Hutterite Life

By Peter Tschetter

Reflections

Reading Peter Tschetter's book Hutterite Life is a personal reminiscent collection of stories of a generation living during transition times to a more convenient way of living on the prairie of South Dakota. One can get a gimpse of the living conditions of that generation whether one was in communal living or in community living.

Peter has expressed believing that a Christ-centered life is lived by allowing the Holy Spirit of God to move one to live in a way that show's God's grace. That a Christ-centered life mst reflect a heart filled with the testimony of Jesus of those who claim His name---thereby giving real meaning to their own being.

"Pete", as affectionately known, has expressed a desire to write down more stories of his childhood. His rich eperiences and also those involved should be read and not fall forgotten to the ages. I encourage him and the Hutterite people to share their life of communal living in this unique American sub-culture.

- - Dawn (Hofer) Stahl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466986992

Peter Tschetter

I was born eleven pounds at New Elm Spring Hutterite Colony during a blizzard on the night of November 20, 1936. About five months earlier, on July 4, my parents and the Amos Hofer family moved down from Canada with the truck otherwise used to haul grain and livestock. My dad, my mother, and some of the others rode in the back of the truck with all their household goods. Children were shooting fireworks in the towns they went through. They came down on Highway 37 through Aberdeen, Huron, and Mitchell and turned east when they got to Dimock. Unpaved Highway 37 was very dusty and hot on July 4, 1936. When my parents arrived at Elm Spring, some of the people who were to resettle the colony were already there. When the minister Joe Hofer greeted them, he remarked, “I don’t know whether I should rejoice or cry over you.”

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CONTENTS

Introduction

To Be A Child Of God

INTRODUCTION

Like life in general, the following is a true, but not necessarily a nice story.

The writing of this book is for several reasons: one of which is an attempt to clarify to young Hutterites and also non-Hutterites how different we lived 75 years ago.

I had an eventful childhood which the readers may compare with their own.

To compile a detailed account of colony life and history would be an extensive undertaking. So the reader will have to be content with the few details I’ve presented which are relevant to my growing up experience.

Most events which include other people are mentioned, because they are somehow intertwined in my experience.

Also, I want to bring the Hutterites closer to an intense awareness that all is not well and the solution is not in buying more land or building more livestock and poultry barns. There are needs which can only be met by a closer walk with God.

Do I want to denounce Colony life? NO! But I have brought to attention some dangerous bumps in the road which need to be addressed in order to reverse the existing down spiral. If the needed improvements are ignored, the results are predictable. If a conscious effort is not made to remedy the existing condition with Scriptural guidelines, the results could create a situation of extreme inconvenience.

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:13-14

Peter Tschetter

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I was born eleven pounds at New Elm Spring Hutterite Colony during a blizzard on the night of November 20, 1936. About five months earlier on July 4, my parents and the Amos Hofer family moved down from Canada with the truck otherwise used to haul grain and livestock. My dad, my mother, and some of the others rode in the back of the truck with all their household goods. Children were shooting fireworks in the towns they went through. They came down on Highway 37 through Aberdeen, Huron, and Mitchell and turned east when they got to Dimock. Unpaved Highway 37 was very dusty and hot on July 4, 1936. When my parents arrived at Elm spring some of the people who were to resettle the colony were already there. When the minister Joe Hofer greeted them he remarked, I don’t know whether I should rejoice or cry over you.

In July of 1936, New Elm Spring Colony was facing a bleak and uncertain future. For the benefit of understanding their situation I will relate a brief history of the people who were to resettle New Elm Spring colony as I have heard it being told over the years. In 1918, they were living in Maxwell Colony near Scotland, South Dakota. The World War I years had brought persecution and problems with neighbors. This was a time of radical opinions toward German speaking people and even German shepherd dogs became targets for harassment. A number of young men from different South Dakota colonies responded to the draft summons, but refused to participate in anything that was related to the military. Consequently, they were imprisoned in the maximum security prison of Alcatraz as well as in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At both prisons they were tortured in various ways to the point where two of the young men didn’t survive. When their people came to claim them they had been dressed in military uniforms they had refused to wear when they were living. When situations like these or other forms of cruel treatment had taken place in Hutterite history, they always responded by picking up and leaving for what seemed like a safer haven. This time it was Canada, but Bonhomme Colony, the first Hutterite colony in North America, stayed behind. By the time the other colonies moved to Canada in 1918 the war was over. The Maxwell people followed the rest of the migrating colonies to Canada where they settled not very far west of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they established Maxwell Colony. Within 10 years, the population of Maxwell was exceeding its living facilities and ability to employ the existing workforce. Realizing that overpopulation can result in social and economic problems, Maxwell bought a farm near Alsask, Alberta called Sundale Farm about 110 miles south of Lloyd Minister, Alberta.

After the normal process of colony division, the group who would eventually reestablish New Elm Spring departed by train for Alsask, Alberta, 12 miles from their place called Sundale Farm. The unharvested bumper crop of wheat looked like a great promise for the future. That big crop of wheat was the only one they harvested. The rains stopped and so did much of the hope for the fledgling colony, far from their friends and neighbors. These were the days of the dirty thirties. I heard my dad say, that occasionally, a dark dust cloud, would come rolling over the horizon which made him think of the possibility of Judgment Day. Due to the lack of feed, the horses were turned out in fall to fend for themselves. When they were rounded up in the spring for the futile fieldwork, they were in excellent condition. Throughout the severe Alberta winter they thrived on tumbleweeds. The horses fattened on tumbleweeds, while the people supplemented their meager diet with jackrabbits.

Anyway, after several years of planting crops that wouldn’t grow, they decided to get back to Manitoba. The multi-family two story house they had built was dismantled and packaged for shipment back to Manitoba. Even the wooden shingles were carefully removed and repackaged. Everything, including the tumbleweed fattened horses were loaded on the train for the long way back to Maxwell in Manitoba. But there was a problem, their previous homes had been inhabited. The families who couldn’t find living room, were temporarily taken in by surrounding colonies.

I’ll backtrack a few years now to the time when the Alsask group were at their greatest point of need. My dad and John Wipf and probably some of the others were appointed to seek employment on the outside. They traveled on foot and also with the tramps in boxcars. My dad was seventeen and he often mentioned how the bums had looked after him. Some of their fellow travelers were illiterate, professional tramps, but many were highly educated people in search of menial jobs. My dad and John Wipf traveled from place to place and were sometimes falsely directed to an area where there was no employment to be had.

One time they found temporary work on a thrashing crew for 50 cents a day. At any rate, Manitoba offered no place to settle, so the vacated colonies in South Dakota came to mind, and New Elm Spring was bought. Some of the land cost $40 an acre. I am able to recall at least 4 sections of tillable land plus several thousand acres of pasture. New Elm Spring was ready to become inhabited and go into production. The necessary living quarters were there, ready to be touched up. Facilities for dairy, hogs, sheep, beef cows and chickens were ready for use. There were many needs, the greatest of which seemed to be finances. The income needed to meet the demands of starting to farm didn’t exist, because Alsask had consumed much of their resources. My dad often mentioned that their first crop was harvested in 15 minutes. It was helpful that there were 2 other colonies in South Dakota. Bon Homme, 60 miles south and Rockport, which had separated from Bon Homme 2 years earlier, was 7 miles north.

The flour and feed obtainable from the Rockport mill was only part of the answer to existing needs. Well, one day Yuska (Joe Wipf, the financial manager) took the pickup and drove up to the manual gas pump and pumped some gas into the glass container on top of the pump. The pump was operated by means of a vertical lever which had to be pulled back and forth. There were numbers on the ten gallon glass container on top of the pump that showed how many gallons were pumped. Yuska drained the gas he had pumped into the old pickup and headed for Bon Homme Colony to see about a loan. He returned with $40,000 in a suitcase and New Elm Spring was off to a start.

Before I was a year old, the teenage boys made a game out of having me repeat after them the most difficult words they could think of. Czechoslovakia was the longest word they could think of.

There were two stone houses on the west side of the colony standing north to south. Two identical houses stood on the east side. All four houses had the same floor plan. About 16 feet in from each end there was a hallway. The hallways were 6 feet wide with a front and back entrance. On the west side, the house farthest south had 1912 marked on one of the stones. I was born on the south end of one of the east houses. We lived there till I was about 2. When I was a year old I tried to climb out of my crib and fell to the floor. After that I walked with a bad limp. My parents took me to the far and near chiropractors, but my limp didn’t improve. One day my mother’s Uncle Joe from Canada came for a visit. Uncle Joe was a natural, homemade chiropractor and bonesetter whose formal education probably didn’t reach eighth grade. Uncle Joe probed around on me and declared that my right hip was out of joint. He corrected my hip and gave orders that I was to stay in bed for 3 days. I was allowed out after 3 days and my limp was gone, but my right leg was about 3/4 of an inch shorter than the left. Obviously, the nerves and blood vessels needed for normal growth had been choked off too long.

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My mother’s uncle Dr. Joe

In later years when Uncle Joe made his surprise visits, the colony suddenly became devoid of normal child activity. After one of his treatments, the children had less use for Uncle Joe than for a headache. Anyway, mothers brought their babies to Uncle Joe to correct walking disabilities, bedwetting, stuttering and everything else that didn’t seem normal. Sometimes Uncle Joe was called from Canada by other colonies when accidents which resulted in broken bones took place. He would treat everyone in the colony who came with real or imagined ailments. He would sometimes work on different people for hours in a colony. When he was finished he’d collect $20 from the colony boss and be off. Those $20 were often given very grudgingly and sometimes not at all. Uncle Joe had a mental black list of the bosses who wouldn’t pay him. The black list was permanent. In later years Yuska was on that list.

My little brother Andrew broke his elbow when some truck stock racks he’d been playing around fell on him. The chiropractor, Dr. Isaak, in Parkston fixed it the best he knew how, but my brother’s