(Grandma) Evelyn Walters Koehler's Life Story

Evelyn and her twin brother, George, were born at Aurora, Illinois, on November 3, 1874 to George and Eveline Walters. They were the youngest and last of a family of seven children. Her father had come from Germany to America with his sister when he was sixteen. He worked hard and completed a high school course in the English language when he was not working on the farm. Ten years after he arrived in America he went to work for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad as a brakeman and later became a conductor. While working for the railroad he met and married Eveline Smith at Bloomingdale, Illinois. She was from Vermont and of English origin. They lived in Bloomingdale and later in Aurora, until Evelyn was about ten. She and her twin brother were great pals and Evelyn became quite a little tomboy as George included her in all his activities even to sparring with the boxing gloves.

When Evelyn was six her father secured a position with the Van Dusen Elevator Company and was engaged in the construction of elevators throughout the northwest part of the Dakota territory. While there, he filed a contest on a homestead of 160 acres and a tree claim of 160 acres, which he secured in his own name in about 4 years. When the twins were ten the family moved from their fine home in Aurora and settled on the homestead. They lived in a 16 foot square room with an attic and an un-plastered "lean-to" that served as a kitchen and pantry. However when they had assembled their few household effects it seemed quite homelike and they often wondered why they did not need so many of the things they had sold or discarded. The piano was left in Nordland for a Mrs. Bradbury to use. She rented this for one dollar a month. That one dollar a month was about all the money they saw that year…for after paying sixty dollars for the freight car their household things came in, buying a ton of soft coal and some groceries their funds were exhausted.

The children slept upstairs and Evelyn often awakened to find snow had sifted through the roof upon her bed clothing…but the children remained well and it was an adventure to them after city life. Evelyn’s father had a guitar and they used to all sing the old songs.

At last when the spring came the children were like colts, let out to pasture. Their father nearly collapsed when he found that they had let a man pole them across a 15 foot deep prairie lake in a sheet iron shallow sorghum pan.  The boys learned to trap muskrats that first spring and the skins brought 15 cents each.

A year after they had arrived, Evelyn’s father had completed one of the most attractive homes in the farming district of Brookings County.

It was Evelyn and George’s task to keep the family supplied with fuel and she used to tell of gathering buffalo chips on the prairies and twisting hay into hard knots to burn. A goodly supply of these helped to tide them through a big blizzard that kept them in the house for a couple of weeks one winter.

Even after the twins became old enough to date they still went everywhere together. They went to many dances in the surrounding townships and the family made friends quickly.

Evelyn developed a beautiful soprano voice and was much in demand at all celebrations.

The Walters home was a model of farm comfort. Numerous magazines and papers kept the family in touch with the outside world. There was a fine piano and evenings were spent in song and good cheer. The family was members of the Christian church in Arlington and was zealous in religious works. The father took an active part in the political affairs of the township and county.

The two older girls married and moved away. Evelyn thought her mother needed her to help so she delayed marrying until she was twenty four when she married Alvin Koehler of nearby Arlington.  She was decorating her wedding cake and about to marry someone else when Alvin proposed to her. They eloped.

Evelyn and her husband moved to Arlington where Alvin started a barber shop. He built a nice home and they lived there for about 12 years. her husband felt that barber work was too unhealthy and his father and sister had moved to Montana to take up homesteads so Evelyn and he decided to follow suit. They had one daughter born stillborn and another, Lola, born in February 1902, who was about eight years old when they moved. A year after they arrived in Montana, Nellie was born. Evelyn had to go back to her parents’ home in South Dakota to have her as there wasn't a doctor within miles and miles of their homestead.

The Montana years were full of hardships but Evelyn and Alvin worked them out an built a lovely farm of about 500 acres with good cattle. During the first World War Evelyn worked in the fields with Alvin as there was no help available except a preacher who came out from town and quit after 2 days. She learned to seed and run the header and even plow. In the winters they would move into town where Evelyn set up a millinery shop and made beautiful hats to help supplement the family income. In 1918 they had a crop failure from hail stones and another in 1919. The final blow came in 1920 when their crop was wiped out by grasshoppers. They were able to get out of Montana because of an inheritance Alvin received. So they took a little old Ford car and what few belongings they could with them and started out for Medford, Oregon to start a new life. Evelyn’s father had a farm outside of Medford so they stayed with her folks for a few weeks until Alvin found work in a wholesale grocery firm. They lived in Medford until 1923 when they moved to Fort Jones…a little town in the Scott Valley of Northern California.  There they started a dry goods store.

Lola, their oldest daughter, was married by this time and living in Medford. Nellie entered the 6^th grade in Fort Jones. Alvin took up barbering again and marital differences came up and he left Fort Jones. Evelyn sold the store, went into Portland, Oregon, and studied to be a beautician. She then came back to Yreka, California, where her older daughter was living, and set up a beauty shop which she was active in until she was 78 years old. Nellie finished high school here and learned the beauty trade in her mother’s shop. They worked together until Nellie married at 21 and moved a few miles away to Hilt, California.

After the death of her husband 4 years later, Nellie and her little 3 year old son, Larry, came back to help Evelyn with the shop. Evelyn remarried soon after this and moved to Tehama, California, leaving Nellie to run the shop.  Evelyn’s husband died a few years after they were married.

In the meantime, Nellie moved to Palo Alto, California and started a shop of her own. She married a year later. After having 2 little girls, Darlene and Sheri, Nellie turned the shop in Palo Alto over to her mother. Evelyn continued to operate both shops. She lived with Nellie most of the time when not traveling back and forth.

She dearly loved to travel and Nellie and her husband took her on many trips. One she especially enjoyed was back to the old farm house where she lived when she was a girl. The owners let her go all through the house and this she loved. the house was still beautiful and looked as if it could withstand many winters yet.

She loved her granddaughters and enjoyed their frequent visits after they married.

She deeply mourned the passing of her grandson, Larry, (Nellie’s son) in 1957 and her daughter Lola in 1966. But she was determined to be happy around people and not inflict her sorrow on others. She loved to crochet in the later years and made many young brides happy with her beautiful place mat sets that she gave for wedding gifts.

She and her first husband, Alvin, became good friends in 1960 and she helped to take care of him in her last days.

Evelyn became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in May of 1960, when she was 86 years old and this she has always felt was the most beautiful experience of her lifetime.