On the afternoon of Thursday, December 6, 1928, Rosa Bishoff of Pauline died in Pocatello, at 603 North Main Street. Her husband, John Bishoff, had brought her to town when she was taken ill. She was 59. (The digitized text of the page reads 69, but the scan plainly shows 59.) That day's Pocatello Tribune gave her a short notice in its City Briefs column, under the heading "Died This Afternoon." It is the fullest account of her life we have found.
The notice says she came to Idaho from Switzerland in 1893, belonged to the Latter-day Saint church and had lived in the state ever since. Her son Alvin's obituary, printed in the Idaho State Journal in June 1970, gives her maiden name, Stalder. That obituary gives Alvin's birth as March 29, 1901, at Bern, Idaho. He was four when the Bishoffs settled at Malad City, and their move to Arbon Valley came some years later.
By 1910 the family was part of the young settlement at Pauline. When the American Falls Press wrote up Pauline's history in March 1917, it said the Latter-day Saint Sunday school there had been organized in 1910, with J. H. Hansen as superintendent and John W. Lusk and John Bischoff as his assistants. In the fall of 1912 John Bishoff "of Arbon" was one of four witnesses named for Frank W. Swim's final homestead proof.
The Pauline columns of the next ten years show the children growing up. In October 1917 the Press reported that John R. Bischoff had leased the ranch of Charles Hassenpflug, who had gone into the army at American Lake, Washington. A John Richard Bishoff of Pauline is on the county's 1918 draft lists, and he is probably the son the obituary calls Richard. Dick and Maria Bischoff were among the Pauline young people at a dance at Crystal in the first days of 1918. That spring, in its list of the past week's thrift stamp sales in the schools, the paper named young Fred Bischoff as the leader in the Pauline primary grade, with a dollar.
In 1920 John, Mrs. John and J. R. Bishoff all signed the Nonpartisan League's county petitions (Pauline votes the League ticket). In 1921 Dick and Fred were both witnesses in the case of W. H. Ball. Fred, who had been in the primary grade at Pauline only three years before, was one of the two Pauline witnesses who told a jury they had seen Ball shoot Ed Brandt on the road (the St. Patrick's Day shootings).
The family also turns up in the ward's social news. In February 1922 the Relief Society met at Joe Doman's home with the husbands invited, and the guests included Mr. and Mrs. John Bishoff and their sons Alvin and Dick (the women who led the Relief Societies). A month later Mrs. Lilly Daniels of Pocatello was visiting her mother, Mrs. John Bischoff. The Pauline schoolchildren's news in the late fall of 1923 had the Bishoffs going to Pocatello for a visit and Lilly Daniels coming home for Thanksgiving. It also reported Fred and Lourene Bishoff going over to Crystal to see Miss Helen Butler (valley schoolchildren write the news). In March 1924 the children wrote that Mrs. John Bishoff had come home from Pocatello, where she had been under a doctor's care.
The 1928 notice names those she left. Richard, Alvin and Fred were all at Pauline. Lily, who had married Eli Daniels in 1913 (the Daniels family), was listed as Mrs. Lily Hedges of Victor. Marie was Mrs. Marie Thomas of Pauline, and Lourene, still unmarried, was at Pauline. Rosa's two sisters were Mrs. Charles Walker of Farmington, Utah, and Mrs. Francis Bingley of Logan. There were seven grandchildren.
The notice said the funeral would be announced later. We have not found that announcement, and we do not know where she was buried. The notice does not say what her illness was. The papers spell the name both Bishoff and Bischoff, sometimes in the same column.
The family stayed tied to the valley after her death. Fred married Esther Lusk in 1931, and J. R. Bishoff married her sister Margaret in 1932. Both were daughters of Perry Lusk (the Lusk family). John Bishoff outlived his wife by more than twenty years. When Arbon Valley people held a reunion in Pocatello in February 1950, no one there was older than he was, and the gathering recognized him for it. He was then 85, with his 86th birthday due that August. Alvin left the valley. From 1933 until he retired in 1966 he did electrical work in the film industry, chiefly at Paramount, and he died in 1970 at a veterans' hospital in Santa Monica, California. By then his brothers Richard and Fred were living at McCammon, and his sister Lilly Daniels was in Pocatello.
On this site: Pauline and West Fork and Pauline's beginnings and the Meadow Ward.
The article as printed
Pocatello Tribune, December 6, 1928, page 12. Transcribed from the page scan.
Died This Afternoon
Mrs Rosa Bishoff, 59, wife of John Bishoff, died this afternoon at 603 North Main street. She was a resident of Pauline, Idaho, and she was brought to this city by her husband when she was taken ill. Mrs. Bishoff came to Idaho from Switzerland in 1893. She was a member of the L. D. S. church and has resided in this state since coming from abroad. She is survived by her husband, three sons, Richard, Alvin, and Fred, all of Pauline, three daughters, Mrs Lily Hedges, Victor, Mrs Marie Thomas, Pauline and Miss Lourene Bishoff, Pauline, two sisters, Mrs Charles Walker, Farmington, Utah and Mrs Francis Bingley, Logan and seven grand children. Funeral announcement will be made later The remains are in charge of the Hall Mortuary
Sources
- Pocatello Tribune, December 6, 1928, page 12
- Idaho State Journal, June 8, 1970, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, November 7, 1912, page 6
- American Falls Press, October 9, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, June 11, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, July 5, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, January 8, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, April 23, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 20, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 22, 1921, page 11
- Salt Lake Telegram, December 21, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, February 10, 1922, page 6
- American Falls Press, March 10, 1922, page 4
- American Falls Press, November 29, 1923, page 2
- American Falls Press, December 13, 1923, page 6
- American Falls Press, December 13, 1923, page 11
- American Falls Press, March 13, 1924, page 2
- Idaho State Journal, February 19, 1950, page 47