LIFE OF BERTHA TOBLER WITTWER
Written by Lillie Leavitt and Vera Hardy, daughters of Bertha Tobler Wittwer and Samuel Wittwer.
Mother was born in Santa Clara, Washington County, Utah, on January 1, 1863 in a long cabin built by her father Jacob Tobler. She was the first of eleven children, four of which died while still infants. There were six girls and five boys.
She was a very quiet child and learned to care for the younger children and to do small household tasks at an early age. When she was a little older one of the many tasks was to go to a place called the “bench” which was about three miles from her home in Santa Clara and gather a wild plant which was called “secarta” which was used to feed their cows. They would gather large sacks of these plants and carry them the three miles on their heads. They had fun while doing this as well as making so they would have milk for the family.
Her father had a large fruit orchard, so her summers were “busy ones picking, drying, and canning fruit. Her parents were very thrifty and saving. Everything was taken care of and nothing was ever let go to waste. Mother learned the lesson of thrift and saving very well and used it throughout her life.
She learned to be a very good seamstress and did lots of the sewing for all the younger members of the family. She made dresses and suits for the girls and mens suits for the boys. The school house was just across the street from her home, so when she was six years old she went to school in the small adobe school. She attended this school until she passed from the sixth reader.
The gospel was very dear to her family and she was taught all the principles of the gospel. She tried very hard to live all of then. She went to the Temple when she was fourteen years old and did endowment work for the dead.
On Saturday all preparations for the Sabbath were performed. Everyones clothes were clean and mended, buttons sewed on, or anyŽthing else that was needed was done, all was in readiness for SunŽday. They believed very strongly in the commandment “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work but the seventh is the Lord’s.” They observed this and on Sunday all of them could be found in church.
Jacob Tobler, her father, was a jolly man, he loved play and joking with the children. And Barbara, his wife, was a very pleaŽsant and kind woman. She was always planning and thinking of special days, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentines and the Fourth of July, so her home life was a pleasant one. She even remembered her grand children. I think every grandchild can remember all the little special things that were sent to them like a pretty colored Easter egg, a fan on the Fourth of July, a beautiful valentine with a special message on it. It was no wonder that Bertha did the same thing when she had children and grandchildren of her own.
Mother grew to be a lovely young lady, with beautiful long brown hair, large brown eyes, and a lovely fair complexion. She had many young men that wanted to court her, but she was very modest and did her courting very reserved.
They were practicing plural marriage at this time and mother was taught that it was a commandment given by Our Father in Heaven. Even though she had chances to marry fine men who were not practicing plural marriage she seemed to fall in love with Samuel Wittwer. Their courtship was very different from most of our courtships, Samuel was married to Mary Gubler, Samuel and Mary talked things over and deŽcided that Mother was the girl they both wanted for a second wife. Father went a courting, but mother’s mother or father or some other member of the family was always present. Mother always said the first kiss father ever gave her was over the altar when they were married. Mother admired and loved father and they were married in the St. George Temple November 18, 1881. Mother moved into Mary’s home. They were both lovely quiet modest women and seemed to get along really well.
Mary had ____ children and mother helped care for them, she was kind and good to them. The children all loved her. Mary did lots of the work in the garden and orchard and mother cared for the house and children.
In May 1884 Father was called on a mission to the North Central States Mission. Mary had seven children and Mother had two, a girl Bertha Barbara and a son Albert. Bertha Barbara died when about two years old. They lived together in the same house working and caring for their home, children and fields until father returned two years later. When father came home from his mission, the manifesto had been given and the U.S. Marshalls were after the men who had more than one wife. The three of them talked things over and decided that it would be best for mother to move to Bunkerville. Mother had always said that Bunkerville was one place she would never live in. But she moved there and lived a very happy life for 37 years. Mother had two children now. Albert about three years old and Mina about one year old. The following spring they packed their few belongings and traveled by wagon to Bunkerville.
At first they lived in a small one room adobe house, at Steve Bunkers until Father could build then a home. They soon bought a lot right in the middle of town and father went right to work to build a home. He built two rooms. A kitchen, dining room, living combination and a small bedroom. The big room had a trap door in the floor so they would have a cool place to keep their vegetables.
They bought forty acres of land about two and one-half miles from their home. On June 24, 1890 another baby girl was born, which they named Rhoda. Father was gone to Santa Clara for weeks at a time. Many tines mother walked and carried Rhoda the two and half miles to their field to do the irrigating and other things that needed to be cared for.
On February 12, 1692 another child was born. They named him William. They were very happy for another boy. They still lived in the two roomed adobe house, but work had started on a big front room. Father did all the work himself.
On March 9, 1894 another daughter was born. They called her Lillian. Just before Lillian was born a woman by the name of Annie Hafen was moved to Bunkerville by her husband who was having trouble with the U.S. Marshalls for having more than one wife. It was a cold winter and the house she was living in had only three sides. Mrs. Hafen was looking for a new baby, Mother had Anne move in with her. They fixed her a bed in the kitchen, living room and had the children sleep on the floor. Here Anne’s baby boy Frank was born. Mother cared for Anne and the children. A few months later Lillian was born and Anne cared for her. It happened that Father could not be there when she was born. Mother knew that father wanted a boy so they decided to try and fool him when he came. They changed babies and mother proudly presented Frank to him. Father looked at the baby and said, “This is not my baby.” He couldn’t be fooled. Father was really surprised to find a baby girl. He had planned on being with mother for the grand occasion, but his wife Mary had given birth to a boy Julius. Lillie had gotten in too big a hurry to begin life here.
On February 11, 1898 another daughter was born which they called Ida, She lived just three weeks and died of Yellow Jaundice.
All the time work on the new house was going on. They also built a big room for a grainary to store the crops of wheat and barley and corn in.
On February 26, 1899, a son was born. They called him Eldon. At this time father was really sick and William had typhoid fever. The sisters of the town came in and helped mother care for the sick. The night that Eldon was born, Lois Earl, who lived just across the street, came over and took all the children over to her place to sleep. The next morning when they came home the new boy Eldon had a bed in the big rocking chair. How happy everyone was. Even the sick felt better and were happy.
In 1903 another baby came to bless their home. It was a little black eyed girl. They named her Myrtle. Everyone was thrilled and loved her very much.
In 1904 another baby was born. Father was really hoping for a baby boy, but instead it was a big baby girl. They called her Vera. She was the last of the Wittwer family. The old saying is “the last the test of all, but in the case of Vera it was the last the biggest of all.” Our home now consisted of a large front room, a large kitchen dining room, two bedrooms down stairs and one tearoom upstairs, Now we had room enough so the boys could have the bedroom upstairs and the girls a bedroom down stairs, Myrtle and Vera slept in a little trundle bed that was stored under fathers and mothers bed in the day time and rolled out at night.
Mother raised chickens and sold them to get money to buy a new bedroom set. It was a beautiful set. The dresser had a large mirror and four drawers. The washstand was used as a second dresser in the girls bedroom. The bed was a high wooden one, with coil springs and a good cotton mattress. The whole family liked to go into the front bedroom and look and admire it.
The family had many good times in this home. Some of the most enjoyable were the big family Thanksgiving dinners, when all the children and grandchildren came and enjoyed the chicken noodles and the delicious grape pie that was always made by mother. Other members of the family brought food to help out with these dinners, but mother always made the noodles and pie. The Fourth of July was another holiday that was a happy one. Dozens of pies were made to treat the seranaders and everyone else who came to our home to visit, Christmas was the happiest of all the holidays, Mother and father worked for months making toys for us that they couldn’t afford to buy. Cur dolls were dressed in beautiful dresses with buttons and buttonholes all neatly made in them so we could dress and undress our dolls. We almost always had a Christmas tree which we decorated with cookies, apples, popcorn and candy. When we couldn’t have a tree the organ was used.
Mother always decorated it and each of us found a big dish of goodies along with our toys and presents on Christmas morning. Old Santa always seemed to find our home and leave plenty. On Easter we always had brightly colored eggs which mother colored with peach leaves and dried onion skins, Mother and Father were firm believers in discipline. The children knew when they said something they meant it and we were expected to mind. They upheld authority. We can never remember of Mother or Father critizing those in authority or allowing us to.
Mother was very quiet. She loved her hone and family and tried hard to take good care of us. She didn’t hold too many chuch jobs. She was always staying with the sick and helping those that were in need of help.
When Harmon had pneumonia she had him and his two sons, Merle and Ellis in her home until he was well. It was Christinas time and Ellis, just a snail boy, worried for fear Old Santa wouldn’t find then. I told him not to worry that he would find him. Thanks to Mother, Old Santa found all of us. When Lillie had pneumonia at the time of the flu, she stayed with her caring for her three children and nursing her back to health for six weeks. She took George who was skick and cared for him one winter. She was always helping those that were unfortunate.
Father was gone to Santa Clara much of the time and she had the care of us children alone. We know she was lonely and many times discouraged, but she never let us know how she felt. We all grew up to be hail and hearty boys and girls. They sent Mina, Rhoda, Lillie, and Will to Cedar to high school as there was no school higher than eighth grade in our town. They wanted their children to have an education. They were very much in favor of the high school which was started in 1911, Will and Lillie graduated with the first graduating class of the Virgin Valley High School. From then on each of us as we came along graduated from high school. Eldon went to Reno and graduated as a Phi Cappa Phi from the University of Nevada. He taught Agriculture one year at Moapa Valley High School. He was then called on a mission to the Eastern States Mission. While there he was made branch president and then district president.
After his release from his mission he went to Cornell UniŽversity at Ithaca, New York and earned his Masters Degree and his Doctors. While there he served as Bishop of the Ward in Ithaca. He came to Reno and taught for twenty years at the University of Nevada. He served as Bishop two different times and was on the High Council at the time of his death.
In Mother’s Patriarcal Blessing she was promised that her children would grow up to be priests and priestess and would work in the church, which was fulfilled. Eldon was Bishop in three different wards. Will served as Bishop of the Bunkerville Ward for eleven years. At the time Will was put in as Bishop some of the people wanted Albert and thought they could vote for the one they wanted. When the Stake President asked why they didn’t sustain Will they said they thought they could vote for the one they wanted. They had nothing against Will, but thought Albert would be tetter.
The Stake President congradulated Mother and Father for having two sons that the people wanted for Bishop. They taught their children the blessings that can come from a temple marriage and everyone of their eight children which grew to adulthood were married in the temple.
Myrtle and Vera attended the Clark County Normal School and were prepared to teach school. Mother and Father decided to sell their home in Bunkerville and go to St. George, where Father could be closer to Aunt Mary, who was failing in health and they could work in the temple at times.
In 1924 they sold the home to Harley Adams and the farm to Mina and Hector and rented a place in St. George. Father drove a light one horse black topped buggy back and forth caring for Aunt Mary and Mother. Whenever he could leave Aunt Mary he went to the temple with Mother.
Myrtle and Vera went to one year of college at Dixie College and lived with Father and Mother. In 1926 they started building themselves a new hone. It consisted of a living room kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. Father did lot of the work himself. He was now 80 years old. His eyesight was failing but Mother had really good eyes. She would show him where to drive the rails and Father would do the driving. They worked and planned the home together and were able to enjoy it together just two years.
On Saturday night after doing a days work Father passed away of a heart attack. After Father’s death Mother stayed in her home in St. George and went to the temple every session she was able to.
She made a home for every grandchild and some that weren’t her grandchildren to go to college. She kept many women that came to St. George to have their babies. Some stayed with her until time to go to the hospital, others stayed there and their babies were born in her hone. She was kind and helpful to all of them. She was never a person that had much to say. Some people thought that she wasn’t very good company, because she was so quiet. She was always wanted by her children and grand children for Christmas and other special holidays until her death. She died November 26, 1937 at the age of 74 of a ceberal hemorage at the home of her daughter Rhoda Leavitt. Her life ended as quietly and peacefully as she had lived it.
Source: Brent Bunker