DVHH | Kleinjetscha in Banat

Kleinjetscha in Banat

Family Stories: Enjoy these recollections from Kleinjetscha descendants. E-mail Jane Moore to have your family stories added to this page.

A bone doctor from Kleinjetscha...

My Grandfather and Grandmother Portscheller were both born in Kleinjetscha and immigrated into the United States in 1903 to homestead in Lefor, North Dakota. My Grandfather was a bone doctor in the old country and continued in the USA until his death.

What is a bone doctor? The only answer I can come up with is that he fixed broken and dislocated bones, which as I understand it were quite common in the horse and buggy days when he was in North Dakota on the family farm. He did have an opportunity to go to a hospital in Minnesota but declined the offer to continue farming. From what I have been told he was a kind and honest man, which is all one can hope to be.

Memories of Donald Portscheller
Grandson of Franz Portscheller (born 1874 in Kleinjetscha)

The "Scrubby Dutch"

Regarding the Donauschwabens and other Germans who lived in a German neighborhood in south St. Louis, Missouri...

They [were] called the "scrubby Dutch" because many of their front porches had limestone caps and steps which the German women or their children scrubbed every Saturday to keep them nice and white. This was the level of cleanliness that was unusual and caught everyone's attention. I'm attaching a photo of a relative's house so you can see what I mean.

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

Granny Schaljo kept her furniture covered with zippered plastic covers to keep the fabric clean. The house was so clean you could literally "eat off the floors."

Memories of Carol Filippi
Wife of the great-great-grandson of Nikolaus Killian (born 1842 in Kleinjetscha) and of Christian Schaljo (born 1838 in Kleinjetscha)