Homes of My Ancestors Part One

     In doing my family history, I have come to realize just how very very blessed I am and how very thankful I am for those ancestors who have paved the way for me to have the great blessings that I enjoy and so often take for granted.  I am come to appreciate their great sacrifices for me.  They gave so much so that I could have so much.  Sometimes I feel guilty for all that I have when they had so little.  Anyway, I thought I would post some pictures of some of the homes that my ancestors lived in. Some I have visited and some I have not.  It is fun to reminisce about these people and places. Hope you enjoy!

Grandpa and Grandma Cook

James Edward and Christina Magdalena Buchmiller Cook

Of course this was taken along after anyone live in it.  Below are some pictures of what it looked like back when they were living in it.

Grandpa Cook holding my brother Franklin.

My mother, Ruth with my brother, Franklin

My brothers, Franklin and Theron 

Franklin and Theron again.

My Dad, Cleo taking a picture of someone or thing.

My sister, Joyce, Mother, and Franklin

Franklin, Theron and Joyce

A modern day picture of the home of my Grandpa James  and Grandma Lena Cook in Grant, Idaho on the Lewisville Highway.  The lived here with several children.  

My Dad and Mom

Cleo Earl and Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

Dad and Mom in Roberts

Wayne Rottweier, Theron Cook, Dean Rottweier, Franklin Cook in Roberts

Franklin and Theron in Roberts

Theron and Franklin in Roberts.  

Mother, Franklin, Theron, Joyce and me Lois at our home in Rigby, Idaho.

Me on Old Pal at our home in Rigby, Idaho

Dad at our home in Menan, Idaho

Dad in Menan

Lena Beyeler with Theron and Cindy Cook at the home in Menan, Idaho

Karl Heinrich Buchmiller and Christine Gertrude Walz

    Grandpa and Grandma Buchmiller actually lived in a dugout in the side of the canal in Rexburg, Idaho.  After Grandfather Buchmiller passed away, Grandma Buchmiller married Fiedrich Ludwig Klingler.  They built this home 376 West 4th South.  Now it is used for BYU-Idaho student housing. It must have been quite the lovely home when they built it and lived there.  It is just around the corner from where the dugout home was locate.

Verla May Cook-Life Sketch Part One

Life Sketch of Verla May Cook 

Written by Herself - 1961
Thanks to her son, Veldon Hix for sharing this.

1915-1999

My father, James Edward Cook, was born 11 May 1881 at Aurora, Sevier County, Utah.  My mother, Christine Magdalena Buchmiller, was born 5 August 1885 at Rexburg, Madison, County, Idaho.  They were married 16 November 1904 in the Logan LDS Temple in Logan, Utah. 

Lena and Ed Cook

My father went on a mission to California 28 December 1938 and served until 28 February 1939, when he was called home because of the death of a son, Vergil Nelson Cook.  He departed again, taking mother with him 19 December 1939 and returned home 1 April 1940.  He filled a stake mission for Rigby Stake 17 November 1940 until December 1941, or for 14 months.  He and mother served again as stake missionaries from 25 September 1951 to 25 October 1953.

They reared twelve children, all living except one, who died after he had grown to manhood and had been married only 6 months.  My mother is still living and my father passed away 20 October 1960.  My brothers and sisters are: Agnes Levin, Edna Ririe, Carl James Cook, Cleo Earl Cook, Vendetta Wilson, myself, Vergil Nelson Cook, Lila Devera Christensen, Leora Fugal, Reva Maas, Melba Maas, and Theola Simmons.

Seated: Agnes,(insert Vergil) James Edward, Christina Magdalena, Edna

Standing: Cleo, Melba, Reva, Vendetta, Leora, Theola, Lila, Verla, Carl

I was born 24 March 1915 at Taylorville, Bonneville County, Idaho on a dry farm.  I was blessed 6 June 1915 by William Priest.   While just a baby, our house caught fire while my parents were away at church.  My oldest sisters got us all out safely, but we had to live in a granary the rest of the winter. 

 I moved with my family from Taylorville to Shelley, Idaho and from there to Woodville, Idaho, where I began my first year of school.  We lived here in a large house with a big orchard on the place.  My folks stored a lot of apples in bins in the basement and in the winter several times the Indians came to buy some of the apples.  My brother, just younger than I (Vergil) and I were afraid of them and would hide under the table.  They would try to make friends with us and coax us to come out by offering us candy.  We finally made friends with them and got brave enough that when we saw them coming down the road we would go out to the gate and wait for them.  This made them very happy.

Just before my first year of school was over we moved to Ucon, Idaho.  I was ahead of my class in school so my teacher (Miss Olsen) promoted me to the second grade and I didn=t have to go to school anymore that year.  

Agnes Christine Cook-Life Story

Life Story

Agnes Christine Cook

1905-1975

     I, Agnes Christine Cook was born 17 August 1905, at Labelle, Jefferson, Idaho. I was the daughter of James Edward Cook and Christina Magdalena Buchmiller. 

James Edward and Christina Magdalen Cook

I was blessed 15 November 1905 by my Grandfather, James Nathaniel Cook. 

James Nathaniel Cook

I was baptized 2 August 1914 by Bertie Wadsworth and confirmed 2 August 1914 by Joseph C. Arave. 

     My schooling commenced at Taylorville, Bingham, Idaho, in a little one room school known as the Washington School.  I was the oldest of my family.  My father was the only boy in a family of 7; four girls older and two younger than him.  Being his first child, I was rather favored by my Grandfather and Grandmother Cook.  They also lived across the road from us until I was about six years old.  So I spent much of my time with them.

     We moved to Taylorville in the spring of 1911, away from them for the first time in my life.  Grandfather died 30 September 1911 at Labelle.  Grandmother moved to Taylorville after his death as several of her children were there and again I spent much of my time with her.  I stayed with her and went to school my first year in 1912.  I went to the Taylor school the next year. 

     The following spring we moved to our dry farm on the foot hill just a short distance from where father had been renting an irrigated farm.  That year we had three miles to go to school, which we walked when weather permitted.  During the coldest weather the neighbors got together and took turns taking the children to school.  There were times when they couldn’t get thru the roads with a sleigh until they would break the roads open.  They used to do this by driving loose horses thru until the snow was packed enough to get the sleighs over.  So we missed a lot of school during bad weather.  The rest of the time we walked. 

     In the summer I worked out in the field most of the time with my father.  Being the oldest in the family, I worked with him on the farm much of the time until I was about fifteen.  Being the oldest in the family and not much cash, I was unable to attend much school during the farming season.  I went thru the eighth grade without being able to go to school either the first or last days of the school year.  We didn’t have school buses to take us to school.  I froze my feet and hands several times while going to school.

     While on the dry farm, I tipped over the plow, stood a two section harrow on its end and went completely under the land leveler with getting hurt.  In the summer of 1915, our house burned.  We saved only a small part of the furniture from downstairs.  Father sold the dry farm and we moved to Shelley the spring I was in the fourth grade.  I went to school in Shelley one year.  We then moved to Woodville, where I finished my schooling.

     The year I was in eighth grade I had pneumonia during the winter.  I graduated the first of May 1919.  About a week later I had typhoid fever.  When school started in September, I wasn’t able to go to high school.  I started but had to quit on account of my health. 

     While in Woodvilled, I worked as a kindergarten teacher in the Sunday School and about two years as assistant secretary and secretary of the Primary.  Then from Woodville the family moved to Ucon for one year and then to Coltman.  While in Coltman I worked as secretary of the Primary for about six years.  I did house work for several different people during that time but spent most of my time with the Leslie Jephson family. 

     While in Coltman I worked as a teacher in the Sunday School.  There I met and later married Levi Wilford Levin in the Logan Temple on the 20^th of June 1928. 

After we were married, we lived in Ucon for a short time but never left the Coltman Ward.  On 27 May 1928, I was released as secretary of the Primary and sustained as a counselor to Sister Lola Hudman in the Primary.

     We moved to Coltman in the early spring of 1929 and on 25 May 1929, my son Boyd Wilford was born in the LDS Hospital. 

     We decided to try our luck at farming, so we moved to Grant, Jefferson, Idaho, in the spring of 1930.  We farmed two summers there.  I worked one year as the Bluebird teacher in Primary and a while on the Genealogy committee. 

     On 25 January 1932, my daughter, Carol was born at Ririe, Jefferson, Idaho. 

Carol and Grandpa Cook (James Edward)

We moved back to Coltman in April 1932.  I worked as counselor in the Primay again and as Bee Keeper for seven years.  I was released as counselor in the Primary and as Bee Keeper and sustained as a counselor in the YWMIA soon after.  Both children commenced school at Coltman.   Boyd completed eighth grade there.  In 1942 I was released as counselor in the YWMIA and sustained as President. 

     In the spring of 1943, we bought our home and moved to Roberts, Jefferson, Idaho.  In August 1943, I was sustained as President of the Roberts Primary and served in that capacity a little over three years.  Then I was sustained as Zion’s Boys and Girls, first year group teacher on the Rigby Stake Board 15 September 1946, under President June Tolley. I also served under President Zelpha Lufkin and Dora Poole.  I was released 21 February 1954.  During this time the Zion’s Boys and Girls 1^st year was changed to Co-Pilots.  In 1947, I was sustained as secretary of the Roberts Relief Society, also taught Zion’s Boys and Girls 1^st year in the Roberts Ward.

     I was released as secretary of the Relief Society 5 July 1953 and sustained as first counselor.  I was released from Relief Society 8 January 1956.  In February I was sustained as Trekker teacher in the Roberts Ward also as aide in Genealogy Committee in June or July of 1956.  I was sustained a Trekker Leader in Rigby Stake. 

     Since moving to Roberts, both of my children have completed high school.  I worked in the grocery store for Rollo Dutson for three and a half years.  Carol was married to Arthur Croft Ossmen by President George Christensen in Rigby, Idaho on 24 November 1950.  On 18 February 1954 our first granddaughter, Leslie Kay Ossmen was born.  On 12 December 1955, our second granddaughter, Linda Carol Ossmen was born.  Then on 4 August 1957, our first grandson was born.  We enjoy our family and grandchildren very much.  We are now looking forward to Christmas 1957 with our family. 

     My Aunt Agnes Christine Cook Levin died 24 October 1975 in Rexburg, Madison, Idaho and was buried 27 October 1975 in the Grant Central Cemetery in Grant, Jefferson, Idaho.  She was a lovely lady and is still much missed by all who knew and loved here.

Christine Gertraude Walz-Pictures

I had these pictures ready to scan and put into Great Grandma's history and then simply forgot that I had them.  So I am going to add them now.  Sorry about that.  I hope that you will enjoy them all by themselves rather than in a history.

Buchmiller-Klingler Family 1895
Godfry, Friedrich Ludwig Klingler, and John Buchmiller
Karl, Great Grandmother with George on her lap and Chris

The Buchmiller-Klingler Family
Caroline, Christina, Mary, Emma, Christina Magdalena (Grandmother)
Fred is seated.

The Buchmiller-Klinger Family 1908
First row: George, Fred, Great Grandmother, Alma, Bill in front of Friedrich Ludwig, Barbara, and Sara
Second row: Christina Magdalena Buchmiller, (Grandmother), Karl, Emma Buchmiller, John Buchmiller, Christina, Godfrey May, Chris, Eva, and Caroline
This picture was taken just before Godrey left for his mission.

Great Grandmother Christine Gertrude Walz seated
Standing:  Christina Magdalena (Grandmother), John and Emma Buchmiller
About 1910

Early Teens
Christina, John, and Emma Buchmiller

My Grandparents
James Edward Cook and Christina Magdalena Buchmiiler

Grandmother Christina Magdalena with her siblings John and Emma Buchmiller
Taken at a family reunion in Rexburg, Idaho about 1955

Christine Gertraude Walz - Part 6

            Christine learned a bitter lesson shortly after she came to Rexburg. A neighbor woman told her many negative things about another neighbor. She repeated it to someone else and that someone went to the original victim and said Christine had started it. The woman who had told Christine denied the whole thing and Christine then became the villain. She learned from that experience never to gossip or repeat stories.

            Karl and Conrad obtained haying jobs in Montana during the summer of 1887. While they were away Christine stumbled and fell into an irrigation ditch. She was going to or returning from a well across a pasture. It was dusk and difficult for the young mother to see and she was pregnant. The fall caused her to miscarry. She grieved over the loss for a long time.

            Karl returned home in the late summer, injured and ill, without Conrad. He had been seriously hurt in a runaway team-and-wagon accident and while in his weakened condition contracted typhoid fever. He lingered for a while and then died of pneumonia on October 27, 1887. He was only 27. The neighbors came to give solace to the young widow and to build a coffin from a cotton wood tree. Miss Ella Hinckley made the clothes and lined the coffin for Karl. After a funeral he was buried in the Rexburg Cemetery. The baby that Christine miscarried in the spring would have been born about the time of Karl's death. (Ella later

married Thomas B. Cardon and the two became parents of Genevieve. When Genevieve grew up she became the wife of Karl Klingler, son of Christine and her second husband Friedrich Ludwig Klingler.)

            Christine struggled to maintain her little family without her husband. Emelia was three months short of being six years old. John Henry was 3 1/2, and Lena was two.

Christina Gertrude Walz Buchmiller seated;
Standing-Christina Magdalena,
John Henry and Emilie Walz Buchmiller

             The young mother took in washing, did housework, and sewed for other families to provide their living. The children gleaned wheat from the ditch banks which their mother made into flour. But they often went hungry. Christine remembered later how tasty some wild meat was that had been given to her by a neighbor. Once she used a whisk broom to brush together enough flour to make some gravy.

            Three years had passed since Karl and Christine had arrived in Idaho to homestead. On March 9, 1888, Christine traveled to Blackfoot, the county seat of Bingham County, Territory of Idaho. She paid nine hard-earned dollars to the county treasurer and received the deed to the 2 1/2 acres she and Karl had homesteaded. The property was located in Southend, a community in the southwestern section of what is now Rexburg.  (Note:  This property is just down the street from where George and Diana Wilson used to live.)

            Christine became acquainted with a German woman named Charlotte Klingler Pfost. Charlotte's brother, Friedrich Ludwig Klingler,

Friedrich Ludwig Klingler

his wife, and family of six children had joined the Church in Germany and had come to Rexburg in 1886. They had a son born while in Rexburg on August 18, 1886. When Christine went to see the new baby, Christoph, she thought he was one of the most beautiful babies she had ever seen. The Klingler family moved a short time later to Pocatello so Friedrich could work for the railroad. While they were there another child was born, May 22, 1889. Two months later the mother died, and the baby lived only four more days.

            The children were brought back to Rexburg to live with various relatives. Friedrich continued working in Pocatello but would visit his children whenever he could. Charlotte wanted Christine to meet her brother. She played matchmaker and was the one who introduced them to each other. After a courtship they thought about marriage. They did much soul-searching on this matter, as Friedrich had seven living children and she had three. Also, Fredrich had a habit to overcome — he smoked a pipe. Christine did not approve of smoking.  He was able to give up the habit and a wedding day was set.

          They were to be married February 11, 1891, in the Logan Temple for time only.  Christine was already sealed to her first husband, Karl Heinrich Buchmiller. The day arrived for her to meet Friedrich in Pocatello where they would take the train to Logan. As she approached his home she could see him through a window with a pipe in his mouth. When confronted with this, he said he was not smoking but had put the unlit pipe in his mouth out of habit. He really had not smoked since he told her he would not, he explained. She was finally convinced he was telling the truth and that he did love her.

            They attended the temple on the appointed day. Christine stood as proxy for Friedrich's first wife, Anna Maria Bauer, so Anna could receive her endowments. The sealing of Friedrich and Anna Maria would be performed later. Then Christine Walz Buchmiller and Fredrich Ludwig Klingler were married for "time only" by Merriner Wood Merrill, president of the temple.

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