We begin the David and Helena’s Children series with Elisabeth, whose descendant contacted the blog a little while back and prompted an exploration to learn more about this sister of Peter D. This post gathers in one place all that we currently know about Elisabeth. It draws from Elisabeth’s entry in GRANDMA (9849), the Buller Family Record, and two memorial accounts: one for Elisabeth (here) and one for Abraham Braun, her husband (here).
1. Birth
According to GRANDMA and the Buller Family Record, Elisabeth was born 8 February 1847 to David and Helena Zielke Buller. GRANDMA lists her as the couple’s third child and first daughter, while the BFR has her as the third child and second daughter. In this case, the BFR is correct, being confirmed by the 1850 Heinrichsdorf census (here; see the complete discussion here). Either way, our ancestor Peter D was Elisabeth’s older sister by two years (he was born 11 January 1845).
GRANDMA reports that Elisabeth was born in the Molotschna village Fischau, but this is clearly in error. Not only do we have lack any record of David and Helena ever living in Fischau, but we have documentary evidence of the family living in Waldheim in 1847, the year of Elisabeth’s birth. That is, in 1845 David and Helena added their names to a list of Waldheim residents who wished to return to Volhynia (here), and this group of thirty-five families did not leave until 1848 (here). In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we can conclude that Elisabeth was born in Waldheim, just like her older brother Peter D.
2. Marriage and Children
On 15 April 1872 Elisabeth was engaged to Abraham Braun, who was two years her junior; they were married nine days later, on 24 April 1872, in the village of Gnadenheim. Elisabeth bore thirteen children to Abraham, nine girls and four boys. Five of the children were born in Molotschna and eight in the United States. Most of the children lived to adulthood, although two daughters died at a young age (see further below).
3. Emigration
We have already discussed Elisabeth and Abraham’s emigration to the United States (see here). They were on the same ship, the SS Switzerland, and voyage as Peter D and Sarah, Johann and Katharina Siebert, and the rest of that party. They landed in Philadelphia (not New York, as stated in the Braun memorial) and then proceeded to Nebraska. According to the Abraham Braun memorial (whose dates are in error at several points), the Braun family took the train to York, “where Abraham’s cousin John Peters met them and took them to their home.”
The reference here seems to be to Johann Peters (GM 265683), the son of Johann Peters (5718) and Helena Braun (265682). Johann/John and his wife and children emigrated to Henderson in 1878, the year before Abraham and Elisabeth. According to the Johann Peters memorial (here), John and his wife lived on section 15 of York County’s Brown township, thus 3 miles east and 4 miles north of Henderson’s northeast corner. The main complication with this identification is that Helena Braun and Abraham Braun were, as far as we can tell, only distantly related many generations back. Thus, the term cousin is apparently being used loosely here.
Shortly after their arrival in Nebraska, Elisabeth and Abraham’s daughter Helena died just shy of her first birthday. The Braun memorial states that Helena was buried on the Isaac Peters farm in York County; the Elisabeth Buller Braun memorial specifies that this was the Reverend Isaac Peters, that is, Grandma Malinda’s great-grandfather (see here). Unfortunately, we do not yet know where Isaac Peters’s farm was located.
4. Baptism
We are accustomed to reading of young Mennonite women and men being baptized as teens or at least before they married, but such is not the case with Abraham and Elisabeth. According to the Braun memorial, Elisabeth was baptized on 26 March 1883 “in a creek in Hamilton County by Rev John Regier [see here] and Rev John Enns.” She was a thirty-six-year-old mother of eight at the time. Husband Abraham had been baptized three years earlier “in the river near his mill in York County, Nebraska by Rev Henry Nickel.” Elisabeth’s memorial adds that her husband Abraham was baptized by immersion.
This late baptism is easier to understand when we view it within the context of the couple’s religious affiliation. According to the Braun memorial, “Both Abraham and Elizabeth were lifelong members of the Mennonite Brethren Church.” The MB Church that developed out of the revivalistic spirit of the mid-nineteenth century was distinguished from other Mennonite groups, among other things, by its practice of baptism by immersion, as opposed to pouring. Consequently, anyone who wished to join the Mennonite Brethren Church had to be baptized by immersion, and Mennonites who had been baptized by some other means were required to be rebaptized by immersion.
One wonders if Elisabeth and Abraham had been baptized by pouring in some other church during their young adult years (i.e., before marriage); if so, and if they decided to join the MB Church later in life—calling into question the claim that they had been “lifelong” members of the MB Church—they would have needed to be rebaptized in order to do so. To be clear, we lack clear documentary evidence that Elisabeth and Abraham had been baptized earlier in life, but it seems reasonable to think that they were.
5. Residences
After living in the Henderson area for a decade, Abraham and Elisabeth and family moved west to Colorado. According to Elisabeth’s memorial:
In about 1889, the Abraham Braun family moved to Joes Colorado in what is now Yuma County (Joes was called Kirk at the time). … On May 14, 1897, Abraham, Elizabeth and 7 of their 11 living children, began moving to Westfield, Texas by way of two covered wagons. The 4 children who stayed behind with relatives were Elizabeth, Abraham, Isaak and Marie. After about 2 weeks of traveling, they arrived at Inman, Kansas where the Braun’s worked in the harvest while visiting Benjamin Buller (Elizabeth’s brother). On August 25th they continued their journey, and on Oct 4, 1897 finally arrived in Texas at the home of the Bernhard Kroekers.
Joes, Colorado, is on the eastern Colorado plains, approximately 120 miles straight east of Denver. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and through to the late 1980s, Joes, which was then known as Kirk, was home to a Mennonite Brethren church (see here).
Eight years after settling in Colorado, the family began a nearly 800-mile journey to southeast Texas. Like so many before them, they traveled by covered wagon. Roughly 280 miles into their trip they stopped at Inman, Kansas. If the dates given are accurate, the couple averaged around 19 miles a day. Most important for our interests is the note that the couple stopped at Inman to visit Elisabeth’s brother Benjamin. We will pick up this thread when we look more closely at Benjamin’s life.
After spending nearly three months working in Inman, the Brauns continued their trek southeast, arriving in Westfield, Texas, forty-one days later (average travel rate was 13 miles a day). Westfield still exists as an unincorporated community 3.5 miles northwest of the George Bush Intercontinental Airport. According to M. A. Kroeker (1959), the
Westfield (Texas) Mennonite Brethren Church, located 15 miles north of Houston, was started in 1897 when nine families from Kirk, Colorado, and some from Kansas organized a small Mennonite Brethren church here under the leadership of H. Berchtold. They had a very prosperous beginning, starting also a Christian day school. The unhealthy climate, however, forced them to leave this place in 1900. Most of the families moved to Corn and Enid, Oklahoma.
According to this further information, we should imagine Elisabeth and Abraham traveling as part of a larger group, not on their own. They were presumably part of an MB group who first went from Henderson to Colorado, then from there to Texas.
6. Death
Elisabeth’s days in Texas were few: on 25 March 1898, “after only a few short months in their new and very humble 2 room home at Westfield, Texas, Elizabeth Braun became very ill with appendicitis. Elizabeth died on Sunday, Apr 3, 1898, and on Monday, Apr 4 with many in attendance Elizabeth's mortal remains were laid to rest under a mighty, so-called India Rubber tree on the Braun’s land in Westfield, Texas” (Elisabeth memorial). We have no further information on where that farm was located or whether the grave was marked apart from its location under the tree.
The remainder of Abraham’s life is narrated on his memorial page. Several months after Elisabeth’s death, the family left for Enid, Oklahoma; Abraham remarried the following year, and he and his second wife settled back in Joes, where Abraham apparently lived out the rest of his days.
One final note: an earlier post makes passing mention of Elisabeth and Abraham and their family (see here). The 22 March 1905 issue of Die Mennonitische Rundschau contains a letter from Heinrich Buller, son of David by his second wife (after Helena’s death). Heinrich is informing readers of the recent passing of his father David, and he asks readers to inform the children of Johann Wiens and Abraham Braun, who were married to his sisters Maria and Elisabeth. Heinrich is aware that both of his sisters were deceased at this time, and he wants their children to be made aware of the passing of their grandfather David.
Work Cited
Kroeker, M. A. 1959. Westfield Mennonite Brethren Church (Westfield, Texas, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.
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