Sarah Siebert Buller and Family

The two previous posts dealing with this photograph (here and here, under a different title) focused on identifying the people pictured; this post turns our attention to the buildings in the background. We know when the photo was taken (1904) and who it includes (Johann Siebert, his daughter Sarah Siebert Buller, and six of her children with their families), but we have no idea at this time where the photo was taken. Whose house was this?

It is reasonable to imagine that the house was owned by one of the families or heads of family in the photograph. We can exclude Marie M. Buller, who did not marry until 1909; Jacob P. Buller, who did not marry until 1925; and Abraham P. Buller, who did not marry until 1905. This leaves us with five possibilities: 

• Johann Siebert
• Sarah Siebert Buller
• Peter and Sarah Buller Dick
• Henry and Katharina Buller Epp
• David and Margaretha Epp Buller

Before we go further, it may help to focus on the house itself, minimizing the visual distraction of all the people standing in front of it.

The house seems to have only one story, since there are no windows where a second story might be. I imagine that the area under the peaks was unfinished, good for storage but not for living. The house has two roof lines, so it the floor plan is sort of a T. The entrance to the house is through an open porch with ornate trim; the house seems more finished than rugged. 

I call attention to these features in hopes that someone with memory of the places where one or more of the five candidates above lived might recognize the house based on its layout or porch trim.

Several other background items merit attention as well, since some sort of building is visible behind each end of the house. 

With a little help from Photoshop’s adjustment of the photograph’s brightness and contrast, we can clearly see a two-story structure in the background. We see the faint outline of a cupola on the peak of the barn roof, along with what appears to a fairly large opening on the second floor of the barn.

Both the side (left) and the end (right) of the barn are covered with narrow horizontal siding. The dark color suggests that the barn may well have been painted the traditional red.

Although we cannot see the entire barn, the part that is visible gives the impression of a large structure. This is not a machine shed or a modest-sized barn. It is likely the equal of the Peter P barn pictured  here or the HP Buller barn shown here. To be clear, I do not believe that the barn in the background of this picture is either of those barns, especially considering that both houses with those barns have two stories, but they give us a point of comparison that helps us to imagine how the rest of the barn looked.

On the right end of our original photograph is another structure, this one harder to make out. In fact, it is impossible to tell exactly what it might be. A line across from the edge of the house eaves might suggest a roofline in the background, but the height of the roof above the base of the structure seems out of proportion. 

One wonders if we are viewing a silo or the side of a machine shed. A farmyard would not have sported a second large barn, so one of those seems the most likely option. The presence of what appears to be a window in the side would favor a machine shed, presumably with a shop area inside.

The main goal of noting these details is to jog someone’s memory, who can then tell us where the photograph was taken. Until that time, we must satisfy ourselves by reflecting further about our five options, working backward through the list and comparing it to several York County plat maps.

1. David and Margaretha Epp Buller do not appear on the 1911 map, but a Marg. Buller does for section 3 of Henderson Township (see below). So, seven years after the photograph was taken, we have the possibility that this couple lived on that farm.

The possibility becomes more likely when we compare the 1924 map along with its corresponding directory, which lists David S. Buller and his wife Margaretha living on section 3. Presumably David and Margaretha could have lived at the same place in 1904, and that could be the place in the photograph. Now let your eyes wander slightly to the left in both plat maps as we consider the next possibility.

1911 Plat Map

1924 Plat Map

2. Henry and Katharina Buller Epp lived just across the road to the west from David and Margaretha. This is not surprising when we realize that Margaretha Epp and Henry (Heinrich G.) Epp were sister and brother—and that their father died in 1903 and their mother in the following year, 1904. 

The 1911 map leads us to think that a Henry C. Epp lived in section 4, but the 1924 directory leaves no doubt: it is Henry G., the one in the picture, since it lists his wife Katharina and all their children. Thus, the farmstead in the photograph could be theirs as well.

Before we move on, we should note that these first two couples presumably ended up on adjoining properties due to the death of the Epp parents Gerhard and Katharina. I suspect that Gerhard owned both the 240 acres of section 4 (the home place?) and the 160 acres of section 3 and that the two pieces of land passed to these two children upon his and his wife’s deaths. Interestingly, the property remained in Margaretha Buller’s name for as long as we know; she owned the land independently of her husband even in the early twentieth century.

3. Peter and Sarah Buller Dick can be excluded from consideration, since apparently they did not live in Nebraska at this time. Rather, according to GRANDMA their children were born in Mountain Lake, Minnesota, which means that they were visiting Nebraska when this photograph was taken. This is not surprising in the least; as we noted earlier (here), one of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller’s sons also moved to Mountain Lake.

4. Sarah Siebert Buller had been a widow for seven years when this photograph was taken. Did she still live on the farm a mile west of Henderson that she and Peter D had built on the open prairie? If so, which of her children lived at the home place?

As noted above, the oldest son, Johann Buller, was living in Mountain Lake at this time. The second son was our ancestor, Peter P, who married in 1890 and presumably moved to his wife Margaretha Epp’s family farm shortly after. Third came Katharina, wife of Henry G. Epp (see above). Child four was David S., who is pictured here but apparently lived on his wife Margaretha Epp’s inherited farm. The fifth child was Cornelius P Buller, about whom little is known. He married in 1898 but has no children listed; his wife passed away sometime before 1910, and he lived another six decades but apparently never remarried. Child six was Sarah, pictured here and living in Mountain Lake. After her came Jacob, pictured here at age twenty-five. According to the Buller Family Record, he attended Fremont Normal School and then graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1911, after which he married (in 1925). Presumably he still lived at home in 1904. Child eight was Heinrich (or HP), who married in 1901; we are uncertain exactly where in the Henderson area he lived at that time, but it apparently was not on the Peter D and Sarah family farm. Abraham Buller came next; he is pictured here at age twenty, still living at home, no doubt, at least until he married in 1905. The next child was named Maria, but she died at birth, so four years later when Sarah Siebert Buller gave birth to another daughter they named her Maria M Buller. She is pictured here at age fourteen, obviously still living at home.

This long rehearsal has helped us sort out what we can know about where Sarah lived in 1904. If she lived on the farm west of Henderson, she did so with the children who still lived at home: Jacob, Abraham, and Maria. None of the other children, it seems, ever returned to live on the family farm. Several moved out of state, and several lived on their spouse’s family farms in the area. All that to say that we could be looking at the house where Sarah and her unmarried children lived, although we have no reason to favor this house over options 1 and 2 above.

5. Finally, Johann Siebert was also widowed at this time, and we do not know where he lived. In fact, it is not clear to me where he originally settled in Nebraska. I think it was section 12 in Henderson Township (across the road east from where Peter P and Margaretha lived), but it may have been section 14 to the southwest of Peter P. The section 12 place was owned by Johann’s son Peter Siebert in 1911; the section 14 place was owned by another son, Cornelius Siebert, at that time (see both plat maps above). Whichever of the two was the original Siebert place is a candidate for the location of the photograph—provided that Johann continued to live on his old home place even when it belonged to one of his sons. If he did, and if the photograph was taken at that place, then we need to explain why the other Sieberts who lived there do not appear in the picture.

However, we do not know that Johann continued to live on the original Siebert farm. In fact, it is also possible that he moved in with his daughter Sarah and her children. At this point we simply do not know. The most that we can say is that it is unlikely that the photograph was taken at Johann’s original farm, wherever it was located, given the fact that the Siebert who then owned the farm does not appear in the photo.

In the end, we have three strong possibilities for the site of the photograph: the David and Margaretha Epp Buller farm, the Henry and Katharina Buller Epp farm, and the Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller farm, provided that Sarah and her unmarried children still lived there in 1904. None of these locations has more to commend it over the others, although sentiment would like to think that the photograph was taken on the Peter D and Sarah farm, so that we have a picture of that house. Perhaps someday we will be able to say more. For now we must be content to know more than when we started this exploration, even if we do not have a final answer.

***

For the sake of argument, I note that the simplest solution that would tie all these threads together is as follows: Johann Siebert moved in with daughter Sarah and her children after both were widowed, and they all lived on the original Peter D and Sarah farm, where the photograph was taken. The two other local families (David and Margaretha Epp Buller and Henry and Katharina Buller Epp) visited that farm when another daughter of Sarah (Peter and Sarah Buller Dick) visited from Mountain Lake.  I would like to think this simple solution is correct, but we do not clear evidence supporting it.

One additional question comes to mind: Why are Peter P and HP Buller not in attendance? They also lived in the area, and it seems odd that all of Sarah’s other children are there but not these two brothers.