One Community, Two Cemeteries
The promises of a canal system bringing water to a land covered by horse-high bunchgrass
attracted two distinct types of settlers to Bothwell, a farming community in northern Utah less
than twenty-five miles square, located three miles west of Tremonton. Both groups knew land
productive without water could become exceptionally productive with water. German speculators
and a few Mormon homesteaders settled the community in 1891, one year before the canal
delivered the first irrigation water. Everyone cooperatively pooled their time, ingenuity, and
resources to chisel the comforts of communal living into the prairie wilderness that covered the
thirsty land. All worked together to build Bothwell, but when it came to dying, they kept
separate. Two cemeteries originated within a few years of each other. The Germans buried their
dead in the Salt Creek Cemetery, a lonely, wind-swept burial ground on the banks of Salt Creek on
the eastern edge of Bothwell. The Mormon homesteaders buried their dead in the Valley View
Cemetery, perched on the foothills of the Thatcher Range on the western border of Bothwell.
The first grave dug in what became the Salt Creek Cemetery was on April 19, 1905. The
John Sommers family buried their year-old son on the southwest corner of their farm in an out-ofthe-way spot. When two family acquaintances were buried nearby a few months later, the area
became an official burial ground for the German settlers. John donated 1.35 acres for the
cemetery, room for over 200 burials. Today, approximately 90 people have been laid to rest there,
one-third of them children under the age of ten (Nelson 2002).
Salt Creek Cemetery is sandwiched between the borders of Tremonton and Bothwell.
Unlike most of Utah, Mormons did not settle the area. Instead, immigrants directly from Germany
and Switzerland and Midwesterners of German descent from Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois bought
farm ground for $1.25/acre from Central Pacific Railroad land agents with the promise of irrigated
land similar to what they were already farming coupled with a healthy, dry climate. These people
were used to farming and not worrying about the water. Many of them came from Tremont,
Illinois, and belonged to the Apostolic Christian Church. At the turn of the century, this church
had a large membership in Tremonton, with a two-story, white-frame church house on Main Street
(Fred Eggli 2002). However, the Apostolic Church suffered a worldwide schism in 1909; further,
the Tremonton meetinghouse burned down about 1912 (Nelson 2002).
Disillusioned by the decline of their church, the loss of their meetinghouse, and the
difficulties of irrigation farming in this rugged country, many of the German settlers from the
Midwest sold their holdings and returned with their families to the Midwest. In 1923, the last child
was buried in the cemetery. This new land was not so comparable to the flat Nebraska, Iowa, and
Illinois farmland, quenched naturally by summer rains, as the Germans had envisioned. It was
back breaking work to clear sagebrush and bunchgrass; then the land had to be leveled and ditches
dug. New ditches easily washed away. When John Sommers decided to sell his farm and return
to Illinois, many of the Midwestern Germans followed him. He was just that kind of leader.
Most of the remaining Germans had migrated directly from Germany and Switzerland, and the
area, untamed as it was, had become their home (Fred Eggli 2002).
Although German settlers are buried in all cemeteries throughout Bear River Valley, Salt
Creek Cemetery is the only exclusively German cemetery. The old-timers simply called it the
“Old German Cemetery.” Violet Eggli, retired sexton, recalls, “Everybody used to maintain the
cemetery, but then everybody moved away.” After much of the German population left in the
early 1920s, the cemetery became neglected. The thirteen burials, mostly adults, in the twenties
signaled the beginning of the end of German dominance in the area. Most of the Germans who
remained in Tremonton had melded into the surrounding Mormon communities. Not only did
they lose their church and sell most of their farmland, but also many of them lost their separate
cultural identity as well. Even ownership of the cemetery became questionable. An auditor’s tax
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deed dated April 14, 1927, indicates that taxes had not been paid on the property since December
21, 1922, and for lack of a $0.60 cent accumulated tax payment, the Germans forfeited their
cemetery to the county.
Only three burials in the thirties disrupted the quiet isolation of the cemetery. The old
fence that defined the borders fell down, allowing horses to graze on the unattended wild grasses.
People conveniently began to discard old cars and debris to shore up the banks of the Salt Creek
on the western border. Family members of the deceased did what cleaning up they could to make
the cemetery presentable for the occasional burials.
A substantial wire fence was erected in the forties to keep the grazing horses out, and the
debris on the western bank of the Salt Creek was covered over with dirt fill. When the Apostolic
preacher, Noah Schrock, conducted Fred Eggli’s funeral in March 1948, services were held in the
Mormon church house because it was the only public building in Bothwell large enough for a
funeral, though the deceased was not a member. Fred’s son Floyd recalls, “Noah Schrock was the
preacher, and he didn’t like to go to the Mormon church, but he was going to do the preaching and
everything. The bishop said he could step out of the funeral service, but the family wanted the
bishop to say a few closing words, so he did.” The burial, however, was in the German cemetery.
With no cemetery board, family members were the ones who dug the graves. Violet Eggli,
retired sexton, remembers, “There wasn’t a gravedigger. Graves were always dug by hand mostly.
Jakob Weiser’s grave was dug on July 1, 1956. They had a lot of dry grass there and they almost
had the fields afire. They were burning the debris off the gravesite that they were going to dig.
Anyway, the wind changed and it came right back up to where the grain was planted. They were
trying to put the fire out before it got to the grain.” Only two graves were dug in the fifties; the
cemetery was easily one generation removed from the first families buried there and nearly
became abandoned.
When no one, including county officials, had taken an interest in preserving the cemetery
the past three decades, Fred and Sophie Weiser, a retired, unmarried brother-sister team,
unofficially and voluntarily began to maintain the cemetery. They neatly mounded the graves and
hoed the weeds every Memorial Day. They also planted some of the bushes in the cemetery.
When they grew too old to work the heavy clay in the hot sun and continual wind, a few aging
survivors of what was left of the German community took over the plat map and attempted to raise
some money by soliciting descendents for donations. Fred and Violet Eggli became the first paid
sextons, theoretically. Some years they got money, and some years they didn’t. The Egglis
smoothed the mounds so the cemetery would be easier to maintain. They also began to mow the
native grasses and alfalfa seeded from neighboring fields (Violet Eggli 2002)
At the request of family members who feared the final resting place of their ancestors
might become totally forgotten when they passed away, the Salt Creek Cemetery came to the
attention of the Apostolic Christian Church Elders in California. Because most of the people
buried there were of that faith, the church applied for the deed from Box Elder County, and it was
granted December 23, 1975. Church ownership insures something the descendants could not: the
cemetery will be preserved after they are gone. The church now pays for the maintenance. In the
late eighties, a benefactor volunteered to pay for culinary water and plant grass at her expense, but
patrons declined the offer: the cemetery, the way it is, is a reminder of the simple, unadorned
lifestyle of their fathers. They wanted it maintained the way it was (Violet Eggli 2002).
Descendants and locals were surprised to learn the cemetery had officially become the
Apostolic Christian Cemetery when Craig Eggli erected a sign in 1989 as part of an Eagle Scout
project. Craig’s father recalls, “We had to ask the Elder Body, and I didn’t like that situation.
They wanted Apostolic Christian Church on it. I just thought it was the German Cemetery. I
didn’t think it was the Apostolic Christian Church.”
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The church had a say in more than what went on the sign; it also had a policy regarding
burials. Burial lots may be sold only to those who have a lineage with the Apostolic Christian
Church of America unless the church grants special permission for burial. Usually, only Apostolic
Christian Church members are buried in their cemeteries. However, the Mennonites, who have
only lived in the area the past five years, have already asked and received permission for burials in
the Apostolic Christian Cemetery. The Amish and Mennonite religions are similar to the Christian
Apostolic Church in worldview. Church policy also states a free burial for members of the
church. All graves must have markers, but they should not be ornamented with birds, angels, men,
or animals, nor should there be any engravings except for name, birth date, and death date. Most
of the old headstones in the cemetery conform to this policy. There is not a single wooden marker
in the cemetery. The German settlers built sturdy to endure and must have had a little bit of
money (Richard Eggli 2002).
Most family plots in the cemetery today are marked with cement borders and covered with
ornamental rocks, an effort to separate family plots from the wild grasses that cover the rest of the
cemetery; hence, a separate family identity is easy to distinguish. In the spring, the lilacs bloom,
and the cemetery colors with old style, single-leafed red, yellow, and white tulips that now grow
profusely. Usually before Memorial Day, they are beautiful. Once their season ends, the
cemetery resumes its look of antiquated desolation. Even the green in the lilac bushes, coated
with the chalky dust deposited there from the persistent wind, becomes hard to distinguish in the
summer heat. Volunteers have planted trees, but they, too, are reluctant to survive in the alkali
soil and infrequent rains. The cemetery exists in some of the most inhospitable land in all of
Bothwell.
The struggle to survive is verified in a large marble monument, erected in a 1998
restoration project, that says, “In Memory of The Apostolic Christian Church, 1903 - 1913,
Tremonton, Utah,” denoting the years the church was an integral part of Bear River Valley history.
The effects church members had on the valley extend far beyond the ten years noted on the
monument and the names on the headstones. The German settlers worked hard and contributed
improvements to the community that were intended to endure. German settlement is reflected in
place names like Tremonton and Iowa String Road. The tile drainage system, a product of the
Germans who made clay tiles from the Salt Creek, still works today. The many two-story, whiteframed homes with covered entrances illustrate the practical design of German architecture.
Though they didn’t have the money to invest, the homesteaders were equally as practical
and hard working as their German counterparts. They, too, intended to make Bothwell their home
but took a little longer to establish a permanent residence. The first few years, they lived in
temporary shelters during the summer growing season and fall harvest and returned to the security
of established settlements in the winter, usually Bear River City, only twelve miles away, or
Ogden. These people of northern European stock made improvements to the land before they
permanently built homes. Initially, they preferred to bury their dead in the communities of their
birth.
In contrast to the Salt Creek Cemetery, Bothwell’s other cemetery, the Valley View, does
not have a documented beginning. The earliest burials were not even recorded. When the
homesteaders were too busy to take time to return the deceased to their permanent homes, the
settlers hastily buried their dead on the rocky hillside. Equally as practical as their German
counterparts, the homesteader’s consensus was if the land wasn’t good for anything, it was a great
place for a cemetery. Neither group of Bothwell’s early settlers wanted to waste valuable farm
land on an unproductive cemetery.
In the early days, burials were not plotted out in the Valley View Cemetery. When
someone died, the family simply picked out the burial spot. Hence, graves were placed in a
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haphazard way. Sometimes they were marked; oftentimes they were not. Early markers were
made of wood and the inscriptions carved or painted. The writing faded; the wood deteriorated.
Courthouse records indicate that Alan E. Roche and his wife Sarah Ethel Roche sold 2.41 acres for
the cemetery to Bothwell’s Bishop John L. Hunsaker for the sum of $60, most likely paid with
LDS church funds, on March 10, 1910.
In the twenties, the only indication that people had interfered in any way with the natural
landscape of the cemetery was a burst of blue in the springtime where a mourner had planted some
irises. In the early thirties people in the community decided to clean up and organize their
cemetery. Men, horses, and tractors gathered together and pulled out all the sagebrush. Then they
leveled the rocky hillside with floats, leaving the markers intact as much as possible. The county
surveyor measured the cemetery plat. At that time, Leona Anderson became the first sexton for the
cemetery. Many unmarked graves existed before she began her record keeping (Anderson 2002).
One of the most poignant plots in the cemetery belongs to the Spencer family who lived in
Thatcher at the turn of the twentieth century. Statistics on the family marker reveal the births of
eighteen children, and the deaths of nine, most dying in early childhood. Row after row of
children’s graves in the same family beckons sympathetic visitors to stop a moment and reflect
about the difficulties endured by the valley’s early pioneers. Relatives still gather to decorate the
family plot each year. Surviving siblings remember decorating not only the family plot, but also
the nearby graves of a set of twins (Darrington, May Spencer Larson). To this day, there is no
headstone for a set of twins nearby.
Occasionally, cemetery board members will come across an unmarked burial when they
dig a new grave. Without exception, the unmarked graves have been those of babies or children.
When this happens, the family is always given the option of another burial plot. The Valley View
also has a pauper’s corner in the northeast section of the cemetery. These burials were either
transients or people with no family who died in the area (Anderson 2002).
In April 1937, Bothwell voted to incorporate into a town and bonded to get funds for
culinary water. At this time, residents elected an official Bothwell Cemetery and Water Board and
included the cost of cemetery maintenance in the water fees. Opening the grave became a service
of the board. Cemetery lawns were planted and maintained. Bothwell disincorporated in the
sixties, and the Water and Cemetery Board remains the only elected local government, retaining
jurisdiction over the culinary water and cemetery (Huchel 1999). Today, the water system is
inadequate during summer’s heavy usage. In reality, the cemetery has plenty of water because the
reservoir is nearby and it is the first meter. However, consumers on the other end of the line
complain of lack of water pressure when the cemetery is watered. The board resolved the problem
by asking the neighboring sod farm to water the cemetery with their six-inch sprinkler pipe. They
pump canal water for the cemetery and surrounding sod farm at their personal expense; however,
cemetery patrons complain of the unsightly pipe and occasionally have run over it. The public is
not sympathetic to a water shortage (Newman 2002).
Sometimes, too much water can cause as many problems as too little water. Three inches
of rain fell in a freak, fifteen-minute rainstorm on July 12, 1985. The downpour began at the top of
the Thatcher Range, rapidly moving with its floodwaters and everything in its path toward the
cemetery. Twenty-eight head of range cattle and debris were washed down in the fast-moving
waters. Nearly half the headstones in the cemetery were knocked from their foundations; a few
were found nearly half a mile away (Maxine Martz, “More Thunderstorms Likely as Flood Areas
Begin Cleanup,” Deseret News, 14 July 1985, B1).
Emerene Anderson, the sexton, had finished mapping the cemetery only days before the
flood, making it possible to return every marker to its gravesite. Thanks to the cleanup volunteers,
every headstone was recovered. Reporters called the event a once-in-a-hundred-years flood
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because it was such a freak of nature: a flood in the mountains. The event made national news,
and a salesman, who lived in California but was passing through Tremonton, stopped at the
Anderson home one evening soon after to inquire about his sister whom he thought might be
buried in the cemetery. His story seemed incredible and Emerene was tired from cleanup efforts,
but she listened patiently. The man’s parents had been traveling to Idaho when their baby
daughter died in the car. They saw a beautiful valley below the highway, so they drove down to
seek help. They found a man farming in his fields. The salesman recalled, “I can tell you the name
of the man who chose a place for her and buried my sister in the cemetery on the hill—William Eli
Hawkins.”
William Eli Hawkins? Emerene’s weariness left. William Eli Hawkins himself is buried
in the Valley View Cemetery. “What is your sister’s name?” she inquired.
“Elsie Geneva Lauper.”
“There’s no Lauper up there. Did she have a headstone?”
The salesman explained that his family was poor. He knew there was no headstone, but he
hoped the name had been written down somewhere in the cemetery’s history. Unfortunately, the
history is not complete, but the sexton concluded that Elsie Geneva Lauper has to be one of the
unidentified children’s graves. The stranger explained that his parents did not go through a
mortuary. Mr. Hawkins took them to the cemetery and they found a spot and buried the baby that
very day, with no funeral or anything. Elsie Geneva Lauper has now been added to the list of
unidentified infant burials in the Valley View Cemetery.
Bothwell’s two cemeteries are as distinctly different as the people buried there. The
Apostolic Christian Cemetery is a solitary reminder of the pragmatic, hard working Eggli, Kupfer,
Woerner, Sommers, and Meister families who tried to squeeze a living from the stingy, alkali soil.
To this day, the wind-swept grounds bordered by Salt Creek on the west, Rocket Road on the
south, and sun-baked grain fields on the east and north stand as a stark reminder of some of Bear
River Valley’s first settlers. Very little has changed in the appearance of the 100-year-old
cemetery, but the simplicity reflects the lifestyles of those buried there. Less than four miles away,
but on the other side of the community, lies the Valley View Cemetery. It provides a final restingplace for the Anderson, Peterson, Newman, Stokes, Nelson, and Summers families, both those
who settled Bothwell one hundred years ago and their descendents today. It allows a panoramic
view of the entire valley, surrounded by the lush green of Chanshare Sod Farms. It is difficult for
visitors today to appreciate that in the beginning, it, too, was a lonely monument in a prairie
wilderness. The slow, but dogged persistence of the homesteaders eventually overcame the
bullying forces of nature. This land has become the bountiful farmland the land agents described
to entice the German settlers to come and settle.
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Works Cited
Anderson, Emerene, sexton of Valley View Cemetery. Interview by author, 21 February
2002, Bothwell, Ut.
Eggli, Floyd and Beatrice Eggli, descendants of German settlers. Interview by author,
8 March 2002, Bothwell, Ut.
Eggli, Fred (retired sexton), Violet Eggli (retired Sexton), and Richard Eggli, sexton of the
Apostolic Christian Cemetery. Joint interview by author, 20 February 2002, Bothwell, Ut.
Huchel, Frederick M. A History of Box Elder County. Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah
Historical Society, 1999.
Nelson, Annette. ”Salt Creek Cemetery.” 4 January 2002. Utah GenWeb Project. 15
March 2002. Available: http://www.lofthouse.com/boxelder/cemetery/ saltcreek.htm.
Newman, Douglas, Bothwell Cemetery and Water Board member. Interview by author. 15
February 2002, Bothwell, Ut.