John and Susanna Tschetter 1900 Census
(listing all children down through Margaretha)
"Joseph, Paul, and John became doctors. David is the rich one in the family. He owned a lot of land, like 12 quarters. Father was a minister." (Comments by Violet Tschetter Vegter, Jacob's daughter)
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Rev. John Tschetter's Autobiography (Kathy's great grandpa)
translated from German into English
by Jacob A. Tschetter (John's son, Kathy's grandpa)
I, John Tschetter, was born the 24th of October, 1861, in the village of Hutterthal in South Russia. When I was 14 years old, my parents, Jacob and Barbara Tschetter moved 200 Russian miles farther north in the vicinity of Kathrinaslof. In our public school we had a God fearing teacher by the name of Warkentin. With tears he often admonished us about the things of God. I was easy going in my younger years and little concerned about my soul's salvation. The new birth was not preached in our church. Every Sunday we went to Church where my older brother Paul was the preacher. We had no Sunday School, and so we drifted along.
In 1875 we came to America and homesteaded on the prairies of South Dakota, 10 miles southwest of Bridgewater in Hutchinson County. Our mother, being a devout woman, instructed us to be and do good, but to receive forgiveness of sins in Christ was not explained to us and so it went on till I was 24 years old.
On November 13, 1881, I was married to Susanna Mendel. Now I tried hard to be good, but it didn't work. The Spirit of God worked tenderly on my heart. I started to read the Bible. I also tried to quit bad habits like smoking, and so forth. It went that way for a time. When I was alone, I prayed a great deal. As in the past, I was easy going, but now I was concerned about my soul's salvation. Before, the Word of God was a dead letter to me, but now it was different. I read it eagerly and prayed that God should show me the way. I started to constrain myself to live simple; I quit smoking, yet this habit caused me much trouble. When I was in company, I smoked again, especially on weddings and such occasions. Yet the Spirit of God convicted me so strong on such occasions that often I had to run out where I cast myself down on my knees and prayed to God for help.
At that time there was among our people much darkness. Conversion, the new birth, was not preached. Our mother tried to be religious, but now she said, "You are going too deep." In our cellar under our house, I found a quiet place to pray. It was dark there because to keep the frost out we closed the windows from the outside. Once when I prayed, a light as bright as the sun brightened the cellar. It seemed as if an angel stood at my side. A wonderful joy came over me. It filled my entire being, yet I told no one about it.
It was then that my wife and I went to the town of Bridgewater. There we met Baptist brethren from Plum Creek that we knew. I told them of my experience, and we talked of the things of God. Oh, how my heart burned within me, and they rejoiced with me, that now amongst the Hutterites, a soul had found the Lord. (Although this is not in the diary, Father often told us that the Brethren instructed him not to keep it silent, but to go out to proclaim it, which father then did.) Now the fire of God surely started to burn in me. I was so happy that I could hardly sleep for joy that night. Everything seemed to shine and glisten around me.
In the morning I went to my brother Jacob and told him what the Lord did for me. At first he did not want to believe it, but the next day he came and said, "Brother, you are right; we must get converted." (Where we use the word saved, they expressed it converted.) He had already started to pray for salvation. He had a great battle to fight before he received the assurance of salvation. After brother Jacob, my brother David was saved. My mother, 70 years old, and my wife and others were saved. Our old mother used to say, "I always wanted to be good, but anything like this I had never experienced." She lived with us, and together we were happy and blessed.
These new converts we can truly say were one heart and one soul. Brother Paul Hofer (nicknamed Peter Paul) and John Kleinsasser and their wives also were of those first converts who shared with us joy and also ridicule from those that did not understand us, but together were happy in the Lord of our salvation.
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