1860 - 1930
1860 - 1930
This life history was compiled by gathering a little here and a little there. It was written in June and July of 1950 by Henry's wife, Ruth, Lillie Bateman, and Annie Crook.
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Anna Barbara, also known as Babetta, was born
on the 27th of November 1860 at Herisau, Appenzell, Switzerland, daughter
of Johannes Schiess and Anna Barbara Kursteiner. She had two brothers,
named Jacob and John, plus three other brothers who died in Switzerland.
She also had a sister, Bertha, and two other sisters who died in Switzerland.
They'd been given the same name as she, so when they had their temple work
done, they had to give them other names as three couldn't have the same
name in one family.
Mother's people were very religious and they
kept the Sabbath day strictly. Everything was done and every working tool
put away on Saturday night. The cooking was also done for Sunday so there
would be no need for work on Sunday. They would go to church and in between
they would read the Bible. That is the way they spent their time on Sunday.
The family had talked of joining some church
that would have taken them to another country, Africa, but they studied
it out as her mother could not see that it was the church they wanted.
So they kept going to the one they had been going to. In time the Elders
came and talked to them about the Gospel and they joined the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Mother got her schooling while in Switzerland.
She also did a lot of weaving of cloth. She got to where she could do very
well at it. They had a very nice home. It was a large house and a beautiful
place. The yard was fixed up with nice trees, shrubs, flowers and grass.
The basement of the home was where they had their weaving looms and that
was where she spent a lot of time.
She was sixteen years old when they came to
America. They went from Hearsay to Rotterdam and then on to New York. While
on the ship they all became very sick. She emigrated to Providence, Utah,
arriving in Providence on July 15, 1876. She went to work for Moss Thatcher,
who lived in Logan. He was an apostle. She worked for him for several years
and made her own way.
She dated two fellows who were not Mormons,
but her mother and father told her not to go with them. She soon met Charles
Henry Haderlie and went with him. They were married on June 30, 1881
in the Old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah by Joseph F. Smith.
They traveled by team and wagon from Providence to Salt lake City, tying
their team where the Hotel Utah now stands.
After their marriage, they made their home
in Providence for awhile. On February 6, 1882 Henry W. was born and on
May 16, 1883 Lillie was born. They were very happy. On June 16, 1884 John
J. was born.
The first years of their married life were
happy times. Father was very good to her, but she sure had her hands full.
They had to have all three babies sleep with them as there was only one
room and one bed.
After that, Father started thinking of taking
another wife. He had his mind on two girls; one was Bertha, Mother's sister.
So Mother told him that if he had to have another wife to choose her sister.
He did, and they were married on the 15th of April 1885 in the Logan Temple.
That fall Father was called on a mission to
Europe and he left on the 11th of October 1885. Mother was expecting another
baby soon. It was a hard thing for her to see him go and leave her, but
she put her trust in the Lord. On November 20, 1885 David A. was, born.
Mother had to work very hard to make a go of things. She had a cow and
some chickens and she raised a garden to help out.
After Father left for his mission, Aunt Bertha,
Father's second wife came to live with Mother. They had a lot of good times
together. They would have some of their friends come to spend the evenings
with them at Mother's place. The next summer on July 14, 1886 Bertha's
first child, Frederick, was born.
During the next few years, they took turns
going to Logan to do washings for other people. They had to do it by hand
on a washboard. One would tend the children and nurse the babies, while
the other was gone to work. It was a three mile walk to work and three
miles back each day for only 40 cents a day. They would also knit long
stockings for the McCallister's for 40 cents a pair. They would stay up
half the night to knit and sew, and with the help of the Lord they came
out okay. The grandparents also helped to feed and clothe the children
while Father was on his mission.
Father returned on June 27th, 1888 but he
could only stay a week then had to leave on account of the marshals being
after him for having two wives. Father went to the Caribou mine to work
that summer and during that summer he filed on a piece of land three and
one half miles west of Freedom, Wyoming (Tin Cup area).
In October of 1888 Mother and her family moved
to Star Valley of Freedom, Wyoming. They were seven days on the road. Every
time they came to a bad place, Mother and the four children would get out
of the wagon. They had two cows tied to one wagon and a box of chickens
fastened to the back of the other wagon. The roads were very bad. There
were steep hills to climb and sometimes sliding places to go over. You
might say it was just a trail. Mother often would put rocks under the wheels
at the back of the wagons while the horses rested, so the wagon would not
roll back down the hill and pull on the horses. Then they would go a little
further and repeat the process. The two grandfathers
had been out and built a log room house for them to move into. They split
up big knotty logs into long pieces for chinks then they plastered them
with lime and sand. The roof was made with small poles. Hay was put on
the poles and then dirt was put on top to finish the roof. The floor was
just rough lumber. Grandpa John Ulrich Haderlie and her brother John Schiess
helped move them to their new home which was about four miles from the
town of Freedom.
While Mother lived in Freedom, she went through
many hardships and trials. John, her brother, stayed with them part of
the first winter and did chores for her, as Father was away working most
of the time. After John went home, Mother and the children were very scared
of the Indians.
On February 20, 1889 her mother passed away,
and she didn't know anything about it for a month, as they didn't dare
tell her. Father hid the letter telling about her death. She couldn't figure
out why she never got any letters from home.
For years Mother had to put the children to
bed early on Saturday nights so she could wash, dry and iron their clothes
for Sunday. Father had to take off his work shirt to get it washed. Father
would go to church and take Henry and Lillie with him.
On April 6, 1889 Luther H. was born.
Mother was a person with a kind and loving
personality. She would sing and read to her children. She stacked hay the
summer before Annie was born on September 4, 1890. Father only hauled a
small amount of hay and couldn't get anyone to help. As soon as he could,
he built two more rooms on the one they already had. One was upstairs for
the older children's bedroom. The other was a bedroom for Father, Mother
and the smaller children. Mother would stay up until midnight to mend and
knit. She would have Lillie stay with her for company but Lillie would
lean on the table and go to sleep. Then Mother had to wake her up. She
hated to be alone.
At one time there was no salt for butter so
Mother put it in a barrel and put salt brine over it, until the next churning
when she would take the brine off, put in the new batch of butter, and
them put the brine back on. In the fall she made it into pound molds and
Father took it to Montpelier to sell it. It sold for about 10 cents a pound.
With the money he bought a few things for winter such as factory calico,
a little outing flannel for the new baby, a lamp glass, blue denims, and
a few other things they needed.
On May 9, 1892 Ida was born.
The Indians used to come and if they knew
the men folks were away, they would go into Mother's garden, pull up her
garden stuff, throw it on the ground and say "no good." Mother would say
"I will call Father" and they would laugh and say "Oh no, him away off."
They weren't so bold when the children got older. Henry wasn't scared of
them so when he was there the Indians would pass by and not bother them.
One time Mother had gone for the cows and when she came back there was
a big buck Indian standing in the doorway. She wanted to go into the house
to the children, but he wouldn't let her so she went to the woodshed and
got the axe and said she would use it. He laughed at her, but he went away.
What courage it took to be so brave!
On November 27,1893 Lula
was born on her mother's birthday, which was a grand birthday present.
On March 10, 1896 Edward W. was born. He didn't do very well. Not like
the others. On November 22, 1897 Wilford was born and in May 1898 the family
caught whooping cough. They were a sick bunch. Edward got pneumonia and
on May 31, 1898 he died and was buried above the house (northwest of the
hill). A little choke cherry tree was planted by the little grave. Later
the casket was moved to the cemetery. On December 11, 1899 Austin L. was
born. He drowned on June 16,1901 in an irrigation ditch back of the house.
Father had come from the field when he saw someone coming from town with
the mail. The baby slipped out behind him as he went out. The bridge had
a hole worn in it by the horses going over it and the baby fell through
into the ditch. He was missed and when Father noticed the commotion, he
started looking for him and found him in the ditch. The headgate had stopped
the baby from going into Tin Cup Creek. They worked over him for some time
to no avail. Then Mother and Father washed and laid him out. That was a
very hard trial for Mother.
Aunt Bertha moved from Providence, Utah to
Freedom, Wyoming in the Fall of 1900. Aunt Bertha lived in the old loghouse
and Mother lived in one they had built for her. Things didn't go very well.
On September 15, 1903 Hazel Lavern (Fern) was born. Mother always had to
work very hard. She washed the clothes for her big family on a board. She
finally got a handwasher but she never had any of the conveniences of today.
Henry moved down to Snake River Valley in
1903 to live, and she sure worried about him a lot. Then David finally
went, too, and stayed. Grandpa Schiess lived with Mother's family for awhile.
Then when Aunt Bertha moved to Thayne, he went to live with her. On January
10, 1907 Gilbert S. was born and a few months later on April 17, 1907 her
first girl, Lillie, was married to Alfred Bateman in Freedom, Wyoming at
her mother's home. On November 16, 1907 David was married to Mary Price
in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
On Christmas morning 1908 Mother's house burned
down. Mother heard a noise and, looking around, saw the curtain above the
hall door on fire. She shut the door, then she and her two daughters, Annie
and Lula, and sons, Luther and Wilford hurried and took a straw tick and
some quilts out into the snow in front of the house where they put the
two small children, Lavern and Gilbert, on them in their nightclothes while
they got out as many things as fast as they could. The house was all on
fire above. It was a bitter cold morning. A cold wind was blowing and there
was 18 inches of snow. Father and the rest of the family were away. The
nearest neighbors were Mother's brother, Jacob, and his family. They lived
a half-mile away and by the time they got there they couldn't get into
the house. He took Mother and her family into his home.
It took Mother a long time to get over the
fire. There were things she always missed. She lived in one room for a
week in her brother's home. Then Father got a room that Grandpa Schiess
lived in at Thayne and moved it to the ranch. And he also got a sheep wagon
and fixed up the woodshed for a kitchen. It was so cold that the food would
get cold as soon as it was put on the plates. The family went through an
awful winter with sickness and a cold house. In the spring, Father and
the boys went to the canyon and got logs to build a new house before the
next winter.
In June 1912 Luther went on a mission to England
and Mother worked very hard to keep him while he was there. He came home
in the summer of 1914. On September 25, 1912, her son John married Martha
Lindholm and a daughter, Ida, married Phil E. Jenkins. There were married
in the Logan Temple, Utah. On June 5, 1913 Henry was married to Ruth J.
Ward in the Salt Lake Temple, Utah. On September 17, 1913 Annie was married
to William Crook in the Logan Temple, Utah. When her children started to
marry, they married fast.
Mother was always good to everyone. The Indians
would come to her place and she would give them something to eat. She never
turned even a beggar away hungry. She always tried to teach her family
the best she knew and she set them a good example.
On September 15, 1915, two more children were
married. Luther was married to Joan Lindholm and Lula was married to Raymond
Jenkins in the Salt Lake Temple, Utah. On June 10, 1920 Wilford was married
to Fern Erickson in the Logan Temple, Utah. On August 6, 1924 Lafern was
married to Denzel Jenkins in Idaho Falls, Idaho. They went to the temple
and had their family sealed to them on June 8, 1927.
All of Mother's children have been through
the temple but one. She was sure proud to have them grow up to be good
men and women and do work in the church. She always loved to have a nice
garden and small fruit such as strawberries, currants, and raspberries.
She also loved to have flowers, trees, and grass around her home. No matter
how hard things were, she never complained. She always made the best of
things.
Lillie had her family sealed to her on the
27th of June 1928. Mother went with her and was so glad to go to the temple
again as she hadn't had the chance to go since she herself was married.
She only went through the temple two times in her life. She was an active
worker in the Relief Society. She was visiting teacher for many years.
Mother would walk ½ mile in the summer to do her teaching. Her youngest
son, Gilbert, would take her when she had no other way to go. He took her
many times. Whenever there was sickness or a new baby coming in her family,
Mother would send for Sister Nelson to come. Sister Nelson was a mid-wife.
Mother never had a doctor.
Mother and Aunt Susan, Uncle Jacob's wife,
really did enjoy one another's company. They would take some mending or
sewing and go to each other's place to visit. And when Aunt Susan was to
Mother's, when she was ready to go home, Mother would walk part way home
with her. And when Mother was over to Aunt Susan's, she would walk part
way home with Mother. They lived about a half mile apart. They were really
a comfort to each other. If they had any sickness, they would help each
other as much as possible. They lived there for many years and it was always
the same. Uncle Jacob's family moved there a very few years after Mother
came. And whenever anything went wrong at Mother's, Uncle Jacob was the
one they would go for. He was always glad to lend a helping hand.
Mother was very fortunate in having all her
married children living not too far away. Henry and David lived the furthest
away. They lived not too far from Idaho Falls, Idaho.
On July 26, 1929 Mother was operated on [for
cancer] -- the first time she had ever gone to a doctor. She was in the
L.D.S. Hospital in Idaho Falls. She was not well anymore. She was sick
all winter. Henry, Dave and Ruth went and saw her in March 1930. Annie
took her to her place and took care of her for three weeks. Lillie, Ida
and Lula helped her. Mother passed away on May 8, 1930 at Annie's place
in Freedom, at the age of 69 years, 5 months, and 11 days. She had 11 living
children, 41 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild.
Her baby boy, Gilbert, was married to Phyllis
Jenkins on June 10, 1931 in the Salt Lake Temple, Utah. Eleven grandsons
and one granddaughter have gone on missions. Four grandsons were in the
service of our country and one [LaVor Jenkins] gave his life for his country.
She was a wonderful mother.
Anna Barbara Schiess (Babetta) middle age
Charles Henry Haderlie
