Heifer Project International #2

By Marilyn Kettering Badger

Heifer thank you letters to Maple Grove Church of the Brethren in 1953 and 1954.

    A letter to Cloyd Rush that was received back from a heifer sent to Heifer Project is translated here:

                                                                                                   Blesterbach,   9.20.1953

Dear Mr. President Rush:

      As we understood through an interpreter is it you and your Sunday –School Class, who sent us this heifer and made such a great joy to us that I don’t have the words to express how grateful and happy we are.

     You certainly would like to hear how the heifer is doing.  She arrived safe and sound at our home.  My husband and I are expellees from East-Prussia, my husband remained still in Schleswig-Holstein (territory west of East Prussia) after the war, abut in 1951 he came to the Pfalz (Southwestern Part), by a settler-transport.  He could rent this farm for about 12 years.  Before the farm was managed by an old renter and was dissolute and empty.  October 16 of that year we both married.  But our happy living didn’t last for too much time, for my husband had to be brought to a sanatorium because of tuberculosis he got after the war.  Now he is away for about 1 ¾ year, but he shall come back, very soon, thanks to God.  It was very hard for me to manage the farm without him, for I am no expert in farming.  My cousin helped me in a very kind way.  My sister lives with us, she works in a factory in order to be able to help us in our financial situation.  For our pretty large farm provides a lot of work and many sleepless nights.  The rent, the interest and all things we need for living will be paid.  In the 3 ½ years of the prisonership I had to suffer in Russia, I learnt to bear sufferings and to work hard.  So the hard fight we have to fight here seems to me to be tolerable.  Back to the good times we have had in our home-country, we’ll probably never be able to return.  So we have to have the hope to come through all difficulties, life has prepared for us.  We are glad to have this little farm to refund a new home for our brothers and sisters, for we both have lost our parents.

     We are happy of everything we can call our own for we know what it means to loose all you enjoyed before.  So you couldn’t have created a joy more great than you did by sending us this heifer; we hope, it will help us to overcome the biggest trouble.  It surely is a present of the heaven.

     I hope to get an answer of you, it doesn’t matter when it is written in you language.  In the name of my husband, too, I thank you 1000 times and wishing all blessing on you I am in gratefullness,

                                                     Mrs. Mohike (Monica) Blach                

                                                 Blederbach Kr. Kusel  H Nr. 25

The picture shows our farm; the rooms of the 2^nd story are not rebuilt, not yet.

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Note:  When you need the answer translated I would like to translate it for you. Roland Hermann

               Heifer Project pictures.

1954

      Here is another letter received by Cloyd Rush for a heifer sent to Heifer Project.  We never will really know how important these were to the recipients but we get an idea of their needs and appreciation of these gifts to them.

Sir,

I have the honour to inform you that the heifer you spent (No. 1308-B323824) came into my possession on December 8^th, 1953.  In the same time I am glad to tell you that the cow has already born a female calf on December 20^th.  Your noble-minded donor made me feel as if I had got back part of my lost home, for it was the first cow of my newly established little farm.

 I have been evacuated from my hereditary home, a real German territory, Schonficht near Marienbad in Egerland, on September 28^th, 1948.  All I was allowed to take with me was not quite a hundredweight.  After having learnt farming I was forced to manage to live as an assistant workman in other professions, and sometimes I was out of work.  As this was a hard destiny for me and in the long run intolerable I have decided to become a farmer again.  I have succeeded in doing so after many vain endeavours.  I have taken a leasehold of nearly 19 acres.  The conditions are not easy.  Therefore some years without failures are necessary to guarantee that this undertaking will prove to be profitable.  The heifer is a good help in this poor beginning.

Yours sincerely,

 Franz Haberzettl