Turning Hearts

I've heard my entire life that the family is central to God's plan - and it is true.  The family is a workshop, or a bite-sized piece of society, a laboratory just large enough to practice the social skills necessary to build Zion one member at a time.  However, I think the focus on family sometimes misses the point that "the heart" is also central to God's plan.  Hearts are the treasures being fought over, and families are where they are kept, defended, or lost.

One of my recent projects is to learn what happened to my great-grandfather, Ernest Kohler, after he was last seen by his family in April 1918.  He was a German immigrant, living in the US. At the time he disappeared, he had a wife and son, almost two years old. The US had officially entered World War 1 one year earlier. Some former friends now considered him an enemy, and he could not find work in Ogden to support his small family.  I don't know what happened in the hearts of that little family, but generations have been affected.  As the history is recorded, Ernest returned to his family in Ogden after finishing some work in Wyoming.  Not having employment opportunities in Ogden, he planned to stay in Salt Lake City to look for work there.  Before leaving on the train, he arranged to meet his wife at the station the following morning.  She would be traveling to Salt Lake with her mother to attend General Conference.  (The newspapers confirm that the trolleys would be running early to accommodate the early conference-goers.)  She says she awoke to a foot of snow and was unable to attend.  She waited for letters which never arrived, and never heard from him again.

 As I read some of the documents recording events of the next few months, I feel like a ghost in an old movie - you know, when you see someone take actions you know won't end well, but can't communicate to them to stop what they are doing?

Edith Kohler filed for divorce on June 13, 1918.  Why? The documents themselves say she didn't have money to pay the attorney or the court costs.  She didn't remarry for another 10 years, and that was at the request of her son.  According to the documents, the charge against Ernest Kohler is "although an able bodied man and capable of earning sufficient means to which to provide plaintiff and her minor child with the common necessaries of life, had wilfully and neglected to do so."  She also signed a document stating "that to the best of her knowledge, information, and belief, he has been employed during the last sixty days, or could have been employed had he been willing to work." (dated June 13, 1918).  There was no mention that her husband was missing or had wilfully abandoned the family, only that he was not paying their expenses and was assumed able to do so.

Once the petition had been filed, the court needed to notify the defendant of the charges.  The court required that Ernest Kohler appear before the court on June 24th to answer charges.  By the 21st of June, the sheriff of Salt Lake County notified the court that Ernest Kohler could not be found within the state of Utah, but was "reliably informed" that he was living in Evanston, Wyoming. The decision was made that publication of the summons in the Ogden paper and a letter directed to the post office in Evanston was sufficient notification of the court summons. The Ogden newspaper ran the notice in every publication between August 15, 1918 to September 19, 1918. He was given 30 days from receipt of the summons to appear in court.  On October 21, 1918 the judge decided in favor of the plaintiff because the defendant had never responded to the summons, stating, "this decree shall not become final and absolute until after the expiration of six months from the entry thereof; when it shall then become final and absolute unless proceedings for a review are pending before the court before the expiration of such period and for sufficient cause, for its own motion, or upon the application of any party, either interested or not, otherwise ordered."

One day after the war ended (November 12, 1918) the judge again ordered judgment dissolving the marriage - "not to become absolute until the expiration of six months from the entry thereof."  The following day, Edith Kohler testified that Ernest Kohler was an alien enemy, not a citizen of the United States.  She last saw him in April 1918 when he stated a desire to leave the country, believing there would be trouble before the war ended.  She heard indirectly that he was in Salt Lake City, and also that he had been interred in a prison camp.  She heard nothing else until the first of November when her brother showed her a letter from San Diego stating that Ernest Kohler had been held as a prisoner in San Diego since he had arrived there in early June and was now on  parole.  

Other sources I am trying to verify state that Ernest Kohler was arrested by US marshals and interred in the San Diego County Jail as an enemy alien in San Diego on June 20, 1918.  He was paroled in September, but violated parole to seek work in Yuma, AZ.  He was re-imprisoned on returning to San Diego and was again paroled when determined not to be a threat, possibly as a result of registering for the draft, which he did in San Diego on September 12, 1918. His last reporting date was November 13, 1918 - the same day the Ogden paper announced his divorce.  I wonder how he heard the news and how that information changed his feelings about the end of the World War.

I don't know where he went from there.  My grandfather, Ernest Kohler, appears to have kept the name of his father (Kohler) until he married Virginia Andrew in 1940 when he became Ernest Bowman Wheeler.  Since then, the mystery of Ernest Kohler has sparked the interest of many of his descendants, including my father, who studied German and went to Germany in college to see if he could locate any information from relatives on that side of the ocean.  Both my sister, and a cousin have sons named "Kohler".  I am saddened by events that served to divide a young family, to think of a little boy sitting at home listening to recordings of "O My Father" wondering about the father he didn't remember.  I am grateful he found a loving step-father to fill that role and make him part of a larger family unit. I hope Ernest Kohler Sr. found peace and love in his life. I don't know if he ever had another family, but I do know God loves all his children.  I am grateful that as I have turned my heart to seek for a long lost great-grandfather, I have been reminded of a Heavenly Father who was watching over each of the participants in this family of broken hearts.