| The
Adam SCHEUERMANN Family |
In 1888 my father
came from a German colony near Saratov, Russia to the States and settled
down in Kansas. We lived there three years. After that we went to
Endicott, Washington. We lived there for two years. My father rented
a farm and started to farm, but he could not make any headway on it.
The crops were poor, no rain, so they burned out.
My mother, the former Mari RAUSCH, got sick and died in the States,
so my father made up his mind to go to Canada. He heard a lot of it,
but how could he get there? He had no money to take the train. So
one day he found a good man. He was prospector that wanted to know
if there was a road through the mountains to travel with horses and
get to Canada. So my father packed his wagon with grub, one breaking
plow and seven horses and five men. Here are the men's names - BEELER
was the leader, John HATZENGER, CLEMENS, my brother John and my father.
We children, I and Jacob and my sister Lizie stayed with my brother-in-law
Adam SMECK.
So they started out on their long journey, full of hope to reach Canada
in about three weeks. Everything went fine till they got into the
mountains, but they soon found out to their big surprise that there
was no wagon road in the mountains, only for pack horses trails. What
now? They didn't' want to go back again. They made a big raft out
of logs and put the wagon on it and put it on a river that would flow
through the mountains (on this side of the mountains). Two men went
with the wagon to guide it on the river. There other three men took
the horses and followed the trail. When they got deeper into the mountains
they found that there was no grass for the horses. They had to tie
them to spruce trees to pick the needs off the branches. That was
all they could find. It didn't take long until the men ran out of
food, too. What now? They hoped to get something to shoot - a deer
or a bear but saw nothing. They had nothing to eat for three days.
They got so hungry that they were going to kill a horse and serve
it. But the fourth day they found two traders in the mountains who
gave them a sack of flour and a little rice so they had enough to
get through the mountains. But that wasn't so easy as you may think
it cross those mountains. There were some big rivers to cross with
horses. Let me tell you a little about them, how they crossed them.
My father bought a good saddle horse from a cowboy before they left.
He wasn't afraid of anything, he would go through everything. We had
him here in Canada for many years yet. He was my saddle horse here.
My brother John had to take his horse and test every river first to
find out how deep it was or how fast it was running. He always had
to take a long rope with him, fastened to the horse. If he couldn't
make it they could pull him back. If one could cross it he had the
rope on the other side to pull the other horses over with two men.
If the current was too fast so that the horse went down stream, they
pulled him back and looked for a better place to cross. My father
told me that it happened more than once when John and his horse went
down from a steep bank in the river that man and horse were gone for
a while under water before they got above water again. Well finally
they got across the mountains. The horses were so sick and so poor
and their feet sore and bleeding from rocks that they had to give
them a rest for a week. After that, it got better again. They found
the wagon and two men safe. They went on again and finally got to
Wetaskiwin. It took them six weeks to get here.
There wasn't much of Wetaskiwin at that time, only one small store.
The storekeeper's name was West. From now on they were looking for
homesteads so they drove southeast from Wetaskiwin thirty miles and
picked each his homestead in what is now called the Schultz district.
The land was not surveyed then. That was in 1892. That was the end
of Henry's writing.
Adam went to help build the railroad between Calgary and Edmonton.
Adam's second wife was Katie Poffenroth, a widow with six children.
Besides serving on the Fair School board, Adam was an official of
St Peter's and the Sunday School teacher. He died in 1920; Katie,
in 1928. Rudy Orom now lives on the Scheuermann homestead (S.E. 10-43-22-4).
|
| The children ... |
Henry was seven
when his father brought the family here by train,. Adam and Marie
had John, Catherine (called Micka, became Mrs. Adam Schmick), Henry,
Mary, Elizabeth, twins - Jacob and Lillian who died as a baby), Moailis
(she died in childhood). Only Henry's and Jacob's children live in
Canada. The others are in the States.
Adam's son John married Anna Lilge in Calgary.
The family tree reads, "Bernard, Lena, Clara (born in Canada, 1903),
Agnes (born in Canada, 1905), Retha Marie (born in Canada, 1907),
Charles Sherman (died, 1915)."
John worked for an Edmonton Packing plant until told to leave for
the sake of his health. He found a job in Washington State and wrote
his wife telling her to sell the house and join him. She went to Oregon
instead. An attempt at reconciliation proved futile. He bought S.E.
33 and batched there. He finally returned to Washington where he married
a rich widow. All his descendants live in Oregon, USA. |
| Based on excerpt from: Mecca
Glen Memories (1968) Written by his son, Henry, shortly before
Henry's death in 1961 |
| SCHEUERMANN family researcher:
Linda |
|
