Andreas Christian Housmann (1855-1906)Andreas Christian Housmann (1855-1906)Andreas Christian Housmann (Hausmann) was born in Rothenberg, Bayern, Germany. His birthplace was located in the Mittelfranken District about four miles northwest of the city of Fürth. His parents, Christian Hausmann and Eva Arnoldt had seven other living children. When Andreas was nineteen years old, his mother died in childbirth with a set of twins that also died.
As a young man, Andreas learned farming from his father and was also trained in mason work. When he was thirty-two years old, he married Margaretha Bauer who was ten years younger. He had been married before, but nothing is known of the first marriage. The Housmanns lived first in the Nürnberg area and then moved to Fürth where Andreas worked as a stone mason. It was there that they were introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by missionaries. Andreas and Margaretha were baptized in the Rednitz River by Peter Strebel on 26 June 1888.
Like many others of the Nürnberg-Fürth Branch of the Church, the Housmnns made plans to go to America. Andreas emigrated first, planning to send for his family as soon as possible. He made his way to Liverpool where he departed on 8 June 1889 aboard the SS Wyoming. Most of the passengers were from Scandanavia, but seventy-four were from Germany and Switzerland. The group, under the leadership of Lars S. Anderson, arrived in New York on the 19th of June. They reached Salt Lake City safely on 26 June 1889.
Upon arrival, Andreas made his way to Union Square, a campground for newly arrived immigrants. Designated as the 16th Ward, it was located northwest of the nearly completed Salt Lake Temple. After a few months, Andreas went south to Provo where he obtained employment as a janitor at the Brigham Young Academy. He worked and saved and was able to send for his wife and daughter the next year.
In the spring of 1894, Andreas moved his wife and three children over the Wasatch Mountains to Center Creek, a farming community near Heber City. He rented a farm and over the next six years of hard work, he was beginning to prosper. Longing for land of his own, Andreas filed for a homestead of 160 acres in Wyoming. In 1900 he moved his family to the homestead in the Bridger Butte area southwest of old Fort Bridger. He shipped the livestock and furniture by rail and took enough food stuffs and seeds to last a year. The Housmanns were offered temporary shelter a mile from the homestead. They lived there until Andrew, as he was called, built their own home-a two room house with a dirt roof. Andrew exhausted his funds trying to tame the harsh, newly settled land and he became discouraged. Having lost his oldest son to diptheria, he decided to give up farming for awhile. He got a job at the coal mines in Spring Valley about fifteen miles to the west, near the rail line. After about a year, he rented a two-room shack and moved his family there.
Shortly after a house fire destroyed their belongings, Andrew moved his family back to Bridger Butte, which had since been renamed Millburne. He began building a new house and continued to battle the land. After drinking some contaminated water from a spring, Andrew developed typhoid fever. He died in Millburne on 16 August 1906 at the age of fifty-two. He left Margaretha with six living children, four having preceded him in death. A tombstone placed in the Millburne Cemetery is dedicated to the father and three of his sons.
Margaretha Bauer (1864-1921)Margaretha Bauer was born 12 September 1864 in the village of Almoshof, Bayern, Germany, It was located in the Mittelfranken District just north of Nürnberg. Her parents were Johann Georg Bauer and Maria Barbara Schwartz. Margaretha married Andreas C. Housmann 13 November 1887. For a time, they lived with her parents in Wetzendorf and then moved to nearby Schniegling. There Margaretha worked in a factory and gave birth to a daughter, Barbara. She had two children previously that died in infancy. The Housmanns moved to the city of Fürth where they were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was baptized with her husband 26 June 1888. A few months later, her parents also joined and three sisters followed soon after.
In 1889, Andreas went to America and worked to earn passage for his wife. A year later, Margaretha made her way to Liverpool with her two-year old daughter and other members of the Nürnberg-Fürth Branch. They departed from Liverpool on 7 June 1890 aboard the SS Wyoming and arrived in New York twelve days later. Margaretha arrived in Salt Lake City June 26th and joined her husband in Provo where he was working. During the five year stay in Provo, she did washing and ironing for other people and was able to help her parents with passage to America. Two children, Lena and William, were born in Provo.
In 1894, Margaretha and three children followed Andreas to Center Creek in Wasatch County where they rented a farm. They stayed in Center Creek for six years and three more children, (Eva, Andrew, and John George) were born. It was good farm country and the family did well. But Andreas wanted land of his own so they joined a few other scattered homesteaders near Bridger Butte in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming. Margaretha made the difficult trip in 1900 with a new baby and five other young children. When they arrived, there was nothing but sagebrush-covered land awaiting them. Margaretha had to care for her children in a temporary shelter until a two-room house could be built.
Life in Wyoming was hard and filled with heartache. In 1902, their nine-year-old son, William, died of diptheria and was buried at Lyman. Financial problems set in and Andreas had to go find work in the coal mine. They moved to Spring Valley, about twenty miles away, where another son, Joseph William, was born. Not long after, their house caught on fire and the family lost all their belongings. They moved back to the farm where the name of the settlement had been changed from Bridger Butte to Millburne. Margaretha was called to be the Primary President of the Millburne Branch of the Church. They met in the school house and she often had to walk five miles to get there, but she was dedicated.
In July of 1905, Margaretha gave birth to a daughter, Margaret. Seventeen days later, her joy turned to sorrow when her five-year-old son, John, died. The following year, the family suffered an even greater devastating blow when Andreas died of typhoid fever. Margaretha struggled to hold things together, but when little four-year-old Joseph died of measles it was too much. Over a five-year period, she had buried her husband and three sons.
With the two oldest girls on their own, Margaretha sold out and took three children to Midway, Utah where her parents lived. With their help, she was able to go to Park City where she worked as a maid in a hotel. She met Charles Illi, a Swiss gentleman, who was working in the mines. They were married on 16 November 1907 in Salt Lake. The next year they became homesteaders at Lund, Idaho. On 4 May 1910, Margaretha gave birth to Iva Viola Illi, the last of her eleven children.
A granddaughter said of Margaretha, "She was a hard worker. She had a large loom on which she wove many carpets or rag rugs for herself and to sell. With her savings she managed to buy a piano so her girls could take lessons. She raised a lot of chickens and her family thought her chicken and dumplings were the world's best."
Things were good for a time, but Margaretha's health began to fail and the Illi family fell on hard times. On 25 August 1921, Margaretha (or Margaret) died in the Soda Springs Hospital of abdominal cancer. At age fifty-seven, she was buried in the Lund Cemetery at the foot of the Buckskin Mountains.
See history of Johann Georg Bauer and Maria Barbara Schwartz
See history of Brigham Harold Spackman and Eva Housmann
Five Housmann Siblings
Margaret, Barbara, Andrew, Lena, and Eva