Eunice Walker Short Reimann

              EUNICE WALKER SHORT REIMANN
1893- 1986
Eunice Walker was born 5 October 1893 in Lewisville, Idaho. She was the daughter of Lorin Paul Walker and Sarah Louisa Howell. She was the second girl in a family of eleven children, two boys and nine girls.
Around the year1900 her family moved to Warm River, Fremont County, Idaho. Eunice’s father, along with two uncles, Charles Walker and Dave Howell, took up land in the area under the Homestead Act.
Clearing the land became a family project. The sagebrush was railed up and the children spent many hours picking up the brush and putting it into piles to be burned. They thought the work would never end.
Eunice, due to a shortage of boys in the family, was a great help to her father. She learned to ride horses and to work them on a plow, harrow, disk and drill. She also took turns with her other sisters helping her mother in the home. This training resulted in Eunice becoming a good homemaker and cook.
The Homestead wasn’t all work. There was time for swimming, fishing and exploring the area. Eunice loved to fish and always caught the big ones. When asked her secret, “ How do you manage to catch only big fish?” She replied, “ I put on a large bait on the hook. It scares the small fish away and only the larger ones bite.”
WALKER FAMILY
BACK ROW( L- R) ETHEL, EUNICE, LAURA, RAY, LESTER CARTER ( ADOPTED), CORAL, AND MAY
FRONT ROW ( L- R) ADA,, SARAH LOUISA W/ FRANKLIN, HARRIET, LORIN PAUL W/ BERYL, AND LOIS
LORIN PAUL WALKER FAMILY ( PICTURE TAKEN ABUT 1912)
BACK ROW ( L- R) CORAL, LOIS, ETHEL, MAY, ADA, HARRIET
FRONT ROW ( L- R) BERYL, EUNICE, SARAH LOUISA, LORIN PAUL, LAURA
Eunice went to school in Warm River and graduated from the eight grade. She and her next youngest sister, Coral, attended high school in Ashton, Idaho. Ashton was seven miles from Warm River and their parents rented a small house in Ashton for the girls to live in while attending school. One year of high school was the extent of their education. Their father thought they were fooling around too much. The girls did get good grades. In 1915 Eunice met and married William Rohr Short on 7 March 1915. To this union were born two children, Rohr Paul Short1 and Eunice Short. Eunice would be known as Billie.
William worked as a clerk in a store. He also tried his hand at farming. He preferred clerking and the family moved to American Falls. After a short illness he died 1 February 1926 and was buried in the Basalt Cemetery.
Eunice and the children moved to Boise, Idaho where she found work to support herself and the two children. While living in Boise she me Henry F. Reimann whom she first met when Henry threshed grain for her father in Warm River. After a short courtship the couple were married 16 November 1926. This marriage produced no children.
They lived in Boise for a year, then moved to Warm River. Here they rented the
1Rohr Paul Short died 29 March 2002 at Pocatello, Bannock, Idaho Charles Walker farm and also the Lorin Walker home down on what was called the flat, close to Henry’ Fork of the Snake River. In fact it was the same home that Eunice had grown up in.
Henry farmed the Charles Walker farm for one year and then bought it. This farm was one of the most productive in the Warm River area.
Eunice was a good help meet for Henry. She was also an excellent cook and homemaker.
They decided to build a home on the original Charles Walker home site. The Charles Walker home had burned to the ground several years before they purchased the farm. The only building that remained was a log shop. In 1929, Henry built a two car log garage on the site and began to get materials together to build a new modern, full basement, four bedroom log house.
In the spring of 1929, Eunice’s nephew, Elwood, age 12, joined the Reimann family. She and Henry agreed to take him until his mother, Coral, could take care of her family. Elwood was about nine months older than her son Paul and the two boys got along well with each other. Elwood was there a little over a year.
Aunt Eunice had a great way with us boys. We worked with her on many projects. We helped by picking huckleberries, service berries and chokecherries. She also took us to pick raspberries at the Bill Reynolds home. Bill was a bachelor and had a large patch of berries he never used or picked.
We boys were not the greatest raspberry pickers, however, we picked almost as many berries as she did. In order to get us to work she told us stories. If we wanted to hear the story we had to keep up with her and pick our row clean. I have often wished I could remember these stories or that she had written them down. They fascinated us and she always ended her story with, “ They lived in peace, were married in grease and were buried in a cake of tallow.”
Aunt Eunice and we boys shocked the grain. Uncle Henry ran the binder. The three of us kept up with the binder. As soon as Uncle Henry had his grain in the shock he started his threshing machine run. His crop was always one of the last to be threshed.
I always marveled at the many talents that Aunt Eunice possessed. She was quite the artist and when they installed the bathtub in their new home she painted a beautiful landscape on the side of the tub. She made braided rugs and was a good seamstress. ELWOOD CHAMBERS ( R) AND PAUL SHORT RETURNING
FROM A FISHING TRIP We boys loved the apple pies she made. We could hardly wait until the green apples were large enough to be put into a pie. In fact we went down to Bim Stone’s orchard and stole enough apples for a pie or two. When Aunt Eunice found out we had stolen the apples, she wouldn’t make the pies. We asked if we could make them. She agreed that we could, however, when it came to seasoning our stolen apples we were stumped. We finally talked her into seasoning our pie. The pepper can and the cinnamon can looked alike. Aunt Eunice grabbed the pepper instead of the cinnamon can and blackened our apples with pepper. It taught us a great lesson that stealing apples does’t pay.
Eunice( Billie) took a bad fall when she was a baby. This fall caused her to be a victim of epilepsy. Uncle Henry loved his step daughter and took her to many doctors to combat the disease. Billie lived into her early twenties before she died. This was a sad day in the Reimann household.
EUNICE ( BILLIE) SHORT
13 MAR 1919- 3 SEPT 1943 Aunt Eunice and Uncle Henry took several trips after Henry retired. They went fishing and had a great time seeing who could catch the largest lake trout. Aunt Eunice usually won.
Winter months were usually filled by reading books, listening to the radio and reading the Ashton Herald. Henry was usually busy drawing out a project and napping in his favorite chair.
HENRY AND EUNICE REIMANN ( JULY 1972)
Aunt Eunice had many nephews and nieces. She was a favorite aunt to all of us and Uncle Henry always made us feel welcome.
Uncle Henry was 83 years old when he died. He had developed a blood clot in one of his legs. The leg had to be amputated. The shock was too great for his weakened state. After Henry’s death Aunt Eunice left her home to live with her son Paul. The home and the land was sold. When Aunt Eunice was about ninety years old Paul placed her in a nursing home in Pocatello. She was 93 years of age when she died 22 Dec 1986. She was buried in the Basalt Idaho cemetery.
Written by Elwood W. Chambers ( Nephew)
Pictures and materials by Elwood Chambers and Helen Reimann Mardsen ( niece)
EUNICE AND HENRY REIMANN’S HOME AT WARM RIVER
WINTER SCENE OF THE REIMANN HOME AT WARM RIVER
REIMANN HOME AT WARM RIVER- JULY 1972