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Weekend Writing Warriors

I really messed this up! Sorry! I thought that I double checked everything, but obviously not. I hope that it is corrected now.

My great-grandparents, August and Auguste Schumann are having a bad day. It is mid-summer, the height of grain harvest season and their 3 little children are very sick. One has died. The two boys are having trouble breathing and cannot swallow water. I want to write more than 8 sentences but stick to the rules. I have put "teacher" in quotes because I do not know the qualifications yet.

"August and Auguste traded off staying awake with the children that night. Even so, dawn found Auguste dozing between the body of Auguste Pauline and Karl. Awakening at dawn with a start, and then a shriek, she found that she was now lying between two dead bodies. That brought August out of bed quickly, trying to think of what he, as a father and husband, must do next. Since neither of them had eaten last evening, it was agreed that she would make some porridge while he went to the home of the “teacher” who kept the records and read the scripture in the absence of a pastor.

Passing the homes of his sisters, he told them of the deaths in his home and  husbands offered to help dig the graves before going to the fields.  He then arranged for the “teacher” to be at the cemetery for a burial later that day.

Returning home to have porridge before digging the graves, he found not only porridge, but a second dead son, Friederich, the third child to die within two days."

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3rd Weekend Writing Warrior

I am writing of my family, great grandparents, August and Auguste Schumann,  to make vital records come alive for the family. They are farming, I think subsistence, in Boguslawka, Volhynia. This is a particularly hard time in their lives. It is harvest time and three of there four children are ill, requiring their mother's attendance.  (I do not know what has happened to the fourth child.)

"As the day is coming to an end, August enters his home, hot, sweaty and tired, carrying his scythe from his day’s work. However, there is no aroma of dinner and the only candle shines from the bedroom. Entering the room, he finds his exhausted wife, tears running down her face.

            Taking her in his arms to try to sooth her, he inquires what has produced her distress. Her hand gestures to the children’s bed.  “Auguste Pauline is dead. I’ve tried to get the boys to drink some water, but they are unable. It is a whole month until the circuit pastor comes to our community and my prayers are not working.” "

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2nd Weekend Writing Warrior

I am writing of my family, various members in various places. I am starting with August and Auguste Schumann, my great grandparents, living at this time in Boguslawka, Volhynia.

The summer of 1887 was one of those hot summers on the prairie of Volhynia. German families had come to eke out a living in a new land. The August Schumann family had many of their relatives on surrounding small farms. It was harvest time now for the grain, which produced the income for the family. Normally, the mother would be bringing food to her husband as he worked. She should also be helping to tie the bundles and shock the grain.  In my previous blog, I wrote about the serious condition of the three children. She has taken a brief break to sit down. In this section I refer to four children although only three are lying ill on the bed.

     "Auguste dragged herself out of the chair where she had been sitting for no more than five minutes. She plodded into the adjoining room which served as both a kitchen and storage for small garden equipment like hoes and rakes. She grabbed a glass from a cupboard now nearly empty of clean dishes. With a dipper, she filled the glass from the nearly empty bucket of drinking water.

     Returning to the room, in which the children lay, she was determined to get them to drink some water. All three children lay in the children's bed, crosswise to allow sleeping of all four children.  Their necks were so swollen and their color so dusky. Only a day or two ago, there were children's voices, joyfully playing outdoors with many other children living in the small settlement."

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WEEKEND WRITING WARRIOR

I am writing of my family, various members in various places. I am starting with August and Auguste Schumann, my great grandparents, living at this time in Boguslawka, Volhynia.

The summer of 1887 was one of those hot summers on the prairie of Volhynia. German families had come to eke out a living in a new land. The August Schumann family had many of their relatives on surrounding small farms. It was harvest time now for the grain, which produced the income for the family. Normally, the mother would be bringing food to her husband as he worked. She should also be helping to tie the bundles and shock the grain.

“However, this day of July, the 24^th, Auguste had been in the humid living quarters of their tiny, 2-room  home for several days because all of her children were running very high fevers. She went from one to the other to sponge her children with wet cloths. Auguste Pauline was hallucinating now, yelling and screaming, which  prevented Karl Friedrich and Friedrich Wilhelm from any peaceful rest as they fought the illness. Auguste was exhausted, having been up several nights with the children. It was approaching noon now, when she should be cooking the noonday meal.  At last, Auguste Pauline seemed to be quieting down but her breathing was now so shallow that a feather could hardly be moved by her breath. As the screaming ceased, August sat in a chair for a moment, wiping her own perspiring brow. All around them was illness, children ill in every home."

2nd Weekend Writing Warrior (continuing on with expansion of my family history. In this section I refer to four children although only three are lying ill on the bed. )

     "Auguste dragged herself out of the chair where she had been sitting for no more than five minutes. She plodded into the adjoining room which served as kitchen and storage for small garden equipment like hoes and rakes. She grabbed a glass from a cupboard now nearly empty of clean dishes. With a dipper, she filled the glass from the nearly empty bucket of drinking water.

     Returning to the room, in which the children lay, she was determined to get them to drink some water. All three children lay in the children's bed, crosswise to allow sleeping of all four children.  Their necks were so swollen and their color so dusky. Only a day or two ago, there were children's voices, joyfully playing outdoors with many other children living in the small settlement."

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