The Tragedy of Forest Buerer

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The Henry and Margaretha Buerer family. Forest standing between his mother and father.

By the time my two-times great grandmother, Margaretha Schwab Buerer, turned 45 years of age in 1898, she had traveled more miles than most people did in a lifetime. Born to German immigrants, Johann Heinrich Schwab and Anna Margareta Kuhl, in Lee County, Illinois, in 1853, Margaretha married Henry Buerer in 1873, and settled into a life of farming in Clay County, Nebraska until 1894, when Henry was encouraged to go west to relieve his back pain and severe headaches. Unfortunately, in 1897, Henry succumbed quickly to a severe case of pneumonia, and left Margaretha a widow and single mother of eight living children (giving birth to 11 total.)

After a trip back to Nebraska to sell the family farm, Margaretha then returned with her children to the West Coast, starting a saw mill in Marion, Oregon. Obviously a strong woman from what she had endured, she couldn’t save her seventh born child, Forest, from a terrible accident.

On the evening of June 16, 1905, Forest and his brothers became caught up in the transportation of timber, where Forrest met an untimely end.

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Drowned at the Veal Mill*

Forest Buerer was drowned last Saturday evening in the pond of the saw mill of Veal & Sons, on the Santiam this side of Marion. It was an unfortunate accident. Forest Buerer and his brothers had the contract for running logs down the Santiam to the mill of Veal & Sons. In the spirit of fun he started to roll a log across the pond. His mother was on the bank watching him. Out in the deep water the log began rolling, he was thrown in, strangled, and though a good swimmer, was drowned, with his mother watching him. A brother was coming but was too far away to render assistance. He was 20 years of age.

The funeral will be held tomorrow at 2 o’clock, being delayed to give a brother in Nebraska time to attend.

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Forest Phillip Buerer is buried in the Marion Friends Cemetery in Marion, Oregon.

Margaretha Schwab Buerer died in 1932 at the age of 79 in San Jose, California.

*“Drowned at the Veal Mill.” The Albany Democrat (Albany, Oregon), 23 June 1905, p. 3, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/96018481: accessed 24 April 2016).

Matrilineal Monday--Montana, WWII and a Schlitz Sign: the young married life of Vickie and Harry Buerer

Harry, Vickie, and Peggy Buerer

My maternal grandparents yearned for the mission field in Africa. This longing led them to Wheaton College, and I firmly believe this desire brought them together in marriage. They married on September 7, 1940, at College Church in Wheaton, and I think they would have left for the Belgian Congo on September 8 if they could have. But the mission board counseled them to wait.

World War II raged on in Europe during this time, and my grandparents needed a visa from Belgium to enter the Belgian Congo. Unfortunately, the Belgian government was in exile, and my grandparents didn't know where to apply. Harry and Vickie decided to live in California to wait. But then Harry lost his job as a carpenter. Pastor Paul Jackson, the minister of Harry's boyhood church, recommended Harry take a job as a minister at a small church in Polson, Montana. So Harry and Vickie packed their belongings into a trailer they built and drove to Montana with their newborn daughter, Peggy (born on June 20, 1941 in Modesto.)

First Baptist Church, Polson, MT

The First Baptist Church of Polson, MT, had one room with a parsonage of four small rooms that had no bathroom and one faucet of cold water in the kitchen. They received $10 a week from the Sunday offering, but if less came in, they had to accept what had been tithed. One week during the winter brought a little over $3. Because the salary was so small, Harry and Vickie decided to leave the church in Montana because it wouldn't cover the birth of their next baby (my mother.) They packed up and headed back to Illinois, stopping at least once a day to fix a flat tire. Harry got a job in Chicago in a defense plant and enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute for evening classes. They found an apartment in Villa Park over a tavern. My grandmother writes "We didn't need a night light because there was a big red Schlitz sign outside our bedroom window. A jukebox in the tavern played constantly until the tavern closed each night at 2:00 am. The two songs we remember hearing over and over again were "I'm Dreaming Tonight of My Blue Eyes" and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." My mother, Nancy, was born on April 15, 1943, and Harry and Vickie moved back in with Vickie's parents. 

Parsonage in Polson, MT. Harry and Peggy

Harry and Peg. Polson, MT

Harry, Nancy, Peg. Polson, MT

Nancy and Peg

Nancy and Peg. Polson, MT

Harry, Vickie, Peg & Nancy Buerer. June 13, 1943

The church in Polson couldn't find a pastor and asked Vickie and Harry to return. They made arrangements with the Montana Baptist Fellowship and became missionaries with them. This time, Vickie and Harry were well compensated, bringing in $125 a month. They stayed in Montana another year and left in May 1945.

Finally, five and a half years after they married, Harry and Vickie received their visa for the Belgian Congo and flew across the sea to Africa. Where more adventures awaited...

Matrilineal Monday: my grandparents, Victoria Emma Prinzing and Harry Forrest Buerer

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Vickie Prinzing and Harry Buerer

When I discuss family history with others, I find most people, whether it be distance, family relationships, or other factors, know about one side more than the other. I probably saw my maternal grandparents less than 10 times in my life. They lived in California, and we lived in Pennsylvania. We didn't talk much on the phone, as long distance was expensive during my childhood. But I did maintain a kind of "pen pal" relationship with my grandmother, and I got to know her better that way.

I already talked a little about my maternal grandfather, Harry Buerer. But I haven't touched much on my grandmother, Victoria Prinzing.

With all due respect....my grandmother was kind of a pain in the butt.

She definitely had an opinion on the "right" way to do things and the "wrong" way to do things. When she and I corresponded during my girlhood, she wrote me back at one point and told me my letters to her needed to be at least 10 sentences long. No hair hanging in your face, and no saying "Geez" (because it sounded too much like Jesus.) And god help you...GOD HELP YOU...if you you picked up your dessert fork and began before she did. She'd call you out at a holiday dinner in such a way that made you want to shrink under the table.

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My grandmother, Victoria Prinzing, when she graduated from York Community High School in Elmhurst, IL.

And while I struggle to find information on Hannah and my paternal side, I'm not at a loss for research on the maternal. My grandmother documented every single sneeze. She kept diaries, letters, and family trees that would make any family historian jump up and down with glee. And through these I can  begin to understand (or at least attempt to know) the human being my grandmother was. 

My cousin asked my grandparents for their family histories when he was in high school. My grandfather promptly wrote him back a one page story of his life as a farm boy in Modesto, California, picking and drying apricots and peaches most of his young life (except for a year when he battled typhoid fever.) My grandmother wrote three typed pages single-spaced about her upbringing and adulthood.

Born in Chicago on January 11, 1918, my grandmother's birth kept my great grandfather from the draft into World War I. (People joked my great grandparents should have named her "weatherstrip" because it kept him out of the draft.) Her parents bought a house in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago, in 1922, before Elmhurst even had paved roads. She graduated fourth in a class of 250 from York Community High School and went on to study English Literature at Wheaton College, graduating in 1940.

Vickie came from a very devout Christian family. Her Aunt Viola Elsie Anderson and Uncle Anton Christianus Anderson, served as missionaries in the Belgian Congo. My great great grandfather, Fred Prinzing, acted as the secretary of the Congo Gospel Mission. Vickie grew up typing letters and stuffing envelopes for the Mission and soon found a desire for her own venture to Africa.

My grandparents met at Wheaton, and Harry also expressed a desire to go to Africa. (My grandmother describes my grandfather's relations as "a nominally Christian family.") My grandfather proposed, and the Congo Gospel Mission accepted them before they even graduated. But the mission board recommended they wait a year after being married to go overseas.

And wait they did. World War II, a trip to Montanta, children, and other factors halted their plans. But eventually, their quest for Africa happened. And all is told in my grandmother's diaries. 

To be continued....

Vickie Prinzing and brother

Harry F. Buerer

Vickie Prinzing and brother, Wheaton College

Harry Buerer and Vickie Prinzing

When the KKK threatened to burn down the house: stories from my stepfather, Bill Jones

When I was a really little girl, about four or five, my mother met a really great guy and married him in 1978. The guy was Bill Jones, and he hailed from the state of Alabama. I remember the first time I met him. He came to our house to pick up my mother, and when I opened the door, he said, "Hi!" in his best Southern drawl. He spoke a really peculiar language to me. He said things like, "Did you bump your noggin?" and "Has anyone seen my billfold?" He ate crazy things like black eyed peas and cornbread. He would chop up his over easy eggs (called "dippy eggs" in my south central Pennsylvania lingo) until the yolks were broken, then tear his bacon apart and mix it in with the eggs. And god help you when the Auburn vs. Alabama game was on. Much yelling ensued from the family room.

I didn't know too much about his upbringing in Sylacauga, a small down about an hour southeast of Birmingham. Lately, I've been asking him questions, and the stories he has are gold.

On September 16, 1963, a bomb went off in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. Four men associated with a Ku Klux Klan group planted a bomb in the basement of the church, ultimately killing four young girls and wounding 22 other people. The governor of Alabama, George Wallace, famously stated "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and gained national notoriety for his publicity stunt of "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" when he blocked the admissions entrance at the University of Alabama to prevent two young African American students from registering.  After the tragedy in the 16th Street Baptist Church, civil rights activists blamed the bombing on him.

George Wallace standing in the door at the University of Alabama, 1963.

My stepfather, a 20 year old student at Auburn University, decided to write a letter to the Birmingham News expressing his concern over Gov. Wallace and the "stands" he took.  The paper printed it on September 18, 1963. The letter reads:

“Alabama Stand” Hasn’t Helped State

During the governor’s election, Sen. deGraffenreid talked to our senior class. He told us that loudmouth threats would only bring trouble. He said the way to settle the segregation problem was through law and order.

Many people talked about all the young people at deGraffenreid’s speeches and said that they couldn’t elect him. Well, this young person will be able to vote next time and so will many other young people. 

I have seen what Gov. Wallace’s “standing up for Alabama” has done. He stood right in the doorway of our schools and moved when told to. Very good publicity! In fact everything he has done lately seems to be for publicity. When Huntsville’s mayor openly criticized the governor, he let the local school board settle the problem; and they have had no trouble.

How can Alabama progress when the governor, who is the representative of the people, admits all he wants to do is have President Kennedy defeated in the next election, and then, for example, have to turn right around and ask him to declare Huntsville a disaster area?

I think it’s time for the local school board to take over, call an end to some of the students’ excuse for taking an extended vacation, and time for some of the people of Birmingham to grow up.

BILL JONES, 917 Craddock, Sylacauga

And then the letters started pouring in.

The letters were mean. And violent. And from the tone, my stepfather and his family could tell they came from the KKK. They called him a commie. They threatened to either blow up or burn down the house. Six or seven letters arrived in all.

Bill Jones

But the threats were empty, and eventually the attention died down. And Bill's parents didn't give him too much grief about it. The only advice Bill's father really gave him was this: "Next time you write a letter, make sure it doesn't have my address on it!"

Last week, my stepfather had a birthday. He is a humble and joyful person to be around. And we all are so very proud and love him dearly.

Love you to the moon and back, Billy Charles.