Biography of Anna Elisabeth Louisa Schaerrer
Contributed By: SmithLindaSue1 · 9 September 2013 · on familysearch.org
Anna was born October 21, 1851 in the village of Hegi, Zurich, near the city of Winterthur, in Switzerland. She was the youngest of four children born to Hans Heinrich (Henry) Schaerrer and Anna Goetz. Her parents converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when she was about 7 years old. Two years later, her family emigrated to Utah. On the trip over, her family became very good friends with the Diem/Walser Family. Their son, John Jacob Walser Jr. later became Anna's husband.
The trip across the plains took three months. The families arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah, in September of 1860. After a brief stay in Salt Lake City, the Walsers moved to Payson and the Schaerrers moved north near Ogden. The two families kept in touch throughout their lives. A year later, in October of 1861, the Schaerrers moved to St. George. They were one of the first families sent to help settle the area. They tried to make a living at farming there, but were unsuccessful. With the encouragement of the Walsers’, they moved to Payson after a few years.
It wasn't long after the Schaerrers arrived in Payson that Anna and John Jacob Walser Jr. became reacquainted, fell in love, and married, on January 17, 1870 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Anna was 19 years old, and John Jacob was 21.
After their marriage, they lived in two rooms of John Jacob's parents home in Payson, for approximately three years. At that point, they were able to buy a home of their own. It was small, but it was their own. It was a two-room adobe house built on two city lots, one block north of her parents. As their family increased, they added more rooms to their small house. They were eventually blessed with eleven children: all born in Payson, except the youngest, who was born in Mexico. One died at birth and another in childhood.
In 1874, they had been married for four years and had three children when John was called to serve a mission to Switzerland. Two months after his call, he was to report to the President’s Office in Salt Lake City. At the time, their home was being added on to accommodate their growing family, Anna was in poor health, and their youngest son was very ill. John Jacob felt that he should ask for time to finish the home and see how things went with the baby before leaving, but Anna insisted that he accept the call and trust in God's assistance to see them through their present difficulties. In 1881, John was called to serve a second mission to Switzerland and Germany.
John Jacob and Anna had an unwavering testimony of the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their firm belief in the words of a living prophet, speaking the words of God, was unwavering. They desired to live the gospel to it fullest. As a result, they choose to enter the law of plural marriage, which was viewed as a divine commandment. They believed it to be an eternal principal and that it had been restored (as it was in ancient times with Biblical Prophets such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob).
Upon his return from his first mission, John Jacob took a second wife. He married Louisa Mary Friscknecht, whom he had met on his mission. They also had eleven children. Louisa was a year younger than Anna. The two women loved each other like sisters.
Before both missions, John Jacob stored enough wheat to last his families while he was gone. Even so, life was not easy for Anna and her children when John was away, but they were blessed and always managed to have what they needed. While they were what was called "small farmers," they always had enough excess wheat to sell. They also had excess eggs and butter to sell. The local peddler, who would sell supplies to the Tintic Mines, always tried to get Anna to sell him extra butter because she could make the best butter around. Anna was blessed with a good support system since her extended family was in the area. She and John Jacob were especially close to her brother, John Jacob Schaerrer, whose family lived only one block away.
The Walsers were involved in the social, religious, and civic activities of the community. Work was never ending, so the times of recreation were especially relished and memorable. The Forth of July was a day full of fun and activities. A favorite excursion was to go to the southwest side of Utah Lake for swimming and fishing. It would take them about "two hours of quite fast driving," with a team to get to their favorite spot for swimming. In the summer time, they took at least two trips there with the Payson choir and band. In the winter, the lake froze over, and people could drive their team and wagon on it. There were parts of the lake where care had to be taken, because there were springs under the water, which warmed certain areas. Duck hunting was also good around the lake. Anna cooked at least one goose John Jacob brought home from hunting there.
In 1887, the Edmunds-Tucker Bill was passed. It was designed to discourage polygamy by disincorporating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and confiscating its property (in 1890, the Church ended polygamy in the United States). After his return from his second mission, John Jacob was convicted of unlawful cohabitation in 1888. He served six months in the penitentiary in Salt Lake City. This put a great strain on the family. It was springtime and the older boys, 15 and 12 years old, had to take over the farming for the summer. After his release, John Jacob took the council of Church leaders, and moved his families to Mexico where the Church had purchased land in about 1885, for the express purpose of a place of refuge for polygamists.
John Jacob first moved his eldest son, John, and his second wife, Louisa, and her children. They left in September of 1889, traveling by teams and two wagons. They had a good trip without too much difficulty. They traveled some twenty to twenty five miles a day, arrived three months later, and settled in Colonia Juarez. (Colonia Juarez became the second largest of the nine colonies. In 1891, there were 54 heads of homes listed - most of those had two families. It also became the social and educational center, as well as the Stake center.) John Jacob acquired property and began to build a home.
A year later, John Jacob sent for Anna and her family. They traveled by rail and were met in Deming, New Mexico, by her husband and others from the colonies who had come up to get supplies. They traveled the remainder of the way by wagon. John Jacob made this entry in his journal on November 30, 1890, "On arriving at home (Colonial Juarez) we found the smallpox in town. My whole family, eighteen in number, were compelled (due to quarantine) to live together for the time being in a room fourteen by sixteen feet and a tent ten by twelve. But I hurried with the other house as quickly as possible."
The first few years were the hardest. Besides smallpox, epidemics of typhoid, diphtheria and dysentery broke out. The year after they arrived, there was an extreme drought resulting in the starvation of much of their livestock. The colonists were in a desperate situation, which would have resulted in human starvation if the Church hadn't sent a couple of train cars full of flour to them.
Life was a real struggle. But, with hard work, determination, and the blessings of God, they made the desert blossom as a rose. Their community was truly an oasis in the desert. President Diaz (the President of Mexico) held their community up as an example to the country as to what could be accomplished.
"Most important to the colonists, was the fact that the family life for which they had gone into voluntary exile was made possible. Children fathered by one man, but nurtured by two or more women in separate homes, usually, were kept in a family unit, the home of one always being the home of all, and children passing freely from one to another. The mothers in the respective homes worked together like sisters endeared themselves to all the children no matter whether to them one was mother and the other ‘Auntie.’ Children were regarded as ‘a heritage of the Lord’ and always a source of pride to the father who stood at the head of his large family in true patriarchal style. Respective homes of one family were usually within easy reach of each other, often on the same block and seldom farther away than across the street. It was not uncommon for ‘pairs’ of children to become chums, for ‘twins’ to find every need of a pal in a "half brother or sister living across the street or on the same block and for ties to be formed that endured and carried over into later generations." (From the book, Colonia Juarez)
In 1903, John Jacob took a third wife, Elizabeth Braithwaite, who had children from a previous marriage. He provided each wife with a separate home. John Jacob spent a week with each family. Because Anna was an exceptional cook, he would sometimes try and eat dinner at her home when he should have been at one of the other wives. She would refuse him and send him on his way.
By 1910, all of Anna's children were grown and life was not quite so arduous. Indeed it was good. The growth and progress of the Mormon colonies, during the previous 25 years was, by Mexican standards, phenomenal. Not only did the Mormons manufacture many of the items in general demand by its own people, such as shoes, harnesses, saddles (which John Jacob played a large part in producing – since he was the local tanner), and various kinds of furniture, but they ground an excess of flour and cut vast quantities of good lumber for export to El Paso, as well as for use in the mining and building industries of Chihuahua and Sonora. They erected fine homes of red brick, picket fences, broad lawns, and flowerbeds. Their business and factories were thriving, their sawmill ran full time, and their orchards produced the best apples in the nation. Cattle and horses multiplied on the long grass of their upper valleys. Two colonists wrote, "Our wheat fields are lovely now, prospects were never better in our lives." and "We had about all we could wish for." Yes, life was good.
But the peace and prosperity they enjoyed was not to last. In 1910, the Madera Revolution was just beginning. The colonists got along well with the native Mexicans until the revolution. They tried to remain neutral, but it became more difficult as first the revolutionaries, and then the federal troops, would demand their guns and supplies. Several of the brethren, including John Jacob, were arrested, and had their lives threatened.
From the book, Mormons in Mexico, comes this interesting note, "Among all the Americans in the north (of Mexico), the Mormons suffered least. Both the federals and the revolutionaries treated them less harshly than they did other Americans and the native population. Moreover, in the early stages of the war the revolutionaries plagued them less than the federal troops did, a situation that evoked considerable sympathy among the Mormons for the revolutionaries. One of the most famous revolutionaries was Pancho Villa. Villa had expressed his belief in the Mormon faith to Mormons he had captured and held imprisoned. He did much less damage to Mormons than either his position or his inclination would have allowed; he also announced that he would execute any of his soldiers who violated a Mormon woman. None did."
In 1912, the lives of the colonists were progressively threatened, so they decided to evacuate the women and children. They hastened to make ready for the evacuation. They had to be at the train station, 10 miles to the north, the next day. It was hard for Anna to leave behind the home and possessions they had worked so hard to acquire. Very little could be taken with them. Clothes were left hanging in the wardrobes, sheets and bedding remained in the drawers, dishes on the shelves, pictures on the walls, and food in the cellars and pantry bins. Each family was allowed only two trunks. Some tried to take more, but consequently had to leave them behind at the railroad station. Many expected to come back within a few days, but it did not turn out that way. At the very outset, one family was robbed by bandits as they drove in wagons to the railroad station. After arriving at the station, Anna and her family, along with the rest of the women and children, as well as the elderly men, were crowded into a few train cars for the journey in the sweltering July heat, across the desert to El Paso, Texas. "We left, piled in boxcars, like animals, with nothing but a few quilts." The Saints were taken to an abandoned lumberyard on the banks of the Rio Grande after they arrived in El Paso. They had no funds, privacy, husbands and fathers, or any plans for the future. The camp was surrounded by a picket fence. The townspeople came down from the city and looked through the fence to see "the Mormons." That was their home until better arrangements could be made. The men remained behind in Mexico to protect their property. But things worsened and ten days later, the men evacuated as well. They traveled to El Paso by horseback, herding what livestock they could.
When things were a little more settled, first the men, then their families began to return to their homes. Only about one colonist in five eventually returned. John Jacob was one of the first to go back, about a month later. (He had to evacuate two more times.) They were anxious to see what had happened to their homes, property and community. Many Mexicans, especially those around Colonia Juarez, respected the Mormons. Although the Revolution nearly destroyed Colonia Diaz and the Mormon mountain colonies, Colonia Juarez was relatively unscathed, in part because local Mexicans were asked to watch over their property while they were away. They did the best they could. A few homes were destroyed, some damaged and ransacked, possessions stolen and livestock killed or gone. It was devastating to see.
Those who returned, found the next decade full of trying experiences as the Revolution continued to unfurl. Annie returned a year later in 1913. Only a few of their children went with her. Most stayed in the southwestern U.S. to raise their families. By 1920, order was restored. With the determination that was an integral part of John Jacob and Anna, they picked up the pieces and carried on. Anna lived out the remainder of her life in Colonia Juarez, where she lived for 42 years. She passed away at the age of 81, on June 20, 1932. Her husband lived another 5 years. Written by Linda Wharton Smith
| Back left to right: Henry Samuel, Annie Elizabeth, John Jacob III Front row left to right: Wilhelmina, Anna Elizabeth Louise Schaerrer, Eliza Jane, John Jacob, Laura and George Jasper Walser |
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| Anna Elizabeth with two of her children, George and Laura |
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