Matrilocality … and Bullers 4

We have one more clear instance of Buller matrilocality, which will be followed by at least one post observing how Mennonite inheritance practices, and perhaps matrilocality, might explain something that we noted several years ago. But now for the topic at hand.

Peter P was not the only son of Peter D and Sarah to practice matrilocality. Peter P’s older brother Johann did the same. According to the Buller Family Record, Johann married Anna Thieszen just three months before Peter P and Margaretha married. The Grandma database picks up the story there.

On November 19, 1889, he married Anna Tieszen. For 5 years they lived with her parents on a farm south of Mt. Lake, Minnesota. The following 2 years they lived in Mt. Lake and he had the privilege of attending school with Rev. J. J. Balzer and Isaak Bargen as teachers. After that they moved to the farm close to the Bruderthaler Church and there he lived the rest of his life and also passed away on this place. They shared life’s joys and sorrows for 58 years. 12 children were born to them of which 8 preceded him in death. He departed from this life suddenly on April 15, 1947. He reached the age of 79 years, 6 months, and 10 days. … He was buried in the Bruderthaler Church cemetery. Lot 12, Plot 4.

Like Peter P a few months later, Johann and his bride immediately lived with her parents, yet another instance of matrilocality—at least for five years. Why Johann attended school for two years and then returned to farming is not certain, but it would not surprise to find out that it was related to the death of Anna’s father in April 1895 (i.e., roughly five years after they were married). In other words, they moved because they were presumably not in a position to buy the Thieszen farm from the other heirs to the estate.

In this case, the couple were able to secure their own farmland, although the plat map for Midway Township in Cottonwood County, Minnesota, would lead one to believe that the farmland probably was no more than a 40-acre plot plus an 18-acre plot, both north of the Bruderthaler (EMB) church mentioned in his Grandma entry.

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If my memory can be trusted, Dad (Carl) once took his grandfather Peter P along when driving back to the Twin Cities, with the express purpose of stopping in Mountain Lake so Peter could see some of his relatives. Peter P’s brother Johann had passed on before then, but four of his and Anna’s twelve children were still living and probably still in the area. Perhaps we all would do well to learn more about other descendants of Peter D and Sarah.