Both David and Herman’s jobs were affected by the railroad strike of 1922 that was felt all over the country. The walkout by 400,000 shop men of the American Federation of Labor led to the largest railroad stoppage since 1894.
After losing his job, Herman left home to find work in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. He went on to California, found employment, and had a long career on the railroad while living in Roseville. In 1930, he met and married Grace Lamiman.
David was unable to get steady employment after that time.
Marguerite Tueller around the time of her marriage
In 1923 Marguerite, then eighteen, met her future husband, Ambrose Higham. He had come to work in Montpelier with his father, a plumbing and heating contractor who had a contract to install heat in a building for the railroad. They were married in 1924 and made their home in Salt Lake City.
Victor Tueller as a teenager
Victor was seventeen when Marguerite married and left home. He had graduated from eighth grade and gone to work as a grocery store delivery boy. He remained at home, helping provide for his parents and siblings for many years. He also worked for the railroad on the “extra gang” doing various jobs.
By 1927, the family was down to four children—Victor, Lucile, Harry and Vivienne—and four adults—David, Mary, Great Aunt Annie, and Uncle John. In that year Uncle John passed away from liver disease at age 46, and the following year Great Aunt Annie died.
Lucile graduated from high school in 1928 and went to work as an operator for the Mountain States Telephone Company so she could provide some financial support to her parents. The year before, while attending a youth party at church in the Montpelier Second Ward, she had met John Wilkes, her future husband. They became engaged in 1930, when John was 18 and Lucile was 20, but their wedding had to be postponed for three years because of their financial situation. The Great Depression had begun, plus Lucile had felt her obligations to her family ever since her younger brother and sister were born. In her life story she wrote, “I really enjoyed helping to care for Harry and Vivienne because I was quite a bit older and it just seemed to be my responsibility."
Mary and David Tueller, 1920s.
Vivienne Tueller, 1930s
Harry Tueller, 1930s
Mary Tueller, 1930s
John Wilkes and LucileTueller on their engagement, 1933
As Vivienne and Harry became employed and could help Victor support their parents, Lucile married John Wilkes in 1933. They made their home in Montpelier in an apartment above the First Security Bank on the main street. Lucile continued working nights at the telephone office, and John began driving freight trucks between Montpelier and Pocatello.
There were then just three children left at home with David and Mary. Mary’s health began to fail as she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. David had successful cataract surgery in 1937.
Ambrose Higham and wife Marguerite Tueller with daughter Margene and son Gary, about 1941
Grandchildren began to arrive with the birth of Marguerite’s three children, Ralph (1924), Margene (1927) and Gary (1932), Lucile’s daughters Rae Ann (1940), and Linda (1943), and Herman’s son, Ronald David (1941). Their grandparents enjoyed them and helped whenever they could.
David, Mary, Herman and Grandson Ron Tueller, 1941
Lucile Tueller and John Wilkes with daughters Linda and Rae Ann, 1943
When Lucile gave birth to Linda in the autumn of 1943, the baby was born with a broken leg. Soon after, both the baby and three-year-old Rae Ann developed whooping cough. Vivienne later remembered,“While John was at work and Rae Ann was coughing and crying for her mother to hold her because she was so sick, Daddy went to help Lucile. He was afraid to handle Linda with her broken leg, but he held Rae Ann, trying to console her.”
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and World War II had a large impact on the family. In August, 1942, Victor was inducted into the service where he served in Italy. Harry joined the army as a ground mechanic, serving in India. Helen later wrote, “Father worried a great deal about the boys.”
Within three months of baby Linda’s birth, David suffered a severe stroke. After ten days in the hospital, he passed away in December, 1943. Mary and Vivienne were now alone in the family home that had once held so many. Helen wrote, “It will always be a testimony to me to remember Mother’s attitude at Father’s death…. It was lonesome without Daddy, but Mother was an example of faith and courage to the rest of us. Margene (Higham) said she had to bear up for all of us. I’ll always remember Daddy’s politeness. He was a gentleman of the old school—so courteous to everyone. How he loved to dance and have a good time..”
Vivienne
and Raymond Dimick, 1945
Mary was alone at home now except for Vivienne, who worked to help her. Vivienn had met her husband-to-be, Raymond Dimick, while he was on furlough from the service where he served as a flight engineer. Vivienne and Raymond were married a little over a year later in January,1945. Vivienne wrote, “…I was reluctant to marry and leave Mom alone, but she was insistent that I lead my own life. Victor and Harry were … serving overseas, having just lost Dad, and she being ill with arthritis, I know life at this time was very hard for her, but she sent me on my way with a smile.”
Mary Tueller, shortly before her death. Two stars in the window were for her two sons in the service, Victor and Harry
Harry Tueller, World War II serviceman
With the end of the war, Victor and Harry were home once again. Within a couple of months Mary became so ill that she required constant care. Helen and Lucile took turns caring for her in the family home. She passed away on April 23, 1946 at the age of sixty-seven. After Mary died, Lucile and her family lived in the family home with Victor and Harry from 1946 to 1949. Victor was employed once again by the railroad in the Bridge and Building Department, and Harry was back at Schmid Brothers Cleaners.
Other grandchildren born after Mary and David passed away were David Tueller Dimick in 1946, and Neil Francis Dimick in 1949, sons of Vivienne and Raymond. Lucile and John had a son, Richard John, born in 1953.
Vivienne Tueller Dimick and son David Dimick, 1947
Cousins Linda and Rae Ann Wilkes and Gary Higham on horse at Helen's (Tueller Buehler) farm, about 1946
Cousins Ron Tueller and Rae Ann Wilkes in front of Grandparents' (Mary and David Tueller) front yard, 1943
Grandson Richard John Wilkes (son of Lucile Tueller and John Wilkes), born after Mary and David passed away, about 1958
While attending church in 1952, when Victor was forty-five, he met a forty-three-year-old widow with seven children. He and Alphia Rigby Wood were married. They remodeled the Tueller family home and it was filled with children once again.
Tueller siblings and spouses, and some grandchildren, about 1952. Back row: Helen Buehler, Rae Ann Wilkes, Herman Tueller, Marguerite Higham, Vivienne Dimick, Alphia Tueller, Victor Tueller,. Lucile Wilkes, John Wilkes Front: Ambrose Higham, Harry Tueller, Raymond Dimick Children: Linda Wilkes, David Dimick and Neil Dimick
Helen lost her husband, Parley Buehler in 1952, and married widower Charles Nephi Parker in 1954, outliving both husbands. (Charles died in 1973.) She died in 1983 at the age of eighty-three and is buried in the Bern, Idaho cemetery.
In 1957 Harry died suddenly from a heart attack while at work at the age of forty-three. “It was a shock for all of us because it came so suddenly and unexpectedly,” Lucile later wrote. He had not married.
Victor died in 1968, at age sixty-one. His wife Alphia lived to be seventy-five, passing away in 1984.
Marguerite died in 1969, at the age of sixty-four. Her husband Ambrose Higham lived to the age of eighty-six, dying in 1990 in Salt Lake City, where they had spent their married life.
Lucile died in 1974, at age sixty-four while living in Pocatello, Idaho. Her husband John Wilkes, lived to be ninety, dying in Los Gatos, California in 2003.
Herman lived to be eighty-four, passing away in 1986 while still living in Roseville, California. His wife Grace Lamiman had died seven years earlier.
Both Vivienne and her husband Raymond Dimick lived to be eighty-six. Raymond died in 1993, and Vivienne passed away in 2004.