Strasburg

Charles Evar & Hazel West Strasburg

Charles was born June 7, 1918, to Evar Merle and Esma Goode Strasburg (q.v.) and was living with them when he married Hazel September 28, 1937. She was born May 15, 1915, in Pleasant Grove, Utah to Everleigh Thomas and Chloe Julie Freeman West. Her Church records arrived in Highland in 1938 and they were probably living with his parents (Number 37 on the 1958 Highland map). They had one child, Steven Lee. Charles served in the Army from June 15, 1944, until December 3, 1944. He died May 25, 1987, in Pleasant Grove and Hazel passed December 29, 1994, also in Pleasant Grove. They are buried in the Pleasant Grove City Cemetery.

David & Melba Strasburg home (Number 83 on the 1958 Highland map - 6006 W. 10400 N.)

David & Melba Rogers Strasburg

David was born March 22, 1908, in Highland, Utah, ninth of the ten children born to Louis Henry and Fredericka Honeck Strasburg (q.v.). Dave's father died when he was eleven and there were others who helped on the farm, but when he was sixteen he and his mother took over completely. Along the way Dave developed his musical talents, learning how to read music and playing several instruments, including piano, organ, ukulele, guitar and violin as well as using his beautiful singing voice.

Melba was born May 19, 1913, in Blanding, Utah to Willis and Bessie Ritchie Rogers, the only girl in a family of ten. She was baptized July 3, 1921, by Mayo Carroll in Bayless Pond after Sunday School one day. The dressing rooms were behind the haystacks. In 1929, when she was sixteen, the family moved to Salt Lake and there she met Dave on May 5, 1933, when they both attended the wedding of Melba's brother, Ralph to Kate Day, Dave's niece. They were married eight weeks later, on June 30 in the Salt Lake Temple. They first lived in Number 83 (on the 1958 Highland map), sharing it with Louis and Beth Day. Then they built a home next to his mother (Number 38 on the 1958 Highland map) from bricks of a home owned by John William Healey on the Alpine Highway.

(Number 38 on the 1958 Highland map - 5870 W. 10620 N.)

They wanted a large family and they wanted a place for them to run and play so they bought the sixty acre farm of his mother's in Highland. Dave and Melba had eleven children: Gordon, Ronald, Anne, Linda, Evelyn, Nancy, Mary, Nola, Louise, Louis, and Melba. Gordon died while still in his teens.

Front: Louis, Dave, Ronald, Melba, Louise, Nola; Back: Anne, Linda, Melba, Evelyn, Mary, Nancy,

David ran the farm and later worked at Geneva for twenty-one years. He held many positions in the Church - holding seven at one time - including chorister and organist and counselor in the bishopric to Harry Jerling for one year and LeGrand Adamson for seven years 1944-1952. He was later chairman of the genealogy committee.

Melba served in many capacities as well, holding five positions at once. She served as Relief Society President, with Vonda Forbush, Hazel Buhler, Nona Jackson and Velma Allred as counselors and Maud Greenland and Norma Hyde as secretary, and was in charge of producing a history of the Highland Ward. She spent seven years collecting histories, pictures and family group sheets of all ward members and all former members she could locate. She and Dave served in the Provo Temple for two years before Dave's health failed. He died in Orem April 2, 1982, of a massive stroke. Melba died July 3, 1994, in Provo. They are buried in the American Fork City Cemetery.

(Number 37 on the 1958 Highland map - 10750 N. 6000 W.)

Evar Merl & Esma Ann Goode Strasburg

Evar was born August 27, 1896, in Woodland, Utah, the fifth child, second son of Louis Henry and Fredericka Honeck Strasburg (q.v.) and moved to Highland with his family in 1899.

Esma was born October 21, 1896, in American Fork, Utah to Charles Thomas and Maria Petrea Jensen Goode. When she was eight years old her mother passed away after a long illness so Esma learned to work early in life because there were many chores to do on the farm. As a teenager she did housework for several families, including Barb Boley. Just after her seventeenth birthday she met Evar at a dance. He had a new buggy and a fancy horse and raced with a boy from Lehi-he won and took Esma home that night. They were married a year later on December 14, 1914, in the Salt Lake Temple. They had nine children: Thelma, Emma, Charles, Donald, Glen, Elaine, Eldon, Ila, and Leland - all were born in Highland. Their first winter they lived in a room in his parents' home (Number 39 on the 1958 Highland map) and in the Spring they bought a tent with a wooden floor and put it up among the trees behind his parents' home and that's where their first child was born.Front: Leland, Donald, Glen; Back: Ila, Esma, Evar, Thelma

Rufus Stice needed someone to operate his farm, as he was working out of town, so Evar moved there (Number 5 on the 1958 Highland map) and managed it for about two years. Then he moved to the larger Alston farm (Number 77) for about three years. Growing weary of working other people's farms, they made the effort to build their own home and moved into it (Number 37) in early 1923 and lived there the remainder of their lives - starting with two rooms and adding on in a few years.

On October 16, 1926, their ten-year-old, Emma died of a ruptured appendix and a few days later on October 27, Elaine, three months old, died of whooping cough. It was a sad winter but they carried on with good family and friends.

Evar worked for the Provo Water Co and was watermaster on the Murdock Canal for many years and was in charge of cleaning the canal each spring in preparation for the summer irrigation season. Each spring when the water was first turned into the canal he and Clarence Greenland would go to the wooden siphons that ran through Dry Creek and, using huge wrenches, would tighten the U bolts that held the siphon together to stop the leaks that naturally appeared with the drying of the boards over the winter. He also raised hay, grain and peas and had a great garden every year.

When their son, Donald's family disintegrated in 1955, his four children were taken by his family members to raise and Esma took Colin, who was about seven, into her home.

Esma worked in the Primary and Relief Society for many years, serving as Relief Society president for a time in 1947 with Alta Nash and Emma Healy and Kate Rogers as counselors and Jessie Hyde as secretary. Evar and Esma worked together on the Old Folks Committee, acting as chairmen for many years.

Evar died May 22, 1968, in Highland and Esma died September 25, 1985, in American Fork. They are buried in the American Fork City Cemetery.

Esma Strasburg obituary (American Fork Citizen, American Fork, Utah, 2 October 1985, Wednesday, p.14)

George and Mary Elizabeth Taylor Strasburg

George was born January 24, 1868, in Vernon, Utah Territory to Louis and Mary Armstrong Strasburg. Mary was born July 5, 1881, in Tooele, Utah Territory to John and Eliza Matthews Taylor.

George moved to Highland in June of 1899 with his brother, Louis Henry (q.v.). They purchased 132 acres and Louis took the west eighty (Number 39 on the 1958 Highland map), George the east fifty two and it is not known where he lived. He married Mary on April 9, 1901, and they had four children born in Highland before they moved to Lehi in 1908: Carrie, Annie, Ruby, and Edith. After their move they had nine more children: George, Edna, Leo, Lloyd, Emma, May, Lucille, Eugene, and Allen. They were sealed as a family on September 26, 1928, around the time their son, George, was called to serve a mission to the Central States.

Both of them died in Lehi: George on September 21, 1953, and Mary on March 23, 1962, and they are buried in the Lehi City Cemetery.

(Number 35 on the 1958 Highland map - 10801 N. 6000 W.)

Glen and Dorothy Chipman Strasburg

Glen was one of our native sons-born June 5, 1923, to Evar Merl and Esma Ann Goode Strasburg (q.v.). As a boy he was always tearing things apart and putting them back together and it was a great trait to learn, as he could build and/or fix anything. He enjoyed sports and played football and basketball at American Fork High School, where he graduated in 1941. After the practices he would walk home, since he had no other mode of transportation.

Dorothy was born January 9, 1927, in American Fork to Henry Vern and Grace Wadley Chipman. She attended the same schools, with a great love for dance: tap, ballet and toe. She met Glen through a mutual friend and they were married just after her sixteenth birthday, January 22, 1943.

They lived in the home of Glen's parents (Number 37 on the 1958 Highland map) for ten months, then moved to Number 41 for three months then to the Norton farm where he took care of eighty acres of land plus milking fifteen cows and other chores and peripheral responsibilities for over two years. In 1946 he bought twenty acres of land from George Shelley across from his parents' home and began to build his own basement home. He was then working for the Codington family, baling hay, and he also worked for the Bureau of Reclamation. He was able to finish the upstairs of his home in 1950 with the help of his father and Uncle David Strasburg. Roy Mecham did the electrical work and William T Hyde II built the cabinets.

Glen and Dorothy had six children: Janet, Jay, Ellen, Dee, Max, and Susan. Jay died about two months after birth and Susan tragically drowned in an irrigation ditch at sixteen months. In 1955, they took in Kim, a son of Glen's brother, Donald, and raised him as one of their own.

Glen taught his children to love sports and he coached and managed their teams for eight years in the Western Boys Baseball program. He also loved to saddle up his horse and ride into the foothills, sometimes taking his shotgun to bring back a pheasant or two (in season, of course).

In June, 1953, Glen was sustained as first counselor in the Highland Ward Bishopric to Merlin Larson. They served together for over thirteen years and upon his release Glen was called to be the YMMIA President for four years, then as high priest group leader. In 1979 he was called as a member of the stake high council, then when the Highland Fifth ward was created, he was called as bishop and set apart by Merlin Larson, who was then the stake president. He was released in 1984 after six years of service and shortly after open-heart surgery. He and Dorothy served a Temple Mission in 1989 to 1990.

Dorothy taught Primary boys for twenty-five years, scouting age boys for ten of those years, and earned the Scouting Silver Beaver Award. She also served as president and counselor in Primary, president and counselor in Relief Society and YWMIA counselor to three presidents. She was a grandmother tutor at Highland Elementary.

Glen died December 4, 1995, in Highland and Dorothy died February 5, 2007, in American Fork. They are buried in the American Fork City Cemetery.

(Number 12 on the 1958 Highland map - 10305 N. 6550 W.)

Henry Louis & Cora Palmer Strasburg

Henry Louis was another son of Louis Henry and Fredericka Honeck Strasburg (q.v.), born August 19, 1890, in Woodland, Utah Territory. Cora was born February, 5, 1894, in Huntington, Utah Territory, to George Asael and Lucity Stolworthy Palmer. The couple met at the home of William Loveridge in Highland in 1915 and were married June 18 that same year. They had ten children: Henry, LaVere, Boyd, LaDene, Leo, Zelda, stillborn boy, Arlene, Eva, and Glenda. LaDene through Arlene were born in Highland.

They moved around and lived in many places over the years: Duchesne, Price, Carbonville, Pleasant Grove, Bingham Canyon and Bountiful, Utah and Shiprock, Liberty and Kirtland, New Mexico as well as Highland.

In 1919, while living in Kirtland, New Mexico Henry's father died and his mother wrote and asked him to come back to Highland to run the farm. She gave them an acre of property and they put a coop on it to live in (Number 80 on the 1958 Highland map) but moved to Pleasant Grove in 1925 because the house leaked so badly. While there he helped tear down the Culmer Hotel and they gave him doors, windows and lumber for pay. He used them to build a new home in place of the coop and they lived there until 1928 when Henry went to work at Bingham Canyon. While living there their house was burned down by Carl (q.v. to see complete story) and Melvin Day who were playing with matches while herding their cows along the roadside. They returned to Highland in 1938 and lived there for seven years in various homes (Number 2, 12, 23 on the 1958 Highland map), then moved to Bountiful, Utah. Henry died July 15, 1957, in American Fork, Utah and Cora died February 28, 1965, in Ogden, Utah and they are buried in the American Fork City Cemetery.

(Number 39 on the 1958 Highland map - 5859 W. 10620 N.)

Louis Henry and Fredricka Honeck Strasburg

The patriarch of the Strasburg family in Highland was born January 23, 1860, in Fairfield (Camp Floyd), Utah Territory to Louis and Mary Armstrong Strasburg. His father had come from Germany and had joined the Army as a bugler and was stationed at Camp Floyd with Johnson's Army who had been sent to quell the "Mormon uprising". Although the soldiers were not supposed to fraternize with the Latter-day Saints, he met and married Mary Armstrong and Louis was their oldest child.

Fredricka was born August 26, 1869, in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory to Carl Fredrick and Juliane Nielsine (most common of numerous spellings) Hansen Mathieson Honeck. When she was born her father was expecting a son and had selected Fredrick for his name. When he saw a girl he took her to the wood pile to chop off her head but was convinced otherwise but insisted on calling her Fredricka, a name she always hated.

Fredricka's father went to Kamas to homestead, built a home and sent for his family so Juliane and her three children walked the fifty miles up Parleys Canyon to Kamas, leading the cow and carrying their possessions. Living in Kamas was fairly uneventful - Fredricka left school early to help earn a living for the family by milking cows, caring for the milk, making butter and cheese, housework, cooking and tending children. When she was sixteen she went to work cooking for a sawmill crew. It was while there she met her future husband, Louis when he stopped in for dinner while in charge of a sheep herd in the area. (He began herding sheep when he was nine years old) They were married December 14, 1887, when Fredricka was eighteen. They had ten children: Alice, Henry, Katherine, Otes, Evar, Josephine, Marvin, Dora, David, and Marva.

They built a home near her mother so as to care for her, which they did until her death in 1898. They then moved to Rush Valley for about a year then to Highland in early 1899. Louis' brother, George went with them and purchased 132 acres, eighty of which became their farm. The home was one of the first built in Highland (Number 39 on the 1958 Highland map), adobe on the inside and lumber on the outside with a fruit cellar and walk-in pantry.

Louis was not a Latter-day Saint but on August 10, 1901, when two of his children were to be baptized, he asked if he could be, too, surprising everyone. He was forty-one years old when ordained a Deacon and he passed the Sacrament with the twelve-year-olds. He was very faithful and generous to all around him. They attended church in Highland until the branch was disorganized in 1905, then they walked to American Fork. The local members were good to them and invited them to their homes for dinner much of the time. Then in 1915 the Highland Ward was organized and Fredricka was called as the first Relief Society president, with Martha Loveridge and Eliza Taylor and counselors and Otes Day as secretary, where she served for over six years. She spent many hours away from home performing her duties for other families, sometimes being gone for two weeks at a time. At that time the Relief Society President seemed to automatically fill other positions, such as midwife for all newborns and their mothers for the first 10 days or so of life and preparing the dead for burial, as well. Her older children learned many responsibilities and took care of the younger ones.

He raised great crops including raspberries, melons, currants, gooseberries, dewberries, grapes, hay, wheat, oats, corn, beans and potatoes. He also had beehives.

When Louis had been ill for two years the doctor recommended he get his affairs in order so he placed the title deed to the farm in Fredricka's name and he died September 5, 1919. After her husband died she struggled to maintain the farm, especially during the depression. She had little help to run the farm so leased it to a sheep man, John William Healey who had recently been discharged from the army. Fredricka's daughter, Josephine, was very impressed with him and they were married about six months later, March 17, 1920. John stayed to help with the farm but with little success so had to take outside work to get the taxes paid.

Two years later she wrote to her son Henry to come and help with the farm. When that didn't work out she and her son David tried running the farm themselves. During this time her back buckled while hauling hay and from then on she walked with stooped posture. She was fifty-five and lived eighteen more years with that disability.

In 1930 Josephine began having serious emotional problems and was taken the State Hospital and Fredricka took her five children to raise. Earlier, her daughter Katherine had married John Greenland and after the birth of her second child, she died and Fredricka took her daughter, Lois to raise so there was always a big family to feed.

They raised, chickens, calves, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, hay, grain and cows. They also grew onions for seed for the Utah State Experimental Farm and tried raising popcorn one year.

Her son David got married and built a home next to her so he could continue to help on the farm. They mortgaged the farm with the Federal Land Bank in order to pay the back taxes that had accumulated for a dozen or so years.

Fredricka died December 2, 1942, in Highland and is buried with her husband in the American Fork City Cemetery. When she died, as the story goes, Dave was fearful that his brother Henry would want to move into her home so he burned it down.

Fredricka Strasburg

Source: HIGHLAND HISTORY: A compilation by Charles T Greenland II for the Highland Historical Society

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Index

Strasburg

Charles Evar & Hazel West Strasburg

David & Melba Rogers Strasburg

Evar Merl & Esma Ann Goode Strasburg

George and Mary Elizabeth Taylor Strasburg

Glen and Dorothy Chipman Strasburg

Henry Louis & Cora Palmer Strasburg

Louis Henry and Fredricka Honeck Strasburg

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