Idaho, Shakespeare and the German Police (Lisonbee Account 5)

I continue on with Eda’s account:

“They lived in North Ogden after their marriage with grandma, Minerva Wade Hickman. They bought a home later in Pocatello, Idaho, Fred and Eda were born here but father never was happy there. Then they moved to Plain City, their son Moses was born here. Father had a back injury and and eye blinded in a R.R. shop accident in Pocatello. They couldn’t make a living on their small fruit farm in Plain City, so they homesteaded land 6 miles south of American Falls, Idaho. It was the beloved home of the family. There we were raised. The house was big with a dirt roof. The roof leaked when the storms were too long. The long winters were spent father reading aloud to the family. One winter he read all of Shakespeares plays, and acted them out. He read them in such a way we could understand and love them. We all spent the winter quoting Skhakespear. He read the best leterature, histories. When we were in High School all his reading really helped us. Fathr was the first person to raise dry land wheat in Idaho, there was an article in the newspaper about this. He may have raised the best wheat in the whole West.

When my father was 45 years old he was called to Germany on a mission for the Church. He knew the language and being an older man did a lot of good. People listened to him and he made many converts. The German police finely got after him for preaching the Gospel, and encouraging the people to leave Germany and come to Zion. He had a hard time excaping from them.”

Commentary:

1. Eda is helpful in giving us some details about Fred’s life after his marriage and before his mission, of which there is little information. She does not mention how long they were in North Ogden before they moved to Pocatello, but the birth places of the children help. Marie Elizabeth was born almost exactly 9 months (plus 8 days) after their marriage, so she must have been a honeymoon baby (or so we hope). They must have been sealed right after they had Marie. It would be good to find the original temple sealing date from the Logan temple. Minerva was born also in North Ogden on August 28, 1888. However, by Fred’s birth in July 28, 1891, they were living in Pocatello, Idaho (Although my PAF states American Falls; might want to check the records here). Eda’s birth on January 25, 1893 does correspond with the Pocatello location, as does Moses Wade’s Plain City birth location on November 7, 1894. She doesn’t mention Sarah, so she likely was born in American Falls, but I will have to do the homework here.

2. I appreciate Eda mentioning that Fred didn’t like Pocatello, but she does not explain why. That is too bad.

3. Eda mentions the eye incident, but combines it with a back injury I was unaware of. Were they separate events? No record that I am aware of explains HOW Fred got the eye injury. But oral history and my family’s PAF has explained how Fred got blind in the one eye. I will bring up the PAF account later. It is interesting to note that Fred does not complain about his back or eye in his correspondence. That he has a fake/lame eye is easily observed from later photographs, which I will also begin to post soon.

4. Eda is the only person I know who mentions they tried to live off a small fruit farm in Plain City. I will have to look into this more.

5. Homesteading. I know that Fred and Mary Ella successfully homesteaded in American Falls, and I know that Minerva tried to do so as well, but failed. I would like to read up on what actually is required in this procedure to gain this land.

6. The beloved home. I am glad that Eda speaks warmly of the home here. I ordered scans of the home from the Minerva Teichert papers available at BYU and there are also some pictures available from the Hope Hilton papers at the University of Utah. I will post as I can. I would like to do some photo restoration work with Photoshop before I upload them, to get rid of damage, tears and splotches.

7. Literature. This is one of other accounts where I have heard Fred read Shakespeare to the children. He also had various history books in the home. My mother has some of the books that Fred once had, and I believe one was on the history of the punic wars. Again, I will have to check my information, but I will be at my mother’s home tomorrow to check to make sure.

8. Dry wheat farming. Eda is correct in stating Fred was the one he introduced the dry wheat farming according to the tradition and according to newspaper articles. Tom Dille, whose father lived next to Fred, wrote about how Fred brought in the dry wheat farming to Idaho. I will post those articles soon.

9. Called on a mission when 45 years old. This cannot be correct, Fred was 43 when he started his mission, based on his birthday, passport application, and mission correspondence. How did mission calls work back then? Did Fred apply for the call, or was he independently called?

10. Mission success. Eda claims Fred had a lot of success on his mission. He did baptise and confirm some people based on his journal account, but he wasn't the most explicate in spelling out how many converts he made. I have gone back to some of the branch records from Switzerland and gathered some information, but there is still more work to do here.

11. Towards the end of Fred's mission, his record gets sparce, but based on his correspondence you can tell that there is some problem going on. Eda more fully expounds the issue being with the German police. Some BYU Student wrote an excellent dissertation on the missionary effort in Germany right around this time that I will have to read more fully to understand the exact tensions.