Grandpa’s siblings 1

A series of posts over the next several weeks will offer background on and photographs of most of Grandpa’s eleven brothers and sisters, the children of Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller.

Peter and Margaretha’s first child, also named Peter, was born 10 August 1891 and died eight days later, on 18 August. He is buried in the Mennonite (Buller–Siebert) cemetery.

Less than a year later, on 29 July 1892, Margaretha bore a second child, a daughter likewise named Margaretha. Although we cannot be certain, the photograph below is probably of this daughter. The picture was taken in 1912, when Margaretha would have been twenty; this seems to correspond to what we see in the photo.

Margaretha married Klaas T. Friesen on 27 June 1912 (the same year the photograph was taken) and had one son and three daughters with him.

Like most of our ancestors, Margaretha and Klaas were farmers. Furthermore, as with most of their children, Peter P and Margaretha gave the young couple their start. As shown in the plat map of York County’s Hays Township below, Klaas and Margratha Friesen owned the south half of the southeast quarter of section 6 (the enlarged extract in the center shows section 6).

Note further that Peter P owned the north half of the same section as well as the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 5 at that time (1924). The Farmer’s Directory that accompanies this plat map (see here) states that Klaas and Margratha (sic) rented the two pieces of land owned by Peter P in Hays Township.

Why is this important to note? First, it leads to a correction of an earlier statement, namely, that Peter P and Margaretha farmed 560 acres by 1924 (see here). In fact, Klaas and their daughter Margaretha farmed some of that land (ca. 120 acres), the parcels located in Hays Township.

Second, and more important, this information provides further evidence for Peter P and Margaretha’s practice of acquiring land for their children. In all likelihood, they bought both the south half and the north half of the southeast quarter of section 6, then (as they did with Grandpa and Grandma) gave Klaas and Margaretha 40 acres of the south half and sold them the other 40 acres of the south half. In addition, Peter P and Margaretha rented to Klaas and Margaretha the 120 acres that the parents still owned: the north half of the section 6 property and the 40 acres in section 5 to the east, which were no doubt purchased at the same time. So it was that Peter P and Margaretha took steps to ensure that the landlessness problem that had plagued the family in Molotschna was not repeated in Nebraska.

How long Klaas and Margaretha lived on the farm thus provided we do not know. Margaretha passed away at the age of fifty-two, on 10 November 1944. She is buried alongside Klaas (died 1956) in the Bethesda Cemetery northeast of Henderson (see here).