I begin my story back in the late 1800s when my Grandma Ida Aeschbacher Durtschi was born in Eggiwil, Switzerland, to gentle, kind, loving parents, my great grandparents, Christian and Barbara Frey Aeschbacher. Christian Aeschbacher was an adopted boy put to work for his farmer parents preparing meals for the family and cleaning the house and, by law, his parents chose not to send him to school. Barbara had no record of her father, but her mother was my great grandma, Anna Barbara Frey, born in 1846. I honor Anna Barbara for raising Barbara. This child mattered to Anna Barbara. Her decision to keep and raise her daughter no matter how this child was conceived changed the course of history. It changed the course of the whole world! I’m so thankful that Anna Barbara chose to give her only child a chance in this world, so I could be —Me!
Another miracle of Me is that Great Grandma Barbara Frye, bore 12 children. Of the 12 children, only six grew to adulthood, only five of those married. Only of the two girls, #10 child, my Great Aunt Lena, born 7 Jan 1889, and #11 child, my Grandma Ida, was born 29 Jan 1990, one year and three weeks later, made it to the United States and had kids.
Of the six (6) girls, only Aunt Lena, and Grandma Ida, bore children! Lena had 10 children, Grandma Ida bore five (5)! Grandma and Aunt Lena have a huge posterity. I’m grandchild #28, one of 44 grandchildren. Their older brother, Christian, married Lena Moser. They had at least three children.
Christian and Barbara Aeschbacher’s children: 4 babies had died before Grandma Ida was born, then, she watched 5 more family members die, including her mother who died when Grandma Ida was age 10. By the time Grandma Ida was 19 years old, 9 of her 14 family members had died and only her father, 1 brother and 2 sisters were still living. Then the other two married sisters died without baring children.
List of Grandma’s siblings birth and death, in birth order:
#1 Son 1869–1869
#2 Anna Elisabeth Aeschbacher 1871-1895 died age 24 Grandma was 5 years old
#3 Rosette 1873-1925 died the year my mom was born
#4 Magdalena Aeschbacher 1875–1877, died 22 months
#5 Christian Aeschbacher Jr 1877–1879, died age 1
#6 Christian Aeschbacher I 1880–1961 married Lena and had at least three children
#7 Friedrich (Fritz) Aeschbacher 1882–1894 age 12 Grandma was 4 years old
#8 Johann Aeschbacher 1884–1885, died at almost age 8 months
#9 Marie Aeschbacher 1886–1909 Grandma was 19 and never saw Marie after migrating to the USA
#10 Lena Aeschbacher 1889–1961, married Fred Deursch, bore 10 children, all survived, she died age 72 in Logan
# 11 Ida Aeschbacher 1890–1978, bore 5 children all survived, she died age 88 in Sugar City, Idaho
Baby # 12, Gottfried, Gottfried Aeschbacher 1891–1893, died of drowning, age 2 Grandma was 3 yrs old
These children died before Grandma was born:
#1 Son died at birth? 21 years before Grandma’s birth
#4 Magdalena died nearly age 2 yrs old, 15 years before Grandma’s birth
#5 Christian Jr. died age 15 months, 13 years before Grandma’s birth
#8 Johann died age 8 month, 6 years before Grandma’s birth
#12 child Gotfried died age 2, Grandma was age 3.
#7 Friedrich/Fritz died of pneumonia, age 11, Grandma was age 4.
#2 Anna Elisabeth died age 24. She was working in Bern. One day she came home sick and a few days later. She died when Grandma was age 5.
#9 Marie married Karl Gehrig 1907, died in Switzerland at age 25 childless of an unknown cause (to me anyway) about 2 years after her marriage when grandma was in the US. Grandma was age 19.
#3 Rosette Aeschbacher Hofer, married Johannes Hofer 1909, immigrated to the U.S. with her husband, died childless at age 52 in Logan; she died when Grandma was age 35.
Christian I married Lena Moser, had at least one child named Ernst, who had at least 2 children (see Lena and Fred Deursch History), We’re not sure about Christian’s posterity. He never made it to the U.S. He died at age 81 in Switzerland, died in 1961when Grandma was age 71.
Lena died age 62 when Grandma was age 71. I was 2 years old.
Grandma Ida was the last to go home to be with her family, died in Sugar City at Aunt Isabel’s home, 17 February 1978, age 88. I was 18 years old, attending Rick’s College.
Great Grandma Barbara spun flax for the people in the town, Great Grandpa was a skilled craftsman who taught himself, among other things, to make wooden souled shoes 1-inch thick, which were much warmer that the leather-soled shoes, Grandma Ida writes, which he sold to the townspeople. They did whatever it took to take care of their children. They foraged for nettles, berries, and mushrooms and in the woods. They grew a productive garden by the house, and nearby fields. They grew and understood wild herbs and how to use them. They were resourceful and frugal, self-sufficient and hardworking, traits they passed down through the generations to me.
Great Grandma Barbara was a religious woman. After their daily 6:30 a.m. scripture reading and prayer and a blessing on the food.. Sometimes the girls were mischievous. Once they lit the thick sticky pine gum with the matches meant to light a small fire to warm themselves on cold days. Then, they spent precious time running back and forth, throwing dirt they gathered in their aprons from a nearby cave, to put out the fire. Whew!
Grandma recorded this, “In the summertime my childhood was spent herding our seven or eight goats in the ales. Lini and I started for the mountains as soon as Father finished milking them early in the morning. We took potatoes and apples along for our dinner which we roasted on hot coals. We picked wild strawberries, raspberries and what we called bushberries. After we took the goats home, we took the berries down into the town to sell them. They ran through the lush green meadows and played in the caves among the trees. These two little girls tended the goats and played and sang until it was time to head home. They yodeled in harmony while their melodious notes reverberated, echoing off the mountain cliffs and through the verdant valley. I can only imagine how it was… like… Heaven! We bought cloth with the money we got and Rosette, our older sister, made clothes for us.
Mother died when she was 45. Lini was eleven and I was ten. We had two other sisters, Marie worked in a hotel and Rosette learned the sewing trade. My brother Christian, worked for Mr. Widmer, the man we rented our home from and later went to another town to work.”
In the winter, the girls went to school. They taught their father their lessons because he had never learned to read or write. Lena and Ida were the very best of friends. They loved music and dance parties!
One night, when Grandma was about six, the house they were living in burnt down. The family escaped, but nothing was saved. They found a rental further up the mountain on a beautiful alpine hilltop meadow, just east of Eggiwil, in an area called Steinbodenschwand, Switzerland.
I begin my story here, with my grandma, because Grandma is one of the heroes of my story. She was Swiss through and through. Her story is so much like the beloved story of the poor girl, Heidi, who tended the goats on the beautiful hillside of the Swiss Alps that at age four, Grandma Ida carried Lena ½ mile home after Lena impaled her toe on a wheat stock in a field where they had been gleaning wheat for flour. Anyway, you get the idea.
a regular Johanna Spyri, Heidi, story.
The Aeschbacher Family joins the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Sadly, Great Grandma Barbara passed away, 9 Oct 1900 when Grandma was only 10 years old (after watching half of her children pass away before she did). What a sad day that was, so devastating for the family! Rosette, Grandma’s older sister, age 17 when Grandma was born, became their surrogate mother.
Three years later, a Mr. Winterberger, who belonged to the Mormon Church, came to the home where Rosette, was sewing to do some repair work. He told them about the church and the gospel. Interested, Rosette invited him to their home Saturday evening. That whole family loved what he had to say. Next morning, they walked to Langnau to church with him, 3 hours one way. “We had to walk up over quite a steep mountain. When we got to the top of the hill our older sister, Rosette said, ‘Now let’s sing,’ and we sang the songs that were most dear to our hearts all the way down the mountainside. There, the missionaries were very helpful and kind. The girls loved what they saw and heard so much that they returned every Sunday. Sometimes their father went. The elders explained the gospel so beautifully, they knew they had found the truth. When the missionaries taught the Word of Wisdom, their father tossed his pipe into the fire and never smoked again. He also threw away his coffee and replaced it with a toasted barley drink.
Their brother Christian was age 23 when the missionaries arrived and had already moved from their home. Rosette, who had become the family’s mother, was the first of the Aeschbacher family to be baptized at age 30. She was baptized over the hill in Langnau, two months after attending their first church meeting. A month later, on September 30th, 1903, Lena, Ida, and their father were baptized by Elder Emil G Kohler in the Hinter Geissbach Creek which was south in the valley below, ¼ mile from their home. They went home, changed their clothes, then were confirmed members of the church by Elder Kohler.
They were so happy!
How different and beautiful this new religion was when compared with the Lutheran or the Evangelist churches. Those pastors were proud and haughty and thought they were far above the members. They never spoke to the girls as they passed, and the girls were actually afraid of them.
When the pastors and teachers heard they joined the Mormon church, they were very bitter and encouraged returning to the Lutheran church but, nope. One day while Rosette walked along a path carrying her sewing machine on her back, she met her former pastor. He didn’t greet her as he passed. He just spit in her face. He was not the only one to persecute the Aeschbacher Family. Others were becoming mean. The family decided it was time to go to America to gather with the saints in Utah.
After Lena graduated from school at age 15. She went to Bern to work when Elder Emil Kohler, the missionary who taught the Aeschbacher Family, offered her a chance to go to America. Three years after the Aeschbacher’s first introduction to the Church, Lena, barely 17 years old, in 1906, left with other convert families to Bern, Switzerland, then to France, ferried across the English Channel to Southampton, England and boarded the SS Philadelphia, one of the largest fastest passenger liners at that time. She left March 31, 1906. The ship arrived in New York City USA an amazing 9 days later, then on to Salt Lake City.
Lena traveled with a suitcase full of clothes, $10 American dollars and a train ticket to Provo, then Midway, Utah, lent to her by Emil Kohler for passage to come to Zion. Aunt Lena, at age 17, left for America March 31, 1906, arriving Apr 7, 1906, traveled to Utah. Lena worked as his housekeeper until she had paid the money back. She worked to save money to help her sister, my Grandma Ida, come to America. Grandma came in 1908 at age 16. They in turn worked and saved money to help their father and Rosette come to Utah. They finally had enough money and sent it to them, the mission president had asked Rosette and her new husband Johannas Hofer and her father to stay in Switzerland, because they needed strong saints there. Johannes and Rosette eventually came to America, but their father never did.
Just after Rosette married in April 1909, their sister Marie, still in Switzerland, died at age 23. So, two years after Grandma arrived in the US, by the year 1909, when Grandma was only 19 years old, five of her brothers, and three of her sisters and her mother, nine of her beautiful family members were in heaven. Her only and very precious family left on the earth were her father, Christian, her brother, Christian, and two sisters, Rosette and Lena. Lena, then Grandma Ida and eventually, Rosette came to Zion. Father Christian passed away in 1922 during the flu epidemic at age 79 and Christian passed away in 1961 at age 81, both died in Switzerland. After Grandma immigrated to the US, she never saw her father nor their brother Christian again in this life.
So, what did the United States missionaries teach the Aeschbacher family, teachings which they loved so much and gave them so much joy, which inspired them to cross the ocean and the prairies and leave their beloved Switzerland and family? They were these: The true Gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored to the earth again, by Christ Himself. There are prophets today and sacred temples where their family could be sealed to each other and be reunited in the next life. There is life after death and families are forever! Their mother had died three years prior to arrival of missionaries, but the good news that missionaries brought to their family was that they could be with their mother again and with all their other siblings who had died way too soon! I’m sure the beautiful principle, that families can be together again forever, gave my beautiful little Swiss grandma the strength she needed to make the sacrifices she did, to leave her family and begin another life in a strange new world across the vast Atlantic. What faith! Grandma is my hero!
Additional Info from Ida’s History
Several more interesting things about what Grandma sacrificed: Her mother country, her sister Lena for several years, left her father, sister and a brother. Left 3 choirs in SLC to marry Grandpa.
The trail down the mountain was real hard on our knees. After we had walked about an hour, every step was painful. We thought we would not be able to go to church the next time, but by Sunday we had forgotten how tired and hurting we had been the week before and at seven o’clock we were again on our way so we wouldn’t be late for Sunday School. We belonged to the Lutheran Church and sometimes we went to the Evangelist Church but what we found in the Mormon Church made us very happy. The missionaries came again and again to teach us the gospel. They explained it so beautiful we could not hear enough. We knew it was right from the very first time we listened to Br. Winterberger.”
“When she was fifteen, Lini went to Bern to work and I did the same a year later. We worked for different families doing housework for a year and then Lini had a chance to go to America. We saved our money, so when she was ready to go, I gave her the money I had saved. Emil Kohler, the man who baptized us, sponsored Lena so she could go to America. She went to Midway, Utah where the Kohlers lived and then got a job in Salt Lake. I’ll never forget how I longed for my sister. We were doing everything together, working, singing, playing… I almost felt like part of me was missing, but it didn’t last long. In two years I had the good fortune of going to America too. Lena sent the money for me to join her in Salt Lake. Oh, what a happy day that was, when I saw my dear sister again but at the same time I was sad leaving my father and brother and sister behind.
Grandma Ida’s life had been a challenge in Utah. She and her employer, Mrs. McIntire spent a lot of the time play guessing games to try to communicate. At the next employer’s home, the Baily’s, an evil man sneaked into the open door, shut it and, put his hands around her neck like he would choke her. Immediately, there was a scratch on the door. That scared him and he let go of Grandma’s neck. Grandma ran and opened the door. Like lightening, a big purebred English bulldog, tore into that man. Grandma wrote, “It sounded and looked like he was going to tear him to pieces. It was awful. Even though the man had threatened to harm me, I did not want that dog to tear him to pieces. I kept telling the dog to quit but he wouldn’t. Finally, the dog stopped and the man ran out. I thought about calling the police but I could not speak English. Many time, I was at a disadvantage because I wasn’t able to speak English.
I had another bad experience. I was walking home from a Christmas party. A negro, or a man that was painted black, held me up with a pistol and took a nice purse away from me that my sister Lena had given to me. It had a dollar and my house key in it. I had to ring the bell for someone to let me into the house when I got home. I’ll never forget how awful that experience was.
After Lena married Fred Deursch, She said, “I joined the Tabernacle Choir. This was at the time Evan Stevens was choir leader. He gave one so much inspiration that we just couldn’t help but sing our very best. This was a very beautiful and happy time of my life. I sang with the choir two years when in June of 1915, Alfred came back to Salt Lake. He asked me to go out to Salt Aire with him (on a date). We had such a good time together. The next day was Sunday and we went to the German church. I was working at that time in a laundry so on Monday I had to work. We made some plans that night and the next morning Alfred left for Idaho, with the understanding that I would go to Teton Basin to see if I would like to live with him, in that country, as his wife.”
Grandma later returned to SLC with a women’s quartet from Teton Valley to a churchwide competition, where their quartet beat every contestant:
When we arrived in Driggs and Pratt Ward, I was accepted. The first Sunday we went to church we sat behind Br. Morgan who was the choir leader. He turned to see who that was singing alto behind him. The next Sunday I was invited to sing the alto part in a young ladies quartet. This was a busy but happy time. Alfred took me to many of the practices we had. Sometimes when he was busy he would saddle up the nice, gentle saddle pony and I would ride to the practices on her. He didn’t dare let me ride “Old Pack” a fast race horse, for fear he would run away with me. (Grandma didn’t ever drive a car.)
We were asked to sing all over the valley and many times Alfred took us to the places we had to go, in the winter time in a sleigh and in the summer in a buggy.
In the fall and winter of 1914 and 15, Alfred had built a house on the farm. It was a nice lumber home with a kitchen and bedroom downstairs and two bedrooms up stairs. We were happy in our home.
A church wide quartet festival was to be held at the June Conference in Salt Lake in 1916. The ladies in our quartet, Erma Wilson, Grace Green, Luella Dalley and I, decided to enter this event which was a contest. First, we competed with all the ward quartets in our stake, then we went to the district contest and the regional, then the final contest was held in Salt Lake. We were competing with the best women’s quartets in the church. The last quartet we had to meet was from the BYU, a very wonderful quartet of young women. Each contest was won by our quartet. We were so proud and so happy to think that we could do such a thing. To be the winning ladies quartet over the whole church was beyond our fondest dreams. But I felt sorry for those who had practiced so hard and didn’t win.
(I believe my kids and I get our musical ability from Grandma Ida.)
Father died in March of 1920, of the flu. Our brother Christian married and had a family in Switzerland. He was away from home working when the missionaries taught us the gospel and he never did join the church or come to America.
Grandpa Alfred Durtschi
About 45 Kilometers away from my Grandma Ida, in Wimmis, Switzerland, lived my Great Grandpa Edward and Grandma Rosina Durtschi and their nine children (of 11 births).
Much of Grandpa Alfred Durtschi’s experience was very different from Grandma Ida’s. Much was the same.
Grandfather, Alfred Durtschi, was raised in a Christian home. Both Mother and Father being very religious members of the Protestant Reformed State Church of Switzerland. Grandpa Alfred was born October 2nd, 1886, in Wimmis, Bern County, Switzerland to Edward Durtschi, a wood cutter and farmer born in Spiez, and Rosina Katherina Hiltbrand born in Wimmis, Switzerland.
Wimmis sits just west one of the many mountain lakes, Thunersee, Lake Thun, (the lake where many Durtschi family members were baptized) in another of the many beautiful Swiss mountain valleys, a mere 30 miles from Eggiwil, where Grandma Ida spent her young years.
Their family also sat around the table to take turns reading the Bible aloud … “all day Sunday,” Grandpa Alfred recounts. Their mother who loved the Savior also read to them from the Bible. Edward and Rosina were loved and respected by all for their honest dealings. They counseled with family before making decisions. Gr. Grandpa Edward was among the very few Swiss men who did not drink or smoke. He also had a great deal of faith. Edward and Rosina had purchased the Hiltbrand family farm. Edward was a very strong man in body and spirit. He never finished planting a crop without taking off his hat and asking the Lord to bless it that we might have a harvest. He did the same as he completed his work at the barn at night. He would remove his hat and ask the Lord’s blessings on the flocks that all would be well throughout the night. We had an ideal home. On winter evenings we gathered together and sang songs while father accompanied us on the accordion. They all loved that.
Grandpa’s family first met “Mormon” missionary in the summer of 1900. Elders delivered tracts to their home which were in harmony with the teachings of the Bible, but he had no desire to investigate further, as the “Mormons”, it was reported, “were terrible people.”
About November 1902, more elders came to their home and left more tracts. Grandpa Alfred read all they gave them and concluded that “if what I read was true, it must be the work of God.” He fasted and prayed as Moroni admonished, in the Book of Mormon, and received his own witness that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was indeed the truth. Grandpa’s mother who was eventually baptized into the church, said, “I don’t know about this Mormon religion, whether it is true or not, but I know this, that a church that produces such fine young men as these men are, is a better church than ours.”
Grandpa Alfred was baptized August 20, 1905, by Elder Hirschi. My mother, two sisters, Eliza and Emma, my brother Fred… were baptized the same night in Lake Thun. I was then 18. He said, “We members of the Protestant Church thought that we were in the light, but when the greater light came, the true light, the Gospel light, that light that I had known before was now darkness to me.”
The Durtschi family was also persecuted for joining the “Mormon” Church. My Great Uncle John, my Grandpa Alfred’s brother was beaten badly when he was ten years old by his third-grade teacher. His schoolteacher became very hostile when he learned from the Lutheran Minister that we were entertaining Mormon Missionaries in our home. This teacher now began to make things miserable for him. One morning the teacher started asking questions. He said, “There are some men going around town here with briefcases. Does anyone know who they are?” He expected me to blurt out and say, “Yes, they are Mormon missionaries,” but I knew immediately that he was baiting m. The people hated the Mormons and so I didn’t raise my hand to answer. The other the kids made a few guesses. So, I didn’t raise my hand at all. Well, it made him angry because I didn’t fall into his trap. I made sure my books in the book sack were in order. I put and put them in my desk so he would have no reason to find fault with me. I marched out and we played. While we were playing the teacher opened the window and threw my book sack full of books out. Then I knew that I was really in trouble. He didn’t know what to do, so he just I marched back in. When I got to my seat the teacher grabbed his 2 ft. stick he beats bad boys with, grabbed him by the collar and pulled me up off the seat, feet were dangling, carried him down, shoved his head down by the ground and said, “Now pick it up!” Then he really let me have it with the stick as hard as he could. He dragged me back upstairs, just dancing in the air, and set him in my seat. I was black and blue when he got through with me. My mother took me to the doctor the next day. After the doctor saw me and heard what had happened. He said, “That boy needs to go to the Alps for his health,” and he gave the necessary excuse.
This made my father realize that if people are so intolerant as to beat up an innocent little boy, maybe we had better go to America. This had to happen for his father’s sake, because Gr. Grandpa Edward decided to go to America with the family after that.
Great Aunt Clara Durtschi Burgener, Grandpa’s sister, said this about the relentless persecution the Durtschi Family received while investigating and after joining the Church:
The people began to hate me and, when I walked through town, they would throw rocks at me and holler, “Here comes the Mormon”. Even some of my own family made fun of me and told me I was bringing disgrace upon them.
Then she continued, “As soon as word went out into the community that the Mormon Elders were frequent visitors at our home again, an undercurrent of persecution began. The children were ridiculed and taunted by their friends. Father and Mother, though leaders in the community, were shunned. It was hard for Father to lose his good name for he had been loved and respected by everyone. It wasn’t easy to change our ideas and our way of life. It wasn’t easy to give up our friends, but this is what we eventually would have to do.
Lutheran ministers discouraging us from seeing and listening to these young men. Lies were told about the Mormons in Utah. It was difficult to determine what was false and what was true. Mother and Father make up their minds to leave Switzerland and go to Utah. They didn’t really want to leave for they had a good living, a lovely home and to leave it all was not good to think about. All they had worked for these many years was here. How could they leave it all and go to a strange land they knew nothing about and had nothing to go to? Mother encouraged Father to go and of course, we children were eager for this new adventure.”
Grandpa Edward and his family worked so hard hauling wood from the woods in the mountains to earn money and build up the value of their farm, that when a man approached them to sell their farm, they did. They used that precious cash to buy the family tickets to America. They immigrated from Switzerland on a steamship to the U.S., September 30, 1905, arriving in New York October 12,1905. Grandpa Alfred was 19 years old. They made their way by train to Utah, just as Grandma and Lena had. They bought 30 acres of land in Midway, Utah and built up that farm as well.
But when Grandpa Alfred’s younger brothers were big enough to help his Father run the farm, he and his brother, Edward, concluded it was their duty to make the desert blossom, dig canals and ditches, cultivate desert land and help build new churches. They chose Teton Basin in SE Idaho and left Midway on April 26th, 1909, with three head of horses and a covered wagon. They arrived in Teton Valley on May 14, 18 days later. That’s where they chose to make the desert blossom, dig canals and ditches, cultivate desert land and, yes, they helped build new churches!
Grandpa and his brothers John, Fred, Edward, and his parents, Great Grandma and Grandpa Edward and Rosina Kartina Hiltbrand Durtschi were all next-door neighbors. Grandma and Grandpa Durtschi had five children Arnold, Isabel, Walter and twin girls, Lucy and Lucile, my mom. All five children served missions. My uncles served during World War II. Besides Grandpa’s family, Grandma’s sister, Lena, and husband, Fred Deursch, lived 3 miles north, so Mom was surrounded by cousins galore. Farm work was difficult and the weather harsh, but there was no better place to raise a family.
When my Grandpa Alfred moved to Teton valley with his parents and his brothers and some sisters, they bought 160 acres of land on Stateline Road in June 1909. They divided the parcels between them. Grandpa Alfred then built a four-room wooden slat house with a wood cookstove for cooking and for heat, an outhouse etc., on his parcel intending to return to Utah to find Ida Aeschbacher and marry her, if she agreed, that is. He went back down to get Grandma, who he barely knew. He met her when she was singing in a Swiss Yodeling Quartet. She agreed to marry him after visiting the beautiful Teton Valley. Grandpa said in his history that, “the deal was made and we got married on the 7th of October in the Salt Lake Temple in the year 1915.”
Grandma Ida had great faith! She left her home in Switzerland. Then she left her sister, Lena in Utah, and her place as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the German Choir to go live with, my Grandpa Alfred in Idaho, and man she barely knew, in an unknown place without any family or friends.
Aunt Lena and her husband Fred Deursch, who married in 1911, eventually moved to Teton Valley, just three miles north of the Durtschi’s. She and grandma were asked to be in a quartet. This quartet won the regional competition, then they traveled back to Salt Lake where their quartet won the all- church title. That was pretty cool. Aunt Lena and Uncle Fred lived in Teton Valley until their own children were raised. My mom was raised with Aunt Lena’s family, the Aeschbacher cousins, while growing up. Mom lived near many cousins. Lucky! They attended church together, helped each other farm, provided employment when needed and had so much fun together!
Grandpa and his brothers and their families really did their duty to make the desert blossom, dig canals and ditches, cultivate desert land and help build new churches.
That is how my mom came to be raised in Teton Valley.
Go HERE for Grandma’s unabridged history!