Northwest Oklahoma Genealogy Society met on Feb. 11 at the Alva Public Library. The society was honored to have guest speaker Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz, professor of history, Department of Social Science, NWOSU in Alva.

Dr. Schmaltz' presentation was “Letters to Pauline (Schlegel) Lehl: Volga German Family Correspondences from Russia to Oklahoma, 1913 to 1937.” The family letters represent an important link to the past and a vital part of any family's genealogy.

The immigrant Pauline and about 10,000 ethnic Germans from the Russian Empire came to Oklahoma between 1890 and 1920. In 1913 Pauline settled in Ingersoll, and later Alva. From January 1913 to April l937 she received 180 letters, nearly all in Russian. The letters were mainly from relatives and friends, most of whom remained in tsarists Russia and the Soviet Union. The letters bear historical witness to one of the most transformative and turbulent eras in modern world history.

The letters were kept safe until after the Cold War, when scholars and relatives began to recover this heritage. Between 1988 and 1992 the Lehl family enlisted the services of Russian linguist Dr. Eugenia Felton and reproduced her handwritten translation. A Russian pen pal also reconnected with the Lehl family and returned the letters from their surviving relatives in the former USSR. Pauline's granddaughter donated to Dr. Eric Schmaltz one of the two original translated letters.

Pauline Schlegel married William Lehl in 1914. They joined the First United Methodist Church in Alva. Pauline (1893-1992) and William are buried in the Short Springs Cemetery just east of Alva and west of Ingersoll.