Gertrud Lackschewitz papers, 1839-2008 (bulk 1890-1984)

Gertrud Degenhard was born in March of 1923 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The second child of six, Gertrud’s early life was colored by the social and economic strife afflicting post-war Germany. Originally pursuing a degree in medicine, she studied in Berlin during World War II and often had to endure allied air raids interrupting lectures. She switched to the humanities, delving into history, literature, philosophy, art history, and language. In 1944, she was drafted into military service and served as a map clerk with the German Special Forces. After the war, she completed her exams and was certified as a high school teacher. She continued with her studies and earned her doctorate at Goettingen University in History and Germanistics before joining her fiancée, Klaus Lackschewitz, in the United States in 1954.

Gertrud and Klaus were married shortly after her arrival in the United States. They lived on farms in both New Jersey and Virginia for a time. They then moved to New York City where Klaus worked as a gardener and Gertrud as a cook, while Gertrud tried to improve their position by taking classes at the Columbia University Teacher’s College and improving her English. Klaus continued to take gardening jobs and Gertrud eventually got a position at the Teacher’s College Library as a clerk. She worked as a clerk for a year before she took a job as a reference librarian with the New York Public Library. Victim of the policies of the time, she was fired when she reached her fifth month of her first pregnancy in 1959. She gained the director of the library’s help in finding a grant that allowed her to continue working through the pregnancy. She wrote a bibliography on the history of interior decoration, which she worked on until a week before her daughter Anna’s birth and returned to a week after the delivery. However, she did lose her reference position and after she completed the bibliography she was out of a job.

Gertrud took a position with Montana State University (now the University of Montana) in Missoula, Montana, as an assistant professor of German in the fall of 1960. She also had a second daughter, Elizabeth, after moving to Missoula. Lackschewitz initially only taught German language courses, but as she worked her way from assistant to associate to full professor she also taught literature courses. Through her teaching and interaction with students, she noticed that many had German ancestry. As a German immigrant and instructor of German, she was intrigued by these students’ background and began a research project that delved into German immigration to Montana. Through her extensive research, she devised several chapters for a book about German immigrants in Montana based on Helena Germans, Russian Germans, Hutterites, and German churches. However, after she retired from teaching in 1989, she never completed the book.

Klaus Lackschewitz passed away on August 10, 1995. Gertrud continues to live in Missoula, Montana.