Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

Bonita Katherine Christine Schuetz or Sheetz

Female 1899 - 1996  (97 years)


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  • Name Bonita Katherine Christine Schuetz or Sheetz 
    Born 17 Jan 1899  Colorado City, El Paso, Colorado, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died 21 Apr 1996  Bloomfield, San Juan, New Mexico, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried 25 Apr 1996  Bloomfield Cemetery, Bloomfield, San Juan, New Mexico, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I599  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Family Rufus Nathaniel Adair,   b. 16 Sep 1884, Nutrioso, Apache, Arizona, United States Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 28 Apr 1959, Farmington, San Juan, New Mexico, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 74 years) 
    Married 25 Mar 1936  Fruitland, San Juan, New Mexico, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F490  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • BIOGRAPHY:
      1. Per email of 7 Jan 2002 from Grant Smith . Grant is a great grandson of Rufus and Bonita: "Bonita's father and mother were both from Prussia and immigrated to the US. Bonita was the youngest in her family and never learned to speak German like her older siblings. The family name was originally Schuetz, but it was changed when Bonita's father (Henry Phillip Schuetz) came to America [to Sheetz]. She was a wonderful person to know, and I'm happy that she lived such a long life that I had the chance to know her as an adult. We called her 'Granny Motto' because she remarried after Rufus' death to Victor Motto, of Bloomfield. Vick was the only great-grandfather I knew growing up. I wish I'd gotten to know Rufus (Papa Adair)."

      2. Parents: Henry Phillip Schuetz and Catharina Thuring per Ancestral File v4.19.

      3. Carolyn Smith lists last name as "Seitzinger" which was her married name from her first husband prior to marriage to Rufus.

      4. Per email of 7 Jan 2002 from digger_grant@hotmail.com: "I had the privilege of knowing Bonita 'Nita' as many people called her, and she was a wonderful person. She was never baptized into the LDS church although I've heard her support the church on many occasions. Apparently she was the only mom that most of Rufus and Nellie's children knew."

      5. Biography provided by Don Smith, 2003:
      "Granny.
      Bonita Sheetz was born on the 17 January, 1899 in Colorado City, Colorado. She was the seventh child of Henry Phillip Sheetz and Katherine Marie Tierring, who were Immigrants from Prussia.
      Henry and Katherine were married in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he was employed as a glass blower. Later they moved to Colorado City, Colorado where Bonita was born.
      Granny, as we called her, remembered as a little girl that her father worked as a gardener on an estate owned by a man named General Palmer. Once in a while her father would take Granny with him when he went to work. General Palmer had many Colored People working for him and Bonita enjoyed playing with the little colored girls who lived on the estate.
      While living in Colorado City, they lived in a two story house about two miles out of town. It was here that her father had a greenhouse which was a hobby of his. It also provided a partial income for the family. Grandpa Sheetz loved working in the greenhouse raising flowers and vegetables which he would sell. He not only raised flowers, but he was also a florist of sorts, he arranged the flowers in bouquets to sell.
      During this time in Bonita's life, her father would make bouquets of sweet peas and then put Bonita on a street car that would take her into a tourist town called Manitou. The town was close by and there she would sell her little bouquets of sweet peas to the tourists.
      Grandpa Sheetz also traded vegetables that he raised to a grocery store owner in return for groceries.
      When Bonita was small, her father used to take her with him in the evenings when he went to the Schmitz Bar. While he enjoyed a couple of mugs of beer, Bonita would sit at a small table with him and eat pretzels. When it was time to go home Grandpa would get a little pail of beer to carry home with him. This was something grandma Sheets didn't approve of.
      Around 1910, a real estate agency by the name of Jackson and Rice enticed Grandpa Sheetz to come to Bloomfield, New Mexico and look at some property they had for sale. Grandpa Sheetz and his daughter Matilda and husband combined resources and purchased twenty acres where Denny Knudsen now lives.
      Bonita's father and her brother Carl came to Bloomfield first and built a little one room house for them to live in. About a week before the rest of the family moved to Bloomfield, Charles Miller, Matilda's husband, loaded their furniture and a team of horses into a box car of a train and brought every thing they owned to he new home.
      A week later Grandma Sheetz, Bonita and her sister boarded a train called the 'Red Apple Flyer' and started on their journey to their new home.
      On the 17 March 1911 they arrived in Aztec, New Mexico, where they were met by Grandpa Sheetz and Charles Miller. They had come with a team and wagon to take them home.
      It had snowed during the night and was still snowing and it took all day to travel the eleven miles from Aztec to Bloomfield.
      The first school that Bonita attended was in one room of the old Swire House which was located where the new baseball park is now. Bonita later went to school in one room of the old Giacomalli Home, where she continued her schooling until a small stone school was built in the approximate location of where Farmer's Market now stands.
      Granny said her dad believed every one should work, if the children ran out of anything else to do, they were required to go to the fields and beak up clods with little wooden mallets their father had made for such occasions. Grandpa Sheetz was president of the ditch company in Bloomfield when construction of the Citizen's Ditch started. Granny word as a freighter and hauled much of the cement and timbers used in the ditch construction. She was always a hard worker and was very ambitious.
      By this time Bonita was a young woman with blue eyes, brown hair and stood 5 feet 4 and a half inches tall. She always had a very good sense of humor. This was one of her qualities that we all enjoyed and admired about her.
      Grandpa Sheetz was a very strict father, and as fathers and mothers go, were always fighting the ever-changing fashions as parent do today.
      Granny told a story about when she was in her teens the girls used to wear long dresses with splits up the side, which met with much disapproval from her parents. They always made sure before she went to dances, that her skirt or dress was sewn up completely, but when she got to the dance she would take the basting out and dance all night, but before returning home she would baste the dress back up with needle and thread she had taken to the dance with her.
      On the 11th of May 1917 in Aztec, New Mexico, she was married to James Tate Seitzinger. When they were first married they lived in a tent on the Bill Sheetz place, which is the old gray house located next to the Bloomfield Arroyo.
      During deer hunting season Granny and Grandad would take a team and wagon and travel to the Jemez Mountains east of Cuba, where they would pitch a tent and hunt deer for a few days. Granny said that it was sometime so cold that hen she washed diapers and hung them out to dry they would freeze before she could get them all hung out.
      While they lived in Bloomfield, grandad farmed. Here two daughters were born to them. Louise Marie and Helen Malen. Later they moved to Alhambra, California, where grandad worked in the carpentry trade. It was here that their two sons were born, James Tate Jr. And Gordon Leonard.
      Very happy times where enjoyed by the family while they lived in California, but due to the depression and no work, the family was forced to move back to Bloomfield, where he helped grandad Leonard Delong Seitzinger farm his place.
      Granny and grandad were later divorced and in 1936. Bonita married Rufus Adair. B then they had acquired the Sheetz farm for taxes. Granny worked very hard helping Papa Adair on the farm and helped him raise some of his children who were still at home.
      One time when Granny was helping papa put up the hay, she picked up some hay with her pitch fork and she saw what she thought was a kitten, so she nudged it with her pitch fork to make it move, it was then that she discovered that it wasn't a kitten at all, but a skunk. It sprayed her right in the race, on her hair and in her mouth. She said her clothes looked like she had spilled clorox on them, as it took all the color out of them. Of course she had to burn her cloths after this little episode.
      It was during those years while married to Rufus that she went to work for the Bloomfield schools as cook. Her first job was at the old Rio Vista School, where she cooked and served meals in the old 'cook shack,' still standing on Don and Carolyn's place. After 23 years of marriage, in Apr 1959, Rufus passed away.
      Later Granny married Victor Motto who had been her very first sweetheart. Several years after she married Vic she retired from her job, where she had worked for twenty years. This ended her working career that had started as a small child selling sweet peas to tourists.
      Granny and Vic spent their retirement years living in Bloomfield, raising roses and many other beautiful flowers. Their yard was always a show place with terraced benches ablaze with color for all to enjoy. Vic passed away in November of 1985. This ended a happy marriage of more than 25 years.
      Granny Motto as she was called has lived a long and colorful life with many stories to tell for those who would listen. She was one fo the oldest living pioneers of the Bloomfield area and had witnessed many changes in her life time. She know both joy and sorrow, but through it all she endured to be 97 years old. To the end she was an example to all of us with her eternal optimism and zest for life. These two most important assets never diminished throughout the years. We feel truly blessed to have known her. Granny passed form this life on April 21, 1996.
      She was preceded in death by husband Vic Motto, one daughter, Louise Sategna and three grandchildren. Left to mourn her passing are tow sons James Seitzinger Jr. And wife Lou of Bloomfield, Gordon Seitzinger and wife Jessie of Farmington. One daughter Helen Adair of Bloomfield, 12 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and 8 great-great grandchildren and numerous friends and relatives."

      BIRTH:
      1. Per email of 7 Jan 2002 from Grant Smith . Her granddaughter Carolyn Smith's email of 10 Nov 2002 indicates she was born in Colorado City, CO on 17 Jan 1899. Colorado City no longer exists and it is now Colorado Springs, El Paso, CO.

      MARRIAGE:
      1. Per email of 11 Jan 2002 from Carolyn Smith .

      DEATH:
      1. Per email of 7 Jan 2002 from Grant Smith .

      BURIAL:
      1. Per email of 7 Jan 2002 from Grant Smith .