The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time

by

Timothy Egan

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Worst Hard Time makes teaching easy.

George Alexander Ehrlich Character Analysis

A Russian-German immigrant to Oklahoma. He immigrated to the United States in 1890 to escape conscription into the czar’s army. During his voyage, his ship got caught in a typhoon and nearly sank. He arrived in New York Harbor two months after leaving Hamburg, Germany, on New Year’s Day, 1891. After arriving in the United States from his homeland near the Volga River, he moved to Kansas to stay with relatives. He then migrated to Oklahoma and found work as a ranch hand. He married a fellow German from the Volga region, Hanna Weis, and had ten children, the youngest of whom died after being hit by a cattle truck.

George Alexander Ehrlich Quotes in The Worst Hard Time

The The Worst Hard Time quotes below are all either spoken by George Alexander Ehrlich or refer to George Alexander Ehrlich . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Westward Expansion and the Settlement of the Southern Plains Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

In the German settlements on the High Plains, there was no more defiant celebration of group survival than a wedding. The rest of the year, the Anglos could make fun of their clothes, the sheriff could call them in for questioning, the merchants could refuse them entry into stores, the children could mock their accents, the farmers could laugh at their planting methods, and other immigrants could deride them as “Rooshians.” But the wedding day on this Sunday in September 1929 belonged to the Germans from Russia. Through an improbable journey of 166 years, they had bounced from southern Germany to the Volga River region of Russia to the Cherokee Outlet of Oklahoma. The Russlanddeutschen were not Russian nor were they fully German. Hardened by long exile, state cruelty, and official ridicule, they wanted only to be left alone. The treeless expanse of the southern plains was one of the few places in the United States that looked like home.

Related Characters: George Alexander Ehrlich , Gustav Borth
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Worst Hard Time LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Worst Hard Time PDF

George Alexander Ehrlich Quotes in The Worst Hard Time

The The Worst Hard Time quotes below are all either spoken by George Alexander Ehrlich or refer to George Alexander Ehrlich . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Westward Expansion and the Settlement of the Southern Plains Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

In the German settlements on the High Plains, there was no more defiant celebration of group survival than a wedding. The rest of the year, the Anglos could make fun of their clothes, the sheriff could call them in for questioning, the merchants could refuse them entry into stores, the children could mock their accents, the farmers could laugh at their planting methods, and other immigrants could deride them as “Rooshians.” But the wedding day on this Sunday in September 1929 belonged to the Germans from Russia. Through an improbable journey of 166 years, they had bounced from southern Germany to the Volga River region of Russia to the Cherokee Outlet of Oklahoma. The Russlanddeutschen were not Russian nor were they fully German. Hardened by long exile, state cruelty, and official ridicule, they wanted only to be left alone. The treeless expanse of the southern plains was one of the few places in the United States that looked like home.

Related Characters: George Alexander Ehrlich , Gustav Borth
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis: