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On the weekend of the 17-19th of October several history students from both our class and History 104 traveled to Dickinson, ND with Dr. Isern and his wife. We drove out Friday night and spent the night in Dickinson. We headed out early Saturday morning to the Hutmacher farm site which was about a half hour north west of Dickinson. When we arrived we explored a nearby cemetery where some of the Hutmachers were buried and where we were able to get a first hand look at some German-Russian iron crosses.

When the members of Preserve North Dakota arrived we were able to get to work. We gathered around to listen to a brief history of the site and the people who lived there from the 1920s until the 1970s. The Hutmacher Farm which included the house and out buildings were all built in out of clay and rock using a method which had been brought over with them when they immigrated to the US. Our task for the weekend was to restore a large section of roof which was missing.

From there we broke up into groups to put together different stages. I was assigned to sift clay needed to make mortar. Our group set to work in the yard sifting out rocks and bits of root and breaking up chunks. After about an hour we were informed that the clay we were using was in fact the wrong type. It seemed that the back hoe had dug up the wrong stuff, but if we moved over to another pile we could get to work there. This would have been only slightly annoying if we hadn't had to repeat the mistake once more two hours later. But we were finally able to find proper yellow clay to sift and separate.

While we were hard at work with our sifter, other groups were putting up rafters, laying brush, mixing the dry clay with water, cutting bundles of hay, cutting straw to mix into mortar, running the cement mixer, and hauling buckets to and from the different stations. We worked for about 9 hours on Saturday before we called it quits and then came back the next morning for another 5 hours to finish up.

It was awesome to see how the Hutmacher's lived and in relation how the German-Russian people lived in the home country. According to our guide, this site is the only house in the United States that is built out of those materials and also has an angled roof. It was amazing to know that I helped preserve a one and only so that generations to come might enjoy it and learn from it.

But it wasn't all hard work. Between the mud fights, naps, eating grasshoppers, cave drawings on each other's backs, and working along side each other each of us made several friendships.

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