Christine Gertraude Walz - Part 5

           Work was becoming scarce in the area as the railroad line was completed and the temple just needed interior decorative work. Karl and his young family moved to the boom town of Beaver Canyon, also called "Canon," in present-day Clark County, Idaho. Karl's job was to "walk track" for the railroad. Beaver Canyon was a large lumber and railroad center located several miles north of present-day Spencer. A number of timber firms in that region supplied lumber for construction in growing Eagle Rock, Idaho, now Idaho Falls.

            Indians were seen regularly in the Beaver Canyon area. One elderly Indian man loved to visit the Buchmiller home and play with the beautiful young child, Emelia. Christine noticed the man had lice and told little Emelia not to get too close to him. Even though he did not understand German, the Indian knew what the mother meant and never picked the little girl up again.

John Henry Buchmiller

            Christina Magdalena, who was known as "Auntie Walz within the family and among her friends, was helping to support her husband and children because George had a form of creeping paralysis. For a time she did laundry work for 50 cents a day, and also made egg noodles. She carried the noodles to her friends and clients in clean little white cloths. Since Christina Magdalena had to deal with other than German speaking people she soon learned English. Later, Dr. McCalister, a female Logan obstetrician, requested that Auntie Walz accompany her to the homes of the German-speaking people to act as an interpreter. The doctor also taught and trained Auntie Walz in the skill of obstetrics. It was Auntie Walz who helped her sister, Christine, when her first son, John Henry Buchmiller, was born February 3, 1884, at Beaver Canyon, Idaho.

           

Rexburg, Idaho

Meanwhile, Church people from Logan, Utah, had founded the new Idaho community of Rexburg. The settlement was located about 170 miles north of Logan, Utah, in what is now known as Idaho's Upper Snake River Valley. From Beaver Canyon, Idaho, where the Buchmillers lived, the town was about 70 miles to the southeast via Market Lake (now Roberts). Both the Buchmillers and Wakes would find their future in the Rexburg area.

Thomas E. Ricks

            Rexburg was just one of more than 500 communities founded by the Church after the first pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In this instance President John Taylor had sent William B. Preston, president of the Cache Valley Stake, and Thomas E. Ricks of Logan north to check out possible town sites in Idaho. Besides looking for good homesteading land they were to consider religious, educational, and commercial factors. They found all of these at the Rexburg site and members were called to come and settle. Thomas E. Ricks was the first bishop. The new town was dedicated March 16,1883, named in honor of Bishop Ricks whose family name was once "Rex."

            Young Conrad Walz and a neighbor followed the roads north from Logan to the new settlement. The rest of Conrad's family was still in Logan, but they had definitely decided to move, urging Karl and Christine to move, also. It was not a difficult decision. Karl resigned his job with the railroad and they loaded their belongings on the train and rode to Market Lake. They got off the train there,

Market Lake train station

ferried across the Snake River, and walked the next 20 miles northeast to Rexburg. A wagon carried their belongings. They found other German speaking friends from Logan already there. Among them were the Henry Flamm and Casper Steiner families. Makeshift dugout rooms were excavated by hand into the side of a canal until log homes could be built. The Walz and Buchmiller dugouts were side by side, but the Walzes had not yet arrived. It was in this primitive situation that Christine gave birth to her third child, a daughter, on August 5, 1885, She was named Christine Magdalena after her mother and her mother's sister. Family members shortened her name to "Lena." (This is my Grandmother Christina Magdalena Buchmiller Cook.)

Christina Magdalena Buchmiller

     After the birth, Karl and Conrad headed for Logan to get Conrad's family, consisting of father, mother, and two younger sisters. George, now an invalid, rode the train to Market Lake, then was brought to Rexburg in a wagon. He arrived before the others and stayed in the Buchmiller dugout until his family came.

     It was late October of 1885 before the Walz wagons and herds arrived in Rexburg. Auntie Walz wondered aloud why she had left her comfortable home in Logan to live in a dugout. But it was not long before logs were secured 12 miles north of Rexburg, and one room homes built. They were about 12 x 15 feet in size. The logs were chinked with mud and the roof was spread with willows and sagebrush and covered with dirt - a typical pioneer home.

     Rexburg was still in a wilderness condition when the Walzes and Buchmillers arrived. Sagebrush had to be cleared before the ground could be tilled and planted. The men spent the winter of 1885-86 hauling logs to earn enough money to buy some of life's necessities.  In the area were people who had come from France and Switzerland as well as Germany. They all spoke the language of their former homelands. One day a Swiss-speaking family and a French-speaking family started arguing over a cow that got into a garden. They were arguing but they couldn't understand each other. Karl used his language skills to interpret for them so the matter could be settled.

Hauling logs for homes