Jacob Tschetter Family:
Seated: Katie, Art, Jacob
Standing: Doris, Violet, Viola, Toby
On Sunday we had our Sunday clothes. We were never allowed to miss Sunday school or church service, and I don't recall staying at home on prayer meeting. Every morning we gathered around the table where we together sang a hymn, father read a Scripture. Then we all went down on our knees, and father led in prayer. Evening devotions did not work so good; we sneaked to bed before father got around.
In our home there was never a day where reading of God's word and prayer were not offered. Father became the pastor of the the new church (Salem Church at Bridgewater, SD), and so we children were not allowed to not take part of all the services from our youth on. To stay home from Sunday morning service never came in question. We were well instructed in Bible reading. The literature in our home was all of religious nature: a church history, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Moody's, Spurgeon's, Gossmer's writings and a small weekly, "The Sower," and so forth consisted of our readings.
As now our grandparents had died, and we grew up, our parents did not fail to teach us to work. We improved the farm. We broke up the soil, built fences, and built new structures. Neither did our parents disregard the importance of learning in school. We had good public schools, and as circumstances allowed it, they gave us higher schooling.
I went to early public or district school. It seems our German people did not realize the importance of learning the American or English language. The laws of our land did not urge us to teach English, and so our schools were conducted in German as our forefathers did in Russia. Our teachers were German and knew very little English, but we had good German schools for 4 months every winter. We had German grammar, Bible, history, learned the catechism, geography, and arithmetic. My primary reader was, "[Dan Millmark Base Book?]" I knew that by memory from cover to cover. In the more advanced classes our reader or textbook was the Bible. As years went by, more and more English was introduced in our schools.
Violet Tschetter Birth Certificate
