Author: Donald Guenther
Written: January 21st, 2014

I listed the children of John Bernard and Clara Heitkemper and noted also that John Bernard was a very successful businessman and was the financial officer for the city of Columbus, Nebraska. The business was a dry goods store, a farm supply store, a general store. It was quite large. Then in 1889 the crops failed and the farmers could not pay their bills. The way that it worked was, the farmers did everything on credit and then after selling off the harvest, they paid all their bills. That worked find in ordinary years, but this year it did not work. John Bernard agreed to carry the farmers that year.

Then in 1890 came both crop failures and the great panic. What we now call a recession was in those days called a panic. That would occur when there was an ordinary business down turn for one reason or another and then the people would run to get their money out of the banks, the banks would fail and things would get worse. In the early 20th century people decided they did not like the word panic for this any more and so they used the innocuous word, depression, kind of like a very small dip in the road.

Of course, then came the great depression after some of these “minor dips” and immediately the word depression went out of use, and so beginning in the 50-s people started using the word recession. Well, the crop failure and great panic which was world wide of 1890 wiped out the savings of millions world wide. The farmers obviously could not pay their bills, there was a run on the banks and so in desperation, the banks started to call in their debts. Grandpa John Bernard could not pay, he lost his business and everything and so he got his wife and children together, at that time there were seven who were still alive and headed to Portland, by train. At least two of the brothers of Clara Heitkemper decided to come with them. They spoke no English, but that did not matter. The train trip was five days and the only word they knew in English was “bread” and so they ate only bread the whole way.

They eventually settled in Portland where they became the most well known jewelers in Portland of the time. John Bernard and his family made it to Hillsboro. There they eked out a living for a couple of years, the children went to school in Farmington, a small town just outside Hillsboro. The priest in Hillsboro said that there was a new territory opening up in the Tillamook area, they were looking for German settlers, and maybe they should homestead a farm there. That was all published in the local German newspaper here in Oregon. The Sander family in Moberly, Missouri also read the article in the St. Josephfs Blatt and they headed out to Tillamook as well. The Delsman and Sander families were both originally from the same area of Germany and they spoke the dialect of the region of Westfalen. By chance, they homesteaded nearby farms. Aunt Mamie went to school there in Tillamook and it was run by the same nuns who now are in charge of Valley Catholic, where Grandma Wilda and Aunt Dora had gone to school. The Tillamook school was half a day in German and half a day in English. As it turns out, I have Aunt Mamie’s school book from that era. It is really interesting.

To be continued.