THE HOUSE THAT DECKERT BUILT

JEREMY WALTNER  – PUBLISHER

Anyone who is familiar with Heritage Hall Museum & Archives most likely knows about The Deckert House — that classic 1880s home that is part of the collection of outbuildings adjacent to the Freeman museum.

But even those who are the most keenly aware of the ins and outs of the historic building will experience something new when The Deckert House reopens to the public this weekend after a long renovation process. Not only has the structure moved from its original location on the south side of the museum campus onto a new foundation to the east, it has also received a fresh coat of paint on both the interior and exterior in line with the original trimmings, and is being outfitted with inventory more authentic to the time period in which the house was built.

“It’s been an adventure,” said museum archivist and executive director Marnette Hofer, who notes that when the house was originally restored after arriving on the museum’s campus in 1979, it was done so in accordance with the memories of the grandchildren of Ludwig Deckert, the pioneer who built the house. “And those memories would have been the later years. One of the things we wanted to do was to go back to the way it was in those earliest years.”

One of the most notable changes, Hofer says, has been the removal of the cast iron stove in the kitchen, “and a lot of the other things that had come into the house were from later years, because that’s what the grandchildren remembered, and that’s what they had.

“We want it to be more authentic to the late 1800s,” Hofer continued, “a little more true to Ludwig and Susanna, the actual time period and what we suspect they probably had.”

Now, with the restoration nearing completion, Heritage Hall Museum and Archives is marking the occasion with an open house and a series of programming this weekend. The Ludwig and Susanna Deckert House, including its signature original Russian oven, will be open and accessible to the public with paid admission to the museum on Saturday, Oct. 15 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 16 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

In addition, three programs are planned:

Saturday afternoon program beginning at 3 p.m. will offer a closer look at the Deckert family through a visit with Hofer and Ryan  Mews, a University of South Dakota student who was a summer intern at the museum whose charge was to research the family;
Saturday evening program at 7 p.m. titled “New Discoveries in Volhynian Low German Mennonite History” will be led by Rodney Ortzlaff, a Low German Mennonite historian who lives in Olathe, Kan.;
Sunday afternoon program at 3 p.m. titled “The Dutch Golden Age — Mennonite to the Core” will be led by Dr. Lauren Friesen of North Newton, Kan., who is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.
All programs will be held at the historic Bethel Church that is also part of the museum’s campus. Admission will be charged.

Years in the making

Restoration of the Ludwig and Susanna Deckert House was driven by necessity and a desire to preserve a building that has tremendous historical significance, not to mention deep value as a rare artifact. Hofer notes that when the building was moved from its original location six miles straight west of Marion onto museum grounds in 1979, Dr. Paul Putz, who was at the time the director of the South Dakota Historical Preservation Center, called it “one of the most unique and historic buildings in South Dakota; a prime example of German-Russian architecture.”

It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Its restoration has been a priority for Hofer and other museum officials for the past five years.

“I feel like I’ve pretty much been working on this since I started as director,” said Hofer, who took on the leadership position in the fall of 2017 after working as the museum’s archivist. “There were issues that had been identified that needed to be addressed, and we had to move quickly.”

Those issues included growing cracks in the wall, rotting wood and unstable footing, all caused over time by moisture seeping into the cinderblock foundation. While the earliest restoration plans did not include a relocation of the structure, it quickly emerged as an idea.

Moving the house to the east would allow for the possibility of eventually developing a historic farmstead over time.

“That’s something I really latched onto,” Hofer said. “I’ve always wanted to communicate to people what those old farmsteads were like when they dotted our countryside, because that world is pretty much gone.”

Moving the structure to the east also meant higher ground and a further distance from the ponds of the nearby arboretum.

“And we would come out about the same with expenses either way,” Hofer said. “So we pivoted.”

Initial work also included contacting District III Planning and Development to help secure a grant for the $50,600 project, which the museum received — a $12,000 Deadwood Fund Grant through the South Dakota State Historical Society. Other funding has been made possible thanks to private donations, primarily from descendants of the Ludwig and Susanna Deckert Family, as well as museum funds on hand. The plan had been to move the house in the fall of 2018, but wet weather delayed the project.

“We were on the schedule, and the week prior to starting the rains began,” Hofer said. “It was a nightmare. It was constant. We would think, ‘Maybe next month the rains would stop,’ but there were constantly issues we had to keep balancing. And then there was Covid and we had to deal with other things.

Finally, in the summer of 2020, the weather allowed Koerner Construction to pour the foundation, and the house was finally moved.

“Hats off to Randy (Koerner),” Hofer said. “He really got things going for us.”

The work that has been done since has included a lot of research into the Deckert family and careful study of what the home may have been like in those later years of the 1800s and into the new century. What color paint was used? What amenities were there? How were things arranged? Hofer said they found two shutters on the upper floor of the house that had been used in the windows, which was confirmed by an early photo of the home’s interior. Similar shutters have since been acquired. Museum officials have also learned the Deckert family brought the skill of weaving from Russia to the Dakota prairie; certainly there would have been a loom in the house, Hofer said.

Meanwhile, rotting wood on windowsills, door frames and floorboards was replaced, the interior received a fresh coat of robin egg blue paint and the exterior a coat of rich dark yellow and maroon paint.

Heritage Hall Museum and Archives also received a grant from the Freeman Community Foundation for an interactive kiosk that will be accessible to guests through a Promethean board — three of which were gifted to the museum by Freeman Public Schools.

And this week, in anticipation of the weekend activities, museum officials are cleaning, placing inventory and working with lighting to make the restoration complete.

“It’s exciting,” said Hofer. “It’s been a long time coming.”

A rare find

The urgency in the restoration of the Ludwig and Susanna Deckert House has been driven largely by a desire to preserve what is a rare find, not only in the area, but across North America. The house was moved from its original location west of Marion at the persistence of R.C. Kauffman, who was instrumental in the development and growth of Heritage Hall Museum & Archives in the 1970s.

“R.C. really pushed to get it here,” said Hofer, who noted that the process also included support from Abe Schmidt, a grandson-in-law of Ludwig and Susanna Deckert, and Clellan Becker, who moved the house — and all the outbuildings on museum grounds. When it arrived in 1979 the only other historic building on the property was the Johannesthal Reformed Church; the Diamond Valley School came onto museum grounds the following decade and the Bethel Church arrived in the 1990s.

While the building wasn’t necessarily unique to the times when it was constructed, the fact that it still stands is testament to both skill and luck. Ludwig Deckert was a master builder, Hofer says, and it just happened to escape the destructive prairie fires that were common in the late 1800s and did much destruction on the prairie.

Hofer said a neighbor to Ludwig has written an account about stepping out of his front door following one of the prairie fires and counting 17 Russian oven chimneys standing amidst 17 burned-down homes.

“So this style was very prevalent in the area, but the prairie fires and the coming of the cast iron stoves just kind of took them away,” Hofer said. “Maybe there are others that are still around — I have no idea — but not very many.”

In fact, she said, in her research through the restoration process Hofer said she reached out to other Germans-from-Russia communities and groups, “and for the most part I was told they didn’t know of any.

“We’re talking just a handful — maybe half-a-dozen in North America,” Hofer said. “That’s pretty amazing.”