Josef Maria Dittli was a man of tall stature and he had snow white hair. Their staples were walnuts, dried pairs, and potatoes. They led very hard lives. Meat was not always available, and sugar was almost unknown. Their food was mostly sweetened by honey which they raised on their farm.
Josef Maria Dittli was a farmer. He was also well known as a cattle veterinarian. He was born 16 Dec 1846 in Gurtnellen, Canton Uri. He had a farm in Gurtnellen. Gurtnellen is a long country stretching along one side of the river with the town at one end, and Silenen was across the river. So naturally they went to school and church in Silenen and not up to Gurtnellen which would have been a hike of 3 hours or so. Everything they did was in Silenen, but they lived in Gurtnellen. Josef had a farm in the valley from the river up. And an uncle that was in the assembly was right next to him. It was probably once one farm. And then they had a mountain section, a terrace up in the mountains, at the beginning of the Arni, which is still in the family. That was the Summer place. There they took the cattle up to that farm as soon as they could in the Spring as soon as the snow was gone and they could live up there. One man had to go up there and take care of the cattle and maybe make hay when they had a good year. The idea was to sustain the cattle up there while they made hay in the valley to feed the cattle in the Winter. In those days you didn't buy a wagon of hay from some place. You had to support your own cattle. A rich farmer was when he had 20 - 40 cattle and could feed them all year around. That's changing now.
When Josef died he had curly white hair and all his teeth. His son Albin often commented that what he had wanted to inherit most from his dad was his teeth.
Josef Maria's wife was rather small, but a very, very active woman. Those days they had to do a lot of work. Her name was Anna Maria Indergand, and she used the name Maria. They were married 27 October 1868.
Anna Maria Indergand died in 1915 in the hospital in Altdorf from internal complications. She was a very strong farm women. She was once attached by one of grand fathers bulls. Grandpa heard her yelling for help and ran out of the house grabbing a fence stick with which to hit the bull.
Anna Maria would give her old roosters to her daughter-in-law. One time when she had an old rooster that she was going to kill because it was a nuisance she gave it as usual. Her daughter-in-law took it home, stewed it, and then served it to Anna Maria. Anna Maria was amazed that the rooster could be made edible. That was the last old rooster the daughter-in-law received.
Those people were very religious and Catholic and naturally they had a lot of Catholic names.
The children of Josef Maria and Anna Maria Indergand were as follows.
Joseph, who immigrated to the United States and then returned to Switzerland and married Severina Gripper. I don't know if he ever married in the U.S. In the U.S. he milked cows in the area of Mills College. On the morning of the San Francisco earthquake the cows acted strangely. He poked the one he was milking and said "What's the matter with you?" The next thing he knew he was flat on his back with the milk all over him and the cow was on her back with her feet in the air. He retired in the town of Amsted.
Josef Maria, born 17 March 1871.
Albin, who married Regina Niderost.
Johann became a state forester. He died in 1915 while in the Swiss army, during WW 1. He didn't die do to combat as Switzerland was not in the war. He had one of the longest funerals ever known in the town of Silenen. A whole battalion of soldiers came. Johann was the first man to build a concrete bridge across the river in the neighborhood of the farm, that is he was instrumental in having it built. Originally there was A very rickety old bridge that led to Silenen. It was wood and shook as you used it, and there were holes in its floor. Uncle Johann was a state forester then. The bridge made Silenen within easy access to the farms of the area. We went to church and school in Silenen. He was also president of the landrod, one of the governing bodies of Canto Uri. In the army he occupied the office of top sergeant, and died in this office from a heart attack. He was always a restless man, on the go. His wife was Barbara jauch, whom he married on 18 October 1907. They had six children
Severina married Josef Tresh. They acquired a farm in Silenen and had five children.
Maria married Alois Gehrig and had several children. After his death she married a man by the name of Tresh. There were no children by him. (It appears that Joseph remembered this wrong. The state archive records show that Maria's second husband was Melchior Frei, whom she married on 10 September 1915.)
Franz took over the original family homestead from his father. He married Krensentia Walker. The homestead was located in Gurtnellen across the river from Silenen.
Helena immigrated in 1912 to the United States and settled in Van Nuys, California where she married a Kofler. She died about 1975 in Ukipa near San Bernardino. Her husband died as a young man due to extreme mental depression because he had accidentally killed one of his children with an early milk truck. He had a dairy farm.
Lina married Ernst Weber in Lucerne. She had two sons by him. He ran a manufacturing place in Switzerland which manufactured electrical parts. After his death Lina and their oldest son, Fritz, took over the plant, which is still in existence. She lived to be 91, and was the last of the family to die. She and her mother made one trip to the United States during the 1950's and they stayed with Albin and Lillian Dittli in San Francisco for most of a Summer.
Maria Josepha married Karl Kohler and lived in Olten, Argau where he was employed by the Swiss federal railway.
Alois married Kaila Jauch in Silenen. He had a small farm, but was also employed by the Swiss Federal Railway as a freight train conductor. He was the tallest of the family, a giant of a man, over six feet tall, and as strong as an ox.
Christina married Franz Lussman. He was the care taker of the farm of an old widow. She willed the farm to him and his wife in return for care as long as she lived. Christina died in 1917. They had two children: Ludwig, a well known painter in Altdorf, and a daughter born about 1910, who later became a nun in Seedorf.
Information provided by my dad, Albin, and my Uncle, Joseph Dittli.