My Favorite Recipes: Meet Jerine Grey, Endicott, and Mary Ann Wigen, Colfax

Mary Ann Wigen and Jerine Grey with items Jerine brought home from their trip to Russia. The stacking dolls are traditionally Russian, and the little berry figurines are common.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Whitman County residents are descendants of the Volga Deutsch. While many immigrants came directly from Germany to the United States, the Volga Deutsch made a long trip, with more than a century spent on the Volga River region of Russia. Jerine Grey and Mary Ann Wigen are two such local citizens.

Jerine grew up on the family farm near Endicott and went to Endicott High School. She married and lived around the state with her banker husband in Wilbur, Spokane, Richland, Zillah, Yakima, Quincy, Oroville, Kennewick and Newport. The move to Newport was their last while the children were home. They were in seventh and ninth grade, and they stayed until they graduated from Newport High School.

Jerine and Frank Grey were married in 2000, and they moved to Diamond. After three years, they moved to the farm house where she grew up. Strangely enough, the house that was just right for a family of four now seems small. Perhaps, she said, that is because she is still sorting through her mother’s things, and people now have more possessions.

Mary Ann Kistler grew up in Colfax, graduating from Colfax High School and then attending college. She and Bob Wigen married right after her second year, and they lived in LaCrosse for seven years. They moved to her family farm in 1978, which they operated until Bob’s death in 1999.

Mary Ann’s family farm is unique in that it was passed on and operated by a daughter and her husband until after Bob’s death when their son Pete took over. She and Tom met and got together in 2003, and she moved to Colfax from the farm in 2007.

To Mary Ann’s chagrin, she is still sorting through stuff from the farm and dispersing it to her children. When she has items of possible interest, she lays them out and takes a photo, sends it to her children, and they can choose anything they want. To her surprise, someone did want the Sesame Street sheet set.

Word about a guided trip to Russia began circulating after Don and Christine Kackman saw Dick Scheuerman on a Memorial Day weekend in Endicott. That Monday, Mary Ann called Scheuerman to go on the tour. Jerine saw Dick Scheuerman at Trinity Lutheran Church one Sunday, where he encouraged her to go. She, too, made the call to join the tour.

Jerine said, “Everything worked for me to go. It was meant to be.”

The tour was on the 250th anniversary of Catherine the Great of Russia inviting Germans to colonize on the Volga River.

The story begins when Catherine, a German princess from Hesse, married the Czar of Russia. After his death, in which many think Catherine had a hand, she became Czarina of Russia. Seeing opportunity to develop farmland along the hills of the Volga River, she was certain farmers from her native region would be able to develop productive farms.

The farmers from Hesse were offered land to farm and were not subject for conscription in the Russian military for 100 years, so many families answered the call. Jerine and Frank, Mary Ann and Tom, and many others with Volga Deutsch roots joined the tour to experience, literally, their roots.

Dr. Richard Scheuerman has been researching the history of Germans from Russia since he was in high school and studied the Russian language in college to be better able to research Russian records. He led this tour, and many saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime to see and better understand their family history.

The tour was all-inclusive except for a few lunches. Their guide was Tatiana, and they soon loved her. She was beautiful, blonde, spoke fluent English, stopped traffic in a traffic jam so their bus could turn around and drive a different route and walked at a speed their group could tolerate.

After landing in Frankfurt, Germany, the tour group traveled to Schotten in the central state of Hesse, the home of many Volga Germans. They visited the Schottener Heimat Museum, which focuses on Hessian history and traditions. Tour group members could see photos, costumes, furniture and crafts from long ago.

The next stop was Budingen, which was the starting point for many of the Volga colonists in the 1700’s. They visited the Sammelplatz (Gathering Point) at Isenberg Castle. The counts of Isinberg-Budingen invited a Russian recruiter to locate a Russian immigration office there; consequently, many Hessians were colonists.

St. Petersburg, Russia, was the next stop for the tour, as the German immigrants arrived here. The city was conceived by Peter the Great and designed by his favorite European architects. The lavish pre-revolutionary (before 1917) palaces and churches have been renovated. The city survived the German siege of World War II and has regained its previous splendor.

Immigrants entered Russia at Kronstadt, a naval fortress north of St. Petersburg, much like Ellis Island in New York. At Oranienbaum, the tour group saw the place where the immigrants’ journey overland to the Volga began.

While in St. Petersburg, the group explored the Hermitage Museum, which houses one of the finest and largest museum collections in the world. Part of the complex is the Winter Palace, built in 1754-1762, the principal home of the czars. Mary Ann, Jerine and two friends attended the ballet while in the city.

Moscow, the capital city, was the next destination, and Jerine and Mary Ann found it fascinating. For 200 years before the 1917 Revolution, St. Petersburg had been the capital, but the capital was moved back and served as the capital of the Soviet Union until 1991. They were surprised by the palaces and cathedrals in the Kremlin, which Americans think of as a militarized central government enclave.

From Moscow, the group flew to Saratov, a regional center of industry, agriculture and education. Nearby, in the town of Engels, they visited a unique archive which contains documents dating back to the original settlers in the 18th century. Many of the precious old books cannot be handled.

In the town of Marx, many buildings constructed by the German settlers remain, and there is a museum documenting the history of the German settlers in the area.

From here, Jerine and Frank’s larger group went to Yagadnaya Polyana, which means Berry Meadow, from which their ancestors emigrated to the United States. Jerine’s Bafus family property was on the same street as the church, which is now a community center. Richard Scheuerman’s family home is just up the street and around the corner, and the house survives.

They walked the same street to church as their families.

“It just tugs at you,” Jerine explained. They saw an old mill that had been owned by the Lust family. There were chickens all over and cows in the pasture.

Some inefficiencies and incongruities struck them. A steam plant provides steam heat for the whole village in exposed above-ground pipes. Houses sported television satellite dishes and outhouses, a contrast in modernity. Residential streets were often dirt or gravel, and water lines were also above ground.

A family saw their party and invited them into their home. With Dr. Scheuerman speaking Russian, they enjoyed their visit, and an amazing amount of food appeared almost magically to serve the American guests.

Mary Ann and Tom went to her family’s town of Frank. The Kistler family home was across the street from the school, which was a prestigious address. One person on the tour had a family across the street from Mary Ann’s. Two Kistler men had been mayors of Frank.

The school in Frank is still in use for elementary students. The streets were undeveloped, and there were few modern touches. The church was used to store grain, and the graveyard where generations of Kistler’s were buried was destroyed. That piece was heart-breaking to Mary Ann.

Jerine’s trip highlight was going to Yagadnaya Polyana, seeing where her ancestors lived, worked and worshipped. She would love to return. Jerine’s grandparents and four sons came to the United States in 1891, and her father and other siblings were born here. There were 19 children altogether.

Mary Ann has a photo of the church near Frank where her grandparents were married. Her family came to the United States in 1907. Mary Ann is off to discover her Irish roots late this summer. This has been a dream for some time, and going to Frank, Russia, and to Ireland fulfill that, Mary Ann feels that she has traveled full circle from where her grandparents lived.

Not exactly a highlight for Mary Ann was the Russian customs official who confiscated her good Russian vodka, making a display of putting it in a wastebasket. She is certain it did not stay there.

Food was generally plentiful and delicious. They had an interesting molded beet salad, cucumber and tomato salad, wiener schnitzel, a molded salad with peas, carrots and so on topped with hard-cooked egg and caviar and stuffed peppers. The worst food was bitter, bruised and ugly baked apples. They were finally served butter with their bread, which was hard to identify as it was shredded.

The next big task is for Mary Ann and Jerine to get together with all of their photos and produce some photo books.

Recipes:

Rice Salad

Jerine Grey

1 quart cooked rice

6 hard-boiled eggs

1 package frozen peas (cook about 3 minutes)

1 cup chopped celery

1 small onion, diced

1 can crab

1 pint (2 cups) mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

Mix together and chill 24 hours before serving.

Salaud Supa -

Lettuce Soup

Jerine Grey

Traditional spring and summer favorite

3 cups cleaned leaf lettuce, shredded

4 beaten eggs

1 pint (2 cups) sour cream

4 slices bacon, cubed

3 cups water

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

boiled potatoes

Place shredded lettuce into a 4-quart kettle. Combine beaten eggs with sour cream and pour over lettuce.

Crisp bacon in a skillet; pour bacon and fat over lettuce. Pour 3 cups water into skillet and add vinegar; bring to a boil and pour over lettuce.

Put kettle on simmer, and let heat to almost boiling. Stir occasionally. To have a smooth, creamy liquid, do not boil, as boiling will curdle it.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and add more vinegar if a more tart taste is wanted. Serve with boiled potatoes.

Sweet and Sour Beans

Mary Ann Wigen

1 package little smokies sausage, cut up

1 teaspoon onion salt

1 Tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 Tablespoon prepared mustard

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 can dry lima beans

1 can S & W baked beans

1 can S & W BBQ beans

Combine all ingredients and simmer for at least one hour over low heat or several hours on low in a crock pot.

Brown Bag Apple Cake

Mary Ann Wigen

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 cup salad oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups chopped apples

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine dry ingredients; add eggs, oil and vanilla, mixing to combine, followed by apples and nuts, and mix. Mixture will be thick.

Put in greased and floured tube cake pan (angel food or bundt cake pan). Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Immediately place cake in brown paper bag, close tightly and let stand until cold.