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 10

           

On September 24, 1917, Christine was released as Relief Society president due to illness. Then, in the early part of January 1920, Christine became very ill. She had a high temperature, pain, red splotches, and finally broke out in lesions like boils. Her granddaughter Berneice Steiner Heinz remembers seeing her face and head tied up in bandages. Christine called for her nephew, Conrad, to come and administer to her. When he came, she asked him to pray for her to be "called home" as she was so ill she didn't think she could stand it much longer. He did as she requested and she died shortly afterward. She was 60.

            The entry in the Klingler Bible written by her bereaved husband reads: 

"The 17 January 1920 died my beloved wife, Christine Klingler in Rexburg. Sickness was erysipelas.

Buried the 19 January."

            Erysipelas is little known today. It is caused by a specific streptococcus bacterium and can be cured with modem-day antibiotics. Christine's death certificate states the main cause of death was a perforated gastric ulcer with erysipelas as the secondary cause.

            No formal funeral homes or mortuaries existed in Rexburg at this time. Those who prepared bodies for burial just came to the homes of those who needed them. After the preparations and dressing of the body were completed, the deceased person was placed in the casket. The casket was then placed on chairs in the center of the parlor. Someone other than a family member was usually assigned to sit up with the body at night. Before the church service for Christine, the family knelt around the casket for prayer.

Recorded in the Rexburg Third Ward Record Book A: "January 18, 1920 -

Bishop R. H. Smith gave out notice of the funeral of Christine Walz Klingler, to be held in the meeting house January 19, 1920".

"Minutes of the service held over the remains of Christine Walz Buchmiller Klingler, in the Rexburg Third Ward meeting house,

January 19, 1920. Bishop Richard H. Smith, presided."

Singing #219 "Sister Thou Wast Mild and Lovely."

Prayer was offered by George B. Wynn.

Singing #223 "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere."

Elder Peter Andregg was the first speaker. He spoke in German.

Elder Hyrum Ricks, Sr. spoke in English and read, "My Mother," after which he prayed.

Elder Horace W. Mason rendered a solo, #166, "What Voice; Salutes The Startled Ear."

He was followed by an address by William A. Smith.

Bishop Richard H. Smith then made a few remarks.

Meeting closed by singing #31, "Rest, Rest for the Weary Soul."

Prayer was by Elder John Austin Walz.

THE REXBURG JOURNAL, Friday, January 23, 1920, page 1

Mrs. Klingler Laid to' Rest

"Mrs. Christine G. Klingler, wife of Frederick (Friedrich) Klingler, died last Saturday of erysipelas of the stomach. She was 60 years of age.  

Funeral services were held at the Third Ward Meeting House, Monday.  The speakerswere Judge Hyrum Ricks, Peter Andregg, Prof. W. A. Smith, and Bishop R. H. Smith. Mrs. Klingler was one of the early settlers of this city and was a woman of excellent qualities. When the Third Ward was organized she was chosen president of the Relief Society, which position she held ten years. She was formerly married to Mr. Buckmiller (Karl Buchmiller) by whom she had children. Mr. Klingler also had children by a former wife, and still other children were born to the two. So these two good people have reared a large and honorable family together.  Mrs. Klingler was greatly beloved by all who knew her and will be greatly missed in the family circle. There was a very large attendance at the funeral service. John Phillips had charge of the interment".

            Christine Gertraude Walz Buchmiller Klingler was buried by the side of her first husband, Karl Heinrich Buchmiller, in Lot 12, Block 5, of the Rexburg City Cemetery.  Friedrich Ludwig Klingler had a four-foot high stone marker place on her gravesite. The monument inscription read, "Beloved Wife, Christine Gertrude Walz Klingler 1859 - 1920".  In the 1960s, her son, John H. Buchmiller, removed the first marker and installed a new one.  The new marker honored both his father and mother. Karl's grave had been unmarked until this time.

            Friedrich Ludwig Klingler died August 2, 1927, and is buried by the side of their baby son, Frank Jacob, in Lot 28, Block 3, of the Rexburg Cemetery. Christine's daughter Emma and three of her sons, John, Karl, and Alma, are also buried in the same cemetery.

            Christina Magdalena Walz followed her sister in death the next year on March 4, 1921, and is buried in Lot 31, Block 3, of the Rexburg Cemetery. Their brother, Johannes Heinrich Walz, died at Blanchard Township, Perth, Ontario, Canada, July 1, 1917.

There is a digital copy of the book that I took these written histories from.  It is entitled Christine Gertraude Walz Buchmiller Klingler.  It was compiled by Carol Dee Stoker Buchmiller and Golden Atkin Buchmiller.  

It can be found at the following url:

https://dcms.lds.org/view/action/ieViewer.dodps_pid=IE76112&dps_dvs=1371578726497~921&dps_pid=IE76112&change_lng=en

The book is a marvelous collection of family history and has lots more information, pictures and histories.  Be sure and look it up.

Christine Gertraude Walz - Part 9

           The Klingler family didn't make much of a fuss on birthdays. But their home was always full of fun and joking. Both the children and their parents enjoyed making puns and playing on the meanings of words. They did a lot of teasing. When the Klingler youngsters were small the neighborhood children were not allowed to come over to play. They had enough children and grandchildren in the family to have lots of fun together. The children and grandchildren played well among themselves and provided their own entertainment. They played

games like Run Sheep Run; Hide and Seek; Pomp, Pomp Pull Away; and others. A horse was usually available for the children to ride. All of the children had fun riding in buggies pulled by a horse or team.

            Edna Cook Ririe, one of four living granddaughters in 1993 who still remembered Christine, recalls the fun of sleeping sideways in one of her grandmother's beds with three other cousins because it was too crowded the regular way. Norlene Buchmiller Kenison remembers being left at her grandmother's house to be cleaned up after milk was spilled all over her. The incident occurred while Norlene was riding in a sleigh and a can of milk tipped over onto her when the sleigh went over a drift. Berneice Steiner Heinz remembers the fun at her grandmother's house on Sunday afternoons playing with the other cousins - and eating some of

her grandmother's great cooking. Marvilla Steiner W. Fresh recalls Grandma Klingler's great annual Easter Egg hunts at the Klingler strawstack about a half mile south of the Klingler home. "She always gave a gift to the grandchild who found the most eggs." All of the grandchildrenwere welcomed with love whenever they came.

            Movies, or shows as they were beginning to be called, were not yet a part of Rexburg's entertainment fare. Once in a great while a silent movie would come to town and the family would all go and watch.

            Christmas Eve was a wonderful time of celebration and gifts. Christmas Day was magical, too. The children awoke to find a beautiful Christmas tree covered with decorations and candles. Because it was a holy day the Klinglers spent the time visiting friends and relatives. The next morning, December 26, the tree was gone without a trace. This was a typical German Christmas celebration.

            Sara, recalling her childhood, said, "We had good times. We were a happy family. Father was short, very kind, and not quick-tempered, but easygoing. He played a lot of tricks on us. Father made us speak German at home. When Mother said to do something, we did it. We could talk Father out of things, but not Mother. She was more serious and had a quick temper, but the whole neighborhood loved her. She spoke English very well. We always went to church on Sunday. We studied and read the Bible at home in our family."

376 West 4 South Rexburg, Idaho

            A new brick home was built on the southwest corner of the Klingler property in 1914. The construction was of logs covered with bricks. It was always cool in the summertime and warm in the winter. The old log cabin became a storage shed. The new home boasted some of the modern conveniences of the new century. It even had sliding doors between the dining room and the parlor. Life was more pleasant in the new home. Inside plumbing meant the end of the need for an outhouse and walking across the pasture for water. In 1917 Karl bought his mother the largest electric washing machine available. He had seen sales literature that urged readers to "Buy a Copper Washer for a Silver Dollar." The dollar was the down

payment. The washer was a great blessing for Christine.

            Luna May, wife of their son, Fred, died January 1, 1914, leaving five children motherless. They were twins Ora Averill and Cora Aerial, 10; Edna Mae, 6; Frederick Spaulding, 4, and Earl Newell, 2. Eva, then 18, tended these children in Fred's home for a while and then asked her mother and father if she could bring them over to their new, larger home. They granted her wish. Christine was still serving as Relief Society president. She just took her new responsibilities at home in stride. The children made their home with their

grandparents for three years until Fred remarried in 1917. Eva and Sara and some of the boys were still home and helped a great deal with the care of the younger children.

            Temple work was important to Christine and Friedrich. In October of 1906 they took all of Friedrich's children by his first wife, except Ernst and Barbara, and traveled with them to Salt Lake City to go to the temple. Ernst was in Germany and Barbara (Babette) was married to a non-Mormon at the time. There, on October 6, all of the children, including the three who died as babies, were sealed to their parents. Christine stood proxy for Friedrich's first wife, Anna Maria Bauer. Chris, the youngest son in the first marriage, was 20, and went through the temple for the first time on the same day. Barbara, Anna's oldest daughter, was sealed to them in 1955. Ernst was sealed in 1983.

            Ten years later the two Walz sisters, Christina Magdalena and Christine Gertraude, traveled with the Brenners to the Logan Temple. There, on Thursday, June 29, 1916, they were sealed to their parents. Their brother, Johann Conrad and the twin sisters, Philipina and Barbara, who died as babies, were sealed, too. Mary Brenner, Christina Magdalena's daughter, stood proxy for their mother.

           Christine was once struck by a lightning bolt. It came down a tree and jumped over to her. It affected her speech and burned her, but she recovered. Years later, in 1944, her son, John Buchmiller, was also struck by a lightning bolt. He carried the burn mark on his head for the rest of his life.

            When her daughter Emma had twins in 1916, Christine went to the Steiner farm home to help. The light gray brick home had just been built. Christine was not familiar with the floor plan and she mistook a doorway. Down to the cellar she fell. Even though she was hurt she refused to go home, as she knew her help was needed where she was.

            Karl was married in 1916 to Genevieve Cardon, "Gen," as she was called, remembered the many happy times she spent visiting with "Grandma Klingler." The younger woman was lonesome with Karl at work and without her own relatives nearby. She liked to listen to Christine reminisce about the past. She also loved the delicious soup that was often served for supper. Sometimes Karl and Gen were invited to stay and share it. When Gen was called to be the ward Primary president, Grandma Klingler offered to take care of their baby, Cardon.  Cardon was a "fussy" baby and his Grandma would sing to him.

            Christine always maintained she couldn't sing but she did sing and hum an old German tune to her children and grandchildren as she rocked them to sleep. Gen learned the song and sang it to her other children. Christine loved the old German sayings such as "Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today. All the lazy folks say." When her grandchildren were small she would hold them and say a rhyming fingerplay in German. The English goes something like this: "Batcha, batcha, cookies baker has made. Eggs and salt, sugar and meal. Saffron makes the cookies yellow."

            Christine tried to learn as much as she could, Gen recalled. When the Church started having annual Leadership Week at Ricks College, Christine attended. She was pleased that Gen was taking care of her son, Cardon, in a "new way" that each had learned in different places. He was in short clothes, was fed only every four hours, and Gen had learned a new way for putting on diapers.

Christine Gertraude Walz - Part 8

           Electricity came to Rexburg in the late 1890s. In August of 1898 Fremont Stake was organized with Thomas E. Ricks as the new stake president. By late 1899 the railroad had come as far north as Rexburg and the tracks were about a block west of the Klingler home. The settlement reached city status in 1903.

Main Street, Rexburg, Idaho

            Some of the older Klingler children from the first wife were getting married during this period and were setting up their own homes. Several of the boys were working in other areas. Godfrey was sent on a mission to Germany from the farming ward of Independence. John, Karl, George, and Bill served missions later. Eva served when she was 68.

3rd Ward Meeting house 1907

            During the quarterly conference held in June 1907, Rexburg was again divided into three wards. This time the Third Ward was in the southwest part of town, the Second Ward in the northwest, and the First Ward on the east side. Hyrum Ricks, Sr. was sustained as bishop of the Third Ward with George Steiner, Casper's son, and Conrad Steffen as counselors.

            On July 7, 1907, Christine Gertrude Buchmiller Klingler was sustained as president of the Third Ward Relief Society. She chose Lula C. Anderson and Elizabeth Ricks as her counselors. Olive Buckley was her secretary, and Frannie Bieri, treasurer. By the following December a new rock chapel was finished and meetings were being held in it. The chapel was located a block west of the Klingler property next to the railroad tracks. The Relief Society under Christine's leadership held a number of bazaars to raise money for a new white picket fence around the grounds. Later, money was raised to plant lawns and trees. In 1912 a donation of $28.80 was given by the Third Ward Relief Society as its share of the LDS Church's China and U.S. flood

relief projects. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, $25.60 in cash and 775 pounds of flour were donated to war victims. The flour was the Third Ward Relief Society's share of Fremont Stake's carload of 57,000 pounds sent to the suffering Belgians. The money also went to the Belgians. In 1916 the sisters of the Relief Society were asked to save their pennies to help build a new temple in Hawaii.

            Hard cash was a rarity. Besides the bazaars the Relief Society sisters were asked to collect and sell the eggs laid by their hens on Sunday. The proceeds would then be added to the Relief Society funds. The Sunday eggs were known as "the Relief Society eggs."

            In later years Christine's son Karl recalled a personal experience with eggs. He was a teenager at the time. His mother had asked him to get his new pony and take a bucket of eggs uptown to be sold at one of the stores. He set the bucket on top of a large fence post before he dismounted to open the gate. After the gate was open he jumped back on the pony but the animal suddenly bolted into the post. Of course, there were broken eggs all over him, the pony, and the ground. His mother came running from the house really angry with Karl because the eggs were all broken. However, a neighbor woman had seen the accident and

assured Christine it was the pony that had caused the problem. It is not known whether these were Relief Society eggs or some of the many eggs Christine sold to help raise cash for the family.

            The boys in the family chauffeured their mother around the ward in a buggy with a horse or horses as she visited her Relief Society members. Sometimes she didn't need the service - she could visit them right in her home. They were new immigrants from Europe who were temporarily housed with the Klinglers until they could move out on their own. The Riplinger family was just one of the families who started out this way.

            Only a few things such as salt and sugar were bought at a store. Christine's husband, Friedrich Ludwig Klingler, grew vegetables in a large garden on their lot. When the vegetables were ready to harvest the family kept what it needed and sold the surplus. The Klinglers had regular vegetable customers who put in their orders a week ahead. Some of the vegetables were made up into attractive bundles and the younger boys would peddle them from their wagon. Each boy was allowed to keep some of the money. Bill, who began having vision problems early in his life, didn't think it was fair that he had to use his vegetable money to buy his own glasses. Several grocery stores also bought vegetables from the Klinglers. Mrs. Jacobs of the Fogg and Jacobs store bought from the boys and remembered their wagon.

            The family also had two large raspberry patches. When the berries were ripe Christine and the children would pick in one patch while the other was being watered. More than 100 quarts were bottled each year. The extra berries were sold. Once when Emma picked berries for a woman who had ordered them in advance, the woman refused to pay the agreed-on price. Christine said they would let it go this time, but she said she would not take any more orders or sell to the woman again. Eva and Sara were paid 10 cents for each dollar's worth marketed. Sara said, "We got lots of money but I was always in the raspberry patch on my birthday, which was August 20". Currants were grown and bottled or sold. Several varieties of apple trees and a pear tree were also grown on their lot.

            Besides growing their own fruit and vegetables the family had cows to milk and pigs to slaughter. The Klinglers made sausage, head cheese, and smoked hams and produced plenty of lard. In the fall the father and boys usually killed and dressed a fat calf. Chickens not only furnished eggs but also provided tasty Sunday dinners, mid-week treats, and picnic fare. Grain and alfalfa were raised on an 80-acre farm which the family had acquired south of Rexburg. Their livestock were fed hay and grain, and the wheat was taken to the local mill to be ground into flour. The mill also purchased other grain from the Klinglers. Milk was sold

at five cents a bucket for years. They also kept some of the poor families in the ward in milk.

           

Behind the home were two root cellars. One was for vegetables and one was for fruit. It was Friedrich's contention that the two products should not be mixed because the vegetables would spoil the flavor of the fruit. In the vegetable cellar were cabbages, winter radishes, potatoes, many kinds of squash, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and crocks full of sauerkraut, which Friedrich made from cabbage. Other crocks held Christine's sour pickles, which were described as "fabulous" by all who tasted them.

            Apples took up a lot of space in the fruit cellar. They were stored on shallow shelves, according to their variety. In winter months Friedrich or one of the older children would go into the fruit cellar and fill bowls of apples for the family to enjoy. The apples stayed crisp and flavorful all winter. Hundreds of bottles of fruit were also stored in the cellar.

            Friedrich used reeds to make sturdy baskets. They were used by the family for gathering and storing produce from the garden. They were also used in the home.

            While the vegetable garden was the responsibility of her husband, Christine delighted in her flower garden. The front yard of the home and the side of the lot were planted with beautiful flowers such as bleeding hearts, peonies, and narcissus, to name a few varieties. The Klingler flowers were a showplace in the neighborhood. Christine also had beautiful plants in her home all year long.

            Christine's sour pickles were mentioned earlier. She always selected the best cucumbers picked from the garden. They were washed thoroughly and put into crocks. A heavy brine was made from salt, vinegar, water, and spices, and poured over the cucumbers.  They were kept in the brine under the weight of large dinner plates for several weeks and then bottled. Weeks or months later when they came out of the bottles they were salty, crisp, and delicious.

            Another of her favorite recipes was for mustard pickles. Apparently, she once gave the recipe to her daughter, Emma, as it was later found in her cookbook:

                         3 tablespoons mustard worked together with 1 tablespoon sugar

                         1 egg beaten with the above until smooth.

                         1 teacup vinegar and add to above working until smooth, then

                          cook for two or three minutes stirring aU the time. When cool add

                         1 tablespoon olive oil and work until very smooth.

                         Use (add) cauliflower, whole small cucumbers and small onions.

            She often made chicken and noodles for the older children when they came home for visits. The dish was a special treat and they all enjoyed it. She also made Brindly (sic) soup, which was flour browned in lard or butter with milk added to make it like thin gravy. Then, to transform Brindly soup into "noodley soup," homemade noodles were grated into it.  She made the noodle dough with eggs, flour, and a bit of salt. The dough was rolled out and cut very fine. Another soup known as Grindiy soup was a hot broth heated to boiling with a batter then stirred into it to form small lumps like dumplings.

            The family also enjoyed Christine's wilted lettuce salad. It was made by frying bacon until it was crisp, then pouring the bacon fat over fresh lettuce leaves from the garden - with a bit of vinegar and the bacon added. She also made a bean salad that everyone liked, but none of her descendants could remember how it was made.

            Another of her favorites was Apfel Kuchen, apple cake. The tasty dessert was made with a rich bread or biscuit dough rolled out and placed in a very large dripper pan.  Apple slices were spread on the top and then an egg custard mix was poured over everything.  It was then baked very slowly. "Mmmmmmm good!" later wrote Dawn Klingler, a granddaughter. Dawn's mother was Genevieve, wife of Karl. Genevieve learned how to make the delicious dessert from visits to Christine's home.

            On Sundays Christine roasted enough meat for the main meal and for "piecing" by the children in the evening. The house seemed to be a gathering place for young people, especially on Sunday evenings. Christine made German almond or "Marzipan" cookies by pouring the batter into molds with designs on them and then laying them on the hot stove. They were very hard and could be stored for months. She made springerli, too. These were another type of cookie.

Christine Gertraude Walz - Part 7

             Friedrich's family included Babette Christine (Barbara Ronnenkamp), Maria Christine (Oswald), Friedrich Gottfried, known as Fred Jr., Anna Maria (Mary Ellsworth), Caroline (Spaulding and then Roos), Gottfried Christopher, known as Godfrey, and Christoph, known as Chris. An older son, Ernst, did not come to America with his family. Three children of Friedrich and Anna Maria died as babies.

            Barbara had married the year before at the age of 14 1/2 and was in her own home, and Fred Jr., 13, was helping on his Aunt Charlotte's farm while their son was on a mission. The other five children would join Christine's three to form the new family. Eight children and two parents made the one-room log house bulge. Friedrich kept his job in Pocatello and came home when he could. But Christine was cheerful, a good housekeeper, and an excellent cook. They were sure the marriage would work. Some of the overcrowding was eased when Friedrich built one room, and later another, onto Christine's small log home.

Rexburg, Idaho

            Karl Conrad was born in these crowded conditions on November 30, 1891, He was named for Christine's first husband, and for her father and her nephew, both named Conrad. By the following June, it was decided to put the three Buchmiller children out with relatives. Emelia, 10, and Lena, 7, went to live with Christine's sister, Christina Magdalena (Auntie Walz). They would help take care of her invalid husband while she was serving as a nurse and midwife. John Henry, 8 1/2, who had just finished the third grade, would live with Conrad Walz and his wife, Eliza, out in Burton. He would be taught farming. John was not

at all happy about leaving. When his stepfather asked John to give him part of his earnings, John said, "No! I'll give some to my mother but not to you."

            Auntie Walz was glad to have the help of the girls. She was very busy and hadn't been able to give George the attention he needed. Over the course of her career Auntie Walz helped more than 2,000 mothers give birth to babies, some as far away as Ashton and Driggs.  When Uncle George died in 1895 Emelia moved in with Auntie Walz's daughter, Mary Brenner, to learn sewing and dressmaking. Mary and her husband, Jacob, lived in Rexburg. Auntie Walz ' other married daughter, Christina Magdalena Walz Pfost, took Lena to help care for the Pfost children.

            Soon more children were born to the Klingler family. George Ludwig was born on October 8, 1894. His first name was for Auntie Walz' husband, and his second name was also his father's middle name. Two daughters came next — Eva Rosina on January 28, 1896, and Sarah, on August 20, 1897. Rosina was a Klingler femily name. Sarah later changed the spelling to Sara. Three boys followed the two girls. Wilhelm Wilfbrd was bom April 3, 1899.  He later was called William or Bill. Frank Jakob came November 22, 1900. Sorrow entered the home again as he lived only until October 14,1901. Their last son, Alma, was born August 12, 1902, just a month after his mother's 43rd birthday. Auntie Walz helped Christine with all

the deliveries.

Ricks Academy formerly Bannock Stake Academy

            The babies were blessed and, when old enough, baptized and confirmed. Education had to be considered. In 1888, before Christine had remarried, the Bannock Stake Academy was opened in Rexburg. The students were divided into three groups. Tuition was set at four dollars for intermediate students, three dollars for preparatory, and two dollars for primary children . Families with several school-age children sometimes could not afford to pay tuition for all of them. This was the case in the new Buchmiller-Klingler family, so some of the children did not get the education their parents wanted them to have.

            Life was very busy for Christine, as the children needed much care. Friedrich couldn't help as he was away most of the time in Pocatello. With the assistance of the older girls, Christine prepared food, made clothes, knitted the family stockings, and washed clothes on a washboard. Both Christine and Friedrich worried about the diphtheria and smallpox epidemics of 1891-92 and the measles outbreaks every spring. An occasional Indian scare was another problem. Christine had little time to think about her former home in Germany or events of the recent past.

            Auntie Walz always seemed to be readily available when her sister's family had illness or emergencies. Once when the children were playing Karl accidentally chopped off Eva's finger. Someone sent for Auntie Walz. She came as quickly as she could and put something on the injured finger, wrapped it up, and saved it. Another time when the whole family had typhoid fever she was the one who nursed them back to health. George was very ill and took longer than the others to recover. During this time everyone "spoiled" him and from then on until he was grown he was known as the "pet" of the family. There was an

emergency that Auntie Walz missed — a fire the boys started that Christine and Emelia put out by themselves.

            In August of 1887, just a few months before Christine lost her first husband, the Rexburg Second Ward was organized. The ward covered the southwest part of town. The bishop was Casper Steiner and his counselors were Roman Siepert and Conrad Walz. Auntie Walz was set apart as the ward's first Relief Society president. She served 18 years. The Third Ward was organized at the same time and covered the northwest section of Rexburg. It was merged into the Second Ward five years later.

First Ward Meeting House

Second Ward Meeting House

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.