As far as I know, I'm the first Utah State Aggie in my family line. Or am I? I wanted to find the answer to this question last semester, so I did some research. I finally discovered that my first ancestor to live in Logan was Christian Schneider, the father of Bertha Schneider (check out Melissa's post on her if you haven't already). Christian Schneider was an Aggie, not in the sense that I am as a USU student, but he was the real deal Aggie in that he was part of a Mormon movement from Salt Lake to the Cache Valley to do agriculture in the late 1800s . After getting married in 1870, he moved to Cache Valley where he purchased 180 acres of land. His home was on 500 N, which is also where I'm living right now. I wonder if I am sitting on what once was his property. Here's some interesting facts about him:
- He was a yodeler. But he didn't yodel to entertain, he yodeled to herd his goats!
- He first met his future wife, Susanna Klassner, in a Latter-day Saint congregation in Switzerland, and somehow he managed to follow her across the ocean on a ship and across the American plains to Utah. But Susanna never gave him the time of day until he let her ride with him on his oxcart as her feet were healing from intense blistering. After settling in Salt Lake for a couple years, they got married.
- Since he practiced polygamy, he had to go into hiding for two years in order to dodge federal agents on the hunt for him. Apparently Bertha and some of the other kids were successful in driving away one of the agents. Check this out from Bertha's diary:
We children didn't like to have papa have to hide from mama. We dislike the Federal agent. He rode around in a high topped buggy behind a span of fancy horses and the sight of him brought terror to mama's eyes and because of him papa couldn't come home and mama needed him. Her health was poor. We organized a group of children to heckle him and whenever he appeared, we shouted, "C.C. Goodwin will do as well, for to find a place in hell." This bothered the gentleman and he dodged we children as our fathers dodged him.Sometimes I feel like I'm so secluded up here in the Cache Valley. But there's something awesome about knowing that I had an ancestor come here before me. So many things have changed since he lived here. Last week I rode my bike down the road to see if there were any remains of his house, but it's now a laundromat. But it's crazy to think that as I look at the 130 year old Logan Temple, erected by the saints in his time, that in many ways, not much has changed.
When papa heard of what we were doing he looked sad and told us we should "condemn no one to hell." We should love our enemies and do good to those that despitefully used us. We obeyed papa and shouted instead, "C.C. Goodwin will do well for to find his place in Wupp."
 |
| A picture I took on my way home from class |
