“You’ve … successfully balanced telling a broader history all while weaving your family’s wonderful story through-out. Not to mention the website itself is gorgeously configured.”
Edna Link standing with and barely taller than some of her Obar, NM, youthful students.
Edna Frances Link (Jones) in 1977.
Preface
IMMIGRATION ACROSS FIVE GENERATIONS
This is a story of German-Mennonite emigration out of Europe. Then immigration across the expanding United States. It takes place in the 1800s and early 1900s, a time of tremendous migration to America. It is also the story of tens of millions of other families, mostly European, and some of which came from the areas including and surrounding Russia. Each family and group with their own variations, but often related experiences beginning in the early 1800s and with a high percentage of agrarian vocations in their backgrounds. The stories of Asian immigrants, African immigrants, several smaller groups including Pacific Islanders, or modern immigrants are not, in most ways, reflected in this story.
While it is likely self-evident that being brought here in slavery was nothing like coming to America by choice - to hopefully improve on a family’s prospects - that African migration was also different in that it was much earlier. That migration essentially evaporated after the Civil War which resulted in emancipation. Some restrictions on the slave trade were enacted even in the early 1800s, some of which were circumvented as shown by ship mainifests. 12 million Africans had been brought to the Americas between 1500 and 1860, the largest forced migration in human history. Not all of them ended up in what would become the United States, however. In fact, the vast majority of those Africans taken from their homes to the New World ended up being located in South America, the Carribean, or Mexico. Only about 4 percent arrived in North America, according to historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
While contemporaneous with the experiences of European immigrants, the Asian experience of immigration was notably different as well. First, the direction of Asian immigration, arriving almost exclusively on the West Coast and slowly moving east, was disparate. The number of laws that discriminated against Asians were even more numerous and focused than those, both written by legislatures and implied by social norms, that affected immigrants like the Link family which came from the Wurttemburg-Baden region of the German Wiemar Republic.
The Transcontinental Railroad, built by two major railroads meeting in Utah, was built by mostly Chinese immigrant laborers.
Chinese immigrant pathways to income very seldom included owning land. Many of their immigration stories are related to the building of the railroads, local and intercontinental, as well as growing the small business service industry in California, Oregon and Washington. They almost exclusively rented from property owners to begin those services, or were often laborers on dangerous projects that required vast labor resources. Originally, there was a great calling for Chinese workers in minacious gold-mining settings. That had the later effect of setting those workers in position to be invaluable experts required for the blasting and tunneling on the Central Pacific sections of the transcontinental railroad as it crossed the Sierra Nevada range. They also found themselves employed in factories and in particular the garment industry of the booming West Coast economy, given its initial boost by the Gold Rush of 1848, which peaked in 1852.
Oregon's 1859 constitution included the caveat that no “Chinaman” could purchase property in the state. California re-wrote its constitution in 1879 to establish that only immigrants of “the white race or African descent” could purchase property. Asian immigrants, therefore, found themselves in that time more disadvantaged than African Americans, many of whom had just 14 years earlier been in bondage.
Thousands of Pacific Islanders came under U.S. jurisdiction through colonization during this period. Their story, in some cases, involved receiving resident status without leaving their homelands. While not citizens, they were considered nationals, and even today may carry U.S. passports, but do not have full citizenship rights. That included American Samoa, the only U.S. territory which has never included citizenship by birthright. Many Pacific Islanders, however, arrived in the United States and did become citizens. Their stories also have differences from those of European migrants. One large group of Pacific Islanders were granted citizenship when Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21st, 1959. Hawaii was the last U.S. territory to become a state.
Fundamentally, those unique factors separated the experiences of select other groups from those of European migrants to America in the 1800s and early 1900s. European immigrants, while widely discriminated against, still had vast opportunities through property ownership and later homesteading that some other groups struggled much longer after arrival to obtain. Through property ownership, they had the opportunity to group into regions where they could overcome some of the prejudices against their newly formed citizenship. In sheer numbers, the European migration was from a percentage standpoint, an influx of first-generation families which has not been duplicated since. Not since the founding of the settlements along the East Coast or in the southwestern region of North America had new arrivals been such a high percentage of the non-aboriginal population of the continent.
This family story
This story blends historical framing material with vignettes from the lives of progenitors. In a few instances, the information sheds new light on a microhistory of community or occurance that helps illustrate a specific time and place.
For example, the story of the now-disappeared ghost town of Obar, New Mexico, was generally lost to general public history. I assume family records like ours hold additional details to add to the fabric, and I have reached out to obtain a few added lines of information. The almost-too-late rescue of family information which fleshed out somewhat of a picture of Obar, its creation and its eventual dissolution, is credited to my family members from that generation who committed memories to written essay or letters. The brief story of a Texas Ranger who had to change his name and move from Gonzales County, TX, to Pratt County, KS, would certainly be lost to the historical record. The Texas Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco, TX, has no record of his service, something not unheard of as some battalion records were lost over the years since their formation. Others, as with all records, were incomplete.
As author of this story which I have enjoyed gathering, my one minor regret would be that when I was younger, and my great Aunt Edna (Link) Jones - our family historian who lived a good portion of second half of this history - was alive and eager to speak on the subject, that I was only modestly invested. Yes, a report for a college history course was pulled from information she provided the family context for. But after that brief spark, I failed to dive in for another two decades. During that time, a great source of detail and agreeable conversation, my great aunt, passed away. Her daughter, Mary (Jones) Henry, would help me in some of the family pedigree development for which she traveled parts of the world in a day before ancestry services were available on-line. That style of research did have the advantage of being far more accurate. I have noted people clipping photos and stories of people in my lineage, and carrying it over to theirs, that I know have no connection. I fear that form of popular ancestry research is giving us great - and by great I mean large - sets of data, but ones of dubious veracity.
I would encourage any person with even an inkling that old family stories are of interest to them to dive in today. Especially while stories from those who experienced part of that past, or who heard, first-hand, earlier generations’ oral histories are still available.
Five states the Link family moved to after emigrating from the Wurttemberg region of what is today Germany.
Great Aunt Edna Link was one of the most pleasant people I have encountered in my journies. Her vibrance was unforgettable. We corresponded on several occasions, however, I only spent time with her in person on a single occasion - a week’s visit from her South Dakota home to our home in Lawrence, KS. She lived there on a farm with her husband, Wallace Jones near where the Link family had twice resided. It was late in her life.
Ednas was in excellent health, adroit, had a practiced sense of humor I recognized from having heard it exercised by my father and grandfather. She was always ready to teach - as she had done the majority of her life which included being a teacher. We did correspond after that visit on occasion. The Link family was one of avid letter writers, an art greatly lost to time today. Many Americans valued correspondence highly in the days before email or texting. In those years, phonecalls were not part of a monthly package, but billed separately and expensive enough you started thinking about the cost almost before the other party answered the phone. Not nearly enough communication though, given the tremendous opportunity and her cheerful willingness to help disseminate the stories of earlier generations with later descendants.
In talking with other later-life bloomers as family historians, it seems often to be the case. When we are young, the past does not seem particularly relevant to all of us. As we age, we see better our place not just in our own lives, but in a succession of lives that led to our being born and raised.
This rendition of my paternal lineage and the America that surrounded and molded it is dedicated to that great Aunt.
- Richard “Rick” Link
Introduction
THE PAST CAN INFORM US TODAY
Immigration to the United States has been a polarizing topic for over three decades. Yet it has also been so at other times in our history. That includes most of the 19th Century during which this story begins. While an ubiquitous issue currently, with many thorny affairs that tend to polarize thought, improvements through formal legislation have been few. Agreement in principle has been elusive. While little bipartisan agreement has responded to the challenge, circumstances outside the United States have created an increasing demand for entry. That situation, however, is essentially parallel to the majority of the 1800’s when conditions in Europe were both politically difficult and fraught from both economic and food-supply standpoints. Proposals for compromise today among legislators are few and actions taken mostly unilateral by department-level regulation, through state-level legislation, or by executive order. Yet again, today’s underlying immigration conditions are not dissimilar to other periods we can learn from.
Statue of Liberty, Microsoft images.
The nation has swung from policies that allowed for many immigrants under conditions where a vast continent needed to be populated in order to fully colonize, to times when immigration was greatly restricted through quotas and regulation, mostly following World War II. In more recent times, 1970 census data showed over 9 million first-generation immigrants living in the United States. Starting that year, which marked a modern-era low point, numbers grew to over 45 million by 2021, according to the Migration Policy Institute. On the surface, this can be described as an incredible increase.
Yet the same data also shows that as a percentage of our growing population, immigrants today account for only about 13 percent of citizens. That is not unprecedented, or even very unusual from an historical perspective. From 1860 to 1930, those American citizens not born in the U.S., the definition of “immigrant,” ran between 10 and 15 percent for the seven decades comprised. The current percentage of immigrants has run in the 10 to 15 percent range only since the turn of the century, beginning in 2000, or a little over two decades.
From a plaque housed in the base of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus created the poem in support of a project to fund construction of the base for the sculpture.
The reasons for being for or against immigration in general are varied. Many have tried to simplify the question and then recommend ways to manage or improve the results of the inflow of “…your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,” as enshrined on the Statue of Liberty. Others have sought to cloak the discussion in more provocative rhetoric, characterizing the situation as dire and immigrants as threats. News reporting appears to focus more on the political dramatizations and theatrics more than it does increasing an overall understanding of the causes, economics and human side of the story.
Given the elevated turmoil and often hyperbole, it is more important than ever to look at our history to see if the claims align with what we already know from experience we already have under our collective belts. What are the stories and lessons of the past?
During the 1800s, and extending into the early 1900s, very similar arguments on both sides were advanced regarding the families which arrived here from Europe, Asia, Scandinavia, the Russian steppes, the Pacific islands and to a lesser degree almost every place name on the global map. Today as we look back, those groups immigrating to America in the 1800s we honor as being the sturdy “pioneers.” Those who “crossed the prairie.” The builders of a nation in both rural and urban America. We consider them as honored builders of our nation, something perhaps not seen by all, or even the majority, at the time.
In the 1800’s, many of those who arrived here as immigrants were often unpopular in larger cities - even preyed upon, taken advantage of, discriminated against, or just bullied - and sometimes suspected in rural areas. Those for whom retaining customs and language of their former home was simply a method of mental survival, or who spoke English with an accent, were most suspect. And that skepticism then, as today, sometimes led to danger, even violence.
Yet for almost the entirety of that century, immigrants were officially welcomed by a nation needing expansion with open arms. And those immigrants as a group made incalculable contributions to the advancement of a fledgling country on the cusp of becoming an international leader, but at that time not yet in that position. Many in the rest of the world discounted the ability of a mongrel nation to become that leader. However, what was discovered by the world, and particularly by a certain autocrat during World War II, is that mongrel status was one of the best things going for a nation that would emerge after the war in a true position of world leadership. Even the winning of the war itself was based heavily on the contributions of immigrants, some of which were very newly minted additions to the ranks of “citizen.”
The concept of a “melting pot” America - where those who arrived assimilated into existing American cultural conventions - is arguably a myth, at least when looked at over periods of under a generation during the 1800s. Following heavy arrival timeframes such as from 1815-1860 and again from 1880-1930, nearly the opposite was true. Immigrants often lived in communities where others from their homeland could be found, trusted and relied on in time of need. Customs and language from old homelands were closely held as familiar in a land where everything else seemed new, or even destructive to long-held values. Only when looked at across the longer term of two or more generations did many of those families truly blend more seamlessly with the traditions of their times.
Many of what have been considered traditional mainstream American customs have been almost in constant flux themselves. Those born in the United States of immigrant parents over time tended to lose general fluency in their immigrating family’s native tongue. As succeeding generations became more accepted into the labor market, social groups and churches, they also tended to lose customs from their parents’ or grandparents’ homelands, making the melting pot analogy more accurate when looked at over periods of 25 or perhaps 50 years. The general lengths of one to two generations.
As to informing today’s discussion, the past seems to instruct several data points which can broaden our current perspective. Among them, that this is not an unusual time regarding immigration when analyzed from an historical perspective. We have assimilated first-generation citizens at the rate we are experiencing today during other times in our history, and for much longer timeframes. Also, it is important to note that immigrants from prior periods are those we tend to revere in the telling of our history. They have been the pioneers, founders, inventors and discoverers. Immigrants have helped the United States in countless ways, and their unique skills and ideas have been instrumental at key turning points in history. That is contrary to a narrative, perhaps based in fear, which some are promoting today. In reality, immigrants are absolutely instrumental to several industries that would fail overnight should our immigrant population - first-generation citizens - be reduced to zero. A less-obvious lesson is that most immigrants throughout our history started at an economic disadvantage, perhaps even requiring assistance in their quest to build better lives. But overall, the immigrant theme that runs throughout all decades of our history, is that they went through great peril to get here, and have shown great success at bootstrapping their way to becoming important engines for our economic and cultural growth, as well as our national resiliance.
Perhaps the most important historical lesson is that that the vast majority of us come from immigrant families, unless we are of Native American descent. And even those populations were, much further back in pre-history, new to this continent. We are all essentially immigrants, and our stories are America’s success stories.
The Link family story is a simple American story that continues to speak to us today.
A Mennonite Family in Northern Indiana is the story of mothers, fathers and children who, over generations, successfully navigated the intricacies of the shift from one continent to another. One country to another. One culture to another. To become an American family.