Karl Heinrich Buchmiller - Part Six

     When the group reached Shelley, about 50 miles from their destination via Market Lake, they hoped to progress a little faster. Not to be. Six inches of snow fell that night. The toll bridge at Eagle Rock, now Idaho Falls, also slowed them down. When they arrived at Market Lake they were out of food for themselves and feed for the animals. A small store provided them with their first bread since leaving Logan. They stocked up on their needs and continued on their way. They were cold and weary by the time they reached Rexburg, but their arrival meant a happy reunion with their loved ones.

Market Lake

What might have looked like

     Auntie Walz was disappointed to find that she and her family were to live in a dugout. The situation was not satisfactory, they all agreed. Conrad and Karl secured logs 12 miles north of Rexburg and built one-room houses, 12 feet x 15 feet, on each of the 2 1/2 acres both had secured. The houses were not far from one another. The logs were set up and chinked with mud. Roofs were spread with willows, sagebrush, and dirt. The floors were split logs, rough and full of cracks. A hard winter was upon them but it was far more comfortable in the log houses than it would have been in the dugouts.

     Sagebrush had to be cleared before gardens could be planted the next spring. Cash was a scarce commodity and it was much needed to buy supplies. Karl and Conrad spent the Winter of 1885-86 hauling logs to earn money for those needs.

     Karl and Conrad were good friends as well as relatives. They worked together to help their families all they could. Both young men obtained work haying in Montana during the summer of 1887. They signed a contract to complete a certain amount of work by a certain date. They would not be paid if the work was not finished. Karl was seriously injured when the team pulling his wagon ran away and he fell off. While he was trying to recuperate he came down with typhoid fever. He was so ill he had to be taken home to Rexburg. This all happened just a short time before the final date on the contract. Conrad worked night and day to finish their haying job on time but couldn't do it. He did finish it, however. He explained to the owner what had happened and he paid Conrad in full.

     A very sick man returned to Rexburg to his family. Karl lingered a while but then pneumonia set in. He died October 27, 1887. He was only 27. His friends made a coffin from the wood of a large cottonwood tree. A talented young schoolteacher, Ella Clarinda Hinckley, lined the coffin and made the burial clothes. (Note: Ella later married Thomas B. Cardon and their daughter, Genevieve, would grow up to marry Karl C. Klingler, first child of Christine's second marriage.) Karl Heinrich Buchmiller was buried in the Rexburg City Cemetery. He left a grieving widow and three children, Emelia, not quite 6, John, 3 1/2, and Lena, just over 2.

     Karl's mother made her home with her son, Emil, and died February 8, 1905, at Lund, then in Bannock County, Idaho. She was 81. Her grave is in the small Lund Cemetery. (Her grave has no marker. We found it by checking the sexton's records.)

Lund Cemetery

Emil married in 1889 and had a family of six, three boys and three daughters. One daughter died as a baby. Emil tried farming but was more successful as a merchant. He was also an artist and musician. He died in Salt Lake City, April 17, 1947, and was buried in the Brigham City, Utah, Cemetery.

     Mary had two very unsuccessful marriages and a happy common-law marriage. She was the mother of 11 children and died four months before her 92nd birthday in Salt Lake City, April 3, 1957. She is buried in the Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Salt Lake County. Mary enjoyed visiting her niece, Emma, at the Steiner farm home near Rexburg, staying several months at a time. She also spent a few weeks at the home of her nephew, John Buchmiller. She left paintings she had made at each home. She spent every bit of extra money she had writing to Germany for the family genealogy records.

Anna Maria Christina (Mary) Buchmiller

     No photographs of Karl Heinrich Buchmiller were ever found. If his wife, Christine, had any they would have been in her trunk kept in the old log home built by her first husband, Karl Buchmiller. After the new Klingler home was constructed in 1914, the old home was used for storage. Alma Klingler, the youngest son, had a dog with puppies that he kept in the same room where the trunk was stored. He placed a lamp nearby to keep the animals warm. Somehow the lamp was tipped over and the trunk caught fire and its contents burned. 

Karl Heinrich Buchmiller - Part 4

          About this time the German Army showed interest in Karl but he wanted no part of it. He left home August 30, 1880, and made his way down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, The Netherlands. From there he worked his way across the Atlantic Ocean to New York City on a ship. In New York he worked and saved his money.

New York Passenger List 

      Emil joined him in New York when their grandmother, Christine Buchmiller, died and left each of her grandchildren 149 marks. Emil told his mother's landlord about the inheritance and asked him if he would loan Emil some money on it so he could go to America. Even though the man had never met Emil before, Herr Gross loaned the Buchmiller youth the amount he needed. Emil had read in the Church publication, Der Stern, about railroad construction jobs in Logan, Utah. He joined a German Church group going to England and sailed with them to New York. He arrived in May of 1882. Emil and Karl soon found each other, but Karl had had the misfortune of being "rolled" or robbed. Emil had to share his meager possessions with his brother, including the proceeds from the sale of a small squirrel Emil had brought with him from Europe.

     They traveled by train from New York to Ogden, Utah, and then to Logan. The pair arrived June 4, 1882, and were met at the depot by a number of German and Swiss members. Among them was Jacob Spori from Switzerland who would become a good friend to the family. He was an educator but was working for the railroad to earn money. The next day, Monday, Jacob took Karl, now 22, Emil, and a son of Brother Drussell to the Collinston railroad camp located about 15 miles north of Logan. They started work the following morning.  Shoveling for 10 hours a day was very difficult for the brothers, especially for Emil, as he had been working in an office. The young German brothers finally became used to the hard work and were able to keep up with the other men. They were paid $1.25 a day plus board.

    

The bequest from their grandmother came in September and with that and their savings Karl and Emil were able to send for their mother and sister and Emil to pay his debt. The two arrived in Logan but the brothers were not there to meet them. They were working near the Idaho border. The women stayed at the depot and continued to wait patiently. Karl and Emil knew they were there but had to wait at the job site for the payroll car to come. They needed the money they had earned before they could return to Logan. The payroll car finally came and they were paid in gold coins. Karl stayed behind, probably to safeguard their money. Emil hopped a freight train that was about to head south. The roadmaster allowed him to ride free because he worked for the railroad. It was dark when Emil arrived in Logan, but he shouted "Mother" and she answered him. She and Mary had waited all day but the sound of her son's voice made it all worthwhile. Karl came the next day and the family was reunited.

     Leonhart had married about three years before Karl and Emil joined the Church. The family helped Konrad come to America and he settled in the eastern part of the United States. Leonhart is believed to have come later. The older brothers were not heard from again.

     The mother, Barbara, told of a dream she had as a young girl. She dreamed she was in a beautiful garden with flowers and trees. She saw a girl friend who owned a tree that bore golden nuts. She saw the tree and it had only five nuts on it. Some were half open with the golden kernels showing. She asked the friend to let her have the tree for a while. A personable gardener wearing a white cap transplanted the tree for her. She did not see where he transplanted it. Barbara said the golden nuts represented her five children and they were not to stay in the country of their birth. That was represented by the tree being transplanted, she said.