1999
Tillie - Great great granddaughter of Franz Xavier Boeding (1796 - 1878)
If you are driving west on Highway 36 one mile west of Baileyville, you will pass the rather newly constructed home of Vince and Tillie Buessing. They are retired from farming but not especially retired from work. They are continuing in a hobby of refinishing furniture. If you visit with them for a while, you are apt to discover that this hobby was very, very important to them long before they retired.
For practically all of the 43 years of their married lives, Vince and Tillie have had children in their home. The most unusual aspect of that situation is that 10 of the children were not their own. They were living on a farm at St. Bridget's in Marshall County; their own children were out of high school. When Catholic Charities issued a call for assistance with foster children, the Buessings' rose to the occasion and obtained a state license to become foster parents.
"We realized," Mr. Buessing said, "that we had to have something besides farming chores for children to do. If it hadn't been for the empty basement in St. Bridget's Church, we probably would never have gotten into the business of refinishing furniture, but it served us as a great hobby and work for children we had taken in. Over the years we gave sanctuary to eight boys and two girls. I'd say we used St. Bridget's for seven or eight years."
"We have learned a lot by serving as foster parents," Mrs. Buessing said. "We learned we had to deal with all kinds of aberrations. The children were often unable to take advantage of good opportunities. Five of the ten children we had could not read; it is fair to say that they were terribly disadvantaged before they ever came to us. Some we were unable to help and they were with us only a year."
"I would have to say," continued Vince, "that we had a mixture of results. We found that the farm was an excellent place to work with such children. All of them could relate in some degree to farm work. The boys we had were all proud when they learned to drive the truck and the tractor. We had very positive experiences with the children. Some were very dependable and hard working. Some of them knew where their parents were and it was not always easy for them not to be in their own home. In different degrees of interest they adjusted to our way of life."
"We always tried to treat them like our own," Mrs. Buessing added. "Sometimes wer were rewarded; sometimes deceived. Sometimes our problems came, not from the children, but from their peers at school. People can be cruel and if a child is somewhat wayward or unconventional, other children can hand out large doses of rejection. It was very hard for some of the children to adjust to that. We had to remember that some of them had been losers to start with and they approached us with varying degrees of confidence. We like to think that with our help they were able to get on with constructive, happy lives. The first child we took was a little eight-year-old girl; her mother was Vince's cousin."
The Buessings has a special interest in St. Bridget's. They feel that living in the country and being in a small parish were very basic to helping them establish their values. As long as St. Bridget's was open, the whole parish was one large family. The church was closed in 1969. About 50 people met to decide the fate of the empty church. They were successful in establishing the St. Bridget's Historical Society. Every Memorial Day weekend they celebrate St. Bridget's Day by attending the Eucharist.
"We are about at the end of our service as foster parents," Mrs. Buessing said. "It was much easier to have the children on the farm. We have a 16-year-old, Charles Sampel, with us now. We are the first to acknowledge that the whole experience has been rewarding and good for us."
Vince and Tillie have two children of their own; Larry is a member of St. Benedict's parish in Atchison: Cleta Renyer belongs to St. Augustine's at Fidelity. Vince and Tillie have 18 grand children and five foster grandchildren. When their 'Family' gets together to celebrate birthdays and feast days, the foster children as well as their own come "home".