The previous post about Schmutz Spring got me thinking a bit about great-grandfather Schmutz and I remembered these pictures I found when we were cleaning out mom and dad's house earlier this year. Dad's brother Dick and his wife Miriam served a mission in Switzerland in the 90s and took these pictures of the ancestral home of great-grandpa and his ancestors.
This is the home in Dieboldshausen built in 1764 by Hans and Anna Schmutz, my 6 times great-grandfather, as it appeared in 1995.
According to Uncle Dick, the inscription on this board nailed to a beam in the hayloft reads: Built by Johannes (Hans) Schmutz in the year 1764. The two middle words read: "renovated by", and the bottom line is: Jakob Schmutz and Anna Barbara Bigler, 1864.
The Schmutz home is in the upper middle of this picture.
This is a screenshot of Dieboldshausen. The read arrow points to the Schmutz house as near as I can tell after looking at the photos and Google Maps.
Here is a west side view of the house. Southern Utah must've have been a big change from the verdant meadows and forested hillsides of their Swiss countryside!
Another view of the little valley.
Sitting: Polly, Mother Clorinda, Father Johannes, John H.
Standing: Lucile, Clarence, Beulah, Marcell, Eva, Wilford (my grandfather), Zina
A sidenote: Mom was always quick to point out that her great-grandfather, William Heaton, and his family walked across the plains with the second handcart company. Dad would retort that the Schmutz's were smart enough to wait for the railroad to be built!
Another sidenote: A direct ancestor of ours, Anthoni, was killed in battle in 1798 fighting the French. He was the son of Hans (mentioned above) and left behind a wife and ten children. He was 38.
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