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Married:
- Ben and Leah (Dettwiler) Horst
This is a short history about Benjamin Lesher Horst and his wife, Leah Dettwiler Horst, as related to me by my father, Jonas D. Horst, and through research. Benjamin L. Horst was born to Joseph Horst and Fannie Lesher Horst on December 27, 1866 in Maugansville, Maryland. When he was about 14 to 16 years of age, he left home and went to live with relatives in South Dakota, find work, and make his fortune. The stories my father remembered being told, of the times before Ben and Leah were married, were few, but they give us some idea of his travels and activities.
Ben's first work was farm work and as a drover, taking cattle and hogs from South Dakota over into Minnesota. There is a picture taken of him in a town in Minnesota and father remembered being told it was taken at the end of one of these drives. Ben looks to be about 18 and seems to be trying to grow a mustache. He told of being over into Montana, down into Nebraska and of working on the railroad being built up through the Flaming Gorge in Colorado. During these times, he worked in a sawmill, a creamery and at harvesting wheat. In 1889, the U.S. Government opened a portion of the Indian Territory to white settlers, "the Oklahoma land rush," and on April 22, 1889, Ben was there to make the run with approximately 15,000 others. He got his 160 acre homestead proved up and worked it for a time. During that time he was making trips up into Kansas to visit friends and relatives around Harper. While there, he met a young lady named Leah Dettwiler. They were of the same faith and had much in common. He told of making a two wheeled cart of his light wagon by removing the bed and taking the reach pole off of the front axle and fitting the wagon seat to the top of the axle so he could travel the distance faster and also two could then ride.
Jonas (my father) said his maternal grandparents were from Canada and Leah (his mother) was born in Michigan. While she was very small, they moved to Clinton, Missouri where she grew up. She had come from there to Kansas to stay awhile with relatives, the Zimmermans, I believe. Her people were Mennonite, as were Ben's. After meeting Leah, his interests were more in Kansas and by 1894, he had traded his homestead in Indian Territory for a smaller piece with a two story house on it at Harper, Kansas. On December 4, 1894, E. M. Shellenberger "Minister of the Mennonite Church" married Ben and Leah in Harper. At some time during the 1890's, Ben became a Minister of the Mennonite religion, built a small church near Harper, and ministered there. All this while they farmed. On October 12, 1895, their first child, Jonas D. Horst was born, and I believe Reuben D. and Amanda D. were also born there. Then in 5 or 6 years, they moved to Protection, in Comanche County, Kansas and Ben built and started another small church.
Jonas told of the things he remembered about his childhood in Kansas, such as, his mother calling him to get in and bring the team he was working with and hurry! As he got t the barn, hailstones as big as hens' eggs began to fall and bury themselves in the ground. About a twister that picked up a neighbor's wagon and placed it on the opposite side of their barn, unharmed, but it plucked the chickens and stuck their feathers in the trees around the place. Also the time they all went for a trip and his father forded a stream and the water came up through the floorboards of the wagon and wet things, including his father's bible. I still have that bible, water stains and all, with Ben's marginal notations. He also told of going into a town and on the way in they passed cattle pens by the railroad, and thereby stood a single large tree with a rope dangling from it. On their way out of town, Ben pointed at the rope hanging there and said "Jonie, they hung a man there yesterday for following the wrong direction in life." My father said he could still see that rope in the tree.
In 1909, they sold out and moved to California. Jonas (my father) told me he was 13 when they arrived at the railroad station in Dinuba, and that they lived at the Mennonite community just three of four miles west of Dinuba. Years later, I was introduced to a man at the dedication of that railroad station, moved to a new location, as a museum. This fellow said he wanted to meet me as he remembered painting over the name Horst on a good many fruit boxes for a man he worked for in 1917 or 1918 and wondered if I was related to them. He remembered being in school with some of the children of that family. I have found a recorded deed to property purchased by Benjamin Horst in the area just west of Dinuba. Apparently Ben must have always been looking for a better situation for his family because in a year or a little more they had a new place.
Jonas said his father would take him and his brother Reuben over to the new farm to work and fix it up for the family to move to. This new place was what we, the second generation, call "the old home place". I found the deed made for the sale in the Tulare County records. It reads in part, "160 acres of land and the buildings, house, fences and improvements thereon along with 8 shares of stock in the Deer Creek Ditch Co.". This all for the princely sum of "ten dollars gold coin of the United States." The deed was from Clarence Dunbar to Benjamin L. Horst and did not have Leah on it. Many years later, an old hardware store owner and friend remembered our grandfather having died without a will and having to carry the bill for near a year while the estate was straightened out. But he said the Horst's have always paid their bell and were good customers over the years.
There is a picture that Jonas said they took to send copies to the relatives, of an electric pumping plant shooting a 6" pipe full of water out into an irrigation ditch and Ben, Lean and several of the kids sitting around it all smiles. This was a great thing in 1913! They looked like a typical farm family enjoying the fruits of their labors. Leah had her long, neck to toes dress, the children barefoot, the boys with white shirts and bib overalls, girls with dresses, and Ben looked thin with white shirt and bib overalls and very proud of their new water source, as it was all important to a farm's success. During this time, Ben and Leah were starting a church in the local schoolhouse. They were now six miles east of Pixley California, eight or so miles west of Terra Bella, fourteen miles southwest of Porterville, in a place now called Saucelito School District.
In those times, there was another school about one and three-quarter miles east of their home, called Zion School, with a store and post office next to it called Belleville. This all ceased to exist about that time and the school district was ceded to Saucelito in the early 1920's. In 1914, everything seemed to be going right, Titus Benjamin, the newest child was just about a year old, the community had a new minister with church being held in the school house. There was enough water to irrigate the farmland. Then in February, Ben fell ill. On the front page of the Porterville Daily Recorder of February 7th, an article tells of his death. Under the heading "MENNONITE COLONIST DIES OF PNEUMONIA', B. L. Horst passed away last night after an illness of only eight days. B. O. Horst, a prominent member of the Mennonite colony at Saucelito, died at 10 o'clock last night after an eight days illness of pneumonia. Mr. Horst was fifty years old and had lived in that section for some time. He is survived by a wife and several children. J. C. McCabe and Frank Simpson are in Saucelito today preparing for internment. Grandpa Horst as we all referred to this energetic man who we of this generation never knew, was buried in the Dinuba Cemetery a few days later near a baby daughter buried there three years earlier.
It would be appropriate here to name the surviving children in order of birth: Jonas D., Reuben D., Amanda D., Daniel D., Joseph Roy, Nannie D., and Titus Benjamin. There were four that died as babies; Paul, Fannie and John in Kansas, Mary in California. Ben's death left Leah and the children devastated, of course, but they had a close and strong family. Jonas and Reuben, the two oldest boys, took on the responsibility of breadwinners. Jonas said he and Reuben hired out, with a team of horses each, all over the area while they also worked the home place. All of them as with most farm families, had their chores to do. The church was kept going and heavily supported by this family. Leah sold the north half of the 160 acres in about 1916 to finance a new house. This is the one most of us of this generation remember.
Grandma Horst (Leah) as I knew her was a very quiet, shy but strong lady and was loved and respected by all that knew her. She had the only telephone for miles around and would seldom, if ever, lock her house because someone may need to use it. She kept eggs, milk and cream in a refrigerator on the screen porch for sale, but if you had no cash or other items or pay later would do. There was no worry though, it seemed her trust was always repaid tenfold. I knew and loved her for only the blink of an eye, eight short years, and only four that I can say I remember, but I was impressed as I'm sure were all. I will leave it for the older cousins, who were fortunate enough to have had her company longer, to write more. I will close with the vital statistics I have searched out about our Grandmother: Born September 12, 1869 in Calidonia, Michigan to Jonas Dettwiler (born in Canada) and Amanda Eby (born in Canada). On the front page of the March 18, 1942 Porterville Evening Recorder, "DEATH TAKES MRS. HORST", mrs Leah Horst, resident of the Saucelito district soughwest of Porterville for the past 32 years, passed away this morning, at her home there, at the age of 72. She had been ill for the past two months. It continues, telling of arrangements and survivors and at the end mentions a brother, W. E. Dettwiler, of Harper, Kansas who has been visiting here. I have a photograph of her and her brother, taken just weeks before her passing. Miss her, maybe because I knew her for such a short time. I look forward to the time when we meet again.
William (Bill) Benjamin Horst.
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