We Are All At Home: Homesteading with the Blochers in North Dakota

By Eric Flora

Two-year-old Rosa "Rose" Blocher traveled with her Old German Baptist parents from Carroll County, Indiana, to Ward County, North Dakota, in 1902. The family moved back to Indiana in 1907, but the potential of North Dakota lured them back two years later. As a teenager, Rose became smitten with a farmhand, twenty-one years older than her, who lived and worked with her family. Her parents forbade them to marry. Twenty-one-year-old Rose spent a year in California and returned to North Dakota in March 1922. Twenty-one months after returning to North Dakota, she married Forrest Scholl. They soon moved to Indiana and had two children. Rose filed for divorce and received it in December 1931. Rose never remarried and lived the rest of her life in Carroll County, apart from four and a half years spent as a girls' supervisor at the Mexico Welfare Home in Miami County, Indiana.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098353124

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© Eric Flora 2021

ISBN: 978-1-09835-311-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09835-312-4

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for everyone who took the time to supply pictures and other information for this book. I would like to thank Opal Angle , Robert Benell , Jacqueline Beery , Carl Barry Blocher , Rick Blocher , Lyle Bollin , Duke & Beulah Brenneman , John & Susan Brunton , Larry & Diane Cripe , Cheryl Blocher Delroy , Mrs. Paul Dunlop , Marshall & Rosalene Dutter , Alan Flora , Jonathan Flora , Mark & Evelyn Flora , Joleen Flora , Shirley Fisher , Michelle Franz, Jordan Gish , Rev. Roy A. Harrisville III , Lawrence Hendley Jr. , Jack Hufford , Jerry & Marvel Maggie (Hadler) Hughes , Roxanne Jensen , Lydia Kinzie , Merl & Janice Knaus , Marjorie Lavy , Joyce Lovgren , Barbara O’Hara , Gerri Masellis , Jonathan Mohler , Everett & Lois Moore , William Towner Morgan , Frank Nordhagen , Wayne & Lisa Peters , Rodney Renicker , Carl Root , Raymond & Eleanor Root , Ruth Mary Sandberg , Curtis Selby , Doug Selby , Howard & JoAnne Shuck , Keith & Marilyn Skiles , Vivian Stambaugh , Gordon Welk , Kurt Welk , Saloma Wirick , Brenton Wise , Galen & Karen Wise , Freda Wolf, and LeRoy & Shirley Wray.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1:1

Chapter 2: The Early Years

Chapter 3: The Blochers Get a New House and Barn

Chapter 4: It Is Very Stormy

Chapter 5: Police Chief Warrington Will S. Brown

Chapter 6: The Hadlers and Blochers Attend Mennonite Church

Chapter 7: Aunt Mary Pollock Lunches with the Family

Chapter 8: Aunt Amanda Hufford Lives in a Boxcar

Chapter 9: Aunt Eva Wray Hosts Carpet Rag Sewing

Chapter 10: Elevator Owner and Banker Frank Roach

Chapter 11: Uncle Silas Beachler Avoids Being Shot

Chapter 12: Uncle Mose Wise and the Chickens

Chapter 13: Charles Moore Dies from Burns

Chapter 14: Uncle Simon Blocher Braves a Blizzard

Chapter 15: Uncle Dan Blocher and His Christmas Geese

Chapter 16: D.E. Benell Has a Sale

Chapter 17: Uncle Albert Blocher Raises 3,000

Bushels of Potatoes

Chapter 18: Successful Farmer Uncle George Blocher

Chapter 19: John Blocher Believes in the Golden Rule

Chapter 20: Joel Milam and the Gooseberries

Chapter 21: Champion Potato Grower Will Wray

Chapter 22: Well-Known Singer Miss Reishus

Chapter 23: Grandma Blocher Attends Church

with Granddaughters

Chapter 24: Mayor Walter Scott

Chapter 25: The Blochers Return to Indiana

Epilogue

Selected Bibliographies

Index

Introduction

Over the past thirty years, several books have been published related to various Old German Baptist families and their North Dakota homesteading experiences. In 1981, Herman Shuman wrote Highlights and Heartaches of Brethren Pioneers covering the Old German Baptists in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Velma Stull and Doris Clark wrote about the John and Frances Hufford family’s North Dakota experiences in Trials and Triumphs of John and Frances in 1999. Mary Karstedt and Kathleen Cable, in 2004, captured the North Dakota experiences of Simon and Lucy Blocher in Family Memories: A Collection of Memories of the Children and Grandchildren of Simon and Lucy Blocher. Also in 2004, Runella Hufford wrote A Time to Sow and a Time to Reap about her father Floyd Blocher ’s memories of homesteading with his parents in North Dakota. Freda and Kristel Wolf , along with Shirley Fisher, wrote A Book of Remembrance: Jesse and Elizabeth Wagoner in 2006 and documented the Wagoner family’s North Dakota experiences. Lowell Beachler shared the North Dakota experiences of the Beachler family in his 2009 book, The Lord Is Gracious and Full of Compassion. Perhaps the only missing piece, if there was a missing piece, was the perspective of North Dakota homesteading life through the eyes of a teenage girl. Most of the books, other than Herman Shuman ’s primarily focused on a specific family. But I was also interested in the neighbors and relatives mentioned in the journal.

My great-grandmother, Rosa Rose (Blocher) Scholl, started keeping a journal when she was sixteen years old. Her North Dakota journal was the oldest one I received when her son-in-law, my grandfather, moved to an assisted living facility. Before her death in July 1995, she reviewed her journals and scratched out some entries and destroyed several journals from the 1920s and 1930s. I recall visiting her home, in her later years, and seeing stacks of her journals sitting on her writing desk as she worked her way through them.

As I began reading, I quickly saw a pattern. She had regular entries in shorthand, after she had been in town. I assumed the shorthand entries had something to do with a boy. What else would a teenage girl want to keep private from her siblings and her parents? Later, one of Rose’s nieces shared how Rose once told her that her parents wouldn’t allow her to marry her first love, and Rose wondered how different her life might have turned out if she had married him. I spent a considerable amount of time tracking down who this person was. After uncovering his identification, I then became interested in and researched the other people she mentioned and compiled the information into this book.

Rosa Rose Blocher was born in July 1900 near Camden, Indiana, to Adam and Elizabeth (Wise) Blocher, while William McKinley served as the twenty-fifth president. Adam and Elizabeth originally joined the Old German Baptist Church and then joined the Old Brethren Church in 1913. Adam and Elizabeth returned to the Old German Baptist Church in 1932. Rose spent most of her childhood, teenage, and early adulthood years with her family in Ward County, North Dakota.

Rose spent from July 1921 through March 1922 in California. In a 1986 letter, Rose wrote that Silas and Mary Yost, of Camden, Indiana, stopped in North Dakota on their way to California. Rose went on to say, They urged me to go along. So, I decided to get a ticket and go along.

A few days before coming home, Rose wrote, There is so much flu around that I have decided to start home next Friday. If nothing prevents and not stopped. In her 1986 letter, Rose wrote, I decided in March that I wanted to go back home to North Dakota and did.

Two days before Christmas 1923, she married Forrest Scholl near Deering in McHenry County, North Dakota, at the home of Old German Baptist minister, Addison Miller. After a two-week wedding trip, to visit Forrest’s family near Shamrock, Callaway County, Missouri, Rose and Forrest moved to Carroll County, Indiana. Forrest and Rose had a daughter, Anna Lou, born in January 1925, nineteen days before a 621-mile emergency dog sled trip delivered emergency diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska. A son, Robert Eugene, was born in April 1927, the same year John Daniel Rust invented the mechanical cotton picker.

Forrest and Rose (Blocher) Scholl, 1924

(Rose Scholl Family)

Rose started divorce proceedings from Forrest in June 1930. She withdrew the lawsuit in mid-October 1930. Four days later, she refiled for divorce and charged Forrest with cruel and inhumane treatment. They finalized their divorce in December 1931, and Forrest returned to North Dakota. He left Rose the farm, and she assumed the $1,500 payment to John Leedy on the first of March 1932.

The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939. By 1933, fifteen million Americans were unemployed. In 1932, Rose sent her children to live with her parents near Camden, while she worked at the Mexico Welfare Home in Miami County, Indiana, for a dollar a day. She resigned her position at the home in September 1936. The book I’m Tired Enough to Retire, published in 2019, details her experiences at the Mexico Welfare Home during 1935. Rose died in 1995, eighteen days shy of her ninety-fifth birthday. She had never remarried as the Old German Baptist Church, then and now, forbid its members to divorce and remarry, based on the church’s understanding of the scriptures.

Rose mentioned some people who do not appear in this book. Sometimes, we could not verify who the people were, and, with others, we could not find enough North Dakota–related information on the person or family to include in the book. This book uses Rose’s North Dakota journals from 1916, 1917, and 1918 to share the family’s homesteading experiences in Ward County, North Dakota.

Punctuation, wording, and spelling changes have been made to some direct quotes to ensure consistent readability.

The author and his great grandmother, Rose (Blocher) Scholl

(Rose Scholl Family)

Chapter 1:

The German Baptists and North Dakota

The German Baptist people began moving to North Dakota by at least 1875. In early 1875, The Vindicator noted: Brother and Sister Peterman , of Vermillion, Dakota, who request us to send them books, papers, hymn-books, etc. They seem in distress, having, with many others, suffered severely by the grasshoppers, and request aid. Another report shared: But from Dakota comes a tale of suffering and want and woe that cannot fail to move the heart of the strongest. There upwards of fifteen hundred families are found in great need, many of them in absolute want. The destruction of crops there was almost total. Of all the crop of corn, oats, rye, and wheat, only about two bushels of wheat to the acre, on an average, was harvested—and that of poorest quality—and nothing else. All vegetables are destroyed, so that no sustenance comes from that source. Men and women are suffering from the want of the commonest necessities and, without aid, there is nothing left to them but starvation and freezing.

By November 1888, Old German Baptist member, Samuel Frackler, had moved from Iowa to Haram, North Dakota. Seventeen months later, Old German Baptist member, Martin Ravely, had moved from Illinois to Edgeley, North Dakota. Three days after Christmas 1891, Martin wrote: You can easily imagine that we are lonesome few, so far from any of the brethren. It seems hard to think we have no opportunity to hear the pure word of God expounded as we could in former years. Oh, how sweet it would sound in our ears. If I may be allowed a little space, I would like to add a few words of encouragement, at least to such of our members who are of like situation as I am. I was without a home of my own and with a large family to provide for. I became convinced that, by renting in an old settled country, I could never accomplish that end and I can say with a pure conscience that I have bettered my condition ever so much. Dakota is by no means a desert country, neither is it a paradise on earth. The good Lord surely never intended for such a country to lay a waste as it seems to be when looking over the many thousands of acres of land that can be homesteaded or bought from four to ten dollars per acre and that at a convenient distance from two leading railroads. This season we were blessed with abundant crop, and, without boasting, I can say that we had land right in our midst that even first grown crops on raw land yielded forty bushels of wheat per acre.

The Great Northern railroad was largely responsible for enticing large numbers of German Baptists to move to North Dakota. The first Dunkard Colony, consisting of approximately one hundred members, was established at Cando, North Dakota, in 1894.

Initially, Great Northern Railroad Agent Max Bass worked with F.L. Thompson to establish an Amish colony at Cando without success. F.L. Thompson had lived near a German Baptist community in Girard, Illinois, and suggested to Max that the German Baptists be visited to see about getting them to move to North Dakota. However, things were going well in Girard, and Max was unable to generate any interest among the Girard German Baptists in moving to North Dakota.

Max then attended the 1893 German Baptist Annual Conference at Muncie, Indiana, and met a few people who were interested in the opportunities of North Dakota. Eventually, Rev. Amos Peters, T. Judson Beckwith, William Baughman, William Holland, Rev. J.R. Miller, and Samuel Burkhart took up Max’s offer of free transportation to visit North Dakota. They visited Mayville and Lakota before arriving in Cando. According to Volume 4 of the Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Rev. Peters, who was an elder in the church, preached to the public during the visit of the committee. His friends take great pride that this was the first sermon preached in North Dakota by a minister of the Brethren Church.

The railroad then paid Rev. Peters to drum up interest for a German Baptist colony near Cando. The method, pursued by Rev. Peters in securing immigrants, was largely that of personal solicitation among his personal friends and the members of his church. He traveled from community to community, telling the poor man of the wonderful opportunities which awaited him in the northwest. He visited the homes of those he thought he could interest, took a meal with them, or perhaps stayed the night. His work took the form of a personal canvas, and, because he himself was a poor man, and was venturing his all in a new country, the people whom he approached placed special confidence in him.

Lowell Beachler wrote: Amos B. Peters married Barbara Blocher. Amos became acquainted with Max Bass. With the team of Max and Amos, thousands of Brethren people moved from Indiana and Ohio to North Dakota from 1893 to 1903. In March 1894, Amos and his family moved to Cando, North Dakota. Amos and Max would return to the Wheatfield [Indiana] area and hold ‘Dakota meetings’. This stirred up a lot of controversial talk.

Rev. Peters created enough interest, and a special train was made up for the emigrants at Walkertown, Indiana, which was to make a through trip to Cando. When finally assembled, the train consisted of over thirty emigrant, or freight cars, and eight or nine passenger cars; the number of passengers was about 350. Bass accompanied the colony throughout the entire trip. To advertise the trip and arouse the ‘Dakota fever,’ he arranged the train’s schedule as to travel through Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin during the daytime. The outside of the cars were covered with large banners upon which the opportunities of North Dakota were set forth in conspicuous letters. Max Bass accompanied the homesteaders. Lowell Beachler shared how Max would walk down the aisles and pass out cigars to the men and oranges to the ladies and children. He was a warm, friendly man and wore a handlebar mustache and had a mass of black hair.

German Baptists from Carroll County, Indiana, had been moving to North Dakota since at least 1896, and Adam and Elizabeth were familiar with their experiences. In April 1896, German Baptist minister, John Lesh, traveled from Carroll County, Indiana, to North Dakota to scout the area. John wrote from Carrington, North Dakota: Our entire trip was one of pleasure and enjoyment as the Northern Pacific R.R. Co. had provided everything they could that was necessary for our comfort. We are well pleased with the country around Carrington. We took a three-mile walk out over the country yesterday afternoon and found a great soil. We examined the soil carefully in several places, and found it all right, with a good clay subsoil. The ground for wheat was all plowed last fall, and it is in good shape to work in now. I had to think what is the use of good, honest, hard-working men to stay in good old Indiana, and hardly make a living when they could come out here, and get a good farm of their own, for just what they will have to pay cash rent for one year in Indiana. You can get good land here in Foster County for from three to seven dollars per acre, and by going away from the railroad fifteen or twenty miles, you can get good government land.

John Lesh and his family moved to North Dakota later the same year, in 1896, and in December 1898, John wrote again from North Dakota: "Now, I suppose there is not another state in the union that has had as much misrepresentation, both for and against it, as the great state of North Dakota, and when I say the great state, I mean it and emphasize it. I feel like bumping you, Mr. Editor, for having come to North Dakota twice since we left Flora and did not come to see this part of the country. You have simply failed to see North Dakota. We have as good soil as any in the state and the nicest-looking country I ever saw. But, while North Dakota is destined to become one of the greatest states in the union, it also has its disadvantages and its drawbacks, these more especially out on the frontier where we are. When we landed here, there was not a house to be seen for miles, except those the railroad company had erected. For the consideration of my Indiana friends who are thinking of