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Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Jane H. Dein

Keywords

old jules, Nebraska pioneer, auguste lambelet

Abstract

Readers of Mari Sandoz' Old Jules will remember that this enthusiastic pioneer not only helped newcomers to the frontier file claims but also sent off to family, friends and journals a blizzard of letters extolling the rich soil of Nebraska and the free land available to anyone willing to work it. Among the Swiss attracted to Nebraska by this fervent praise was Auguste Lambelet, who gained American citizenship and title to his homestead in Knox County in 1889. While even after forty years of residence in Nebraska, he never learned English, his descendants, many of whom still live in the state, quickly blended into the American melting pot, and like most second and third generation Americans, today speak only English. For this reason they eagerly accepted my offer to translate their grandfather's memoirs, 288 handwritten pages in French. This task, gladly undertaken out of friendship, proved to be an absorbing project, for the author had led an adventurous life as a foreign soldier in Algeria and in the East Indies and as a successful entrepreneur in clock making in Switzerland before corning to America at the age of forty-six.

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