Скачать или смотреть Joseph & Anna - A World Apart - Letter 5 (March 22, 1877)

My dear friends,
Another letter has been written across the great distance between Kansas and Russia. Tonight, I write from Herzog by lamplight, the house quiet at last, my daughter Anna’s letter resting in my hands as I read her words once more. Even across an ocean, her voice draws near.

In this letter, I answer her questions and share the life we are building here — the planting of wheat on Kansas soil, the promise of spring after a hard winter, and the faith that sustains us when the land feels vast and uncertain. I speak of family growing on both sides of the sea, of grandchildren born into a new world, and of the hope that one day they might know one another beyond ink and paper.

I also write of memory — of mothers and fathers carried in the heart, of loss that does not fade with time, and of the strength passed quietly from one generation to the next. In this new country, I glimpse possibilities we never knew in Russia, and I wonder what it means to belong to a land where even an old man may choose his own leaders.

These are imagined letters, yes — but they echo the real words and hopes of Volga German families who crossed oceans and prairies in search of a future for their children. Their faith, their labor, and their longing are woven into the soil of Ellis County, Kansas.

I invite you to sit with me now, in this quiet hour, and listen — as a father writes to his daughter, trusting that even after the darkest winters, new life will come.
Our story continues.
—Joseph