My Memoirs Son, Husband, Missionary, Father

By Orville Hunt

Orville Hunt wrote these memoirs from a vast practical understanding of life’s experiences, Christian ministry, and the Bible. He and Connie, his college sweetheart and wife of nearly 60 years, are retired and live in Palm Bay, Florida. Blessed of God, hey have raised four children, two of whom were born on the mission field. Each is successful in his/her chosen career. Orville and Connie give thanks for their 15 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984586070

Orville Hunt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Orville Hunt wrote these memoirs from a vast practical understanding of life’s experiences, Christian ministry, and the Bible. He and Connie, his college sweetheart and wife of nearly 60 years, are retired and live in Palm Bay, Florida. Blessed of God, hey have raised four children, two of whom were born on the mission field. Each is successful in his/her chosen career. Orville and Connie give thanks for their 15 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Sharon C. Irvin is an assistant professor of English at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida. She earned her undergraduate degree from University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and her graduate degree from University of Wisconsin, Madison. She currently teaches classes in technical communication and has co-authored four books and written four children’s books.

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Copyright © 2020 by Orville Hunt.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Rev. date: 07/25/2020

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 My Father

Chapter 2 My Mother

Chapter 3 World Events (1914-1945)

Chapter 4 Hunt Homestead

Chapter 5 My Parents Meet

Chapter 6 Our Third House: Stern Road

Chapter 7 Stern Road Farmstead

Chapter 8 Chores After School

Chapter 9 Harvest Time

Chapter 10 Delights of the Seasons

Chapter 11 Sunny Lawn School

Chapter 12 Money for School

Chapter 13 Local Native Americans

Chapter 14 Girls

Chapter 15 Church and Faith

Chapter 16 Farmer Preacher

Chapter 17 Moving to Fond du Lac

Chapter 18 Part-time Jobs in High School

Chapter 19 Choosing a College and Career

Chapter 20 My College Jobs

Chapter 21 Finding a Wife

Chapter 22 Missionaries to the Philippines

Chapter 23 International Grace Bible Institute Ministry

Chapter 24 Family Vacations

Chapter 25 Returning to the United States

Chapter 26 Our 25th Wedding Anniversary

Chapter 27 More Celebrations

Chapter 28 Our Children

Dedication

My Memoirs is dedicated to my parents, Adolph and Natalie Hunt. They were earthen vessels, but excellence is what God used them for.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. II Corinthians 4:7

Introduction

…The days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. Psalm 139:16b

Winter was nearly over on the Wisconsin farmstead in Gillett Township, Wisconsin. Two days remained on the calendar before spring arrived. Soon the grip of ice and snow would be broken. Nevertheless, the winter of 1939 did not just give up. One more chilling blast was to blow in. The snow fell and drifted deeply for more than a day, making the country roads impassable.

A baby was due at the Hunt household. My father left the house and hiked for help through the snow still falling. Two miles away, county trunk road H was open. He relayed a message to Dr. Berg, who practiced family medicine in Gillett, a small town 5 miles away. The doctor would come, but he would not be able to get through the final miles of road shut down by the storm. Realizing that, Dad needed help to plow the roads leading to our house. Word got to the township garage dispatcher who sent out a snow plow. Neighbors sensed the urgency too and helped shovel the driveway.

The house was warmed by a crackling fire in the wood stove. Grandmother Teophelia Hunt was there with everything she could gather to prepare for the birth. The doctor finally arrived and delivered me without further incident. That was Monday, March 19, 1939. Of course, I do not remember that day, but here I am! (Figure 1)

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Figure 1 Orville Stephen Hunt about 2 or 3 years old

I was my parents’ second child. Their first would have been my older sister by about four years. Joyce Diane was born March 25, 1935. I am sure she would have been a helpful big sister. Sadly, an inebriated doctor injured her during birth. As far as Mom could tell, he hurt the baby’s head with the forceps during the delivery. Joyce cried day and night for the three days she lived. Death took her on March 28, 1935. My mother, with tears in her eyes, handstitched a gown made from her own wedding dress for her baby girl to be buried in.

Mom fell into depression, or a nervous breakdown. I do not know what professional help she received. Not much was available. She cried a lot, I am told. Neighbors were comforting and sympathetic, and some were praying. Dad’s older brother Gustav and his wife Ida, who lived on the next farm, were ready to help. All of them knew hardships, along with the hard work of pioneer living. While Mom rested, Grandmother Hunt did what she could to keep up with the housework, meals, laundry, cleaning, etc. Dad had to care for the livestock and prepare the machinery, seed and fields for spring planting. He dealt with a place on which heavy back taxes were owed and in which none of his siblings was interested in farming.

Chapter 1

MY FATHER

Honoring my father. Ephesians 6:2

My father Adolph Alfred Hunt was the youngest of a German immigrant family from Poland. He was born on December 15, 1908 on the family homestead farm in Wisconsin. His father Wilhelm was born in Lublin, Russian Poland on April 4, 1865 (Figure 2). He was 5 feet and 3 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. His mother Teophelia was born in Kralim, Russian Poland on February 24, 1868. One of her daughters described her as a very tiny, alert, vivacious and pretty lady. People called her small and mighty and a person who could move the world if she had to. Wilhelm and Teophelia were married in Poland in1889 (Figure 3).

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Figure 2 Lublin, Poland Map

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Figure 3 Wilhelm and Teophelia Hunt

Their first child Gustav was born on March 19, 1890. (I share the month and day of birth with him!) They had six children born near Lublin, Poland. Lublin was the ninth largest city in Poland at the time and is situated about 100 miles southeast of Warsaw. Two children were stillborn. The surviving children were Gustav, Amalia, August, and Lidia.

Polish emigrants came to America for economic reasons. They wanted the opportunity to own land and a home. They wanted political freedom and freedom of religion. Wilhelm arranged to go ahead to America to earn passage for his wife and four children. He sailed from Bremen, Germany on or about November 26, 1898 on the SS Minchen and landed in Baltimore, Maryland on December 15, 1898. He traveled to Wisconsin and began working for his sponsor to pay off the passage. He looked for temporary living quarters near the village of Mosling. The village was just west across the line of Gillett Township. It was 2 miles south of the land my grandfather eventually purchased in preparation for his family’s arrival from Poland.

His wife Teophelia (age 29) and four children followed two years later: Gustav (age 9), Amalia (age 8), August (age 6), and Lidia (age 3). They sailed from Hamburg, Germany on the SS Pennsylvania and entered America through Ellis Island on July 6, 1900. When they entered their new country, the family name was anglicized from Hundt (German for dog) to Hunt! My grandmother’s maiden name was Krueger, meaning maker of stoneware or pottery. That was a name connected with that trade from the time of the middle ages.

Three more children were born to the family in the United States: William, Julius, and Adolph (my father), the youngest. I never met my grandfather who died at age 61 on July 1, 1929, ten years before I was born, nor my Uncle William, born December 16, 1902. He died January 21, 1922 at age 20 due to bleeding complications of a tonsillectomy. My grandmother died in 1945 when I was 6 years old.

Chapter 2

MY MOTHER

Honoring my mother. Ephesians 6:2

My mother’s parents John and Katherine Barthuly were second or third generation emigrants from Germany to Saratov province in Russia. Catherine the Great, who was originally from Germany, was Empress of Russia. Upon the assassination of her husband Peter III in 1762, Catherine the Great found herself in possession of large tracts of virgin land along the lower course of the Volga River. In 1763, Catherine invited war weary families from Western Europe to settle there in Russia and farm along the west bank (Bergseite– hilly side) of the Volga River (Figure 4).

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Figure 4 German-Russian Volga Area Map

The German immigrants were to own and develop the steppes (grassy, non-forested lands) of the Bergseite. By 1900, the population of the German settlers, known as Volga Germans, numbered nearly 300,000. Saratov, the capital city of the province by that name, was located just 250 miles downriver from the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin. Czarist oppression and the Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin came to a head during the early 1900’s.

On March 3, 1886, my mother’s father John John (given name and middle name were the same) was born in Neibalzar, a village in the province of Saratov (Figure 5). Neibalzar was New Balzar. The old Balzar (the original) was closer to the Volga River. Its first mayor there was a Barthuly, Balzar Barthuly.

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Figure 5 John John Barthuly (1886-1955) born

in Neibalzar, Saratov Province, Russia

My mother’s mother Katherine Bopp was born on July 20, 1892 in Kautz, Russia (Figure 6). She was 4 feet and 10 inches tall. They were married in the town of Dietel, Russia on December 27, 1911. On September 29, 1912, Natalia Barthuly, my mother, was born in Neibalzar, the village of her father’s birth. Natalia means "natal child." In a family Bible record and Petition for Naturalization, the spelling is Natalie. My father liked to call her Nathlie. Her sisters called her Nat!

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Figure 6 Katherine Bopp Barthuly (1892-1974) born in Kautz, Russia

As early as 1910, her father John sensed that war with Germany (World War I) and revolution within Russia were both on the horizon. Shortly after Natalia was born, he felt it urgent to leave Russia for America. From America he planned to earn passage for his wife and daughter and send for them as quickly as possible. After leaving his wife and daughter in the care of relatives in their village, John departed from Bremen, Germany on the SS Breslau. He arrived in Philadelphia on April 19, 1913.

John thought surely in three years he would be reunited with his wife and baby daughter, but instead it would take nine long years. Only God could provide the care and strength needed to protect his wife and daughter through all they would have to face to survive.

The Bolshevik Revolution started to boil and became full blown by 1917. Bands of Bolshevik soldiers ransacked the rural villages of Saratov. They would appear and attempt to crush loyalty to the Czar and instill fear in the people. They also took food supplies from the farmers to support their revolutionary activity. The people did their best to hide themselves and to salvage their own much needed supplies. If found, they were ordered to butcher their cattle and deliver the carcasses to the village square by sunrise the next morning and turn them over to Bolshevik troops. If the people resisted, they were in danger of public execution. Their grain supplies and produce were confiscated. In a matter of months, farmers and tradespeople had nothing left, except what they could hide away from the revolutionaries.

Two Lutheran circuit pastors, Pastor Wiesheim and Pastor Fink, ministered to the spiritual needs of people in several adjoining villages. On a visit, one of them took Natalia on his knee and talked to her about Jesus the Savior of the world. Both preachers were eventually murdered by raiding Bolshevik soldiers. They were pulled apart bodily between four horses.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. II Corinthians 5:21

When there were very few supplies left for the Bolsheviks to take, they burned the villages. A group of refugees gathered to escape; Natalia, her mother, and her father’s brother Henry joined them. A sister of John (my grandfather) was banished to the East (Siberia) and was never heard from again. Underground agents arranged passage out of the country. The group traveled by foot or by horse and wagon to Stanza or Olashna, Russia (exact names not known) to rendezvous and escape by freight train.

A passenger train could have made the journey to the border in three or four days, but soldiers loyal to the Czar would have stopped it and turned passengers back. Making their escape by freight train offered places to hide. Their flight began September 26, 1921, several years into the heart of the Bolshevik Revolution. The clandestine journey took three and a half months. Beginning at the onset of winter, the refugees traveled a distance of around 1600 miles. Along the way were numerous delays. Sometimes train connections did not happen for weeks. On one occasion, Katherine, Natalia, and Henry hid in a large abandoned house with no windows or doors to protect them from the winter weather. Numerous pay-offs were exacted, as they slipped secretly from one train to another.

As many as