Posted on Fri, 04/01/2022 - 10:26am

In Touch with Prairie Living, April 2022
By Michael M. Miller

In this month’s column, the focus is Easter memories in German-Russian homes on the Dakota prairies.

Mary (Welk) Mitzel (1913-2010), who was raised on a farm near Orrin in Pierce County, ND, shared, “Mother always brought two sets of egg dye. We would do the first six colors until the water cooled, then she would make the second set of colors. We would hard boil 5 or 6 dozen eggs on Easter Saturday, spending several hours helping Easter Rabbit (Osterhase). Mother explained to us kids that the Easter Bunny had so many children to visit, especially ‘poor children,’ we had to help out. The fun task was a search outside to gather grass and make several nests around the house and yard for Easter Rabbit to fill with colored eggs. We had a large batch of sugar cookies decorated with colored frostings. They remained inside our house with Mother’s assurance that Easter Bunny got his cookies too!”

Click here to continue reading In Touch with Prairie Living, April 2022.