Private Gottlieb

By Eugene Andrew Lehrke

Inspired by the promise of freedom on the Minnesota frontier of America, Gottlieb and Henrietta Lehrke joined a mid 1800s wave of emigrants from West Prussia. In the face of rising ethnic and religious tensions amid a resurgent Polish population, they sold their small subsistence farm in hope of exchanging it for better land and a peaceful wilderness home. They had however not counted on sailing to America on a death-defying voyage -- they surely would have rather waited till another season. Miraculously they reached New Orleans on January 2, 1858. Neither were they then prepared to arrive penniless in Carver Minnesota the following Summer. Without financial resources, they patiently began new lives on little more than faith, hope and love. Their incremental success came by the cooperative strength of four related fellow immigrant families who settled next door to each other at Hydes Lake in Waconia Township. Gottlieb had also not envisioned being ensnared in the American Civil War, considering his advanced age of 44. Nevertheless, he dutifully left wife and four young children to join the 2nd Minnesota Regiment under General Sherman in his campaign through Alabama, marching from Atlanta to Savannah and on through the Carolinas, for a victory parade in Washington DC. Gottlieb and Henrietta never became much more than subsistence farmers in Carver County, but they raised nine strong children, who with their families became part of the foundation of the westward moving Minnesota frontier of McLeod and Sibley County.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BFWFL6ZF
• ISBN13: 9798353637950
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 311 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"