We should admit at the outset that, with no official land-transfer document available to us, we will not be able to answer this question with certainty. Still, we can use the question to learn more about our family and the times in which they lived.
If you recall, Aunts Sarah and Marie wrote in the Buller Family Record that their mother Margaretha lived on the same farm for fifty-nine years, after which she and Peter P moved to California in 1936. In other words, Margaretha lived on the Epp family farm from 1877 (when Cornelius and Katharina Epp and their children came to the U.S. from Molotschna colony) until 1936. Stated differently, there was never a time when Margaretha lived somewhere else in Nebraska. Clearly, this means that Peter P moved in with his parents-in-law when he and Margaretha married in 1890.
Within six years both of Margaretha’s parents had passed away (Cornelius in 1894 and Katharina in 1896), and from that point on—as far as we know—Peter P and Margaretha owned the entire farm. We have already wondered why, of the seven living Epp children, Margaretha and her husband Peter acquired the farm (see here), so we will not return to that question. Another one, however, remains: How did Margaretha and Peter acquire the farm: by purchase or by gift?
The idea of the parents simply giving 160 acres to a child is not as outlandish as it might first seem. According to L. F. Garey’s Land Transfers in Twelve Counties in Nebraska, 1928–1933, a sizeable number of farms were transferred via gift. York County is not part of the study, but Hamilton County is, so it will serve as a point of comparison. Over a six-year period land transfers in Hamilton County were divided as follows among the three primary types of arrangements:
year
|
sale
|
foreclosure
|
gift
|
1928
|
70.62%
|
8.33%
|
21.05%
|
1929
|
73.94%
|
9.62%
|
16.44%
|
1930
|
67.03%
|
12.91%
|
20.06%
|
1931
|
69.74%
|
12.18%
|
18.08%
|
1932
|
53.82%
|
27.35%
|
18.83%
|
1933
|
49.24%
|
25.60%
|
25.16%
|
We should exercise caution, since these figures are from a time thirty years after the Epp farm was transferred to Peter and Margaretha. Nevertheless, the percentage of total land transfers by gift remains fairly constant around 20 percent. In other words, for every four farms sold voluntarily or as part of a foreclosure, one farm was simply given to its new owner.
One in five is a high percentage of transfers by gift, and it lends support to the notion that Cornelius and Katharina might have given the farm to Peter and Margaretha instead of having them purchase it. Garey states, “A considerable amount of land is given away every year, the chief recipients of which are heirs or relatives” (1938, 3). His comment raises another possibility, that Margaretha and Peter inherited the farm when Cornelius or Katharina passed away (i.e., in 1894 or 1896).
We will likely never know if Peter and Margaretha purchased or were given the family farm. If the former, then they probably paid $28–$31 an acre for the land (see the prices in the previous post). If the latter, then their acquisition was not unusual in that time and place, merely one of the 20 percent of land transfers that took place by gift.
Whatever the explanation, Peter P’s active acquisition of additional farmland through 1924 seems to indicate fairly clearly that he was not saddled by debt. Presumably by that time he owned the land free and clear and thus was able to expand his holdings. We will learn more about mortgage policies and practices a little further down the road, but in the next post we will return to the matter of land prices, specifically how much was paid for the Lushton farm where Grandpa and Grandma and their eight children lived and worked.
Source Cited
Garey, L. F. 1938. Land Transfers in Twelve Counties in Nebraska, 1928–1933. Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bulletin 107. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, College of Agriculture, Experiment Station. Available online here.
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