During the Kruschke reunion recently, the simplicity of how the family of Otto and Ellen Jane evolved became quite clear.
Each morning when I got up early and walked outside the motel, I would watch trains rolling east and west (tracks were within 100 yards of the motel). Trains roll constantly with coal and oil from western North Dakota to Minneapolis and Chicago. During the night there was a constant rumble from trains going by.
Dah! The whole Moorhead-Fargo area was determined by the railroad being built to service farms along the track and ultimately mining in western N. Dakota. Otto Kruschke came to the U.S. in the early 1900’s at age 14 from Germany. He joined an Uncle who had immigrated earlier. $40, boat passage, and a train ticket got him from Germany, to the east coast to Moorhead, MN. Otto ended up being a farmer with 9 kids. Farms were always in close proximity to railroads
The DNA of Moorhead, MN. is railroads, farmers, grain elevators and CO-OPs that service the farms. It is hard to deny that your Mom’s family was a “farmer family”.
Today the railroads are busier than ever running oil from the rich Bakken oil shale fields in western N. Dakota to cities in the east.
Farms are getting bigger. Many small farmers are selling out to big farms and they are retreating to the city.
It is amazing how many of your Mom’s cousins have become school teachers as they left the farms. Many, many school teachers. Most of those teachers are retired living off lucrative teacher pensions. The “farmer label” for the family is in the rear view mirror.
So the Kruschke clan which began with a simple farmer has been absorbed into the American fabric. But, the memories remain. That is what the reunion was all about. You could smell the farms. You could hear the trains. You could see the grain elevators.
Love,
Dad