After establishing the likelihood that Henry took up management (as a renter) of the Buller family farm sometime before 1910, the previous post in this series ended with two questions: When did Sarah leave the farm and Henry move in? Where did Sarah live after she left the family farm? Upon reflection, I see that the first question is poorly conceived, since it implies not only that Henry left the farm and then returned (we do not know if that was the case) but also that Sarah’s departure took place at the same time as Henry’s return. A more reasonable way to approach the matter is to divide this one question into two: Where did Henry live during the first decade of the twentieth century? Since we know that Sarah did not live on the farm in 1910, when did she leave? This post will attempt to answer these questions.
We begin by revisiting the 1900 census in order to recall who was living on the family farm with Sarah at that time, three years after the death of Peter D.
Below Sarah’s name we see four of her ten living children—Jacob (twenty), Henry (eighteen), Abraham (sixteen), and Mary (ten)—and the servant Maggie Quiring. By June 1900, when the census was taken, all of Sarah and Peter D’s other living children (Johann, Peter P, Katherina, David, Cornelius, and Sarah) were married and living elsewhere.
According to the Buller Family Record, sixteen months after the census, on 3 October 1901, Henry married Maria Janzen. This raises the obvious question of where the couple lived after they were wed. It is, of course, possible that Henry and Maria moved in with her family, David and Anna Braun Janzen, who lived in the Henderson area. It seems improbable that the newlyweds established their own independent household on a separate farm. Most likely of all, given the fact that Henry and Maria lived on the Buller farm by 1910, is that, instead of Henry leaving home to live elsewhere, Maria joined the household on the Buller family farm.
This hypothesis is supported by another recently discovered historical record.
The clipping above (modified to fit here) appeared in the 8 May 1902 Blue Valley Journal, a newspaper published in McCool Junction from 1897 to 1942. Included in the weekly section reporting real-estate transfers we find a sale from Peter Dick to Sarah Buller; the property is identified as lot 3 of block 5 in Henderson (more on this in a subsequent post).
Although we cannot be certain of the identity of either named party (there were several Peter Dicks and Sarah Bullers in the Henderson area at that time), it seems most likely that the Sarah Buller listed here was the widow of Peter D Buller. There may even be a further family connection. Looking back again at the Buller Family Record, we see that Peter D and Sarah had a daughter named after her mother. On 13 March 1898, that daughter Sarah married a man named Peter Dick. Was this the Peter Dick who sold the Henderson property to Sarah? We cannot say at present, but the possibility is intriguing.
The main takeaway from this newspaper clipping is the strong likelihood that Sarah left the Buller farm and moved into Henderson sometime in 1902. If so, then presumably she would have left the farm under the care of her oldest married child who did not already have a farm to tend, namely, Henry.
This suggested reconstruction is supported by an additional piece of evidence: the fact that Sarah’s next son to marry after Henry did not remain on the family farm. That son was Henry’s younger brother Abraham, who married Anna Petker on 18 November 1905. Although we cannot know with certainty where the couple lived immediately after they wed, the 1910 census reports that Abraham and Anna and their two children lived in Beaver precinct (to the north of Farmers Valley) at that time. In other words, it appears that the Buller family farm was not in need of a tenant when Abraham and Anna married, presumably because Henry and family already filled that role. Consequently, Abraham and Anna settled on a farm in the precinct to the north of Farmers Valley.
By pulling these and other historical pieces together, we can reconstruct a plausible timeline of events for the first years following Peter D’s death.
1. Peter D Buller died on 28 September 1897, leaving behind a widow Sarah and three married children who had moved out on their own and seven children still living at home.
2. Over the next three years, between 1897 and 1900, three children married and moved away, so that by 1900 Sarah, who still lived on the family farm, was the head of a household that included four unmarried children and a servant.
3. In 1901, Peter D and Sarah’s son Henry married Maria Janzen, who joined Henry and the rest of the family on the Buller farm.
4. In 1902, Sarah purchased a lot within Henderson and moved into town. Presumably she was joined by some, if not all, of her remaining unmarried children: Jacob, Abraham, and Mary/Maria.
5. In 1905, Peter D and Sarah’s son Abraham married Anna Petker, and they settled on a farm in Beaver precinct of Hamilton County.
The two main questions of this post have been given plausible answers: Henry did not leave the family farm when he married Maria Janzen; Sarah did leave the farm when she moved into Henderson in mid-1902. One intriguing question remains: Where did Sarah and family live in Henderson? We will explore the answer to that question in the following post.
No comments:
Post a Comment