Evdokia in pink satin skirt

Evdokia in pink satin skirt and blouse which she had made; Anton in his uniform. After the wedding party, which was tea served in her mother's home, Evdokia and Anton went to live with his father and brothers. She loved Anton dearly but it was a strange marriage to a man, strong and kind, but silent and outwardly unemotional. Not once in the entire nine months of her first pregnancy did he speak of her condition. Only on the night the birth began, and she asked him to take her to her mother, did he speak of it. He wrapped her in a fur lined coat and hood, and with wooden staffs, they plodded through the wind-driven January snow to her mother's home. The bay was a dear little girl they named Evgenia.

Near the end of that year Evdokia found on the kitchen table in her home a letter postmarked America. This was a wonderous thing to find because her mother had always of America as heaven where it never snows and everyone has money. Evdokia asked her husband about the letter but he refused to discuss it and took it away from her. A number of days later he informed her they were leaving Xpucmuanovka. For where? he would not say. They and six other families boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway at Isil-Kul. Three days later he told her they were going to Vladivostok but they were actually on their way to Harbin, Manchuria and eventually America.

On arriving in Harbin, Anton and the others thought their flight from Russia had been discovered. A Chinese inspector stopped to question them. It may have been only a simple routine check but they always felt that the inspector was quite aware of what they were attempting and had let them pass. As quickly as safety would permit, they hired three small four mule drawn covered wagons. The seven families travelled two and three families in a wagon. That night at dusk they left Harbin. The next nine days were not without hardship and sorrow.

Their food was stale bread which they had originally brought from Isil-Kul and eggs that they were able to buy along the road....