Carl Roloff, meanwhile, assembled the rest of his family in Chicago. His first papers for naturalization were filed there on May 21, 1883. Daughters Theresa Marie and Bertha ZULEWSKY would be staying in the city while the rest of the clan headed west. June 7, 1883 Carl claimed settlement on his new land in the Dakota Territory. He filed a plat of survey in October of that year for his own 160 acres, the northwest quarter of Section 24 in Park Township . In addition to Albert, who had led the way with his purchase of the first quarter-section, the pioneering Prussians now included Carl and his wife Augusta; Herman, who was 9; and daughter Augusta, 10. They were joined nearby by daughter Emelia with her husband Gottfried GERGOLLA - they each made pre-emption claims on quarter-sections; and then Gottfried's parents Daniel and Gottliebe Gergolla arrived with son Adolph. The Gergollas' daughter - the presumably widowed - nineteen-year old Wilhelmine SCHUSTER, had also made the journey with her four-year old son Albert. Wilhelmine ("Minnie") had apparently met a fellow traveler, an Englishman named John Archer, on the ship from Europe, and they were eventually married. John Archer purchased two quarter-sections and Minnie one. Altogether the interrelated families had claimed nine quarter-sections totaling 1,440 acres.

Their lives on this new frontier were difficult, to say the least. The promise of the verdant landscape they settled was soon broken by seven successive years of drought, punctuated by the century's worst blizzard. When in 1885 the 60-year old Carl Roloff offered proof that he had broken and cultivated 70 acres of land, we should remember that it was only done after great toil and hardship, with a small hand-held plow pulled by horses or oxen through the native prairie. Their frame house was 14 by 18 feet; the stable of sod and wood was 18 by 22 feet; the hand-dug well was 25 feet deep. The crops of wheat, oats, corn and flax were sown, harvested, and threshed by hand.

In spite of the hardships, the families grew. Emilia and Gottfried Gergolla had three children born in the territory: Paul in 1886, Emma in 1887, and Edith in 1889. Minnie Archer, who already had her son Albert Schuster, gave John Archer five children: Fred, Victoria, Anna, William, and John. Albert Roloff married Amelia, and two sons were born: Otto in 1888, followed by Walter.

After a few years, the Roloffs' daughter Augusta must have left the farm and returned to Chicago, to marry William ZENKE there and raise two children. Young Adolph Gergolla, Daniel's son, also went out on his own, in 1888 or '89, eventually farming in Wisconsin with a large family of his own. Sometime after the 1885 Dakota Territorial Census, the Roloffs' youngest son Herman died. The Archers also lost their daughter Victoria in that period; she was burid in the new Howell Cemetery. As vital records were not kept in the territory at the time, family tradition alone remembers these young ones.

The lifestyles of these families can only be surmised. No doubt the Prussian traditions were upheld, with German spoken regularly by the immigrants at home. Some of their closest neighbors also bore German names, and perhaps there were some fond relationships established. But there may not have been much social life for these farmers so distant from town. The closest and the most likely market and source of provisions was probably Redfield, in Spink County about twenty miles to the east, a direct railroad link to Chicago. The same year our ancestors arrived in the area, the town of Howell was surveyed and platted, in hopes of a new railroad line's progress. About six blocks of frame structures were built and may have provided another destination for the Germans only six miles or so to the south. But the railroad track was never built, and Howell languished merely as a stop for the mail coach. A German Lutheran minister moved to the area also in 1883, holding services in his home until St. Michael's Lutheran Church was built in 1887. Perhaps the Roloffs and Gergollas attended.

The family moved several times in the 1890's, to homes at 4865 and then 4901 S. Atlantic (which was later 5th Avenue and eventually Wells Street - blocks which would eventually be razed for construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway.) They attended St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church at 39th and Dearborn, where Fritz and Theresa were married and where the children were christened. In addition to raising her family, Theresa aspired toward medical training. According to Grandma Bertha, Fritz prevailed upon his wife to confine her practice to female patients only. Thus her degree from the German Medical School in 1897 qualified Theresa as a doctor of obstetrics and specialist in the diseases of women and children. Thereafter she would be known throughout the neighborhood for her healing abilities and skills as a midwife.

Theresa's older sister Bertha Roloff ZULEWSKY and her husband John had also settled in the neighborhood. But tragedy struck before the young couple could even begin to raise a family. Bertha died at the age of 26 in 1885 and was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery. The Heinrichs continued their close relationship with John Zulewsky, though, even after he remarried and had three daughters with his new wife. In fact, John and his brother August Zulewsky were sponsors at the christenings of several of the Heinrich children (Bertha and Harry). Fritz Heinrich may have at some time worked with John Zulewsky, who was also a masonry contractor.

Fritz's mother Louise HEINRICH was living somewhere in the neighborhood at this time as well. The widow had emigrated shortly after Fritz and the Roloffs at the age of 61, but her home in Chicago has not been identified. We know that she continued in the Catholic faith, attending St. Anne's Catholic Church at 55th and Wentworth (later St. Charles Lwanga, and eventually closed by the diocese.) In 1889 Louise bought a single burial plot at St. Mary Catholic Cemetery in Evergreen Park, Illinois, signing her name Louisa ZULEWSKY. Yet no documentation of her marriage has been found. It might be conjectured that Louise had married an older relative, possibly the father, of John and August Zulewsky. However, evidence of Louise in general has not been abundant. According to Grandma Bertha, her "Little Grandma" died in 1908, and she is presumably buried at St. Mary, but there is no marker and the cemetery has no record of her or any Zulewsky.

Augusta, the youngest Roloff daughter, had returned to Chicago from the family's Dakota Territory farm, possibly about 1887. That is when the nineteen-year old married William ZENKE, another bricklayer. They had two children, Bertha and William, Jr. , and lived for many years at 6336 S. May Street. Upon William Zenke's death in 1902, Augusta married William BRAUN. She would be known to the children of the next generation as Auntie Braun.

Even before the death of her father Carl Roloff in South Dakota, Emilia Gergolla and her family had came back to the city. Gottfried worked as a hod carrier while they lived on 45th Street, and obtained his citizenship in 1890, but he died in 1893 at thirty-five years of age (he is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery); Emilia remarried two years later to George F. SEEGERS (June 15, 1895). They had a son, George, Jr., born Feb. 25, 1900, and lived on May Street, at 6634 South. The younger cousins called Emilia Auntie Seegers.

When the widowed Augusta Baer Roloff also left South Dakota, she lived with Emilia and the Gergolla - Seegers family until she died in December, 1903.

Albert Roloff, too, joined the rest of the family on the South Side. He and his wife Amelia added to their family with Erich, born in 1891, and Pauline in 1893. By 1900 they were living at 844 W. 81st Street. Later they lived on Aberdeen St., and by 1930 lived at 6332 S. Ada.

The related families now lived mostly in the Englewood neighborhood. The extension of the elevated train (the "EL") to Englewood in 1907 and the new cable car line down State Street had helped make the area around 63rd and Halsted St. a busy shopping center and comfortable middle-class community of second-generation Germans and Irish. The Heinrichs had moved into a brick two-flat built by Fritz at 6355 S. Carpenter St. Their new church, built in 1907, was St. Stephen's Evangelical Lutheran at 65th and Peoria, another of Fritz's masonry projects, according to family tradition. Albert Roloff's children and John Zulewsky's children were among the first confirmands there from our family. Many of the children also attended the Lutheran grade school. The men, like Fritz who received his citizenship papers in 1889, were now naturalized citizens; and though German was still the language spoken at home, the younger generation was born in the U.S.A. -- they were Chicagoans, South Siders, city kids growing up through tough times.