Generation #1: Wilhelm Antes
Generation #2: Andrew Andes m. Barbara Baer
Generation #3: William Andes m. Elizabeth Good
Generation #4: William G. Andes m. Catherine Miller (see Miller Family Line, #2)
Generation #5: Samuel C. Andes m. Elizabeth Wine
Generation #6: Samuel Miller Andes - History and Marriage m. Anna Florence Wildermuth
Generation #7: Jerome Eli Andes - History and Marriage m. Alice Erlene Jacobs
Generation #8: Mary Charlotte Andes Gamel m. John Calvin Gamel

6th Generation: Samuel Miller Andes m. Anna Florence Wildermuth

PLEASE NOTE:  Samuel Miller Andes’ story, from his birth in 1873 to 1903 (his marriage date) is here preceeded in the link Samuel Miller Andes (1873 - 1903).  That history includes Sam M. Andes early life as mostly told by himself, written on hundred of pages as well as other histories from family which completed it.  If desired, read his early life before continuing on to this history below, which begins with Samuel M. Andes marriage to Anna Florence Wildermuth.

This history begins in the words of Samuel M. Andes’ son, Ammon S. Andes, from a history Ammon shared with this site author.

“In his later twenties, my father [Samuel Miller Andes] decided to travel a little on his own, so he headed West. He liked Western Montana, especially the Bitter Root Valley south of Missoula (near Hamilton, I believe). He left Montana and went to Washington state. On arriving in Spokane, Washington, he became very sick and almost died. The Sacred Heart Hospital personnel gave him up for dead, but he survived. Apparently he had Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick fever, which was then about 90% fatal. Little was known about it; when identified it was called “Mountain Fever,” wrote Ralph. Ammon S. Andes Life History also wrote about a trip (and it may have been the same one) to Seattle, Washington. While he was there and “guiding a wheelbarrow with goods from a ship, the pill rope broke and almost killed him. When he was well enough he started working his way back home to Lebeck” (14, p.3). Part of this trip included travels through Wyoming, as well as Oregon and California.

Once he returned to Lebeck, Missouri, “Samuel Andes set up a store”(13); he also worked in the blacksmith shop there (15). There he was introduced to Annie Florence Wildermuth (always called Florence); she was best friends with Sam’s sister, Martha Elizabeth Andes. To the young ladies, Sam’s solo travels made him a glamorous young man. They [Anna Florence Wildermuth and Samuel Miller Andes] were married not long afterward they met, on June 14, 1903, in the backyard of the Bronson”s home in Lebeck, Missouri. In a letter Florence wrote years later to her daughter Martha, she wrote, “I used to tell Daddy (Sam), I’d never had married him if he hadn’t had blue eyes!”(17). In a letter written by Sam from Lebeck, to Florence in Nevada, Mo. he wrote, “I have longed for a firm foundation on which to rest my future hopes and now I feel assured they have been granted…Now may the Lord assist us both to live for each other” (18). “Mama was a teacher when she married Papa there in Missouri,” wrote her daughter Elsie. (Elsie always called her parents “Mama” and “Papa”.) But Florence’s initial formal teaching she chose to end, as she married and began her life with Sam. Sam worked as postmaster at the local post office, and with the help of ‘Father Andes’, sold a few groceries out of the office area.

“I don’t remember as much about my mother’s early days, her ancestors, etc.,” Ralph Andes wrote. Annie Florence Wildermuth’s father’s family, is recorded in depth in the book Johann David Wildermuth and His Descendants 1753-1964, by Ruth Kline Lee, footnote 1. (Also see Wildermuth History.) Bonnie Andes’ Andes Genealogy Work also traces Florence’s mother back through the Shumway line; see the Shumway section in this cookbook.

Three sons were born while Sam and Florence lived in Lebeck: Jerome Eli, born March 18, 1904, Ammon Sylvester, September 18, 1905, and Ralph Verne, April 17, 1907. Jerome had brown eyes and dark brown hair, Ammon had blond hair with curls and Ralph also had brown eyes and dark hair. Their father’s coloring was with the dark hair, but he had the blue eyes; Florence gave to her sons the brown eyes. “By 1908 business became very poor at Lebeck… One time robbers broke into the store and blew the safe door through the wall only to find $5.00. The robbers were caught in the woods nearby the next morning. Soon after this exciting experience my family moved to Far West, Missouri near Cameron [MO]. There my father worked with his brothers in a blacksmith shop” (14. p 3). While still in Lebeck, Ammon also tells a being scalded with hot washing machine water when he pulled out the drain plug out of his mother’s washing machine. An Indian lady, heard of Ammon’s burns and came to the Andes house to put a cornmeal poultice on the burn. The recipe for this very same poultice is included in Florence’s recipes in her Recipe section. Ammon wrote that it healed his burns in a few weeks, leaving no scars, and that he still used this in his own home.

The entire family made the trip to Far West in February 1908 by train. It was in Jake’s (Sam’s brother Jacob) blacksmith shop that Sam had plenty of work. Their home was an old house that was made livable with a lot of work, but it had room for a garden area, which Sam plowed himself. Here, two daughters were born, Elsie Florence, on October 15, 1908, and Irene Ermina, on June 8, 1910. Ammon’s history writes that after Elsie was born, Jerome took Ammon to their father at the blacksmith shop to have Ammon’s hair cut off as it had been allowed to grow (with those beautiful blond curls), not to be cut until Florence had a girl. Both Jerome and Ammon remembered this well. And there are stories of little Ralph who (1) sucked his thumb constantly, and older brother Jerome who said he shouldn’t because “Papa says no!” and (2) walked about a contented child saying, “Cuggy” until he was 3 years old at which time he spoke easily in complete sentences.

Of 1909, we do have one photo taken in Lebeck. MO in the yard of Claud Bronson, with Claud’s son’s, Hiel and Burr Bronson. (When able, a link to that photo will be placed here.) Hiel and Burr were both cousins to Jerome, Ammon, Ralph and Elsie, as Heil and Burr’s mother Ermina Clarissaa [Wildermuth] Bronson, was the sister of Florence [Wildermuth] Andes, the Andes children’s mother. This is noted becuase the Bronson’s moved later to Andes, MT from Lebeck (after the Samuel M. Andes family moved there).

In March of 1910, Florence’s sister Mabel and her husband Joe Higgins, Jerome Wildermuth, another brother and also Ella Stout, Florence’s sister all moved to eastern Montana area, where they homesteaded the land, and lived nearby each other.

Irene Ermina was born early in June, and by July 1st, 1910, Sam was on his way “by the train [Great Northern Railroad] to Culbertson, Montana. The trunk he brought contained the parts of his bicycle. He reassembled the bicycle and with the help of a crudely sketched map sent to him from Joe Higgins, Sam pedaled the seventeen miles of dirt road and three miles of just trail to this area, to look for an open area for homesteading” (16). “‘Homesteading’- you live on unclaimed land 7 years and then ‘prove up’ on your claim and it becomes yours” (9); later in his History (14), Ammon set the necessary years at only 3 - see further on in this paragraph. “For several days he stayed here, sleeping on the floor of the cabin of my Uncle Joe who had built a sod shack south of [the future to be ‘Andes’] in the spring of that year” (16). This was Florence’s sister and her husband, Joseph Higgins (14. p.4). “The Higgins’ farm was in the southeast township where four townships (each six miles square) joined. That township and the one to the west were the only two townships open for ‘Filing a claim’ then” (14, p.4). “Sam’s diary told of cycling over forty miles, across treeless plains and roadless hills, looking over the land” (16). In nearby Culbertson, “he filed for 320 acres, just west of the Higgins’ ‘Half Section’. Three hundred and twenty acres of this Montana prairie land could be obtained by doing certain improvements and living on it for three years”. The land there was relatively flat, no trees, with small hills and knee-high flowing buffalo grass.(14, p.4)

On September 9th, 1910, the Andes loaded their possessions into a wagon. These included a folding organ, which was Sam’s, one double bed, a trundle bed, a cot, a monkey stove, bedding, boxes of clothes, blacksmith tools and garden implements and other supplies and personals; Sam sold his bicycle to add money for their savings. (The following paragraphs are almost entirely from Ammon S. Andes Life History.) “…our whole family moved by the Great Northern Railroad to Culbertson, Montana. We all rode in a coach car with open windows. On hot days we boys [Jerome, Ammon and Ralph] liked to stick our heads out the window ‘to see’ and be cooled. When the conductor came by he stopped us with, ‘Too much out, too much out’.”

When they arrived in the small cowboy town of Culbertson, Montana, they were met by their Uncle Joe Higgins, and another neighbor. Each had a team of horses pulling (1) a small spring wagon and (2) a ‘lumber wagon’ to haul us and our baggage out to Uncle Joe’s home. They first drove three miles south to where they crossed the Missouri River on the ‘cable ferry,’ then five miles through the ‘tippy Bad Lands.’ “Some of us children often cried out, ‘We’re gonna tip over!’ That way was three miles shorter than driving the 20 mile road all the way up ‘Hard Scrabble Creek’ on which we homesteaded. The natives called these streambeds ‘coolies’ because it was cooler down in them in summer and water ran in them only after a heavy rain or snow melt.”

The Andes family arrived in Montana on September 18, 1910, and they lived with the Higgins while Joe Higgins helped the plow sod and helped Sam build the Andes’ sod house. “Such houses were cooler in the summer and warmer during the cold Montana winters” (14). Elsie wrote, “Florence Andes was a good illustration of the early homesteaders of Montana. She and my father brought their five children” Jerome, Ammon, Ralph, Elsie, and Irene (now 3 months old), “to that little acreage, hoping to make a living for all of us…” (4). During their first winter in Montana, they enjoyed living in their small cozy sod house heated with coal using their small “Monkey” stove. Its flat top did the pan cooking and the small oven in its stove pipe did the baking. Sam Andes first mined the coal the family used from a 12-foot vein of coal; it was located 6 miles from their home. This “was a long way to go after coal with horses and wagon”. Later, however, someone filed a “claim” on it. Then the poorer “lignite coal” from a three-foot vein located on the school section much closer to them was dug. Later a good coal was purchased from a mine 3 miles away on a good road.

“By the Spring of 1911 the government had opened the North East township at the ‘four corners.’” So Sam changed his claim by filing for the 320 acres just north of the Higgins’ because it was better land. It became the Andes’ with a clear title once certain improvements were made and they had lived on it for three years. By that summer Sam built the families’ second sod house and during the following year or so he added two lumber rooms on the north side. Their home was north of the Higgins’ house, Ammon remembered.

There was a 640 acre section of land just west of their property was called a “school section” because money paid to rent or buy it went to the Montana School Fund. The Andes rented this section, fenced it, and fed cattle and horses on it for many of the 20 years the family was to stay in Montana.

Sam worked their own land into fields for crops. He also had a blacksmith shop, a store, opened a church, and eventually a school,and had a telephone and light plant. In 1914 after more homesteaders arrived, the Andes Post Office branch was opened, and was housed in the corner of the sod blacksnith shop of Sam Andes; Sam was appointed postmaster. The Star Route established was from Andes, to Sioux Pass and to Dore, and back again, going three days a weeks. Claud Bronson was the first carrier (21).

Besides farming, the family raised cattle, pigs and also had horses that were used for the farm work and transportation. He taught all the children to work before school age. They did chores on the farm, carried buckets of coal (2 boys were required for this chore) for heat, helped in the fields with the farming, in the blacksmith shop, etc. There were many memories of Sam’s blacksmith shop. The blower had to be turned to keep the coal fire burning which heated the metal Sam worked on. The children helped him with this. “He sharpened plow shears by hand by hammering the cutting edge sharp and thin with a hammer on a large anvil”. (14)

My father, Jerome, and his brothers Ammon and Ralph began their education in their own small home. There were not enough children living near them to have school until about 1913, when Jerome was 9, Ammon, 8, and Ralph was about 6 years old. “In Montana there were no public schools near where [they] lived. Mama taught my oldest brothers from the books she had”, Elsie remembered (4). The first available school building they used was about 2 miles mostly north of the Andes’ house, held in a neighbors’ old grain barn on the Harvey Neal farm; the three boys walked that distance together. Ammon remembered in his History, almost stepping on a rattlesnake on one of their trips to school; he remembers these snake as plentiful. When they started their class work in the grain barn, Jerome began at the fourth grade level; Florence had taught him first at home and had more time to teach him, her first child. Ammon and Ralph began at that same time at the first grade level. The school sessions were only for 4 months each during the winter and continued for at least the next 7 years in this setting. Finally, the Andes schoolhouse was built on the northwest corner of the crossroads in Andes.

“Mama enjoyed religion. Each Sunday morning she and Papa had a church school service in the house. Of course, she invited the neighbors to attend. Papa played the hymns on a little pump organ he had bought in Montana.”(4) In the spring of 1912, there was an influx of new homesteaders which eventually occupied every half section in the area. Because of this the little Andes’ house was too small for church services. “After four years, Papa persuaded the community members to build a church just across the road from us” to the south of their home and homestead land (4).

“Mother ministered to the health of the people in that area. An Indian woman taught her how to make a poultice which would heal burns (I’ll include this at the end of these articles). Mama was interested in the birth of children. She had ten of her own. In this neighborhood she delivered 98 babies” (4). Florence cared for the sick and injured for miles around the Andes community, walking to these homes if no other mode of travel was at hand (21).

“As a mother she gave all of her life. She persuaded her children to attend college, to earn from one to three degrees, to become teachers, nurses, etc. How she loved us.” (4) To Florence, school and learning were precious. She dreamed of college for her children and visioned the various fields of study they might enter. She taught them the value of education, a privilege and not a duty. And by hard work and sacrifice this was accomplished (21).

Of Sam Andes, her father, Elsie wrote, “Papa (as he insisted on our calling him) was a devout parent. He wanted us to do things with him. He taught us to milk cows, to chase the cattle to the barn, to help him take care of the garden, etc”(4).

The area had few settlers; all were poor farmers, settlers on land covered with lush grass, about knee-high. They stayed there long enough to “prove up on their claim” and about 23 years more.

“Most of the early years had good crops, some not so good. But in the later years, year after year of more poor years than good” (9) caused the Andes’ family to move back to Missouri (Independence and Warrensburg).” The year the family moved to Warrensburg was 1930 .

The big depression made it hard for everyone. It cut down store trade and blacksmith work, and there were crop failures. But they got along mostly by running a private dairy business, selling and delivering milk to homes. They also raised and sold berries, grapes, peaches, etc. for a time (while in Independence, before going to Warrensburg).

Samuel Andes died there in May 30, 1936 of a skull fracture and infection; antibiotics were not available then. “The Doctors in Warrensburg diagnosed the injury incorrectly. They said, ‘Just a bump on the head, he’ll recover. Don’t worry.’ My mother sent him to a good hospital in Independence. Diagnosis, ’skull fracture - you waited too long.’” (9)

“My mother died 27 years later.”(9)

See: Samuel Miller Andes Descendents - Also read below Family Group Record.

And continue this history with history of author’s father, Dr. Jerome Eli Andes, History and Marriage.

SAMUEL MILLER FAMILY GROUP RECORD

_________________________________________________________________
HUSBAND: SAMUEL MILLER ANDES
Birth: 17 JUNE 1873, STANTON, VA
Marriage: 14 JUNE 1903, LEBECK, MO
Death: 30 MAY 1936, WARRENSBURG, MO
HUSBAND’S FATHER: SAMUEL C. ANDES
HUSBAND’S MOTHER: ELIZABETH WINE
_________________________________________________________________
WIFE: ANNA FLORENCE WILDERMUTH
Birth: 10 OCT 1880
Death: 15 SEPT 1963, INDEPENDENCE. MO
Burial: WARRENSBURG. MO
WIFE’S FATHER: ELI MOZART WILDERMUTH
WIFE’S MOTHER: CYNTHIA PERMELA SHUMWAY

_________________________________________________________________
CHILDREN:

_________________________________________________________________
1. JEROME ELI ANDES - HISTORY (1904-1929) MARRIAGE(1929-1988)
Gender: MALE
Birth: 18 MARCH 1904, LEBECK, MO
Marriage Date: 15 SEPT 1929
To Whom: ALICE ERLENE JACOBS or ALICE EARLENE ANDES
Death: 29 APRIL 1988, RIDGECREST, CA
Burial: REESE CREEK CEMETERY, BOZEMAN, GALLATIN Co., MT
Comments: This site author’s father
_____________________________________________________________
2. AMMON SYLVESTER ANDES
Gender: MALE
Birth: 18 SEPT 1905, LEBECK, MO
1st Marriage: 30 JUNE 1934, GLADYS ABIGAIL BEBEE
2nd Marriage: 30 MARCH 1962, BERNICE LANDSBERG EINHELIG
Death: 28 SEPT 1996, INDEPENDENCE, JACKSON, MO
_____________________________________________________________
3. RALPH VERNE ANDES
Gender: MALE
Birth: 17 APRIL 1907(year - Reference 2), LEBECK, MO
Marriage Date: 12 JUNE 1937
To Whom: MABEL OLDS, b. 1905, d. 1997(2)
Death: 24 DEC 1994, RAYMORE, CASS, MO
_____________________________________________________________
4. ELSIE FLORENCE ANDES
Gender: FEMALE
Birth: 15 OCT 1908, FAR WEST, MO
Marriage Dates:
1st Marriage: 19 AUG 1934, JAMES DOIG
2nd Marriage: 19 AUG 1946, OLIVER WENDELL TOWNSEND
Death: APRIL 1994, MANHATTAN, GALLATIN, MT
Burial: BOZEMAN, MT
_____________________________________________________________
5. IRENE ERMINA ANDES
Gender: FEMALE
Birth: 8 JUNE 1910, FAR WEST, MO
Marriage Date: 21 DEC 1940
To Whom: HARRY C. KELLY
Death: JUNE 1985, RALEIGH, WAKE, NC
_____________________________________________________________
6. MARTHA MALITA ANDES
Gender: FEMALE
Birth: 26 OCT 1912, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Marriage Date: 1 OCT 1938
To Whom: JOHN VAN SPYK
Death: DEC 1989, SAN LUIS OBISPO, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA
Burial: BOZEMAN, MT
_____________________________________________________________
7. SAMUEL CYREL ANDES
Gender: MALE
Birth: 22 MAY 1914, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Marriage Date: To be added later
To Whom: ANGELETA OLERA
Death: NOV 1987, Waterton, Codington, SD
_____________________________________________________________
8. MARJORIE ANDES
Gender: FEMALE
Birth: 2 JAN 1915, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Death: 2 JAN 1915
Burial: ANDES, MT, marker is there
Comments: Stillborn
_____________________________________________________________
9. MABEL LOIS ANDES
Gender: FEMALE
Birth: 12 MARCH 1917, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Marriage Date: 4 JUNE 1944
To Whom: KENNETH PRESTON YORKS
Death:
Burial:
Comments: Details to follow
_____________________________________________________________
10. WILMER C. ANDES
Gender: MALE
Birth: 6 SEPT 1919, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Marriage Date: 1st Marriage: 15 MAY 1941, ALMA NEVEDA DIXON
2nd Marriage: ? yr., LOUISE SMITH
3rd Marriage: KAY BRYANT
Death: 2 OCT 2006, INDEPENDENCE, JACKSON, MO
_____________________________________________________________
11.  OTIS KENNETH ANDES
Gender: MALE
Birth: 15 SEPT 1921, ANDES, RICHLAND Co., MT
Baptism: Baptized and joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS); date unknown
Marriage: Never married; killed in WW2
Death: 27 JULY 1944;  see ‘Comments’ below
Burial: As below
Comments: Initially thought to have been shot over Bisyprem, Austria, but final letter/record dated August 13, 1946 recorded the place was Veszprem, Hungary, about 35 miles south west of Budapest, near the north shore of Lake Balentino, HUNGARY; body was never retrieved.  He had been serving the United States of America in WWII. (Mostly from 23 reference below.)
___________________________________________________________________________________________

RESOURCES and other notes:

1. The Wine Family in America. Wine, Jacob David. McClure Printing Co., Staunton, VA, 1952.

2. JACOB MILLER OF 1748, His Descendants and Connections, Part 1. Miller, J. Carson. Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc. Strasburg. VA, 1936.

3. Johann David Wildermuth and His Descendants 1752-1964. Compiled and Edited by Ruth Kline Lee. (Published privately by The Wildermuth Family Association) 1964.

4. Letter to Charlotte Gamel from Elsie Andes Townsend, March,1994.

5. Andes Genealogy Work, by Bonnie Andes.

6. History of Samuel C. Andes, 1922.

7. Letter written by Jerome E. Andes, dated August 6, 1971.

8. Letter to Charlotte Gamel from Ralph V. Andes, dated Oct.11, 1994.

9. Letter to Charlotte Gamel from Ralph V. Andes, dated Jan. 3, 1994.

10. Will of William Andes, dated April 17, 1863.

11. Biography of S.M. Andes, retyped original copy; retyped by Elsie Andes Townsend.

12. Always a Frontier, Townsend, Elsie. Herald Publishing House, Independence, MO., 1972.

13. Letter to Charlotte Gamel from Ammon S. Andes, dated July 25, 1994.

14. Ammon S. Andes Life History, by Ammon S. Andes. September, 1994.

15. Writing about Florence Wildermuth Andes, exact author not given, but probably was written by Elsie Andes Townsend.

16. Writing called “We Went Back”, by Elsie Andes Townsend.

17. Copy of letter by Florence Wildermuth Andes, dated 1939.

18. Letter written by Samuel M. Andes, dated Feb. 16, 1903.

19. “Memoirs of O. Wildermuth”, The Saints’ Herald, Independence. MO, June 6, 1955.

20. Copy of book (Source?? copies obtained from Bonnie Andes) which listed the Pennsylvania German Pioneers than came over on a ship called Friendship, in 1741, pages copied were 306-9, and 370-3.

21.”Courage Enough: Mon-dak Family Histories, Richland County, Montana, Bicentennial Edition”, 1973.  Forward by DeLyle Jarvis, and ‘Courage Enough’ page by Enid Dawe Anderson and Mary Dawe Lowry in honor of her mother Eva Marie Dawe.  Pp. 112-18, 33-35.? No.  Cass County Obituaries: http://www.casscountyhistoricalsociety.org/Obituaries.

23.  Details of death of Otis Kenneth Andes per handwritten letter from Edward L. Whilgel, Major General, United States Army, dated August 13, 1946.  And per letter from War Department [United States of America], The Adjunct General’s Office, Records Administration Center, 4300 Goodfellow Boulvard, St. Louis, MO, dated 19 NOV 1946.