The treasure in the wheat field

In The Treasure in the Wheat Field , the Christian writer Käthe Papke tells the life story of the German farmhand Wilhelm Gramann from Stolp in Pomerania , who emigrated to California to get rich there. It was published in 1949 by the Christian publishing house in Stuttgart .

content

The emigrant ship "Margarete" leaves the port of Hamburg for America with 900 German emigrants. Among them is the "good" servant Gramann from Pomerania, who leaves nothing behind. His beloved mother is dead, he fell out with his only sister and left the residents of his Pomeranian home village of Stolp in trouble. He saved his whole life to finance the crossing to the New World and become a made man there. Fascinated by the New York skyscrapers, the vastness of the continent and the Rocky Mountains, which he got to know on the drive to California, he pushes the admonishing words of the pastor from the New York reception center aside, not because of the gold and profit addiction in the USA to go. He gets the start-up capital for a small farm, gets married, has two children and relentlessly pursues his goal of becoming a rich man. He falls for two traveling gypsies who use a "treasure trick" to deprive him of a thousand dollars that he has saved. Then Gramann works all the harder and becomes the flayer of his wife and the only remaining maid, because he wants to restore the loss. There is a severe storm combined with an earthquake. Gramann is seriously injured and in the accident loses one of his children and all of his belongings. His devout wife asks the pastor for help, who takes the Gramann family into his house. She confronts the hard-hearted and bitter husband after his recovery and makes it clear to him that he was about to lose himself to his greed and his addiction to wealth. There is an inner conversion. The re-establishment of the farm in an earthquake-proof area turned out to be successful and Gramann reconciled with his sister, with whom he never wanted to speak a word again, in an exchange of letters. He and his wife not only support the sister's impoverished family in Germany financially, but finally bring their 18 and 20 year old children to America to train them to be farmers and enable them to live independently.

background

The story is a literary adaptation of the Bible verse 1 Timothy 6: 9, according to which those who are desperate to get rich are caught in a web of temptations that can ruin a person.

literature

• Käthe Papke: The treasure in the wheat field. Emigrant experiences in America. - Stuttgart: Christl. Publishing house, 1949