Amil and Bertha (Carlson) Parkening

Amil and Bertha Carlson Parkening,  Dec. 30, 1902 Children of Amil and Bertha. Girls, l-r:  Eldalaine (Sattler) and Violet  (Marsden).  Boys: Everette (killed in car/train accident 1933), and Evan "Pat" (married   Evelyn  Wolcott.)

Amil was born in Koningsburg, Germany, 1881.  He came with his parents Carl and Marie (Matschuck) Parkening to the Elkhorn, near Omaha, NE in 1883.  In 1902, he married Bertha Carlson, who was born at Papillion, NE in 1885.  Amil passed away Dec. 1948 at the Mayo Clinic, MN of gangrene and Bertha April, 1983 at 98 years. 

     He spent several years working as a machinist, and bought one of the first Stanley-Steamer cars that came out on the market.  After owning and operating a sawmill, during which time he sawed the lumber for the original Boys Town buildings near Omaha, he became employed operating a steam run Dragline machine.  The machine was utilized in building railroad beds, straightening river beds and digging irrigation and drainage ditches.  This work was done in numerous states and in Alberta, Canada.  While in Canada, Bertha spent two years cooking for twenty-five men who worked in two shifts as construction workers on the dragline.  She had one lady helping her.  They would bake bread twice on Saturday so she wouldn’t have to bake on Sunday.

Amil had made a trip to South Dakota with his brother-in-law in 1904, to Bonesteel to attend a land letting.  They were not successful, but he liked South Dakota so much that he decided to come back some day and make it his home.  In 1919, he returned, bringing his family to Reliance.  They had been friends with Ernest Krause when they lived in Nebraska.  Housing was short when they came to Reliance so they lived with the Krause family for a few days until housing could be found.  Evan Parkening later bought the Krause farm after Ernest passed away.

     He bought the blacksmith shop in Reliance and went to work.  Business was good, especially horse-shoeing.  Many times, drivers hauling coal from the railroad in Reliance to the Lower Brule Reservation, were standing in line at 6:o’clock in the morning waiting to get their horses shod.   Amil had also shipped up a steam-run threshing machine which his brother Charlie used on threshing runs in the summer.  Some years later he bought a quarter of land south of Reliance.  Amil added the implement business which he operated until his death in 1948.  He was active in civic affairs, being chairman of the Reliance Town Board for 17 years.

     Bertha lived to be 98 and lived in her own home until she was about 96.  She was active in the Methodist Church and the United Methodist Women’s organization.  They had four children:   Everett, (deceased in 1933).  Evan, (deceased) married to Evelyn Wolcott (deceased).  Both 1932 graduates of Reliance HS.  They had one daughter, Alona married to Ronald W. Petersen, Pukwana, SD who have two children, Kimberly and Calvin T. both married.