Johann Friedrich Carl Wundersitz

Story

Wundersitz Family

Wundersitz translates as wonderful or miracle seat, and may have had Swiss origins.

Johann Friedrich Carl Wundersitz was born in Rietschuetz, N/W of the present Krosno, on 28th May 1817, in the administrative district of Zullichau/Schweibus. He married Johanna Friedricke Schubert, born 14th January 1811, from the village of Wenig Lesson, in the administrative district of Zielona Gora.

Pastors in the region were inciting their parishioners to emigrate because there were concerns for the local economic conditions. These peaceful law abiding folk were also not keen to see their sons drafted into the Prussian Army.

Carl, his wife and children Hermann, Gustav and Auguste Bertha left their village journeying by boat via the River Oder, through the Friedrich-Wilhelm Canal, into the River Spree, and finally to the River Elbe, waiting a little time at Potsdam. In Hamburg, they boarded the “San Francisco”,a 800 ton barque, sailing under Master C. Kramer on 24th June 1850, along with 235 other passengers. In her hold were crates and boxes, 29,744 bricks, 185 hams and 8 casks. On the voyage, 6 babies and a man died.

Disembarking at Port Adelaide, on 14th October 1850, they made their way to Klemzig, to stay with friends, before setting out for Mount Gambier to follow agricultural pursuits. In 1853, they purchased land at the 3 Brothers Special Survey, near Mount Barker. Another son was born in 1853, Friedrich Adolph. Carl was naturalized as a citizen in 1854. The family lived in the Callington area, working as farmers, and at the Premimma mine for a short while, before moving to Hartley.

Hermann

In 1873, a horse drawn German wagon pulled Hermann and his wife Auguste Elinore Ernstine, nee Bruns, to a new selection in the Hundred of Maitland on Yorke Peninsula. They arrived in summer, and Hermann had to drive 3 miles to collect water from Ynoo Wells for his family. The land was cleared and planted with cereal, fruit, vines and vegetables. She hawked jams, vegetables and bananas collected 13 miles distant from Ardrossan, on the coast, to Maitland and the copper mining town of Moonta, 25 miles away. The birth of another baby only curtailed her endeavours for a week. Auguste collected her savings in a cocoa tin. When another farm was purchased for a maturing son, she had the deposit right there in the cocoa tin.

Hermann and Auguste had 15 children, 3 of whom died young. They retired to Ardrossan in 1911, when the youngest son took over the farm.

Gustav

Joanne Louise Haeusler married Gustav in 1860, a marriage producing 9 children, at Avenue Farm on the Bremer River, at Hartley. All the farm buildings are made of the lovely pale limestone, including a wonderful double roofed stone cellar. The beautiful little Salem Lutheran Church at Hartley contains many of the family graves, including Carl and Johanna Friedricke.

Auguste Bertha

She married Johann Kilian on 17th June 1876. The Kilian family was in the Hartley district, near Monarto, and had emigrated to South Australia on the same ship, in 1850.

Friedrich Adolph

Married Ernstine Karoline Jaensch and raised their 6 children in the Hartley district.

In the Wundersitz family, there seems to be an innate skill in growing plants. While they cleared the land for agricultural crops, they planted trees on their farms, and in the district in which they were residing. The households were reliant on these skills to provide as much produce, as the seasons would allow. During the drought years of the late 19th Century, the diversity of farm output from the Prussian immigrants, helped to stabilize the economy of South Australia.

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