Sure, Buckman's nice, but...

Another mystery about Elizabeth Naber is why she and 5 of her children moved from Petersburg, Iowa to Buckman, Minnesota.

We discovered that her daughter Katherine (grandma's sister) married William Bahns in Iowa in 1902. By the 1910 census, they were in Pierz. Were they the impetus for her mom and sibs moving too? Or, was Buckman "as good as anywhere"?

Larry found documents indicating Gerhard Naber had been land-speculating in Minnesota in the 1880s, but we don't know where or IF he bought acerage, tho that could be a reason his widow moved. The farm in Petersburg was large, with good soil, but might have been too much. Elizabeth was 45 when Gerhard died (at 62) in 1891. By the time they moved she was around 60. It's hard to imagine that farm SW of Buckman as a cushy retirement home....

But it's obvious Elizabeth Naber had money when she arrived. When her daughter Margaret married Anton Janson, they were able to pay the back taxes on his farm because of Margarets' generous dowery:
$9,600.00 from 1910 is worth $224,420.07 in 2008 dollars....from MEASURING WORTH online.