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Biography CHRISTIAN OSTER

written by Angie Oster

Just the facts are nice (birth dates, deaths, marriages, children) but so are tid bits, would like to share
with you a little bit about Christian Oster who came to Dakota in 1888.  If there are voids that I can help
fill I can give you just the facts, reading through such long stories can be tiresome.

Christian Oster and wife Theresa

The Polynsia arrived at the port of New York on March 28, 1888.

From New York to the Dakota Territory they went by railroad, they got off the train at New Salem.

Mr. and Mrs. Christian Oster came to Mercer county on April 20, 1888 direct from Russia; first to
New Salem, Morton County, where they bought a team of oxen and a wagon to drive north to Mercer
county.

Benjamin Oster son of Christian Oster in an interview in the October 19, 1978 issue of the
Beulah Beacon relates the family stayed with family friends in the Kronthal area north of what is now
Beulah. North Dakota. In 1894 a sod house was built south of Hazen, North Dakota

Benjamin recalls that during the first month in Dakota, tragedy struck and within a few days his two
youngest brothers, Adam and baby Wilhelm had died.  Benjamin was also ill but he recovered.

Mr. Oster took up homestead right south and adjoining the present site of Hazen, North Dakota. Here
they resided the remainder of their lives. 

During the difficult early years the Oster families, as well as other early settlers in Mercer County, often
gathered buffalo bones to sell to have some money for food and other necessities. A wagonload of buffalo
bones sold from $6.00 to $11.00 a ton in trade. The bones were shipped east, where they were reduced
to carbon black for use in the refining of sugar.

Mrs. Christian Oster (Theresa) died on March 2, 1902. After the death of Theresa, Christian married
a second time. He was married to a woman from the Garrison area, named Arndt.

Christian kept a large number of cattle, which were grazed some distance from the farm south of Hazen.
One day while he was checking on the cattle, his new wife and her twenty-year-old son, packed up every
thing that they could carry and returned to their home across the river. She never returned.

In 1912, Christian Oster went back to Russia to visit his blind sister, Elizabeth, and friends and relatives
who had remained behind in Russia. His sister, Elizabeth, heard him talking to friends outside the house
and recognized her brother by his voice after all the years that they had been apart. He had a happy
reunion and renewed old friendships.

Christian died October 21,1922 at Hazen.