Stories at the Miller Home  

Excerpt from My Mother's People by Emma Schwabenland Haynes - Written in 1959.  Used with permission of AHSGR.

The upstairs of the Miller home was always remembered by the children for a variety of reasons.  Uncle Henry often slept here when he would drive in from Felida with farm produce.  On such occasions he would entertain the youngsters with stories of witchcraft in Russia:  of the "Wilder Jäger" (wild huntsman) who could be heard riding through the air on dark stormy nights when no moon could be seen; or of how the farmers often found their cows milked dry and the horses covered with sweat because of the nocturnal activities of supernatural beings.  They also heard about the werewolf who became man in the daytime, and of the "Alp" which settled upon a man's breast at night and caused him to wake up half suffocated and gasping for breath.   Then there was the story of the three men who dug for gold at midnight but who were frightened away by the devil at the very moment when the treasure chest had magically appeared.  The frightened children would listen with fascination -- not really believing the stories, but still wondering if perhaps they might have happened, because after all, Russia was so very far away.