Minnie Buck was a child of Frederick Buck and his wife Louisa. I don't know Louisa's maiden name. Both were born in Germany, and Buck was an anglicized version of their German surname, Bauk. He immigrated in 1857 and she in 1858. Minnie was born in December 1866 according to the 1900 US Federal Census (I haven't seen the tombstone; would someone email me with the full date if you have it?), in Illinois, almost certainly in Woodland Township, Carroll County, Illinois. She also died in Woodland Township. Her husband survived her, and probably is also buried in Zion Cemetery.

These notes on Minnie Buck are part of a manuscript written by Kenneth Duncan, who with his brothers Minnie Buck took care of after his mother, Myra O'Neal Duncan, died in 1915.

According to Kenneth Duncan, Minnie Buck was "A country woman, raised in the Zion area, familiar with farming procedure. A good housekeeper, substantial plain cook, she tended to our well being, brought to our attention thrifty, sound, old fashioned methods of doing. One of her practices was the seeding of navy beans in corn hills, the vines having the corn stalk for support, burgeoning during the growing season, ripening as the corn ripened, then the plant pulled up, the beans threshed out. Stewed beans, baked beans, bean soup, good hearty food. She was familiar with turnips, a great hand for cabbage, boiled and in cole slaw. She was the first one to introduce us to green tomato pie. She cooked, kept house, mended, sewed, canned, preserved. It was as though she were a mother in the home. She took care of the chickens, milked on occasion.

I remember one Christmas, when Father, Don, and I on invitation went, by train, to be with Aunt Amy and family in their Dodgeville, Wisconsin home, Minnie, assisted by Neal, took care of the farm operations. She was a considerable church person, not fanatic, but regular. I never heard her refer to Sunday except as "The Sabbath." I was the youngest, the most callow, she sheltering me the most, probably because I needed it.

I remember one May Saturday when Minnie, me accompanying, driving Nita, the gray mare, took the road to Zion to visit her brother George, wife Belle, and children. It was in the hills, north of Mt. Carroll, a three hour drive. George was not much like Minnie, not churchy, smoked a pipe, swore a bit. On the way back, Sunday afternoon, we stopped so Minnie could visit her sister, Mrs. Roscoe Pauley in their farm house northwest out of Mt. Carroll. Howard and Harry Pauley were nephews of Minnie, and that Sunday we were there some young people were in the house.

Minnie was a great, good person, and we remember the good, kind, nice ones, don't we? In the spring of 1919 she married Chris Kupfer, a short statured stub of a German who had bought, on contract, her small forty acre farm, located about a half mile east of the then Zion store. The next summer I was allowed to have a week's visit in their farm home. Minnie and Chris maintained several milk cows. Their farm was a small operation, rather hilly, but enough for them in their modest way of living.

Minnie died sometime before Father. Surmising that she would have been buried in Zion Cemetery, of which church she was a steady communicant, I drove up there one day, locating her grave without difficulty, it being marked with a moderate sized red granite stone."

Refer to my Rootsweb.com family tree, "The Downing, Bickelhaupt, And Preston Families of Carroll County, Illinois" for more information on Minnie Buck and her family.

Contributed by Alice Horner