The Bargen Family, Part 1

In the above photo, to the left is the stack of recorded history of the Mennonite side of my family. Most of it typewritten, some hand written, some of which is in German. To the right is my great great grandfather's 19th century coin purse, an 1854 Mennonite hymnal published in Odessa [Ukraine], and in the back is my great grandmother Maria "Mary" Bargen's German language bible from which the publishing page is missing.

My great grandmother's bible, bookmarked with a Soviet 1-Ruble note to a page with Luke 21:36 underlined: "Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man"

This following entry was written by my grandfather, George Harald Martens about the escape of his mother's family from Russia. The first paragraph of the next section may seem genealogically confusing, especially when written from my grandfather's lineage. To simplify that first paragraph, his parents were 2nd cousins, meaning his mother and his father had the same great grandfather, Wilhelm Martens III. Now onto the story of the Bargen family as told by my grandfather:

My great great grandfather, Wilhelm Martens III, married Katharina Decker in 1844. They had 12 children. His oldest son Wilhelm IV is my great grandfather on my father's side. His daughter, eighth born Maria, is my great grandmother on my mother's side.This great grandmother, Maria Martens, married Peter Bargen Sr, a school teacher and farmer. Some of their descendants lost their lives during and following the Revolution (1918-1938). A few did make it to Canada and South America. Those who did get out of Russia have a tremendous appreciation for the freedom we enjoy in our society. Peter Sr. and Maria named their first son Peter. This young Peter was tall, slim, very intense, disciplined, and had a very persuasive personality. The following history centers around Maria's children and grandchildren, including my grandparents, Peter Jr. and Elisabeth Bargen [nee Isaak] and their oldest child, my mother, Mary Bargen. Mom was 18 when she arrived in Canada in 1926. Her experiences as an insecure young girl in Ukraine during the Revolution haunted her and had a major influence on her later life.

Young Peter Bargen served some of his required "government service" in the Forestry Department, which included a short tour on the Tsar's [Nicholas Romanov II] palace grounds. After his tour of duty, Peter returned home to Sagradowka [now Zahradivka, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine], to continue his business and raise the family. Peter's income came from the sale of farm products as well as horses bred and raised for market. Peter was successful and had hired hands and servants to help with the farm work, house work, and child rearing.

The Bargens, Mennonites, and others of German heritage had been treated reasonably well by the Tsar because they were productive, law abiding, loyal, and always paid their taxes promptly. After the First World War, this all changed. The Tsar's family had been murdered and five years of terrible bloody revolutionary unrest followed. This revolutionary war process included extremely brutal, cruel treatment for those hard working people who represented the upper and middle class - especially those of German descent.

After the Tsar was murdered, the revolutionaries released many prisoners, including a vile person named Nestor Makhno. This 5'1" man was able to put together a large band of drunken, heroin and opium addicted renegades. With this following of bandits he proceeded to rob, steal, plunder, rape, mutilate, and kill thousands of unprotected, good, hard-working people. This included many defenseless pacifist Mennonites with whom he had lived and worked.

The Kerensky Provisional Government's White Army of Generals Anton Denikin and Pyotr Vrangel were not able to fight off the Bolshevik's Red Army and retain control of the government, while trying to maintain law and order by gaining control of the marauding bands of renegades. These renegades were often referred to as the Black Army because they belonged to neither the White nor Red Armies. Wherever these bandits went, they stole everything they could carry, mutilated and killed many just for sport, abused and raped many women and girls with no consideration for age or health, and then left after they had achieved almost total destruction. As it turned out, these marauding bandits created enough of a diversion for the National White Army that they made the big difference in the outcome of the revolution, and the Bolshevik Red Army eventually won the control of what we remember as the Soviet Union.

As pacifists, most Mennonites did not own or use weapons. Therefore, they were defenseless and easy prey for these marauding bandits. One fall evening, about dusk, when one of these bands was approaching grandpa's settlement, he quickly got about 30 men together. They rode all their horses into a corn field, each man pulled up a cornstalk, peeled off the leaves, shouldered the bare stalk, and rode out to meet the bandits. Not wanting a confrontation with what they presumed to be "armed" men, the bandits fled. After Makhno discovered the ruse, he put a bounty on grandpa's head. He was now a wanted man!

Later another fall evening, a small band of armed men came looking for my grandpa Peter. The sun had set, but it wasn't dark yet. These killers on horseback saw him running over a hill in a freshly plowed field toward a small corn field. Grandpa knew that he couldn't outrun these men on horseback. While out of sight in the shadows of the cornfield, Peter dove down between two rows of cornstalks and quickly dusted himself with loose dirt. The murder band circled and crossed the small cornfield for about 20 minutes looking for him. Grandpa said,
"God must have blinded their eyes, because their horses kept stepping over me."

For almost seven years, Grandpa Bargen was either hiding or running for his life. The Bolsheviks wanted him dead because he had remained loyal to the government following the assassination of the Tsar's family. Makhno wanted him dead too. During this seven year period, his daughter Mary - my mother - and his oldest child, grew from a 12 year old girl to a 19 year old adult. In her dad's absence, she helped with the family business. One day, a strange looking man with a large unkempt bushy beard came to purchase a horse. Mom took him to the barn and showed him a horse. He asked to deal with my grandmother, so my mother Mary went to get her mother. Mary was then told to stay in the house and watch over the younger children. After the dirty bearded stranger left, grandma Maria asked Mary if she knew who that man was. She said,
"No." Then grandma told Mary,
"That was your father."

Grandpa would say in Low German,
"I would do almost anything I could to avoid a confrontation. If that fails, I can talk for five minutes; I can change their minds and save my skin." A familiar heavily armed man rode into grandpa's yard one noon. It was too late for Peter to hide, and he could tell that this horseman had ridden a long distance, so he walked up to the man and immediately said, "Your horse looks tired and thirsty, let me get him some water. He also looks hungry, let me get him some hay and some oats. And you look like you have had a long ride, you must be hungry too. Can I fix you something to eat?" During lunch together, Peter was a gracious host, and later this armed man left as a friend of grandpa. A few weeks later, grandpa learned that Makhno shot and killed this horseman for not killing grandpa when he had the chance.