South Dakota Bullers 3

The first two posts in this series laid the foundation for our investigation of a family of South Dakota Bullers. We learned the names of the family’s matriarch and patriarch—Aganetha Dirks and Heinrich Benjamin Buller—then focused on the latter (we will learn more about Aganetha later on), especially with regard to his place of birth (Piaski at Gąbin, in Plock County, Poland), his church affiliation (Deutsch Wymsyle), and his parentage (his father was Benjamin).

With those foundational facts in place, we are ready to turn to the family story related in William B. Buller’s Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller. I use the word story carefully to reflect both the title and the nature of the book. This is not history proper but rather the reminiscences of Heinrich Buller, a man who had lived a full life of more than four score years when he told his life’s story. His son William narrates how these memories came to be written down.

It was a cold and cheerless day in midwinter in the year 1915 that I was sitting by the side of my father, each in a cozy, comfortable armchair, drawn close to the fire. Snow fell fast, and a little wind surged and moaned as it swept through the bare trees. Altogether it was dreary, forbidding weather, but to us sitting by that cheery fire, these things tended only to increase the feeling of security and comfort.

We had been discussing at some length the great European War in which his sympathies (and mine as well) were strongly pro-German. On previous occasions, very similar to this one, long hours had been spent in discussing religion, our interest in Montana, and a number of other subjects. But on this particular day, father had been relating a certain incident in his life, which reminded me of my long-cherished determination to have him recount in full the story of his life. Hence, as we were sitting there, I asked him to give me as full an account of his and mother’s life as he could recall. With notebook and pencil in hand, I, for several days, took down the facts that form the basis of this sketch. For many days after that I had to question him about this or that incident, some place that I was not sure about, or a date or a name. Personally, I have always been interested in our family history and often have wondered what kind of men and women our ancestors before our immediate parents must have been. Accordingly I asked father to state as much as he could remember about them, as many generations in the past as he could go. (Buller 1915, 6; throughout this series I will silently correct the occasional typo)

As we will learn in due course, Aganetha’s life before marrying Heinrich is recounted in great detail, but it is important to keep in mind that the telling is all Heinrich’s, since Aganetha had passed away six years earlier, on 5 January 1909. Indeed, Heinrich would soon join her in death, since he departed this life on 2 March 1916.

The European war that William references was World War I. Some readers might be surprised to read that Heinrich and William were pro-German, but this did not entail any disloyalty to U.S. interests, since the U.S. did not join the war for another two years, on 6 April 1917. At the time of Heinrich’s telling, in early 1915, the primary combatants consisted of the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Many Mennonites of that time thought of themselves as German, so it is not surprising that Heinrich and William’s sympathies lay with the Triple Alliance.

Following this brief explanation of the circumstances behind his writing of the family story, William proceeds with a single paragraph about his father Heinrich’s great-grandfather: 

Father remembers only one incident about his great-grandfather, and that must have happened when he was a very young boy. It was on the occasion of a visit with his father to the great-grandfather’s home that his youthful eyes espied a canary bird in his cage. It was hanging there in its place of honor, the sole article of luxury, no doubt, that the progenitor afforded—which said canary he begged his father to get for him. He was greatly grieved when they left the premises with [without?] the cherished bird. Of his grandfather, he has more distinct recollections, and it is therefore with him that I shall begin this record. (Buller 1915, 6–7)

Heinrich’s story begins with a frustratingly ambiguous story about his great-grandfather. Missing are a number of key facts: which great-grandfather this was (he potentially had four), the name of his great-grandfather, and where the visit took place. Did Heinrich recall his great-grandfather’s name but neglect to mention it, or does this omission signal that he had forgotten this key detail? We may never know, since Heinrich’s focus was on the canary that he wished to make his own.

Fortunately, Heinrich had “more distinct recollections” of his grandfather, which memories will help us to fill in some details of the Buller family history. We will pick up the story here in the following post.

Work Cited

Buller, William B. 1915. Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller. Parker, SD: privately printed.