And now, a word from your clan mother
July 27, 1999

By Paulette Tobin

There's good news and bad news to report from the recent Germans from Russia Heritage Society convention that I attended in Aberdeen, S.D. First the bad news: There was not one keg of beer anywhere during the entire three-day convention. How can a bunch of Germans properly celebrate their heritage without a little beer on tap?

The good news is that the convention's line-up of speakers included a nun with her own baseball card, a professor who had a grant to tell dirty jokes and an author who celebrated the strength and beauty of our German grandmothers.

Sister Rosalind Gefre, the aforementioned nun, has her own massage therapy centers and schools and is somewhat of a celebrity in the Twin Cities for massaging fans in the stands at the St. Paul Saints baseball games. She even has her own baseball card.

Then there was UND Professor Ron Vossler, who has a grant from the North Dakota Humanities Council to study and lecture about the humor of the Germans from Russia. Or as Ron puts it: "I have a grant to tell dirty jokes." Ron said that when some his colleagues at UND heard he was studying German Russian humor they said, "That shouldn't take you long."

Another speaker I really enjoyed was Sally Roesch Wagner, a scholar, University of California-Davis research affiliate and author of six volumes of "Daughters of Dakota," a collection of the stories of pioneer women. Wagner talked about the character of German women and how their contributions weren't always appreciated, or even noticed, because it was "just" women's work. I loved it when she said: "When a man organizes a social evening for his business associates it's a corporate event. But when a woman does the same thing, it's just making thanksgiving dinner."

Joni Lapp emailed me after the convention to ask me how I liked Sister Rosalind and to tell me that Sister is one of the most popular people in Minneapolis/St. Paul. After hearing her speak, I can see why. She has such a positive message about the importance of healing touch, which she ties to her own Strasburg, N.D., roots and the old German practice of "brauche," a kind of faith healing and folk medicine that has all but died out. Sister Rosalind said she
teaches her massage students to listen to their clients. "I tell them you are not there to entertain when you give a massage. You are just there," she said. "Often times when people talk about their concerns, they already know what the answers are. They just need somebody to listen."

Sister Rosalind has been giving massages at the St. Paul Saints baseball games for a couple of years. After every massage she asks, "Can I give you a hug?" But Sister Rosalind is not naive. She knows it wasn't long ago that most people assumed a massage parlor was a house of prostitution. She worried what people might think of a nun who not only was giving massages at baseball games, but hugging everyone as well. So she prayed about it.

"I decided everyone is worth a hug," she said, and the hugging continues.

Ron Vossler talked about all the ways that German humor was funny: about the plays on words, the one-liners and proverbs, the silly nicknames. German humor often reflected the Germans' feeling of being "the stranger in the strange land" who didn't always understand the customs or the language of the new country, and who consequently felt out of place or was the butt of jokes. German humor, too, is often the kind of earthy humor of people who live close to the land.

One joke he told was about a very poor farm family with three boys. The oldest son, who was 18, told his father one day: "I'd really like to have a car." "No," his father said. "We just bought a combine. Until that combine is paid you won't get a car." Several days later the second boy, who was 14, told the father, "I'd really like a bicycle." "No," his father said. "Your older brother won't get a car, and you won't get a bicycle, not until the combine is paid for." Finally the youngest, who was 5, went up to his father one day and said, "Father, I'd really like a tricycle." "No," his father said. "The other boys won't get anything and neither will you - not until that combine is paid."

Oh my, the youngest ran away, screaming and throwing a tantrum – until he looked up and saw a hen coming across the yard with a rooster in pursuit. When the rooster tried to get on the hen, the boy booted the rooster aside and said, "You Satan, you can walk too, until that combine is paid for."

For my money, the punch line is funnier in German: "Du Sutton, laufst au bisch der combine bezahlt isch."

Vossler, a native of Wishek, N.D., said many of the jokes he has collected have had the same elements as the combine story, especially the references to rural life and concerns about making careful purchases and the prudent use of money.

Another Vossler joke I liked: A German woman whose husband had just died wanted to put an obituary in the newspaper. "Fifty cents a word," the newspaper editor said. So the widow said: "Let it read: Konrad Scherer died." The newspaper editor said, "But there is a seven-word minimum for all obituaries." "Well then," the widow said, without missing a beat, "let it read: Konrad Scherer died. 1984 pickup for sale."

Sally Roesch Wagner talked about how, when she was younger, her aunt would drive her crazy by insisting on telling her news about family relations that Wagner hardly knew and didn't really care about. Today, Wagner said, she understands that her aunt was sharing "the most important information about who I am."

Wagner said she came to this understanding, in part, by studying the culture of American Indians. In Native society one of the important roles of women was to make sure everyone knew to whom they were related, because it was this knowledge that told them who they were.

Something about this struck a chord with me, perhaps because this website has been so instrumental in sharing information among our friends and classmates. So from now on, please no longer think of me as the class website editor (or class busybody) or the sharer of trivial bits of hometown news. I prefer to be thought of, in the way of the Native people, as a clan mother.

(Paulette Haupt Tobin grew up on a farm near Eureka and graduated from high school in 1973. Today lives in Grand Forks, N.D., where she is a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald.)