BUSS

   William Buss, son of Daniel and Charlotte [Bates] Buss married Lovina, daughter of Isaac and Eleanor DeWitt, at Belmont, Wisconsin in 1860. Their children were Edson, Elmer, Clara, Grant, Lottie, Clint and Eva. Four of these children died from the effects of diphtheria in the 1880's. They and the Buss and DeWitt grandparents are buried at Frankfort.

   In 1869, Isaac and Eleanor DeWitt, Daniel and Charlotte Buss, William and Lovina, and Lovina's brother Alvin, and wife Hannah Boles plus the young couples' children came to Montgomery County to a place about where Henry Rasmussen lives. Neal Buss's father Edson and Max DeWitt's grandfather Emory were among these children.

   Railroad land was for sale along the Tarkio Creek and either Daniel or William must have bought some, because Edson remembered hauling lumber from Atlantic to build a two room house there.  Daniel and Charlotte bought land near the Buss School north of Stanton. William and Lovina owned the farm belonging to Lyle Buss today, and also an 80 acres on the road south.  The Binnegar's, relatives of the Busses, owned land adjoining the Lyle Buss farm on the north.  DeWitts owned land in the same area.

   The only land held by the family today is the Lyle Buss farm, acquired in 1876, and the Neal Buss farm in the southwest corner of the township.

   Clint Buss married Bertha Kemp and had several children, who are all dead.

   Grant Buss married Stella Spicer and their children were Walter, who lived about a mile south of the Botts School; Claude; and Lera Buss Heuer.  J.C. Buss, Walter's son; and William Buss, Claude's son; are the only ones left of Daniel's branch of the family to carry on the family name.

    Edson married Anne Ewart and their children were John and Bonnie, both deceased. Neither of them married. John served in World War I, and later ran heavy machinery for the Bradens.  Bonnie was an osteopath doctor, but due to an injury could not practice.  She was much in demand as a nurse and assistant for Doctor Alliband and Dr. Meyers.

    After Anne died, Edson married Ida White, who came to Pilot Grove with her parents, Robert White and Margaret Botts White, when she was five. (Margaret and S. J. Botts were brother and sister.)

    Edson Buss and Ida White Buss were the parents of Myrtle Roach, and Vera Glasebrook (deceased). Both girls taught in Pilot Grove Township some years ago.  Their sons were Neal, owner of Buss Pump and Plumbing, and now retired; and Lyle who assisted in Laflin's Electric Shop before retiring. Neal had no sons, just daughters; and Lyle has no children. He married quite late in life to Vera Munro.

    Now for Memories. Lumber was hauled down the Ridge Road from Atlantic to build a two room (one up, one down) house on the Rasmussen farm. Cattle were herded because there were no fences.  Food was preserved by drying, and sorghum served as sweetening. Edson recalled dried pumpkin and pumpkin butter as part of his school lunch.

   School was a log cabin on the old J. D. Baird farm in 1869.  Seats and desks were split logs. Some of Edson's schoolbooks indicate a higher level of expectation than we have today.  Edson stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Lottie Buss Finley while attending high school at Red Oak.

   Ida taught many schools in Pilot Grove, and also did sewing for people.  Mrs. Ed Hully was one she sewed for, and if Ed Hully needed help with the newspaper Ida set type, too.

   Prairie paths were mowed to keep school children from getting lost and to enable them to see rattlesnakes.  Ida said it was best to wait, if one disputed the path.  She also said she needed no dustpan, she swept the dirt down the wide cracks in the floor.

    Most of the Buss descendants exhibit an ability in science and or machinery.  A threshing machine owned and operated by Neal's father and grandfather used horses for power.  Bands on bundles were cut by hand, and straw was removed by hand. Grain was deposited in baskets which were emptied into sacks or other storage.

    Submitted from information from Myrtle Buss Roach and from conversations with my father-in-law.