The previous post reported that Peter D and Sarah’s farm was sold at auction on 3 June 1922 to H. H. Ediger, whom I suggested was the Heinrich H. Ediger who lived 4 miles north of Henderson. The problem is that we have two pieces of evidence that clash with the claim that H. H. Ediger actually purchased the Buller farm: (1) a 1923 record that Peter D and Sarah’s children sold part of the farm to Helena H. Penner and (2) a 1923 plat map that lists H. B. Alger as the owner of the rest of the original Buller farm. How can we explain these apparent contradictions?
To recap what we covered earlier (see here), the 7 March 1923 Aurora Republican reported that Peter D and Sarah’s children sold the northeast 40 acres of the family farm to Helena H. Penner. Each of the children received $602, for a total sale price of $6,020. Divide that amount by 40 acres, and we know that the selling price was $150.50 an acre, considerably more than H. H. Ediger’s bid of $125.50 for all 160 acres at the June 1922 auction.
Why the northeast 40 acres of the farm were not sold to H. H. Ediger is a bit of a mystery. It makes sense that the decision not to buy that land was Ediger’s, who had the legal right—having won it at the auction—to complete the transaction and purchase all 160 acres. Peter D and Sarah’s children had no legal right to refuse to sell after the auction, so one would think that, for whatever reason, Ediger decided against buying the northeast 40 acres. The more important questions are: Did Ediger back out of the sale entirely? When and how did H. B. Alger come to own the remaining 120 acres?
Answering these questions requires us to dig a little deeper, this time in the 1930 census. If we can identify who was living close to Helena (Mrs. John) Penner at that time, we may be able to sort out what happened after Peter D and Sarah’s farm was auctioned off on 3 June 1922.
Helena is easy enough to find in the 1930 census, since she was still living in the same Farmers Valley location.
Helena, now sixty-nine and a widow for nine years, was the head of her household, which consisted of her and her son George. The John J. Penner who appears immediately below the George line was also Helena’s son. Thirty-six and unmarried (he would finally marry in 1940), he was the head of his own household, which seems to mean that he lived close by but separately from his mother and brother.
The next household is the one that really interests us. According to the 1930 census, Henry B. Ediger and family were Helena’s neighbors. Interestingly, an Ediger apparently lived on the 120 acres that remained after Helena purchased the northeast 40 acres. However, the Ediger is not H. H., the reported buyer of the Buller farm at auction, but Henry B. Who was this new Ediger?
According to the GRANDMA database, Heinrich H. Ediger, who owned 200 acres 4 miles north of Henderson and whom we postulated was the person who bought the Buller farm at auction, had a son named Henry B. Ediger. This, then, must have been the Ediger who was living on the Buller family farm in 1930. Henry B. Ediger had married in 1916, and by 1922 the family included one daughter (a son had died in 1920). The 1920 census locates the Henry B. family in Brown township of York County, where his father, Heinrich H., owned the 200 acres. It is unclear where the Henry B. family was living, but the census reports that he was a renter, not the owner, of his farm home. In light of this information, we might reasonably imagine that Heinrich H. bought the Buller farm so that his son, who was married and had one child in 1922, had someplace to set up his own farm and household.
But that is not all. The GRANDMA database also tells us that the son, Henry B., had married Anna J. Penner. This Anna Penner was, in fact, the daughter of Johann and Helena Penner, the same Helena Penner who bought the northeast 40 acres of the Buller farm. In other words, when Heinrich H. Ediger purchased the Buller farm at auction, it was apparently with the express purpose that his son Henry and daughter-in-law Anna could not only move to their own place but also live next door to Anna’s own mother. Suddenly the sale of the northeast 40 acres makes better sense. Heinrich H. Ediger agreed to have his son’s mother-in-law purchase some of the land that Heinrich had the legal right to buy. We still do not know why Heinrich stepped back and Helena stepped forward, but we can be certain that this was presumably a friendly change of course, not a source of antagonism.
One question still remains: Who is the H. B. Alger listed on the plat map above? It seems more than coincidental that the initials H. B. on the map are a perfect match for those of Henry B. Ediger. Further, both last names end in -ger. Given the information that we now have, it seems clear that the mapmaker made a mistake and wrote H. B. Alger instead of the actual owner, H. B. Ediger. How do we know that H. B. (Henry B.) owned the 120 acres? Note the right side of the census extract above. Following the name of each head of household is the letter O, which stands for owner (the value of the home is listed after that). Henry B. Ediger was the owner of 120 acres in 1930, which is consistent with the (corrected) listing of the plat map of 1923. Whether Heinrich H. gifted or sold the property to his son we do not know, but we can say that Henry B. Ediger did become the owner of the greater majority of the Peter D and Sarah farm in early 1923.
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