My Impossible Dream: You Can Do It Too, Germans from Russia Immigrant Grandparents Ethnic Life Style

Florence Dockter Scherbenske, grew up on a farm near Venturia, McIntosh County, south central North Dakota. Florence vividly shares the story of her German-Russian family.

In the Dedication, Florence writes, “I give tribute to my maternal grandmother, Katherine Helfenstein Esch Ritter, for the love and kindness she gave me when I was child. Also, for the letters she wrote to me when I was growing up. She came as a Germans from Russia immigrant to America at age eight. She was married to Heinrich Esch. He died in the 1918 Influenza, and left her a widow with five children under the age of ten. She endured the hardship of that time.”

“I give tribute to my paternal grandfather, Gottlieb Dockter, Jr., who was man of wisdom and generosity, and was well respected in his community. He taught six sons the industry and art of farming and livestock. He was a Germans from Russia immigrant. After hard work and hardships, he acquired enough property to set up each of his sons in farming. It was benefit to my parents to us siblings. We had the good fortune to have food and a house to live in during the dust storms and depression of the 1930s”.

Florence writes in the Preface, “ I grew up in a home never having a childhood, was not allowed to go to high school, and had a teenage marriage. I took charge of my life and lived a life of volunteer, business and hard work. I worked hard to overcome my physical and mental abuse in my childhood which continued into my adulthood. To the reader: Never give up. You can take charge of your life. I did, and you can do it too.”

From learning to cook on a cookstove (a stove with black lids that burned coal and mischt), snaring gophers in the prairie pasture on Sunday afternoon, and bucking the northwest wind in south central North Dakota while riding a two-wheeled cart hitched to a non-stop pony in January of 1938 – To flying in an Eastern Airlines jet that served gourmet meals and endless champagne in 1968, traveling in a 747 jet airliner, and enjoying the ocean and river cruises in my life as world traveler. My life story.

Florence was interviewed in July, 2005, at Bismarck, ND for the Library of Congress Americacorps Story Program. She shared, “My ancestors were Germans from Russia. I vaguely remember my maternal-great grandmother. I was six when she died. She was born in Ukraine and was a midwife in Ukraine and on the prairie of North Dakota. She delivered over 1,000 babies. I went to a country school and walked most of the time or went with horses. It was a one-room school. There were thirty children in all eight grades with one teacher. I learned to milk a cow at age seven. I could butcher a chicken and prepare a dinner for a family of seven at age then. At that time, I was also taking care of four siblings while my mother worked in the field. My weekly allowance was five or ten cents.”

The Table of Contents includes:

1) Wedding, Farm Purchase; 2) Dockter Family including Ukraine to America, From Sodhouse to Woodhouse; 3) Helfenstein Family including Ship to America, Settled in North Dakota, Grandpa Esch – 1918 Influenza; 4) John Ritter and Children; 5) Florence Schooling; 6) Childhood Responsibilities; 7) Inez; 8) Sibling Death – Florence Pearl, Stanley Julius; 9) Cooking; 10) The Chick Project: 11) World War II; 12) Beginning Travel; 13) The Winter of 1955; 14) Farming; 15) Friendship Force; 16) Divorce; 17) Goodbye Elder; 18) Climbing the Mountain; 19) 4-H Related Activities, Jocie, Glenny; 20) Recovering from Shame; 21: Lee; 22) Health Failure; 23) Personal Development and Accomplishments; 24) Leadership and Accomplishments; 25) Closure; 26) In a Nutshell.