William Wilker was born January 12, 1847, at Solothurn, Solothurn, Switzerland, the only son of Johann Wendell Wilker and Katharina Schorli.
Maria Kienzli was born October 17, 1842, at Oberbaldingen, Baden, Germany, the daughter of Mathias Kienzli and Katharina Lohrer. Other spellings for her surname include Kuenzlin, Kienzly, Kienzle, Kunzli.
William and Maria were married March 20, 1872, and made their home in Switzerland. They were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Switzerland. William was baptized January 23, 1882, by Ulrich Fischer and confirmed the same day by Elder Hasler.
Maria was baptized February 16, 1882 by Ulrich Staufer and was confirmed the same day also by him. She was rebaptized November 8, 1883, and reconfirmed November 15, 1883, both by J.U. Stucki. This was after they came to America. Perhaps Maria did not have an adequate record of her baptism; whereas, William had his certification of ordination to the priesthood as an elder, as he was ordained an Elder in the Schaffhausen Branch of the Swill-Italian-German Mission November 16, 1882, by Elder J. G. Hafen. The family emigrated to America in the fall of 1883 and settled in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho.
William was by trade a painter—“maler” in his native language. He painted in the Logan Temple when it was under construction. In my Book of Remembrance is a picture of a group of workmen on the Logan Temple and Grandfather Wilker is in the picture along with some of my other progenitors. My father explained that his father was a sick man with consumption when he came to this country; the altitude was too high and he died from that disease and also dronsey. (Painters were also subject to lead poisoning and perhaps that was a contributing factor.)
William died at Paris, Bear Lake, Idaho July 14, 1884, less than a year after his coming to America. He is buried in the Paris cemetery. His father had died in 1873 and his mother died June 2, 1883, so his parents were both gone when he left Switzerland, but he left two sisters there, Jeanette and Maria Ursula Wilker. I have been told that after William joined the church his family disowned him. However, when my father went to Germany on a mission to visit his two aunts for a short while. They were really surprised to see him and were pleased to see the son of their only brother.
William and Maria had seven children: Maria Emily, Henry William, Albertina Hedwig, Ernest Herman, Frederick Charles, Emma Julia and Frida Alice. Emma Julia died in October 1883, soon after their arrival in Paris. The youngest child, Frida Alice, was born September 26, 1884, about two months after her father’s death in July. Here was my grandmother—a widow in a new country with a different language with five children to raise and another on the way.
My father in writing of his mother said that she did whatever she could to make ends meet, and with some help from the people she was able to keep them all together until the oldest girl, Emily, got married. Later his sister Hedwig went to Salt Lake to stay with her. This left just the three boys at home as Frida Alice had died at the age of five from scarlet fever.
The Paris Second Ward in which they lived paid for the children’s tuition to the school. Grandmother also attended school to learn English. As I mentioned before Frederick Charles went to Germany on a mission. Financing a mission must have been a real challenge. There is a postcard from Germany saying, “I forgot to tell you in the letter about having to have some more money … I hate to keep having to write for money in every letter… If I could write a letter and not have to ask for money every time…”
Two of Maria’s boys were married on the same day—Frederick Charles to Lillian Hurst and Ernest Herman to Rhoda Wallentine. Grandmother went to the temple in Salt Lake with them and obtained her endowments the same day, June 12, 1908. She was also sealed to her husband that same day with Ernest Herman acting as proxy for his father.
Daughter Emily’s husband, Julius Billeter, was a professional genealogist working and living in Switzerland, and many names were submitted in grandmother’s name for ordinance work to be done for hers and her husband’s ancestors. Many names of friends were also submitted to the Salt Lake Temple for their work to be done. This was many years before there was a temple in Switzerland, and the people were unable to do the work themselves. Grandmother went to the temple in Salt Lake a number of times to do ordinance work and to have some of her children sealed to her and William. In October 1921 she came to Pocatello on the train then she and my father went to Salt Lake, also on the train; at this time my father was sealed to his parents.
I was nine years old when Grandmother died. I was never in her home in Paris, but I do remember occasional visits she made to Pocatello. My sister Lola recalls that one time when grandmother was visiting in Pocatello she went to town and brought home a sack of butterscotch wafers, for dad; she had to get some candy “for my baby.” Another time she sent some cookies in a sack and some bottles of homemade root beer on the train from Montpelier to Pocatello and both arrived in good condition.
Maria Kienzli Wlker died January 24, 1930, in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho at the age of eighty-eight. She is buried in the Paris cemetery.
