced to the more easily pronounceable Koppan.

I’m afraid so, Sebastian replied dejectedly.

Catharine was only too well aware of how important the issue of faith was to him and knew that it would play an important role in their life together as husband and wife. The thought of being his wife now had a reality for her that went beyond what she had ever imagined because of all of her reservations about him in the past, as well as some doubts she had about herself.

When will you be going then? Catharine inquired in order to continue the conversation as long as she could, wondering how she would be able to wait to marry him after what she had just experienced in his arms.

I’ll speak to Kaspar Adam on my way home and we’ll go over as soon as we can, he assured her as he caressed her cheek with one of his large hands, over which she placed her own much smaller one as if somehow needing the assurance that what had passed between them had been real. His soft warm lips feathered a gentle kiss on her forehead and eliminated all of her doubts and that would last her for a lifetime. And more.

We did decide on the day after New Year’s didn’t we? Sebastian asked sheepishly.

Yes we did, Catharine answered playfully as Sebastian took her hand in his and raised her open palm to his lips and kissed it. But remember that will be this coming 1777, she added for good measure.

How could I forget? It’s just over a month away and six days before my eighteenth birthday, he reminded her, which meant they would finally be the same age for a few months as they took on the full responsibilities of adulthood and a life together.

The reality of that had a way of restraining their enthusiasm for the moment. Then the sound of the gurgling laughter of her mischievous young cousins George and Andreas coming from somewhere just outside of the house, was a signal that they and their mother Anna Maria Landek were about to arrive home. Her aunt had arranged for Sebastian and Catharine to be alone like this, which was a lapse in the closely guarded Hessian courtship traditions that these settlers in Hungary still maintained. The boys came bounding into the kitchen and six year old Andreas ran straight to Sebastian and threw himself into his open arms as he bent down and then scooped him up off the floor and hugged him while George sidled up shyly beside Catharine smiling up at her, and feeling comfortable as she ran her fingers through his blonde white hair.

Andreas giggled and the words could not come out fast enough to describe the wonders he had discovered that day to "our Tefner Pedr", as Sebastian was called by the members of the household in good Hessian fashion, since he was the godson of Sebastian and Anna Maria Landek who were also Catharine’s aunt and uncle with whom she had lived for the past year.

From Anna Maria’s perspective, the sun would always rise and set on their godson Sebastian, the son of their best friends Valentine and Barbara Tefner, regardless of his decision, and for that reason she found it hard not to ask the question that was the burning issue that she and her extended Rudolph family both here in Dörnberg and distant Kötcse were concerned about.

Sensing her unease, Sebastian was about to speak when George tugged at Catharine’s skirts so that she looked down into his upturned face and he asked, Are you going to marry our Tefner Pedr after all? Catharine and Sebastian looked at one another for a brief moment, both smiled and then he nodded for her to answer.

Turning to her aunt she said breathlessly, We will be married on the day after New Year’s as we had planned. Anna Maria fought back her tears as she rushed over to them and embraced Sebastian and then received a kiss on her cheek from Catharine.

I know you will be happy my dear, dear children, she assured them, while the two boys tried to interpret the feelings that were being expressed, but decided that perhaps tears and laughter sometimes do go together in this strange adult world that they observed all around them.

Remembering that he had promised Catharine to meet with Kaspar Adam, his future brother-in-law who would be marrying his younger sister Anna Margaret at their double wedding, Sebastian excused himself in order to make plans to visit the priest in Koppan and make the arrangements. But before he left, he kissed Catharine in the presence of her aunt and the two boys who just stood there in total awe of what they had witnessed and if the truth were known eight-year-old George was experiencing and suffering from his first pangs of jealousy.

As he approached the door to leave, Catharine called after him, Sebastian, I’m sorry about your grandfather. He paused at the door for a moment, with his back facing the others because he was once again choked up with emotion. And then he heard Catharine say, "I meant to say your Tefner Herrche". She understood after all.

Sebastian turned about and fighting back the tears, he said softly, I just wish you could have known him better…

I wish I had, she replied sincerely. But I will get to know him through you, because there is so much of him in you, if I can believe all I have been told.

When the door closed behind Sebastian, Anna Maria stood next to Catharine with her one arm around her waist squeezing her niece’s body against her own with their cheeks rubbing against one another as she sighed, My dear child, always remember that Konrad Tefner lives in our dear Sebastian, just as he will live in your children and all those who are still to come…but all in God’s good time

CHAPTER II

Konrad Tefner was quite young and decidedly adventurous by nature. But he was also passionately devout and idealistic, sensitive and incurably romantic when he and his three more practical brothers left Weichersbach, a small village nestled in one of the deep forested valleys of the lush green Sinntal in Upper Hesse. They went to join the trek down the Danube River to distant Hungary in the spring of 1723. In doing so the four Tefner brothers became part of what would later become known as the Great Swabian Migration or the Schwabenzug of the Eighteenth Century.

The village historians of Weichersbach record that their father Sebastian was at the local tavern one winter night, when he heard about the invitation of the Habsburg Emperor Charles of Austria for Hessians to come and settle in recently liberated Hungary. He later showed the handbills designed to recruit settlers that he had picked up for his four younger sons. Their economic situation was precarious at best and the future held little hope for much improvement in their lot and their prospects were bleak. The pamphlets outlined the privileges, special tax exemptions, other economic incentives as well as the wonders of life in Hungary. Their father encouraged them to go out in search of a future in the Promised Land in the former Kingdom of Hungary that was now at last freed from the Turks. He also reminded them of the current political situation at home: the possibility of another French invasion or their forced recruitment into the mercenary armies of their Hessian rulers.

After traveling on foot for several days, with only the possessions they could carry, the Tefner brothers along with countless others from the Schwarzenfels district of Upper Hesse arrived in Regensburg the northern most river port on the Danube. There they saw the river for the first time and knew that it would take them to their destiny. They boarded the rafts and barges packed with noisy throngs of young and boisterous families amid their scattered belongings, provisions and baggage and began their journey into an unknown future as Hessians, but would become Children of the Danube after their arrival and settlement in Hungary, and later assumed the group identify of the Danube Swabians.

Konrad and his brothers set out with the fertile Banat as their intended destination but discovered along the way that as Lutherans they were not acceptable or welcome as colonists in the Habsburg lands. Along with many Reformed families they left the ships they had boarded in Buda after arriving in Hungary, and illegally disembarked at Paks-on-the-Danube a port on the west side of the river in heavily forested Tolna County. From here they joined wagon trains into the interior wilderness to forge new communities in the midst of the devastation and privations left behind by the Turks on the estates of Hungarian nobles and former military officers that had been given land grants by the Habsburgs for services rendered during the Wars of Liberation.

But young visionary Konrad Tefner chose to go farther westwards than most.

He went beyond the confines of Tolna County where the major, future, so-called Swabian Lutheran settlements were located, would flourish and expand, the majority of whose inhabitants, however, were of Hessian origin like the Tefners. He, along with others, was instrumental in the founding of the village of Kötcse in the remote hill country of north eastern Somogy County, just south of Lake Balaton on the estates of the Protestant Antal family.

The Letters Patent from Charles of Habsburgs, that all of the Hessian settlers brought with them to Hungary guaranteed them the right to openly practice their religion. But they soon discovered that their freedom to do so would become one of the major difficulties they would have to face. Of course in addition to that there was the matter of converting swamps, wasteland and wilderness into fertile and productive fields, planting vineyards, building homes, raising families and contending with isolation, primitive living conditions, bandits, epidemics and the whims of their landlords. Yet they managed to establish a sense of community around their church and school and preserved and maintained their faith, language, heritage and traditions that they had also brought with them to Hungary and would guard them jealously.

In the early years of the development of Kötcse the settlers chose one of their own number to be the emergency teacher, until such time that a trained teacher, known as a Levite Lehrer or a pastor could come to serve them. The emergency teacher taught the children the basics of reading and writing and prepared them for confirmation while also leading in worship, baptizing, visiting the sick, ministering to the dieing and their families, conducting funerals and maintaining the church and community records. Konrad Tefner was a prototype of these emergency teachers in Kötcse who gave expression to the vibrant Pietism that would sustain and nurture the families and congregations in the difficult times ahead of them throughout all of the Swabian Lutheran communities in south western Hungary, that was later to be known as Swabian Turkey.

But multifaceted Konrad Tefner played a variety of roles. He was the young dreamer who met and fell in love with Magdalena Aumann on their journey down the Danube that forever changed both of their lives. Writing in his neat scholarly hand he kept a journal and became the onsite would-be historian and participant in the migration from Hesse and the settlement of Hungary. He became an agent of the Antal family and recruited would-be settlers in the Tolna to go off to the west into the rolling densely forested hills of Somogy County to seek their fortunes and establish a settlement there. The result was the village of Kötcse where he came into his own as the faithful and inspiring emergency teacher. He would become the confidant of George Bárány who provided the leadership to the orphaned and beleaguered Lutheran congregations as their unofficial underground bishop during the times of trouble that lay ahead. When his teaching task was done he returned to the practice of his trade of masonry and cultivated his vineyard, while also becoming the village notary. He was one of the village emissaries and the chief spokesman at their audience before the Empress Maria Theresia at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna to plead their case for religious freedom. But above all he was a loving father and grandfather who made a lasting impression on his family and through them on all of his future descendants.

Konrad and Magdalena Tefner’s six children were all born in Kötcse, and their third son born in May of 1734, was the last to be baptized by Konrad, just before Dominic Haas the Levite Lehrer began his ministry there. The child was named Johann Valentine, but was always simply known as Valentine. In appearance, he was the only son who favored his mother Magdalena. His father noted that at an early age, and for that reason, strangely enough, he was especially drawn to him. But in another sense Valentine was perhaps most like his father in other ways, especially in terms of his emerging spirituality and faith. The events that took place on the traumatic and unforgettable night of December 15th, 1745 played a major role in his spiritual formation, when he along with his family endured the first onslaught of the Counter Reformation in Somogy County that was unleashed against the village of Kötcse and its unsuspecting Lutheran inhabitants.

Valentine would never forget the terror and fear he experienced on that December night when he was an eleven year old. But more importantly, he remembered his father and discovered at that early age what faith is and what faith will sometimes demand of a Christian. That was forever imprinted in his mind and on his heart.

As Valentine recalled in later years, sharing his memories of the event, Adam Reichert a devoted young suitor had been over again that night at their house to visit his older sister Magdalena. He knew that whatever they felt for one another was what his parents felt for each other and he had figured that out even if he was only eleven years old. A fact of which he was quite proud and he promised himself he would tell his father about it some time soon. He and his two younger brothers Christian and Konrad sat on a bench at the kitchen table pretending to do their letters on slate boards by candlelight, while out of the corner of his eye he watched his father sitting at the head of the table.

His father was writing. He was transcribing information from an older and smaller book into the newly acquired official Church Register for Kötsce that Michael Harmonia their recently and secretly ordained Lutheran pastor had asked him to update.

As everyone in the family knew, before their father had left Regensburg he had purchased this smaller book in which to record his thoughts and experiences in this personal journal, in which he sought to address the generations who would follow him. It began with his journey down the Danube River towards the unknown future ahead of him so that his family would always remember what had brought them to Hungary. What they experienced along the way and what it was like when they arrived there and established their new homes and communities and found a new life and future for themselves. It was also a record of his hopes and dreams for his family and his own personal testament of faith, the writing of which was a common practice among the Lutheran Pietists. Within his young family it was always affectionately known as Poppa’s Buchlein because of its small size.

But from the beginning of the establishment of the congregation in Kötcse he had also kept a record of all of the births and deaths and other information about the congregation in it as well. The first entry was the birth, baptism and death of Anna Margaret their firstborn child that had all occurred on the same day. In many ways it was his first experience of heartbreak and grief as an adult, and it was devastating for both him and their mother who almost died of childbed fever. He sought and found comfort in the Stark Gebetbuch that the Slovak Lutheran Pastor Matyas Bél had given the newlyweds on the day of their marriage that he had conducted secretly in Pressburg, on their way to Hungary. There were several occasions that Valentine recalled when as a young boy he accidentally found his father on his knees in prayer at the gravesite of his unknown little sister. But even then as a child he knew that this was a sign of his father’s abiding faith and not any doubt in God’s grace. For God’s grace was always uttermost in Konrad Tefner’s faith and life and even then his eleven-year-old son had already recognized that.

But tonight his father was finishing the last entries from his Buchlein in his neat, almost feminine handwriting, into the new register as he had been requested. When he closed the cover of the book indicating that he was done, by a prearranged signal among the boys, the youngest of the Tefners, little Konrad slipped off the bench and crept up into his father’s lap and looking up into his gentle amber eyes the youngster said, Please tell us about the one hundred towers again Poppa.

Their father smiled as the two other boys slid along the bench to be closer to him while their oldest brother Kaspar read his book close by the fire pretending he was not listening but would be attentive to every word that he would speak.

Their mother sat close by and knitted. She smiled in their direction, nodding to their father who then spoke in a voice loud enough that it would carry to the fireplace, and began as he always did, There must have been one hundred towers that I could see when I first saw Regensburg from a distance and then I saw the river. It was the Danube…

Those words ushered in a resounding crash as vicious looking intruders burst through the door of their home as other cursing and screaming men were doing all along the street at each of the houses in the village. The boys were terrified of them. Valentine had never been this afraid before. Then came the sound of musket shots from outside along with the terrified cries of women and children and angry shouting men. Even though he was trembling with fear, he knew he had to do something. He grabbed his frightened little brother Konrad and clutched him in his arms. With his brother Christian shielding them warding off some body blows they somehow made their way across the kitchen to their mother. They managed to escape from the menacing and frightening intruders and avoided contact with their clenched fists that were aimed at their heads. They slipped in behind their father who now stood in front of all of them in an attempt to protect them. It was only later that Valentine realized that these Hungarian peasants were drunk, but at the time it was all utterly incomprehensible to him watching them rampaging through their house. Smashing, breaking, tearing, screaming, cursing, pillaging as they took whatever they wanted or seemed to be searching for.

Valentine would pause at this point in the telling, and explain to his listeners that these men were part of a howling drunken mob brought over from the nearby Hungarian villages of Latrány and Karád. They were led and incited by their Roman Catholic priest, accompanied by some mounted cavalry officers, County troops and the Superior Court Judge, János Rosthy. Together they had come to put an end to the heresy and apostasy of the Kötcse Lutherans on the orders of the Bishop of Veszprém, Martin Biró von Padány with the sanction and approval of Maria Theresia, Empress of Austria. And that is how it was later officially recorded in the Protocols of Somogy County.

Like his other brothers, Valentine crowded around his mother for mutual protection. She attempted to embrace all of them, as their father faced the intruders and stood his ground between them to protect his family from the men. He remembered they struck his father repeatedly when he attempted to reason with them. Valentine was not certain what happened next, but he remembered hearing the screams of his sister that led to his father’s attempt to shield his daughter and rescue young Adam Reichert who had dared to intervene when one of the brutes attempted to molest their sister Magdalena. He saw Adam was being held down on the floor by two of them while the third beat him when his father threw himself at them giving Magdalena the opportunity to find sanctuary with her mother and brothers.

In the confusion that followed, Valentine saw them hold his father’s arms behind his back while another man who had just arrived with two additional foul smelling peasants beat him unmercifully. They had entered their home along with a young army officer. His mother pleaded with the officer to put an end to what was happening. Little Konrad was hysterical and Kaspar put his arms around his younger brothers trying to form some kind of wedge around their mother and sister. Valentine looked down and saw the blood all over the floor where Adam and his father were being beaten and thrashed. He gasped when he saw their bloodied faces. He almost retched and closed his eyes and buried his face up against his mother’s breast and pleaded, Jesus! Lord Jesus, help us!

Then everything became a blur until he remembered that he and the others, like all of the villagers had been driven out of their homes and herded together to form a huge semicircle around their wooden church. They were surrounded by peasants carrying torches and were faced by soldiers bearing muskets pointed at them, while the rest of the mob of Hungarian peasants continued on their rampage and plundered the homes of the Lutheran villagers. Adam and his father had been separated from the others, but his mother and sister pushed their way forward as close to the men as possible with all of the boys surrounding them. Little Konrad was almost frantic, while Valentine tried to pretend to be brave and took his mother’s hand in his own, and placed himself in front of his sister as if he could in some way shield her alongside of his older brothers Christian and Kaspar who were attempting to do the same.

He remembered seeing that some of the men from the village who were close to them had been whipped and saw the blood on their torn shirts, and the clothes of many of the younger women and girls were torn and they tried to cover themselves in any way that they could. Every family huddled together for protection. There was weeping and crying all around him and the shrieking of little children. Voices cried out to God to help them. Then he saw the ultimate horror ahead of them when they dragged the pastor from out of the darkness into the light. In the shimmering torchlight he could see that his upper torso was naked and his back had red welts from which blood was flowing from an apparent whipping and his face was bruised and blood ran from his nose. He was in chains and was being dragged around even when he fell to the ground. Then he saw the haughty bewigged elegantly clothed Judge sitting on his horse speaking to the people in a strange sounding voice in a language he did not understand, and then a young cavalry officer spoke for him in German and that he could understand. Understood only too well.

Groups of Hungarian peasants appeared and began to run around with bunches of books and Bibles in their arms and dropped them in one large heap at the feet of the Judge’s mount in front of the doors of the church. Then others came brandishing torches and set the books on fire at the instigation of the Judge and the priest, but Valentine saw that the young cavalry officer who had spoken on behalf of the Judge was distressed by it all. None of this made any sense to Valentine and he looked to his mother and she simply bit her lower lip and shook her head. Then for no reason he could fathom, he saw his father step forward and the soldiers simply stood back and did not try to stop him. There was a strange hush that enveloped the whole scene. The only sound Valentine remembered was the crackling of the burning paper and books in the bonfire. Valentine would never forget that moment, and when he told the story he would always pause to collect himself to control his emotions before going on.

His father spoke and broke the silence. He addressed the Judge. Valentine was not sure what he said but he knew that he spoke politely, respectfully but firmly, from his heart and from conviction and that it had something to do with trusting in Jesus Christ and being faithful to Him in the face of everything being done to them. When the Judge screamed at him to be silent, his father defiantly protested against the injustice of what was being done. There was that strange hush again that now swept across the assembled villagers.

Then to Valentine’s shock his father was assaulted by a solider with a musket and he crumpled and fell unconscious to the ground with a bleeding wound on the side of his head. Suddenly, from out of nowhere the Buchlein appeared as his mother tried to come to the aid of his father and it was quickly taken away by the young cavalry officer and given to the Judge. The rest of what followed was all muddled in his memory and recollections. Valentine remembered that he thought his father had been killed and cried while his sister took him into her arms as he pleaded, Jesus. Lord Jesus where are you? Come help us. Please don’t let my father die…

Magdalena cried with him and whispered, Trust Jesus like Poppa does.

The new wooden church went up in flames and Valentine remembered the shouts and cries of protest from the men and the weeping and sobbing of the women around him. His mother was on her knees propping up his father whose face was covered in blood from his head wound as the snarling pompous Judge and his cavalry escort accompanied by the musket bearing County troops began to prepare to leave. Valentine watched the Hungarian peasants and their priest from Karád hightail it back home across the fields and into the forest with their loot as fast as their unsteady legs could carry them.

Valentine looked down, and to his relief he saw that his father was still alive and was trying to say something to his mother, but he could not understand what it was and knelt down beside his mother and hugged sobbing little Konrad who too was afraid that their father had been killed. Then to his utter consternation his mother began to sing in a trembling but strong voice. He could not believe it. As soon as she began others hesitatingly began to join in. A strong bass voice was heard accompanying her and then voices of other women and soon a rising crescendo of tenor voices coming from everywhere around them. The fire raged and the steeple caved in and the bell fell into the crackling flames as the voices became louder and firmer. The voices of the men and women and then even the children assailed the ears of the Judge as he contemptuously rode out the village followed closely by his cavalry escort and the trudging foot soldiers behind them. While Valentine watched them he saw the young Hungarian cavalry officer turn one more time in his saddle and look back shaking his head in shame. But now Valentine found himself haltingly singing the hymn that his father had taught him and the other children for their confirmation for later in the spring:

Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word,

Curb those who by craft or sword,

Would wrest the kingdom from Thy Son,

And set at naught all He hath done.

Lord Jesus Christ, Thy power make known,

For Thou art Lord of lords alone;

Defend Thy Christendom, that we

May evermore sing praise to Thee.

O Comforter of priceless worth,

Send peace and unity on earth;

Support us in our final strife,

And lead us out of death life.

CHAPTER III

Valentine remembered those anxious distressing days that followed as his father lay unconscious and seemed to be on the brink of death. He pleaded and begged and made bargains with God for his father’s life. He sought refuge at his sister’s grave in the hope that the kind of sustaining faith his father had, could somehow also become his, in the place where he came, when he was in need of God’s counsel and comfort. But there was only the silence of God.

He found his strength elsewhere. His mother.

She tended to his father day and night. Never once wavering in her now strangely vibrant faith. She spoke words of comfort and hope to her children and to all of those who came to call, having found the assurance of faith she had believed she would never have on that day in Linz so long ago, of which their father had reminded her when he spoke his last words to her. When Valentine later asked her where he too could find this kind of faith, she smiled at her eleven-year-old son and took him to the Eck Bank where his father kept the Stark Gebetbuch. His mother had him sit down as she leafed through it until she came to one of the passages he had underlined and where he had written a note beside it. She stretched out the book across the table where Valentine sat and asked him to read it for both of them. He read these words of counsel from Pastor Friedrich Stark:

God is faithful and true and is near to us

even when we suppose Him far away. And as

faith is not something I own, but a gift,

I beseech you Lord Jesus to strengthen my

weak faith.

Valentine would later commit these words to memory and they would become the cornerstone of his faith that would sustain him in all of the years ahead.

His father awoke from his coma, regaining consciousness four days later.

It was weeks before he was well and then came the terrible news that Michael Harmonia had converted under torture in the bishop’s dungeon in Veszprém. Valentine knew his father was distraught and distressed for he spent much of the next few days immersed in his Bible that had survived the vandalism of their home along with the Stark Gebetbuch.

Valentine sat in the corner bench with his younger brother Konrad on his lap, with Christian beside him while Kaspar stood next to them and all of them listened intently when their father met with the leaders of the congregation in their kitchen. He informed them he would begin holding services in their home beginning the next Sunday regardless of the orders and threats of the County or come what may. Even though they were children, they could sense the unease of the others gathered there about what their father proposed to do. But everyone who knew him knew that he would do precisely what he said. Later when the men left, they heard their mother say to him that he was just a stubborn Dickkopfiche Tefner, but she smiled when she said it and laughed when he replied, I am not stubborn! But then he added chuckling, But I will admit to being tenacious. His son Valentine knew, however, that his father meant he was determined to be faithful to his convictions and his Lord.

Valentine remembered wondering if anyone would dare to come that Sunday besides his own family. His brother Konrad was watching and standing outside at the front of the house and the rest of them waited within while his father studied some notes he had written. Konrad ran into the house and said excitedly that their uncle Killian was going from house to house knocking at the doors, speaking to the dwellers inside and pointing up the street towards their house. Valentine ran to the door and looked down the street. At first he saw only a few individuals struggling up the street. He always remembered young Adam Reichert was one of the first of them. Then there was a trickle of family groups including the Landeks and their daughter who was married to Michael Harmonia bringing their two little sons, and then there were the Wiandts, the Ferbers, the Aumanns, the Felders, the Starks and soon it seemed as if all of Kötcse was on the march towards their house.

The house was not large enough to accommodate all of those who came to launch the beginning of the underground Church in Kötcse and as a result the first service was held in the Tefner yard on this unusually warm January morning and Valentine knew that his life would never be the same because the faith he sought was a gift that he had been given.

Konrad Tefner once again assumed the role of emergency teacher even though the Lutherans in the village were now placed under the spiritual care and jurisdiction of the priest in Karád. This meant that they were obligated by law to go to Karád for baptisms, marriages and funerals to be performed by him, for which he received his designated fees, which were always his primary concern and proved to be quite lucrative. As a result he simply ignored the fact that Konrad Tefner was providing instruction for the children and conducting worship in the village, both of which had been proscribed by the County officials who were now no longer interested in even knowing about it as some would-be informers discovered who had come and sought a reward.

Life in the village returned to a level of normalcy. But change was now the future agenda for the Konrad Tefner family and for Valentine personally. He was among the first confirmands of the underground Church that spring and to mark his change in status in the family and the community, as well as the Church, he chose to follow in his father’s footsteps in learning the art of masonry and stone cutting since he was one of the younger sons and would not inherit any of the family land or property. This custom and tradition was part of their Hessian heritage and they still continued to honor it in their new homeland. Kaspar, who was the oldest, was the designated heir who from his earliest years loved to work in his father’s vineyards and was becoming skilled at winegrowing and grape cultivation under the tutelage of Kaspar Aumann his mother’s uncle and his own godfather. Valentine would join Christian in his apprenticeship with their father, while no one in the family was quite certain what to make of little Konrad who was fully enjoying childhood to the exclusion of any other concerns or interests. While Magdalena’s long expected marriage to Adam Reichert had been agreed upon by the two families and the marriage contracts were already negotiated.

It became quite apparent to Konrad almost from the outset that Valentine was much more suited and interested in the designing and planning aspects of new construction and repairs to existing buildings and the problem solving involved than his brother Christian. Although he also demonstrated a keen awareness of the attributes of the materials with which he worked, especially clay and wood in addition to stone. But Christian in contrast exhibited almost a passion for working with mud, loam and clay in combination with straw and its preparation for the formation of the thick walls and the pounding, shaping and the plastering that followed. He often joked that Valentine was best at whitewashing once the rest of the hard physical work was done, but he freely admitted that he was the artist who added scrolling and figurative designs to the gable shaped wall facing the street that became their family trademark in the houses they built. He was two years older than Valentine and very much a Tefner in height and build and much huskier and stronger than him and more adept in the physical aspects and skills involved in their work, although Valentine would never shirk his fair share of the labor.

As the two brothers matured and grew older it was not long before it became obvious to everyone in Kötcse who dealt with them that Valentine was the planner and Christian very much the doer in a partnership that both of the brothers enjoyed and with which they felt comfortable. They had always been friends and this simply strengthened that bond. Because of their father’s other duties as the notary and the emergency teacher, often over extended periods of time, he had to hand over a lot of responsibility to the two brothers and it was Valentine who gradually assumed the leading role in dealing with the requests for their services and determining how they would go about undertaking the task, usually with the assistance or counsel of their father.

Much of this new construction they dealt with was building new homes and farm buildings for a new stream of settlers who were moving into Kötcse and Somogy County, which in the future would invariably bring about change in the life and economy of the village. None of these newcomers came directly from Germany but had first settled in Tolna County to the east, but who for a variety of reasons sought a better future here, or simply wanted or needed to make a new start.

Up to the mid 1740s the earlier influx of settlers had to a great extent come from the village of Nagyszékely that by then was known as Gross Säckel throughout the Hessian villages and settlements. Konrad’s three brothers had settled there. His brother Killian and his family were among those who chose to leave there and begin the arduous task of pioneering all over again in Kötcse. His reasons for leaving were symptomatic of what was taking place in many of the new Swabian settlements that led to the disaffection of the German colonists from their noble landlords. It resulted in local uprisings, military intervention, executions, banishment and a great deal of strain on their relationship with not only the nobles but the County Administration and Hungarian officialdom, who were very much both the tools of the nobles. The issue at hand was very often simply the fact that the nobles looked upon their settlers from Germany as they did their own Hungarian serfs. In their minds, they were their own personal possessions and beasts of burden meant to blindly do their bidding. These free peasants from Germany were not prepared to return to serfdom and all that implied, in the face of the promises and Patents they had received from the Emperor in coming to Hungary. It was in Nagyszékely where that was first put to the test.

CHAPTER IV

With a wave of his hand, the lace cuffs of the sleeves of his brocaded green jacket fluttered about, as the white bewigged and perfumed Count Styrum Limburg gestured to his steward to bring in his village Richter from Nagyszékely. He leaned back on his plush velvet lined chair behind his marble topped desk. Irritated, scowling and drumming his fingers on the desktop was a sign of his displeasure and impatience as he awaited the arrival of the peasant representative that he had summoned to his baroque palatial manor house here in Simontórnya, the capital of Tolna County.

The man entered cautiously, dressed in various shades of drab peasant brown, his three cornered black hat in hand, bowing politely until he was acknowledged.

Glancing over the top of his square bifocals that rested almost on the tip of his thin nose the Count motioned to him to come closer. Leonhard Hajat, who had been chosen by the Count for the position he held in the village, did as he was told, walked briskly forward and then bowing again waited to be addressed.

Now tell me, what is this confounded uproar all about? the Count stated matter-of-factly in his thick Dutch accent.

It’s the new contract, Excellency, Richter Hajat replied.

And what about it? He asked as if he were puzzled by this information.

It’s the changes, Excellency, the peasant answered in a quiet non-committal voice.

What about the changes? The aggravated nobleman remonstrated.

Uncertain how to answer him, the peasant simply replied, They don’t like them, Your Excellency.

The Count did not have to ask whom he meant. He jumped to his feet with his hands anchored on his desk with his heavy jowls quivering, screaming, They don’t like them! They? You mean that German peasant riff raff and garbage that floated down here on the Danube? They don’t like them! Just who do they think they are?

Richter Hajat was not prepared to attempt to answer that question either. He just stood there and waited for the Count to calm down. The Count now began to pace with his hands behind his back clutching a perfumed lace handkerchief.

The Count eventually broke the silence. Such ingratitude. I let these damn German heretics settle on my estates and I let them get away without paying taxes for three years. And this is how they repay me? Just what more could they want?

Again the village official did not know if that was a question he was supposed to answer. He chose the lesser of the two evils and remained silent.

The Count now stood directly in front of him and wagged a long thin finger with its two very ornate rings at the frightened peasant almost touching his nose, Now tell me who put them up to this and what they want!

The Hungarian Calvinists have not been involved in this, Hajat assured the Count and then risked to add, But of course they do not have a contract.

That was the norm for serfs throughout all of Hungary and the Count wondered where the village representative was taking all of this, but made no comment and stepped back and began to wipe his spectacles with his handkerchief and then looking up again at the uneasy peasant indicating that he should continue.

When the German settlers arrived you agreed to contract with them in terms of their obligations and rights…as well as yours.

The idea that these German peasants had rights was not an idea that sat well with the Count or his fellow nobles in the County, not to mention this strange foreign notion that the nobles had obligations to them. But they needed settlers to develop their estates and had grudgingly signed agreements with them, often competing with one another to get colonists and on occasion even stealing or luring them away through bribery.

And? The Count asked somewhat belligerently.

They complain that Point Three in their settlement agreement is contrary to what they were promised by the Habsburgs Emperor in agreeing to come and settle in Hungary. They are free peasants and have the right of migration, and can move on at any time if they so desire, but which you have denied them. But they know that all of the other nobles in the County have granted that to their German subjects.

But they signed the contract anyway didn’t they? The Count said in a rather self-congratulatory way with a sly grin on his face. That means it is binding on them.

That may be so, Your Excellency, but there are now changes in the new contract you have imposed that asks and demands more of them than the contractual requirements to which they had agreed. No one party to the contract has the right to change regulations and obligations without the consent of the other. Or at least, that is what they claim.

There it was, finally out in the open. I understand that is the basis for their action in protesting and sending their grievances to the State Chancellery in Pressburg.

Are they threatening me? The Count shouted making a fist at the frightened Richter.

I’m afraid Your Excellency that they see it as their right to seek redress before the Law, Hajat responded shakily realizing the importance of what he had said.

We will see about that! The Count shouted and pointed to the door, and the village Richter made a strategic retreat and wondered how on earth he would tell the villagers in Nagyszékely what had happened.

It was only at his two brothers’ urgings that Killian Tefner agreed to come to the gathering. They met in Stephen Neidert’s hayloft late on an October night. In the semi darkness he could recognize most of the fifteen to twenty men packed together there, and noted that many of them were leaders in the Reformed congregation. There were a few hotheads among them, but most of them were what he would have called levelheaded men who were rather conservative in their outlook, much like Killian himself. He was, however, surprised to see Paul Heinrich there, a man he did not know well but whom he had to admit he greatly respected. Paul Heinrich who was one of the few remaining Lutherans left in the village and the recognized leader among them. Hungarian Calvinist settlers had arrived in Nagyszékely at the turn of the century, and shortly after 1720 were followed by Hessian Lutherans. But now both groups had been swamped in numbers by the subsequent arrival of more and more Reformed families who also came from Hesse.

Killian could sense that the others, like himself felt a sense of powerlessness over the situation in which they found themselves but he was prepared to listen to any ideas the others might have that he could support.

Numerous whispered conversations were taking place among the men. Killian’s brother Johann Adam sat next to him, and nudged him in the ribs as Jakob Philipps, better known as Jakob Lipps, rose to his feet. All talk ceased. He had the full attention of everyone.

Friends and neighbors we need to be in agreement among ourselves about what complaints we will raise with the State Chancellery in order to make the case for us here in Gross Säckel, he said, using the now more familiar name used by the Hessian inhabitants of Nagysézekely, which was a literal translation of the Hungarian name into German.

He then turned towards Paul Heinrich and said to the others, I have asked Paul Heinrich to be our scribe…

There were murmurs of approval for his choice.

Who wants to go first? Jakob asked.

The Count has no business grazing his cattle and sheep in the pastures that are meant just for us, according to our agreement that we signed with him three years ago, that he signed too, Stephen Neidert indicated emphatically, raising what for him was a significant issue. Again there was mumbled approval all around. There was only a short pause before another spoke.

The contract says we can have free wood for building and heating purposes from the forests around us and now we are forced to pay for every branch and twig. That’s just not right, the short stocky Christoph Bremer charged and was met with affirmative responses all around him.

Nowhere in the contract does it say that we have to thresh, transport and unload the ninth of our crops that we owe to the Count all the way up in Simontórnya. Let him do it himself. This is just more free labor we have to do for him for nothing, while our own crops rot in the fields because we cannot bring in the harvest while working for him, fiery Valentine Haimbuch said raising his fist as he spoke. It somewhat alarmed Killian at first, but when he saw how the other men responded and how he felt himself he had to agree.

We should demand that we have the right of migration and take our things with us and sell what we leave behind, Johannes Tefner announced, sitting right beside Killian who had no idea of what his brother was going to propose and was rather startled by his outburst.

Many of the Ferbers and all of the Felder brothers along with Johann Wegmann have already gone illegally with their young families and left everything behind and made their way through the wilderness with their children and gone into hiding in Kötcse in the next County and settled there where our brother Konrad lives, Johannes Tefner shared with the assembly. But I am not prepared to do that. I have a right to what I have worked for and will not give it up. But if I chose to leave, I deserve, and I have the right to expect to be paid for my house and property.

You’re right Johannes! Adam Reisz chimed in immediately. Others also agreed.

My brothers and I were free peasants back home in Weichersbach as were all of the rest of you Hessians, Killian interjected. He had their attention. We have Letters Patent from the Emperor to guarantee us those rights and the Count must abide by that, just as we must abide with whatever we have promised. But we did sign the contract even though I protested… Killian reminded those who would have remembered.

Killian, many of us respected you for that, but we had nowhere else to go and the pressure that the Count put on us…and we had to think of our wives and children, Paul Heinrich said affirmatively but respectfully.

There was a murmur of acknowledgment of the truth of what both Paul Heinrich and Killian Tefner had said.

This indicates we need to include this matter in both our presentation and letter of complaint, Jakob Philipps said and