The Pocatello Tribune of Tuesday, August 9, 1938, carried word that Augusta Kulock of Arbon Valley had died early that morning, a patient in one of the city's hospitals. Arbon Valley, where the Kulocks had homesteaded west of Pauline, had been her home for 28 years, and she had spent the last sixteen of them as a widow.
The homestead west of Pauline
The obituary gives her birthplace as Germany and her birth date as September 17, 1866. It says she settled in Idaho within a short time of immigrating, but gives no year for either. Her husband, Frank Kulock, a Prussian immigrant, had come to the United States in 1889. The site's research finds him filing on a quarter section about two miles west of the Pauline crossroads in May 1909, and he proved it up in 1914. The obituary's 28 years in the valley would date Augusta's coming to about 1910.
Their son Joseph, called Joe, took up land of his own in the same section and received the patent for it in 1919. In June 1917 he was among the Pauline men listed in the American Falls Press as registered for military service, and in August 1918 he was called with a group of Power County draft men leaving American Falls for Camp Fremont, California, on the evening of Wednesday, August 7. Two days later the Press told how he got there. His neighbors around Pauline were all too busy to drive him in, so he set out on foot "from his homestead, 35 miles distant." John Payne of Arbon valley came along in his car and gave him a lift to town. While in town, Joe said that he meant to "obey every order issued to the letter," the draft board's order to be in American Falls on time among them.
The winter of 1922
On February 11, 1922, Frank Kulock drove to Pauline for the mail and was caught by a blizzard on the way home. He froze to death about 150 yards from the house, and Augusta found his body after searching for him. That story is told in full in Frank Kulock and the Pauline blizzard of February 1922. Frank had been a member of the Catholic church, which was to conduct his funeral, and the site's research records his burial in Mountain View Cemetery at Pocatello. The Press reported that he had a son "who has not been located." A month later the Pauline correspondent wrote that Joe Kulock "has arrived home after spending about three years in Minnesota."
Mother and son stayed on. The site's family research finds Augusta and Joe still at Pauline in the 1930 census.
Her funeral
The 1938 notices, reported below, are short. They give her birth, her years in the valley, her husband and her son, and they describe a Catholic funeral like Frank's: the Rosary at the Downard chapel, then a requiem mass at St. Anthony church and burial in Mountain View cemetery, where the site's research places Frank's grave from sixteen years before. The papers do not say whether she was laid beside him.
The obituary has one plain error. It puts Frank's death in 1932, but the death record and the newspapers of the time date it to February 1922, and his estate was in probate by March 1922. Both notices give her age as 72, though the birth date in the obituary would make her 71.
Much is still unknown: when she came to America, her family name before marriage, when she and Frank married, and whether she had other children. Joe was the only survivor the obituary named. He kept the Kulock place until his own death in February 1941, and with that the family's 32 years on the land west of Pauline came to an end.
On this site: the Stories entry on Frank Kulock, the history of Pauline and West Fork, and John Payne, the Arbon storekeeper who was probably the driver who picked Joe up in 1918. If your family knows more about Augusta Kulock, we would be glad to hear it.
The story as reported
Pocatello Tribune, August 9, 1938, page 8, with the funeral notice of August 11, 1938, page 7. The original articles are under copyright; this is our own report of what they said.
Augusta Kulock of Arbon Valley died in the early hours of Tuesday, August 9, and the Pocatello Tribune printed the news that same day. Her age was given as 72. The paper left the hospital unnamed, saying only that it was in Pocatello.
By the paper's account she was a native of Germany, born on September 17, 1866. The obituary skipped the year of her emigration and noted only that she made her way to Idaho not long after reaching America. Her years in Arbon Valley numbered 28.
Joseph Kulock, a son who lived in the valley too, was the one survivor the paper listed. The obituary also noted that she was a widow, mistakenly placing Frank Kulock's death in 1932 rather than 1922.
Her Rosary was set for 8 o'clock Wednesday evening in the Downard chapel. The Rev. H. Herman was to offer a requiem mass for her at St. Anthony church on Thursday at 9 a.m., with burial afterward in Mountain View cemetery.
The Tribune of Thursday, August 11, two days after the obituary, confirmed in a few lines that she had been buried that day. Father Herman had said the mass at St. Anthony, and the burial was at Mountain View. Here she was described as Mrs. Augusta Kulock of Arbon, Idaho, and her age was again given as 72. Four men served as her pallbearers: P. J. Lavery, P. C. O'Malley, R. A. Kane and Robert McLaughlin.
Sources
- Pocatello Tribune, August 9, 1938, page 8
- Pocatello Tribune, August 11, 1938, page 7
- American Falls Press, June 19, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, August 6, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 9, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, February 17, 1922, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 17, 1922, page 4