Family:Wenzeslaus Ding and Eva Jung (1)

Parents: Philip Ding and Anna Stern Wenzeslaus Ding b. 27 Aug 1840 Edingen, Baden d. 13 Apr 1918 Hebron, Morton, North Dakota, United States

Parents: Johann Jung and Anna Gropp Eva Katharina Jung b. 27 Apr 1846 Edingen, Baden d. 23 Aug 1926 Hebron, Morton, North Dakota, United States

m. 30 Sep 1869 Edingen, Baden

Wenz DING Passenger Record SS Munchen (Norddeutscher Lloyd Steamship Company): Sailing from Bremen on 13 September 1893, Arriving at Port of Baltimore 27 September 1893. Last known residence: Edingen Destination: Hebron, ND

Listed in the passenger manifest (by Name, Age, and Relative going to join):
- Wenz DING, 53, son-in-law
- Katha, 47, son-in-law
- Sophie, 15, brother-in-law
- Marie, 11, brother-in-law
- Karl, 10, brother-in-law
- Barabara, 8, brother-in-law
- Marga, 26, husband
- Heinrich, 2, father

1900 US Census 20 JUN 1900

DING, Wenz Head W M Aug,1840 59 M 30 Germany Germany Germany 1893 DING Katharina Wife W F Apr 1846 54 M 30 12 6 Germany Germany Germany 1893 DING Maria Daughter W F Apr 1880 20 S Germany Germany Germany 1893 DING Barbara Daughter W F Apr 1884 16 S Germany Germany Germany 1893 DING Theodore Son W M Oct 1893 6 S North Dakota Germany Germany DING George Son W M Nov 1875 34 M 0 Germany Germany Germany 1893 DING Katharina D-in Law W F Nov 1881 18 M 0 0 0 AustriaHung AustriaHung AustriaHung 1897

Ding Family History in America

Ding Family History In America Copyright © 1995 Shirley Ding Meier (used with permission)

Many members of the Ding family lead by Wenz and Eva Katherina Ding emigrated in the late 1800's to North Dakota in America from Edingen, Germany (near Heidelberg). The family has resided in that area since the 1500's as descendents of David Ding. David had come from Switzerland, near Lausanne, where six more generations of the family can be traced back to 1390. The name had originally been Dind and they spoke French, which is still the case with the descendents living in Switzerland today. The change in spelling occurred in Germany, perhaps because of linguistic reasons. The story of this family does mirror the saga of many immigrants to the New World who came in search of economic opportunities, political rights and religious freedom. Many of them also left because of military service, limiting class structure or lack of future advancement. They experienced the trauma of leaving behind family and friends. Most of them would never see one another again.

The basic reason for the Ding emigration was economic for they had a desire to become larger landowners than was possible in Germany. They also carried a strong sense of adventure for they looked for not only something better, but something different. And different is what they got! Immediately. The land they left in the Neckar Valley was verdant and productive, developed, and traditional but very crowded. What they found in early Dakota was basically a vacant wilderness of huge prairie spaces with a semi-arid climate. The land was not paved with gold but it did hold for them a promise, a challenge and a few surprises.

For some it was immediately a better place to live, for others it took longer to accept the new prairie life. The language, politics, and social framework of America were factors of adjustment, but first and foremost the overwhelming task for the Dings was to survive in the physical landscape. In this way they were typical of most settlers to the Great Plains and those descendants who still live in North Dakota today understand the close connection to the land and weather that formed the early struggle of their pioneer ancestors.

The pioneering Dings came in a series of immigrations over a ten-year period to Hebron, North Dakota and relied on an extended family group to assist them. This too, was a common method of American settlement because of the security and support that ethnic colonies gave to one another. This was especially needed in a land that was bare of established towns and developed agriculture, where distances were vast and communication and transportation were limited.

To understand the initial Ding settlement, one must also understand three other families because they were so intertwined in Edingen and in Hebron. The extended families of Jung, Treiber, and Hoerauf are related to the Dings and to one another through marriage and, like the Dings, large numbers of them chose to come to America. Close to a hundred people were included in this family group.

The oldest Ding and patriarch of the family was Wenz Ding, who was married to Eva Katherina Jung. He was an only son who had six sisters, one of whom married Valentin Jung and one married Valentin Hoerauf. Eva had nine siblings in her family. She and four of them came to America. They married one Hoerauf, two Treibers, and two Dings. The Ding/Jung, Jung/Treiber, and Jung/Hoerauf unions in that family produced three double in-laws.

All four families were headed by older members who brought many grown children with them, some of whom were married and had young children. For them it was a three generation move. The other children born in Germany married in North Dakota later, prompting more marriages between the families. Some of them were distant cousins, of course, but this was quite normal in an isolated small community in the early days.

Wenz and Eva left Germany in 1882 with their daughters Sophie, Anna Marie, and Barbara as well as their daughter-in-law, Margarethe Steckler, and grandson Henry. Peter, the oldest son, was serving in the Imperial Army and joined them later in America. George had already gone ahead of them with some of the Jung family and Ted, the youngest son, was born in Hebron the following year.

Wenz had worked as a cigar maker in Edingen, for it was an area that produced tobacco. His father Phillip had been a farmer and Wenz has also spent time with farming and working on the Neckar River barges. The family home was located just a block from the river. During his youth, Wenz had served in the German army, fighting against Austria, and he took pride in the medals he had won.

A wide range of skills came with the family from cabinet makers to bakers. Wenz and most of the family enjoyed music very much, held strong political views, and were dedicated to the religious beliefs of the Evangelical Protestants. Their sense of business, hard work ethic, and knowledge of agriculture was of paramount importance in the New World for all of them settled on the land, becoming ranchers and farmers. The change to living on the land was the first great obstacle. In Germany, they all had lived in the environs of Heidelberg, a sizable and sophisticated city. Even though some of them had been landowners, they lived together in town, keeping animals within their own yards and cultivating the land lying outside. This was possible because distances and plots were small. Many had also worked in a variety of urban activities such as running small shops and factories. This close proximity to one another, both in work and pleasure, was not possible on the open plains.

The Homestead Law, which permitted adults to acquire land free, required residency on the 160 acres for five years. If trees were planted and survived for eight years, another 160 acres could be claimed. A pattern for settlers was to establish their home buildings near the common boundary with another settler so they would have close neighbors. Bu this was not always possible because of the rough terrain and/or the need for water. Wenz and others homesteaded under these conditions far from the small settlements of Hebron and Glen Ullin.

Because the land was a dry grassland broken up by ravines and buttes, it was naturally suited for cattle grazing. This allowed cattle to roam for from the home place and most breaking of sod for cultivation was centered in the valleys. Most of the early settlers attempted to do both in the early years but great amounts of land were needed in the West River country of North Dakota to sustain livestock and grain.

Wenz Ding came to America with financial means and was able to buy equipment and livestock to begin his venture of ranching. None of the settlers from Edingen chose to begin businesses in town and very shortly some of the children were old enough to claim homestead land on their own, so the resources needed to be stretched. Because of the miles between these ranches and farms, it was much harder to share equipment and services. Isolated self-reliance was required and proved to be one of the hardest tests of endurance in the early years.

The children of Wenz and Eva Katherina married and had families, as did the children of the Treibers, Jungs, and Hoeraufs. Peter, George, Anna Marie, and Ted established homes near the original homestead and Sophie and Barbara also lived in the Hebron vicinity. The countryside was indeed full of cousins. This generation had a few marriages between the extended families but with the populations of the settlements growing, that pattern did not continue after that.

Wenz Ding family in Hebron. At this time, Peter Ding (above left) was still in Germany serving the Imperial Army. Peter came to the Hebron a few years later. Standing in the back row from left to right: Sophie, Carl, Mary. Seated in front: Eva Katharina, Theo. and Wenz.

The earliest of the families to arrive endured the greatest trials. The Jungs were shipwrecked in route to America, surviving but losing their possessions. They arrived on a prairie railroad siding in the middle of the empty plains. The primitive conditions were also experience by the Treibers. Their first problem was shelter and this was accomplished with a sod house because the area was almost treeless and there were few good, long limbs that could be used as beams for the roof. It took a journey of twenty miles away, to secure a center beam and bring it back over terrain without roads. Heating was provided by dried buffalo and cow dung, and the hunting of rabbits, deer, and wildlife supplied extra food.

They began agriculture with livestock and some grain cultivation. Extra income in the very early times was provided by gathering buffalo bones on the paraire. These were the result of natural death and the extensive slaughter of the huge animals several years before homesteading began. This activity was felt to be very repulsive. As the railroad was still developing on the Northern Plains, workers were needed and several members of the family worked in Montana for months to provide additional revenue.

The years of 1888-89 were harsh with prairie fires, droughts, blizzards, and hailstorms. The possible attack of renegade Indians had lessened by that time but the idea of open range for the cattle was seen as impractical after those years. They would need some shelter for the winter. Fortunately the following years were more abundant and the Dings came to a setting that contained a church, schools, and roads. I also had a cautious flavor of hope.

The development of Hebron had been promoted by the Northern Pacific Railroad but it had been unsuccessful. The Reformed Church in a colonization attempt had gone to Germany, promoting a site along the railroad tracks and other incentives to come. This has been the molding of the German community and it retained a solid religious focus. The Dings found an active church life and they participated in it. Later, when St. John's was built, it not only was larger and grander than the church they had left behind in Edingen, it contained stained windows in memory of the Wenz Ding family. For years a bulwark of the membership contained members of the four families.

Education was required for the children and was provided by country schools. Some of the children went to town school also and boarded in town during the winter months, coming home on weekends. For a number of years, the church ran a German school and some of the older children attended that but later it offered only Saturday classes for religious instruction.

Peter's wife, Margarethe, died as a result of the childbirth of Gustave, leaving three living children: Henry, Mary, and Louie. The infant Gustave was taken by the grandparents, Wenz and Eva Katherina. A year later, Peter married Luise Stelter Raber, born of German parents in Leipzig, South Russia. She had been a young neighbor who had a child, Lena Raber, from her first marriage. Together Peter and she have twelve children, making a large family of seventeen. The children of Peter and Luisa were Frieda, Paul, Jacob, Fred, Katie, Margaret, Sophie, Ella, Emelia, Herbert, Clara, and Wilbert. An overlapping pattern emerged as many of the older members of the family were grown before the younger ones were born. There were several cases when boys or girls were younger than their nieces and nephews. Several families produced children for over twenty years but Peter with his two marriages has a span of almost forty years.

George Ding married Katherine Duppong, born in Austria-Hungary, and they had twelve children. Emelia, Carl, Rose, Eleanor, Erma, Ervin, Esther, Oscar, and Victor grew to adulthood but Arthur and Katherine died in infancy and George died in an accident as a young man. Ted and Mary Buelow had four children: Clara, Arthur, Norma, and Emma. Later in life, after his first wife Mary's death, Ted married Mary Krueger but they did not have any children.

Mary wed Jacob Neidhardt, born in Bavaria, and they had nine children. They were, Katherine, John, Hulda, Hattie, Theodore, Arthur, Albert, Jacob, and Lydia. Barbara married Karl Kinnischtzke, born in West Prussia, and their thirteen children were Paul, Victor, Selma, Oscar, Arthur, Hilda, Laura, Erhart, Walter, Tekla, Renata, Ernest, and Werner. Sophie wed Charles Delabarre. Their children were Arthur, Rosie, Elsie, Emma, Paul, and George. Charles married again after Sophie's death and had five more children.

A confusing feature of the family was the use of the same name within the nuclear unit and also by the cousins. Traditionally this was not so unusual, and it is important to remember that children were named in honor of another family member,--living or dead,. that insured the strong pattern of certain names through the generations.

The Ding family lost two infants and two young adults in the first two generations. They produced one set of twins, Tekla and Renata (Ronnie) Kinnischtzke, born on New Year's Day, 1920. They did not lose anyone to disease and that was most unusual because several epidemics plagued the era. However, the problems remained of providing for the large families, both financially and emotionally.

Wenz and Eva Katherina had six children, 60 grandchildren [or 61]1, numerous siblings, nieces, and nephews in the Hebron area. At the beginning of the twentieth century they found themselves working hard and finding prosperity as ranchers and farmers. The large families supplied much of the labor and sometimes, nephews and nieces worked and lived at a relative's house. They also had to hire outside help, especially in time of planting, roundup, or harvest. Peter's family grew so large that two residences were established, the original one in the country and one in Hebron. Luisa lived with the young children in town for most of the year where they went to school while Peter worked the land with the older children during the week.

Because most of the new settlers in Hebron were German speaking, much of the early interaction of home and church was in the German language and tradition. The grandchildren learned English in school and were fluent in both languages. The European influences were everywhere, from the houses with peaked gables to the woodworking in the church. There were divisions felt between the German Russian immigrants and what was called the Reich Germans. The Reich Germans had regional differences within their ranks. However, it was generally a Protestant community and intermarriage soon proved to iron out most of these difficulties.

The beginning of World War I proved to be a thorny issue. Members in the community were divided on opinions but almost all of them felt that the United States should not enter into the conflict. Their decision was based on personal experience at the complex and inflexible European system of politics. America did ultimately join the conflict and there was tremendous pressure throughout the country to eliminate any and all German influences. It was a time of great ethnic turmoil. North Dakota was perhaps saved some of the more radical demonstrations as it had heavy German and Scandinavian populations and the state was so far from the centers of power and influence. No family members served in the short period of the American involvement but meanwhile in Edingen, many relatives served. The memorial tablet in the Edingen church bears the names of those who fell. Many of these relatives had identical namesakes in America during the same period of time.

Nevertheless, German was officially banned from schools and a great movement for Americanization began. Most of the grandchildren were profoundly influenced. This caused, in some cases, the immigration split between parents and children to be even more keenly felt. Most of the grandchildren carried a stigma, sometimes unconsciously, into their lives. They became natural Americans, not ashamed of their heritage, but somewhat indifferent. Their interest in the "old country" lessened and the new challenges of life on the plains took over their focus.

The sixty grandchildren of Wenz and Eva Katherina, as well as all of the others in the extended families, grew up in the Hebron area but when the depression of the 1930's came and the drought hit the Great Plains at the same time, it was evident that not all of them could stay in the area and survive. The limited opportunities in the small rural towns and the many hard years of poor crops determined their fate.

Wenz and Eva Ding extended families-Photo taken on the old Ding homestead approximately 1910. From left to right: the Carl and Barbara (Ding) Kinnischtzke family; the George and Katherine (Duppong) Ding family; Wenz Theodore, and Eva Katherina Ding (seated in front); the Peter and Duisa (Stelter) Ding family (above Wenz and Eva); the Jacob and Mary (Ding) Neidhardt family; and the Charles and Sophia (Ding) Delabarre family. Sophia Ding was already deceased by the time this time portait was taken. The wife in this photo is Martha Dering.

Thus began the next migration. This was centered almost exclusively toward the West Coast, though a few did go to cities of the upper Midwest. Most of the children of Wenz and Eva Katherina would remain in North Dakota, and most are buried in Hebron, but their grandchildren would abandon the homesteads on the prairie by the droves.

With the beginning of World War II, the lure of jobs in the defense industry and the mechanized consolidation of agricultural land provided even more reason for leaving and the pattern of family migration continued. This time some young men served in the armed forces, in spite of the fact that their parents had been anti-military. Most of the grandchildren left for California, settling in the Lodi and Stockton vicinity where other family members and friends from Hebron had gone. Some also went to areas in Oregon and Washington State.

These Dings would raise their children there, in touch with other nearby cousins, but generally the bond with North Dakota weakened. Trips to return were lengthy and costly. Thus emerged the Dakota cousins and the West Coast cousins, some of whom would never know one another. This was typical with the new mobility found in American life, especially accelerated during the 1940's and 50's. Because of economy and transportation, it was entirely normal for grown children to live far from their hometown and parents. The generation of the 1960's and 70's lived within nuclear family units but did not have the experience of the wider extended family that was common in the early pioneering days.

Hebron was drained of the four families and, in the 1990's, the country side and town of Hebron contain no one of the Jung name, a handful of Treibers, Hoeraufs, and a few Dings. The original homestead of Wenz passed to Ted, whose only son, Art, farmed it. He died without children. The nearby homestead of George went to his son Carl and now the to the grandson George, who still ranches and is also the local high school principal. The Peter Ding and son Henry Ding homesteads were sold. Peter's daughter, Frieda Kearnes, lived in the townhouse but at her passing, none of his descendents was left in Hebron. Some of Sophie Delabarre's and Anna Marie Neidhardt's descendents still live or own land in the area. Only Barbara Kinnischtzke's family stayed in large numbers in Western North Dakota as ranchers and farmers. Many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren still reside in the area.

After a century in America, the Ding family today is large as the descendents of the original sixty-two grandchildren number in the hundreds. The fourth generation, no matter where they were raised, reached higher degrees of education and many of them work business or professional jobs. Few, unless they inherited land, are engaged in agriculture, the mainstay of the previous generations. Their children and grandchildren, some now in the seventh generation, come in countless variations and all carry a grain of the Ding spirit within them. The gravestone of Peter Ding in Hebron is a huge uncut section of petrified wood and it stands upright in the Dakota wind, symbolic of those early family members who struggled so hard to bring that spirit and family to America.

Shirley Ding Meier MeierColo@aol.com 6595 S. Poplar Ct. Centennial, CO 80111

ENDNOTES

  1. There were actually 61 grandchildren. Some versions of this essay list 61 grandchildren and others list 60. The difference has to do with whether or not one includes Lena Raber, daughter of Luisa Stelter Raber Ding from her first marriage. So she is a step-granddaughter. Apparently she was not listed among the other grandchildren of Wenz and Eva Ding who are related by blood.

1.   Dind-Ding Familienchronik by Richard Ding.