[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 49, Issue 25

[PGYOSH at aol.com]

I haven't posted in a long time but thought I would add my grandfather's  
story of being in the Russian army.  While earlier than World War I, he  claimed 
he went into the Russian army against his will.  He -- Gustav  Gunther son of 
Christoph Gunther and Wilhelmine Leske -- was born in 1867 in  Teresewo (near 
Sompolno). How much is true we don't know but he told my father  and uncle he 
was drafted into the army sometime around 1890 to help with the  Cossacks with 
their horses.  While he was gone for a few years, his first  wife -- Ottilia 
Beyer (Baer) -- died along with their infant son. He then  married her younger 
sister, Louisa (my grandmother), in  1895. Within the year, word came that 
the Russians would come back to  redraft everyone.  No one wanted to go into the 
army.  So, his  sister's husband fled to New York in 1895 and sent for the 
rest of the extended  family who all (with the exception of one brother who had 
a blind daughter who  stayed in Russia) arrived over the next few years all 
settling in New Jersey. 
 
My grandmother and he never said much more about their life before coming  to 
the United States. We did find an old atlas in which that he had drawn for my 
 uncle where he had traveled in the army. The line runs from Teresewo to 
Warsaw  to Krachow then to Odessa across the Black Sea to Belum (?) to Astara on 
the  Caspian then up the Volga to Kazan (?).  Anyone have any idea who they  
would have been fighting or why such a long trip partly by sea? Anyone know of  
others drafted in the 1890s?
 
Phyllis Yoshida



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