Michael Kunz in Washington

Special thanks to Evelyn Kunz Gaffney, who wrote the largest portion of this section.

It may have taken the family quite a while to prepare for the journey. Clothes were mended or replaced. Lists were made and remade. Unneeded clothing were given away. And at last the farm equipment that was impossible to transport was sold or given away. Often many articles, too numerous to mention, were gone, accompanied with sobs from the owners who could scarcely bear to see a cherished possession pass into others’ hands. Maybe Amelia brought those two poplar saplings with her and planted them on either side of the gate to her new house.

            So in 1895 they started out. The packs were secured to be assured all Amelia’s trousseau would arrive safely. Her whole life was packed in those valises, boxes and trunks. She wanted to make sure her box of dishes wouldn’t rattle around and nothing would break before arriving at their destination. Perhaps her bags of fabric – calico and wool serge from Illinois – or a rag carpet that she might have woven, were packed around the breakables in order to protect precious things. Amelia’s treasured old camphor wood chest was carefully wrapped in an old quilt to keep it from being scratched. Perhaps the large eider down feather mattress that her grandchildren remember sleeping on so many years later, was housed inside this chest. They found secure places for Amelia’s sewing scissors and pin cushions and her new treadle sewing machine as well as for Michael’s tools. Amelia left kith and kin to proceed with this risky undertaking west . She knew that she was leaving friends and family behind, in many cases forever. There were family members and friends to help get their belongings loaded, to see them off and to say goodbye. They wept openly, those who were going at the thought of leaving so much behind for a long and uncertain journey; and those who were staying wept at the loss of their beloved family and friends.

            It has been assumed that when Michael ventured west, he left the farm to his brother, Charles, who never moved west. In those years the West seemed like a land of promise. People of all backgrounds were migrating by the thousands. In the 1840s and '60s the Oregon Trail and other such perilous routes were lined with wagon train after wagon train. But in the 1890s our band was traveling in style, likely aboard the Burlington Railroad and then connecting to the Central Pacific Railroad.

            On July 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into effect the Pacific Railway Act, determining that the eastern terminus of the new Central Pacific Railroad would be Council Bluffs, IA.¹ But the politicians bickered and the terminus was eventually housed in Omaha, NE, the easternmost destination at our travelers’ time. On May 10, 1869, the two railroad companies, the Central Pacific (coming from Omaha, NE) and the Union Pacific (coming from Sacramento, CA) were linked in Promontory Summit, UT.

In 1868, the Chicago-Burlington-Quincy Railroad completed one bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington, IL and another at Quincy, IL, giving it connections with the Burlington Missouri River Railroad, allowing passengers to travel to Council Bluff where they could then connect to the Union Pacific Railroad. Our travelers must have gone overland, either north to Burlington or south to Quincy, in order to catch the Union Pacific to Council Bluff.

The children were not without some fear and sadness to be leaving relatives and childhood friends and the older boys, Gene, Frank and Joe tried to be brave for the little ones, Leo and Will. Kate, at 13 years old, was a well disciplined young lady and had become such a mother’s helper. Michael stood among the bushes on the bank of the Missouri and a prayer for guidance and safety was prayed as they embarked upon this passage from one life into another. They had to cross the Missouri river by ferry to get to Omaha, NE.

Once our travellers boarded the train in Omaha the family traveled east across Nebraska through Willow Springs, North Platte, Ogalalla, and crossing into Wyoming at Cheyenne. While engines travelling along the western portion of the railroad were fuelled by coal starting in around 1870, this does not seem to be the case for engines travelling along the eastern routes. When the train squealed to a halt as it did at every little whistle stop, it was the practice of the railroad companies to encourage young men to go out and cut wood for the fuel of the steam engine and haul it to the flat car to stack at the ready for the boiler. Would Michael's daughter Kate would take the younger boys by the hand to go out and take a look as long as they stayed close and in sight? On those stops the children learned to stay clear of the rattle sound but they also learned that they were quite safe from the snakes if they did not bother them. At times they saw big stringy jackrabbits bounding across the snow. Sometimes a hawk winged overhead, hunting rabbits or ground squirrels or any small animal that might not be hibernating. Everything was interesting as it was so different from the home they had left. Out in the prairie the land seemed so desolate but would then rise up in the Rockies, so cold in February. The trains now had stoves in the coaches for the warmth of the passengers.

On through Wyoming – to Laramie, Rock Creek and Medicine Bow! Curious little furry creatures sprang up out of the ground and at times they stood up on their hind legs. This was their first introduction to prairie dogs. Soon they saw whole prairie dog towns. Continuing on their journey they went through Separation, Bitter Creek and finally to Ogden, UT. Their chosen route then took them north to Fort Bonneville. As the men went out to collect wood they liked to bring back small rocks for the little boys, Leo and Will – some glittering white quartz, smooth black basalt and pretty agates for the women folk. Due north past Eagle Rock, the railroad company had a siding at the Gaffney's near Virginia City. (The Gaffney and Kunz clans linked in 1973 with the marriage of Evelyn Kunz – granddaughter of Michael Kunz – and Timothy Gaffney.) The train continued east at Fort Bonneville, UT, through southern Idaho toward Baker City and Pendleton, OR and finally to Spokane, WA. Then there was the Great Northern rail trip to the little town of Wilbur from Spokane.

Michael’s brother John met the train to greet the family and haul their cherished belongings in his wagon. They headed straight north to Sherman, WA. The transcontinental railroad had borne precious freight: the hopes and dreams of an entire nation and of this esteemed family.

Upon his arrival in 1895, Michael “bought a quarter section that year, near Creston, the lands being known to old timers as the Cochran place. He soon bought more land adjoining the George Sherman homestead at Sherman and moved his family there. In 1898 he built an attractive eight room home” that would remain the family home until the death of his wife. “He finally acquired 1600 acres of rich wheat land in the Sherman region. Farming in his day was by horses and his large acreage required 46 head to operate it.”²

The two storey house that Michael had built in the township of Sherman was located on the east side of the main road just across from the general store / post office, around the time that the post office was closed. Two hundred yards to the south of the house was a clear, fresh spring. An all-purpose building was built behind the house, called the wash house, furnished with a wood cook stove for heating water. Here clothes would be washed and the children would have summer baths. There was an old wooden table where wheat would be ground, and the chickens and other wild game would be dressed. The root cellar would eventually store root vegetables and one gallon crocks that Uncle Frank Much would store and in which he would ferment his dandelion wine. And, of course, the two-seater privy was built apart from the house.

There were two front doors to this magnificent house and you could enter into the formal parlour or into the large living room / dining room. This living / dining room held a very long oak dining room table – with 15 leaves in addition to the basic frame of the table. (There are still pieces of that dining room set in the family. My brother Lary has the large table, I have four chairs and the secretary desk. Although not from the dining room set, the oaken double bed is with my brother Den.) All these oaken pieces were purchased from M.E. Hay Mercantile in 1898 and are still so sturdy and beautiful that they must have adorned Grandma’s house like the furnishings of a wealthy family.

Parlour Room

           When I was a little girl, a big oil stove sat in the corner of this room near the inside door to the parlour, and a wood stove undoubtedly preceded it. The parlour had a bay window with lovely, delicate tatted lace curtains and a window seat. It seems to me that Grandma had decorative pillows from her trousseau placed in the window seat of the bay window which looked out onto the back yard where a lush green apple tree stood.

            The front door which entered the living room had an etched glass designed inset and a door bell, the handle of which you had to twist and the mechanical bell would chirp. The wooden door itself had carved designs in the frame. Upstairs there were five bedrooms. The one on the front side of the house above the parlour was the largest, with windows on three sides, and so beautifully furnished.

            With no modern forms of entertainment available to them, on many an evening after the children were in bed, the couple might sit quietly by the stove. Michael would read to Amelia from Deutsche Liebesgedichte (Dear German Poems) a little book of poems. One was a very special:

They spoke only German in their home. Aunt Gertchie (Gertrude) had told us that they spoke German until she was about four years old. And certainly they spent family time in prayer. The Rosary was a favoured prayer for Dad (Hilary) and Aunt Gertchie, this I know from personal experience. In their memory I have included the Lord’s Prayer in German:

Vater unser im Himmel,
geheiligt werde dein Name;
dein Reich komme;
dein Wille geschehe,
wie im Himmel so auf Erden.
Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute.
Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,
wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern;
und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,
sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.

Denn dein ist das Reich und die Kraft
und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.

Although they waited for what seemed a long time and suffered the loss of an unnamed infant on on May 16, 1887, Michael and Amelia’s already large family began to grow. Amelia gave birth to a daughter, Gertrude Amelia, on May 18, 1899. A son, Hilary Michael, was born on July 17, 1903, three months after Mary Weber Kunz, Michael’s mother, passed away.

At which birth, or maybe both, did the midwife say, “Breathe Em, breathe”? Amelia’s eyes must have rolled back and the midwife may as well have told her to march outside and build a barn. Who was that midwife? Was it the current schoolmarm? Was it Mrs. Copenhaver from up the road? Could Doctor Yount have arrived all the way from Wilbur with his horse and buggy for every birth in the county? I’m guessing it was a neighbour and I’m sure she smiled endlessly and reassured Amelia that she and the baby were doing just fine.

Amelia did not have any family of her own out west, no sisters nor her own mother. Who came to tend to her and to the household while she lay abed to recover? One of her sisters-in-law? One of the neighbour ladies? Most likely the postpartum period was a few weeks. Did Kate see to it all? Or did Amelia get right up and see to dinner?

Michael and Amelia had three children in the Sherman area:

Sometime in 1904, there was a trip to Iowa to visit Grandmother Mary Much when Hilary was a tiny baby. Amelia and Grandmother Much were making the bed and had thrown the feather bed into the corner while they tidied up the bed with embroidered sheets fresh from the clothes line out side the kitchen door. Soon Mary cried out: “Ach du lieber Augustin! Wo ist das kind?" ("Oh you dear Augustine! Where is the child?")

They feared that they had lost Baby Hilary. Did he toddle right out of their sight? They looked and they looked until they noticed some movement in the feather bed thrown into the corner. Hilary had slept through their fussings and was just rousing from a warm and cozy nap.

Two interesting insights about that exclamation: It was indeed an exclamation but one would never take the name of the Lord in vain, so the name of a Saint was invoked. Secondly, the old German feather bed was so heavy and thick, year-old Hilary could easily get lost in the sheer volume of the quilt.

Amelia doted on her precious children and dressed them up like royalty. Hilary wore a cute little sailor suit in a photograph at about age 5 looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. And Gertrude, as a tiny girl, had a velvet dress with large fluffy collar. The children had a small spaniel-sized dog named Fritz and a small mutt named Skippy. The children and the dog would sit out on the back stoop and enjoy a balmy evening in the breeze. So proud were those parents of their children! I envision that they got what they wanted. But in my memory, neither Dad nor Aunt Gertchie behaved like spoiled children. They were giving and loyal to one another, good to their neighbours and well beloved by their community.

In every acre Michael waged war against the invader weeds – with rake, hand and hoe – and awaited the resurrection of the next crop – the next season. This is the life of every farmer. My brother Lary remembers the “foot burner,” the one-bottom walking plough that was pulled by one horse to go around the fence line and attempt to dig out those scoundrels. At other times it would be on a saddle horse, Old Buck, and a rake around the fence line. Becoming a landholder was not a promise of an easy life ahead.

The farm was large and the work seemed never done. When the engine was shut down at mealtime, the most appreciated workers on the ranch were the cooks. Kate became a great cook. On at least one harvest Kate and her friend Fredericka Copenhaver were assigned to the cook house. Michael was the roust-about and he had brought little Gertrude to the field to be watched by Kate and maybe to play and learn some cooking duties. But the evening became late as the men were working on a mechanical breakdown. Michael had gone to town to get parts for the machine. That meant that Gertrude had to spend the night in the cookhouse with Kate and Freddie.

The two older girls slept side by side with a wash tub between them for an alarm clock and a box of matches in case they needed to get up to have a light to see their way. This particular night Gertrude slept in the middle between the two girls and she kept scooting and wiggling. How many times that night did her wiggling land her head smack up against the wash tub that housed the alarm clock and the box of matches. She made a big racket! Needless to say not much sleep in the cook house that night! Kate did not want Gertrude to come to the cook house any more.

Around 1918, there is a picture of a gas-powered Caterpillar combine replacing the horse-drawn reaper and the stationary thrasher. According to Umatilla County Agent annual report, the combine cut 20 feet with a gas engine mounted on the combine for power and drawn by 75 horsepower caterpillar.

A photo taken in 1918 in Athena, OR, found in This Was Wheat Farming by Kirby Brumfield, indicates a definite move to “bulking” the grain. Once bulking started the shift was on from warehouses to elevators for grain storage. (I did not find documentation, however, of when this started in the Wilbur/Sherman area.)

When did Michael and his family crew go to a combined harvester, by now called a “combine”? We do have pictures of a team of 32 horses – which was pulling a combine because the combine required 32 horsepower to function. What a spectacle – 32 horses in one hitch, pulling a machine through the fields, gobbling up wheat in one end and discharged filled sacks out the other end!³ The smell of the warming horses rose rank and the sound of the gear slapped and rang.

Michael Kunz Harvest

Leo driving the team; Will at the header; Joe facing the sacks; Michael the back

Photographers would make the rounds of the farms during harvest. The whole family would pose on or near the equipment. Sometimes the women and children would climb on the harvester, and even at times the families of the photographer would pose with the farm family.

The boys – Gene, Frank, Joe, Leo, Will and even Uncle Joseph during harvest – were a great crew of farm hands and Michael depended on them to help with sowing and reaping the wheat, sack-sewing and stacking and loading the wagon. They were well trained and learned from their father to be good stewards of the land. They also learned care of the grounds, barn duties, and care of the horses, cattle, pigs and chickens. Men almost bent over backward with pride of their ranch horses. Farmers used to spend hours discussing the relative merits of their teams of horses – their pulling power, their intelligence and their endurance.

Besides farming, in the early years in Sherman, Michael worked as road boss grading the Sherman road to the canyons of the Colombia river. There is one letter to his sister Josephine where he describes the beauty of the canyon and White Stone, a landmark where the Indians north of the Columbia river could safely ford it.⁴

"Michael Kunz, one of the most prosperous & well to do ranchers in the Sherman country last Thurs., purchased from George Sherman the 160 acre ranch adjoining his place for $7,000. Eight or ten years [earlier] this same piece of land was offered to Mr. Kunz for $1800. Mr. Kunz having then about as much land as he could handle, did not buy. Mr. Sherman settled at Sherman in 1881, & when the post office there was established in 1884 he became postmaster which position he held for 14 years. The P.O. was named after Sherman by the postal department."⁵ When George Sherman left Sherman he sold his home to Joseph Parks. Parks put a store in the house. In 1913, "Joseph Park came from Almira and sold his old home and one acre of ground to Mike Kunz ."⁶ It was Joseph Parks' son who shot and was shot by Samuel Wilbur Condon, founder of Wilbur. Both men died.⁷

Michael Kunz and his wife travelled back to Illinois in 1898 and in the winter of 1902 to visit with relatives and friends.⁸ In 1908 they took a trip to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Walker, where they toured the park by stage coach.⁹Michael and Amelia visited Michael's brother John in California in 1910, taking young Gertrude and Hilary with them. They made at least one other trip to visit in California, in winter the year before his death.¹⁰

Michael was one of the first persons to purchase a Model T Ford. His son Frank was the automobile dealer in Wilbur. Michael allowed his daughter Gertrude to drive the car, shocking some of the old timers.¹¹

Michael "retired from farming in 1910 and in 1916 bought a residence in Spokane so that his daughter Miss Gertrude Kunz and his son Hilary Kunz... might receive the higher education following graduation from high school . That was their home for several years death.

"Mr. Kunz served his county as commissioner at different times covering several years. One of his achievements in that office was the establishment of a much needed bridge at Sherman, the concrete abutments still standing the strain of travel and weather.¹²

Michael Kunz became ill with stomach cancer and received radiation treatment at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. The illness got the best of him, however, and Michael Kunz died on January 12, 1922 at his home on East Boone, in Spokane, WA. He was surrounded by most of his children and his wife. His funeral was in Sacred Heart Church in Wilbur and he was buried at Sherman Cemetery.¹³

Amelia continued to live in Spokane until Gertrude and Hilary completed their education. She then moved back to the farm in Sherman. One hot day in July, a knock came at the front door of the farmhouse. Amelia didn’t know who would be knocking, as family and friends had the habit of coming in by the back and kicking off the dust or mud from their shoes before entering. Amelia went to the front door to see who it was and found a tall man, unrecognizable, with a full growth of facial hair. He said, “Hello, Em.” Amelia slapped his face. Gertrude was timid and hesitant and truly shocked to see her mother slap anyone. The mysterious stranger was Amelia’s brother, Frank Much, who had come all the way from St.Louis, MI to see his sister. Once Amelia realised who he was, she was so happy to see him. Uncle Frank's wife had died some time earlier, and so Frank stayed with his sister. He is listed as a resident of Sherman by the 1930 federal census. Frank helped around the farm until his death in 1939. He was remembered for making dandelion wine.

Amelia lived another twenty-two years after her husband's death. Amelia's health began to fail and she moved to Owl Creek where her daughter Gertrude and Gertrude's husband Michael Menehan were farming. They cared for Amelia until her death on November 6, 1943. Her body was returned to the family home in Sherman to lie in state, and she was buried in the Sherman Cemetery next to her husband, just up the hill from their family home¹⁴

⁴Letter to Josephine Kunz (Hamilton, IL) from Michael Kunz (Sherman, WA), May 20, 1900

¹¹ Timothy Gaffney, Aunt Gertchie: This Is Your Life, written for Gertrude’s 70th birthday celebration, November 1969

¹³ Letter from Katherine Kunz Portch (Almira, WA) to Josephine Kunz (Hamilton, IL)