Organizers of the Dakota Memories Oral History Project, in cooperation with Prairie Public Broadcasting, will air a new radio program titled “German-Russian Folk Medicine: Old Docs, Prairie Women, and Healing Hands.”
The program is scheduled for Wednesday, March 14, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. (CST). During their oral histories, narrators share memories of traditional German-Russian folk medicine, home remedies and health care. The program will feature fascinating stories about customary home remedies from mothers and grandmothers, hospital visits for broken bones or ailments and the art of healing called “brauche.” Carol Just, a German-Russian descendant and researcher, has provided context for these extraordinary memories.
Listeners will hear narrators such as Alice (Woehl) Buerkley from Kulm, N.D., share her family’s Friday night visits to the neighbor lady for treatment of ailments like ringworm and boils. Buerkley remembers the neighbor clipping a piece of her hair to make a salve to cure her ringworm. Money was never accepted, as it was believed it would not work if money was taken to pay for the healing. Gilbert Ost of Beulah, N.D., recalls the “bare bones” accommodations at the Hillcrest Hospital in Beulah where he was admitted for an appendectomy. The hospital was simply an old hotel that was moved from Halliday, N.D.
Public interest in documenting and preserving German-Russian ethnic identity inspired the launch of the project in 2005. For four years, organizers traveled the Northern Plains, gathering stories and documenting family relationships and childhood memories of second and third generation Germans from Russia.
The NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection and Prairie Public provide major funding for the program. A CD of the radio program will be available for $15. To pre-order the CD, contact Acacia Stuckle, special collections associate, at 1-6596 or acacia.stuckle@ndsu.edu.
The program can be heard on North Dakota stations 90.5 FM in Bismarck, 89.9 FM in Dickinson, 91.7 FM in Devils Lake, 91.9 FM in Fargo, 89.3 FM in Grand Forks, 91.5 FM in Jamestown, 88.9 FM in Minot and 89.5 FM in Williston.
The Dakota Memories Oral History Project is a privately funded project sponsored by the NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection. NDSU is a student-focused national research university, dedicated to its land-grant mission of service to the public. For more information, call 701-231-6596 or visit www.ndsu.edu/grhc/dakotamemories.
