TOM & ALANA CAMPBELL'S VOLGA GERMAN FAMILY HISTORY
Our German ancestors were invited as colonists to form settlements in Russia under Czaress Catherine. They were settled in villages on the Russian Steppe along the Volga river and thus came to be known as Volga Germans. Colonists came from Germany and neighboring France to the colonies near Odessa in South Russia, now the Ukraine. From 1797 to 1814, France ruled Speyer, Germany and the surrounding area. The town of Speier, is located beside the river Rhine. Russia was named after Speyer, Germany. In 1688, war was at the gates of Speyer, this time the invading troops were French. Over 700 houses were destroyed and many towers and gates of the town fortifications were blown up. Colonists from the Wetzstein family were some of the many Germans from Russia, who later migrated to the United States. One branch of the Wetzstein family settled at Spier. When the village of Speier was dissolved by the Russian Government. The last 25 years of it's existence was marked by much suffering and misery as the Russians raided the villages, murdered the men, stole their belongings and tried to force the German families to leave Russia. Taxes were imposed, and raised to ridiculous heights so that the Germans couldn't possibly pay them. Property was seized for payment. Famine and hunger were rampant, as the government first took all of their crops (but the Germans replanted with their seeds) and then returned to take the seeds as well. Many families died the slow death of starvation. By this time, many of our ancestors had already left their village to come to America, or had entered into Germany. Many were gathered up and sent off to Siberia to work in the labor camps, never to be heard from again. A very few that have survived these camps, have in recent years been allowed to leave and emigrate into Germany.
Most German colonies were established near the Volga River in the Czarist provinces of Saratov and Samara. “Bergseite” on the Volga River’s west bank is a portion of Saratov province. “Wiesenseite” on the Volga River’s east bank is a portion of Samara province. The 18th century charter-districts of Catherine, Pokrowsk, and Warenburg were established along the Volga River in Samara province.
FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM & BEYOND
My love for French Impressionism came through my parents, and the French Country theme and impressionist style are favorite art subjects of mine to paint. My interest in Europe is derived from the European family background.
My desire to paint 19th century French peasants comes partly from my husband and my French ancestry, which includes Fortineaux/Ridenour,L'Aine surnames. My mothers sister's name is Mariane, symbolic of Republican France. Our ancestor James Russell Cuff, listed in the Canadian censuses of 1881 and 1891, was born in 1828 France, lived in Ireland and emigrated to Ontario where he resided in the village of Cannington, Ontario, Canada. James R Cuff was a relative of William Andrew Laughlin, on his mother's side (Mariane Lain(L'Ain) nee Cuff. Internet info on James Russell Cuff is located at the following URL under surname spelled :
CUFF - 1891 census @ca.on.100d family 037 @ca.on.ontario_county.cannington_village page 9 film T6357 lds1465782 electoral district of Ontario County North 9 CUFF James R. m 60 - - France Ire Ire CofE 10 LANE {?} Eleanor f 61 widow lodger Ire Ire Ire CofE
MY MOM'S FAMILY HOME & UPBRINGING IN ONTARIO, CANADA
My grandparents settled in Chatham, Ontario. This was where the family home was located, and my mother, her and her sisters Mariane and Merle and brother Bill Laughlin were raised. Their lives were somewhat entwined with Sussex St Marie, Toronto, Windsor, and Cannington, Ontario as well. Originally part of the original Brock Township, Cannington was first settled in 1833. It was originally known as McCaskill's Mills after a local mill-owning family. In 1849, a post office was opened, at which point the settlement was renamed Cannington after former British foreign secretary and Prime Minister [George Canning] (1770-1827). Cannington separated from Brock Township in 1878 when it was incorporated as a Village.
We also have Acadien French ancestry with those that lived in Vielvique in Bretagne (1645) Vendee which was Bas-Poitou (1700s) Sarthe, Perche, Nord, (Normandy) Rhone-Alps, and Loire-Atlantic, Seine-Maritime, Alsace-Lorraine, France, and Prussia, and French ancestors residing at Port Royal, (Acadie) Annapolis Royale, Nova Scotia, Canada. Under the spelling Fontaneaux ancestors resided at Threadneedle Street, London, England where the famous Huguenot church was located. Our family has a number of patriots that fought in the American Revolutionary War.
During severe persecution, Johann Jonas Fortineau (born 1650) and his wife Sara Menton Fortineux fled with a French pastor and several families, into Prussia, to reside under the protection of the Queen Elizabeth Charlotte who'd agreed to give protection to 700 villagers whose homelands were ravaged by the French troops. Records state the pastor and his group left Germany in Spring 1728 to go to the Land of Penn. The Fortineuxs later met Pastor Stoever, Sr. who pastored the Hebron Church in Madison, Virginia. The church was built in 1740 by the Germanna immigrants of 1717 (the second Germanna Colony). They had moved down to the Madison area from the Germanna settlement
Two million Huguenots, or French Protestants, fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685--an edict which had originally protected them from persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church. Dispersing first to the Netherlands, then to England, Ireland, and even South Africa, then to America and Canada, thousands of these French Protestants became the founders or early settlers of such places as Oxford, Massachusetts, Narragansett in Rhode Island, New Amsterdam, New Rochelle, and New Paltz in New York, the Santee River and the Orange Quarter in South Carolina, Manakin-Town in Virginia, and a host of other sites in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina--in many cases establishing permanent settlements long before the arrival of the first English colonists.
France had actually begun its attempts to colonize North America in 1592, sending Jean Ribault and a band of French Huguenots to Florida. On the banks of the St. Johns River, Ribault erected a stone marker with the French coat of arms announcing France's claim to Florida. Thereafter, then sailed northward along Georgia's coast to present-day Port Royal, South Carolina, where they built a fort. The first Germans to settle in Virginia were a group from the Siegen region of Hessen-Nassau in 1714. A second group followed them in 1717 who were from the northern region of Baden-Wurttemberg. About 1721 several additional families joined this group. These three groups appear to have come direct to Virginia in their respective years. Many later Germans joined the earlier colonists or moved to other parts of Virginia after 1730, however by this time the emigration route by way of Philadelphia was well established and nearly all emigrants came through that port before continuing their journey to Virginia. Much information has been reconstructed on the original German settlers to the Germanna Colony in Orange, Culpepper Counties of Virginia, most notably by Holzclaw and Zimmerman/Cerny.
My father who was an attorney, lived and worked in France when he was young, and shared his own love for France with me. From early research into Tom's genealogy, they appeared to all be English. Imagine our surprise to discover that so many of the Brits among Tom's ancestors were of French descent and received land grants in Britain following the Norman Conquest. His French family surnames like Norton was originally Norville, and Preston was Prestone. When our daughter Ami was 6 we were invited to go to Britain with a prophetic team for two weeks. Then we caught a ferry to Calais and traveled around France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and to some other places, with a Eurail Pass for several weeks. My mother was an avid fan of such 19th century artists as Renoir, Degas, Monet and Van Gogh, and we had prints of these on our walls as I was growing up. Her mother, who I stated was an artist in oils, was born in the South Pacific where her Danish parents were invited by the government to colonize in the 1800s, and they owned a farm of over 40 acres in Wairarapa.
Our parents purchased costumed dolls and books for us with beautiful watercolour illustrations for us children. I loved studying the history of these cultures with their marvellous ethnic costumes. I enjoyed collecting stamps from all over the world, and friends would save their international stamps to contribute to my collection. During my childhood, this hobby familiarized me with geography, ethnic cultures and costumes, as well as ethnic artwork. Books with articles and illustrations or stories of Eastern Europe, including the lifestyle of gypsies, their costumes and violin music, and medieval artwork and themes were favorites of mine. Among traveling bands such as these, were the Jewish merchants that transported their wares. Also loved Russian folk costumes, architecture, and carved or hand painted troikas.
Born in California, my family moved to Washington state. Those who are familiar with my artwork know that I like to paint themes from Spain and Mexico. As the borders of Europe have changed through the centuries because of wars, a portion of my ancestry goes back long ago to the Volga region of Russia, where Czaress Catherine the Great invited and encouraged German colonists to form settlements there.
We traced Tom's German-Jewish background to Prussia through his great-grandfather (see photo link photographs) Rabbai Bernhard Hoppe, a Rabbai in a village in Germany. He fathered Victor Hugo Hoppe (my husbands grandfather) who for 40 years was drama coach at WWU. The Hoppe family resided in Prussia which encompassed Germany and is modern day Poland.
I was told by a Wetzstein descendant that some of the our German side of our family lived in villages in Russia, having been invited to colonize along the Volga River in the area which is now Ukraine, by the Czaress Catherine. These are termed
Volga Germans. Both my husband Tom's Campbell lineage as well as mine includes American Revolutionary War heroes. Tom's patriots include Ephraim Kimberly and wife Mary Riggs, Gideon Kimberly and Mary Osborne, Abraham Kimberly and Abigail Fitch, daughter of Thomas Fitch and Abigail Goodrich,(born 4 March 1682-Hartford, Connecticut, Thomas Kimberly-Founder of New Haven, Connecticut, who married Alice Atwood, Elder William Goodrich (married Sarah Marvin born 13 Feb 1621 in Essex, England) and brother John Goodrich, who are first located in the area of Watertown, Mass. He was among the very first settlers at Wethersfield, being one of a small party known as the adventurers who wintered there before the arrival of the main body. and earlier English born ancestor Abraham Kimberly, born at Gloucester, England.