Partible, bilateral inheritance … and Bullers 3

In the first post of this series we learned that typical Mennonite inheritance practices were partible and bilateral. The latter term indicates that all children regardless of their gender were treated equally in the division of a parent’s estate: each child received an equal share. The partible aspect supported the bilateral one: an estate was partitioned or divided into shares, so that each heir received her or his rightful part. In many cases a surviving spouse was granted half of the deceased spouse’s estate, and the rest was divided between the children.

The second post explored how those practices may have been worked out after the death of Peter D Buller in 1897: it appeared at first glance that Peter D’s son Peter P bought the farmland that was part of the children’s half of the estate and, at some point, the remainder that had passed on to his mother Sarah Siebert Buller.

After a brief detour (excursus) identifying Peter D as the homesteader of the south 80 acres of farm, we are ready to consider yet another curious piece of evidence: a 1923 plat map of Farmers Valley in Hamilton County.

The writing is small and difficult to make out, so let’s focus in on the northeast quarter of section 12.

The 1916 plat map showed Peter Buller as owner of the entire quarter. However, seven years later, in 1923, not only does Peter not own the quarter, but ownership of the quarter has been divided, with H. B. Alger owning 120 acres and Mrs. J. Penner the northeast 40 acres. Notice further that Mrs. John Penner also owned the 80 acres to the west of the former Buller farm, and in 1916 that 80 acres had been owned by John Penner, the obvious conclusion being that he died in the interim.

What is curious is not that the land was sold nor that a neighbor (Mrs. John Penner) bought it; what is striking is that the farm was not sold as a unit. If, in fact, Peter P owned the entire 160 acres, one would expect him to have sold it as an undivided unit. It is certainly not impossible that he divided up his land and sold 75 percent of it to one person and 25 percent to another; it is simply a little odd.

One further consideration deserves mention: Sarah Siebert died 15 February 1922, that is, a year before the 1923 plat map was made. Is it possible that Sarah still owned the land (perhaps “owning” and “holding title” were not identical then?) and that the division took place as part of the distribution of her estate? To be clear, there is no direct evidence supporting this notion and plenty of evidence (the 1916 plat map) calling it into question. However, it is an intriguing thought.

If Sarah retained title to half of the 160-acre farm when her husband Peter D died, she would have had property (perhaps the north 80) that could be divided (partible), liquidated, and distributed to all ten children (bilateral). This would provide a plausible explanation for the division of the land, with Mrs. John Penner buying a 40-acre plot.

Without conducting a land title history for the northeast quarter of section 12, we cannot know the course of events with any certainty. At the moment, therefore, we should probably keep the issue of what happened to the farm after Peter D’s passing an open question.