Justina Priebe Kühn was our great grandmother, wife of Samuel Kühn.  The following story was obtained in August 2011 from a descendent of the Priebe family, Ms. Sharon Cottier who lives at 1891 Old Beaver Valley Road, Port Ludlow, WA  98365. The story has been in the Priebe family records for 80 years.   The story was written in July 1932 by Matilda Priebe Miller (born: 1880, Eigenheim, Bessarabia, Russia;  parents:  Whilhelm Priebe and Whilhelmina Grosz), who was Sharon’s grandmother and a niece of Justina Priebe Kühn.  The story was written 34 years after Justina’s death.  Thus, exact names had already begun to fade in family memories by then as noted by the use of “Josephine” for Justina’s first name and the spelling of the family name, “Kuhn”, without the umlauted “ü”.  First-generation families of Germans from Russia in America did not fully understand the geographic origins of their parents from Russia as shown by reference to “Odessa, Russia” as the Russian place name for Justina and Samuel’s first home in Russia.  They actually lived at a German/Russian village colony called Benkendorf, Bessarabia, Odessa District, South Russia.  They never lived at Odessa, Russia.

I have typed the family story exactly as the version that was given to me to preserve the 1932 documentation. --  Glenn Kuehn, August 24, 2011.

Mrs. Sam Kuhn.

            Josephine [sic:  Justina] Priebe married Sam Kuhn and lived at Odessa, Russia, until 1887, at which time they started for America with four small children, the oldest being six years of age.
           
            They arrived at New Salem, Dakota Territory in November, and hired a man, with a wagon and team, to take them to Mrs. Kuhn’s sister’s home , forty-five miles north from there, where they lived for the rest of the winter.  The next spring Mr. Kuhn bought a team of oxen and built a sod shanty on their claim, three miles north of Krem, ND, in Mercer County.

            Their crop was poor that first year, except for a good supply of beets.

            The small ration of one-half gallon of lard was made to last through the winter.  A breakfast beverage was made by poaching and grinding a grain mixture of wheat, barley and corn.  Bread was used at breakfast time only.  Baked beets were used for dinner.  At supper time a soup was made with water, potatoes and noodles—the noodles made with egg and flour.    During the entire winter they had no milk or butter, and often were without the all essential salt.

            Mr. Kuhn secured a calf hide from a neighbor and made moccasins for the whole family.  Rags wrapped around the feet served as stockings.  Later, Mrs. Kuhn had a spinning wheel and spun and knit stockings, but she never had a sewing machine.

            The family would go out over the prairie and pick up buffalo bones, which they hauled to Hebron and sold.

            The sixth year, they harvested their first good crop.  They stored three hundred bushels in a sod shanty to be hauled the forty-five miles to market, after the farm work was finished.  Then a prairie fire came along and swept out all they had, even burning the grain in the sod granary.

            After nine years had gone by, Mrs. Kuhn passed away, leaving six children, namely:

Mrs. Bertha Kisse, Stanton, N. Dak.
Fred Kuhn, Terry, Montana
Gottlieb Kuhn, Terry, Montana
Gust Kuhn, Terry, Montana
Mrs. Lydia Horning, Terry, Montana
Mrs. Sophenia [sic:  Sophia], Shue [sic:  Schuh], Hazen, N. Dak.

                                                                                                                                    July 1932