Was this take-over recent, phoggie?

It is sad when a small town loses a long-standing institution. It's like a part of the town dies along with the company. In a small town, 'the Bank' is considered like a foundation for the community.

I lived in a small Nevada mining town as a kid. My Dad was a business owner. There was only one bank, privately held. The bank CEO was third or fourth generation & they were in our home for dinner/cards frequently with my parents. The founder passed away suddenly from a heart attack & the heirs had left the area for a more glamorous lifestyle. They sold out to a regional bank & the town was never the same.

My Dad had always done business with the bank on a handshake. He owned a fleet of trucks. After the sale, the bank wanted to hold the titles for financing...collateral, ya know. I can remember my Dad being furious! I remember one especially difficult conversation Dad had at the bank. I was tagging along with him because it was summer vacation. I was, maybe, about nine? Anyway, Dad wanted a loan to buy out his competitor in town who was selling out. At the bank, Dad was asked for his financial statements. He blew up, big time! He started cussing in German-Russian which he only did when he was REALLY mad. As a kid, it sorta scared me. Dad wouldn't give the bank his financial statement. He did buy out the other business but with money borrowed from his uncle.

Today, my Dad's position sounds just ridiculous. This was in the early 60s & times were changing quickly. Dad was from the old school where your handshake was worth more than any financial statement.

I'm sorry your town lost a long time institution.

/tricia

I'm sorry too Phoggie - I'm freaking out a bit about all this since its only the beginning - and I'm worried about my small home town bank too, BIL's farming loans, mothers money. Its all so sad, my town never recovered from the 70's/early 80s and has just continued to dwindle and stagnate - which is why I think I felt this coming and why its just the big deja vu nightmare.

Tricia - what's this about your dad cussing in German-Russian? My parents are Black Sea Germans - was your Dad Volga?

Yes, Mary! From Norka, 30 miles west of Saratov.

I knew we were kindred spirits!

Are you a member of the AHSGR?

/tricia

OMG OMG! I'm not a member but I have one of their t-shirts!
Lincoln NE has a little museum dedicated to Germans from Russia, when I was in Omaha and my Mom visited I took her there and bought some books and I bought a t-shirt. I have over the years cruised the North Dakota website a time or two. My Dad a cousin that lived in ND, lots of Russian Germans there and up into the plains of Canada; Regina etc.
My parents came over in 1953 (many if not most came much earlier, ), they got out of Soviet Ukraine during WWII. The names of your town don't ring a bell since their Volga?, the Black Sea villages are all mostly north of Odessa. Do you have Karl Stumpf(sp) book? It shows all the names and where they went from in Germany (from the north for you and the south for me) and where they went to, and in some cases what their trade was. Then there are those 2 other books with all the little maps, the authors name escapes me. I think one was about Volga and one was about Black Sea. He visited my parents once I think. Wow, small world, hardly anyone has heard of us!

So sorry about the hijack...:(

Mary, I've been working on Dad's genealogy for a dozen years...since the USSR fell. Dr. Igor Pleve of Saratov University works with the AHSGR & I've got his beautiful charts taking all my family lines back to 1767 & Catherine The Great.

Norka was a Volga Crown Colony. It's called Nekrasova now. My family came over c. 1915...just before the Revolution & settled in Portland via Alberta. My step-grandmother was born in Lincoln & her family was from Odessa.

I'm sooo pleased to officially 'meet' you! Let us share a virtual dinner of bierocks together!

/tricia

Well my mother didn't make these, but they sound just like what a friends Lithuanian grandmother did and they are wonderful!
How bout some bierocks and raise a glass to a newly met tribe member!

Man I would love to have someone do our family lines. My mother has a lot of info but she's way to confusing to follow. At 83 I'm afraid it will all be lost soon, my father passed in 2000. Unfortunately I don't speak the language which is one of my greatest regrets.

My DH says he read something about German Russians settling in the USA within the past week in the Chicago Tribune. He *thinks* it could have been written by the Trib's Russian corespondant. I imagine he read it because his mother's Danish immigrants and progeny were/are in ND and MN.

"Today, my Dad's position sounds just ridiculous. This was in the early 60s & times were changing quickly. Dad was from the old school where your handshake was worth more than any financial statement."

I've tried the handshake thing for when people are going to pay me money - it never works out. I've not tried to pay my mortgage with a handshake, but I suspect it wouldn't work either.

Chisue,

I just checked the online version of the Chicago Tribune but didn't find anything...drats.

Mary, you CAN trace your family. Catherine the Great kept terrific records of the colonies as did the Churches. Go go to the AHSGR site (linked below) & start with your village in Russia. Then, look for Pleve's charts for your surname. The charts are absolutely fabulous. Some are 4'x6' & all done in caligraphy. Once you have both parents...start on your grandparents. So on & so forth & pretty soon you'll be back to 1768-1768 when the first colonists arrived in Russia. Because of the AHSGR & Dr. Pleve I've actually had a tougher time with the Portland records than those in Russia. I've learned so much & it means the world to me knowing & understanding what our people went through to provide us a better life. My G@d, the suffering they endured! I'll never take anything for granted; nor will I ever feel entitled. Rather, I just want to live my life in such a way that honors their memory & spirit. My grandfather left Norka at 15 dragging two baby sisters along with him. He worked his way up the Volga to Moscow & over to St. Petersburg. From there, got the three of them to Liverpool & on a ship to Ellis Island. Then, a train across the US to Portland. He never met another person on the entire trip, except his sisters, who spoke the muddled language of the German-Russians. Imagine his happiness when his older brother met them at the Portland train station and he heard his name being called! He was still wearing his traditional Russian clothes/boots when he arrived...he hadn't had a bath or change of clothes for the entire trip. Oh, I could go on and on...

Here's one of my father's favorite jokes from Russia:

There are two old men returning from a funeral at the cemetery.
One asked the other: "How old are you?"
"90, and how old are you?", he answers.
"95.", answers the first man.
After some thought, the second man replies, "Naja, it is hardly worth your going back to the village."

Here's another story:

Diptheria epidemic..terrible disease...not quick...little one can do...nursing children day/night...husband recovering from small pox...turned for the worse...doctor came and told Katharina that Johann, her husband, was going to die...she was exhausted and frightened...told Johann..."You can't leave...you can't die...I can't raise these children...I can't run this farm"...he opened his eyes...took her hand...and said, "Don't worry Katie, I'll take a few of them with me". Johann died that night. Maria died the next morning. Elizabeth and Katherina by the end of the week.

No, I will never take my life here in America for granted.

/tricia

I know tricia I feel the same way. Only in my case it was my parents. Born in what is now the Ukraine they starved under Stalin's enforced famine, his pogroms. My father's Dad was "de-kulaked", i.e they had the farm taken, his Dad was sent to a siberian camp, he his brother and mother fled to Odessa, they weren't allowed to have papers which meant no work, no food, on the run, living and hiding in basements. My dad's sister had died previously of diptheria, his other brother of what they think was appendicitis. My Mother's dad lost the farm, got work in a fish factory. My mother told me they had a dog for a little while but my grandmother gave it away to a family and she things they ate it. Her father died of TB when she was around 10. My sister was born in Germany, I was born here.
My Dad got the Catholic church to sponsor him and worked their passage over on a boat, they docked in NJ though, I'm not sure Ellis island was still open. His brother didn't get out to Germany till 1988. Sometimes its so weird to have been born and raised here, the quintessential American girl, trying to recognize that my parents and the few people left that they knew from the past share such horrendous and foreign experiences.....they sacrificed and fought and scrapped and took huge risks and left everything they knew behind in the hopes that their children would find a better life. I don't think anyone can know what it was like unless you went through it. When they would talk to other immigrants, on the few trips to Germany, with the few family members we had left that went through it all with them,
I could sense and feel that bond. In some ways my life is like a gift from strangers.

"pretty soon you'll be back to 1768-1768 when the first"

As you know, Volga Germans came under Catherine the Great, from the north like herself and are Lutherans.
The Black Sea Germans were later in the 1800s, they migrated more in the times of Alexander the I and II. A smaller group we came from the south and are Catholic and settled in an area north of Odessa.
There's more info on the Volga Germans, they were a bigger group, and for awhile had their own Autonomous Region. Also I think many more immigrated here to the West much earlier and so their are more descendants, more research. That statue in Lincoln is all about the early settlers, heck they were getting here almost before my ancestors made it to the Ukraine.
AHSGR has more info on Volga Germans as you could expect, not quite as much on Black Sea.

IMHO, you have hi-jacked the OP and if you want to discuss your long lost kinship, why don't you exchange emails or phone numbers? This certainly has no relationship with this topic. thank you

You're absolutely correct. I apologize.

/tricia

your right, apologies.....
I'm going to post my email to my profile for a day tricia if you want to nab it, up to you.

back to the thread of phoggie's hometown bank being seized....

Although I have not tried this, I did read in the paper that if you want to check the rating of your bank, you can call 1-800-525-9556 and they are graded ABCD....hope it helps someone.

Phoggie, someone somewhere got that number wrong. Can can contact the FDIC call center at 1-877-275-3342. Its open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. (ET) Mon,-Fri. and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat & Sun.

I worked with the FDIC for 10 years as a bank examiner, and I know that their call center will answer all consumer questions.