Hoff Family Farm, “Rainbow Ranch,” and Helen Hoff Aupperle, Artist,

by Robert Hoff assisted by Marilyn Hoff Hansen; BCHC, 12 January 2005 summarized by Mary Jane Fritzen:

Hoff Family Farm, “Rainbow Ranch,” known earlier as “Foothills Farm,” is about four miles south of Ammon at the mouth of Henry and Taylor creeks. It was filed under squatter’s claim by Sam Taylor in 1872. Sam, came with his two brothers, Ed and Ike, to bring cows and horses from Kentucky, their former home, at the request of Taylor Bridge founder James “Matt” Taylor, their cousin. They laid out a race track for the horses and built a log cabin. The creek and the mountain from which it heads are named Taylor Mountain and Taylor creek. Sam Taylor cut wild hay for stagecoach horses.

When Rasmus and Jennie Hoff purchased 400 acres of the original holdings in 1903 from Sam Taylor, only about 35 acres had been cultivated. Mr. Hoff had worked for the Union Pacific railroad as emigrational promotional agent from 1894 to 1897. In 1896 he had returned to Iowa where he was married, then the couple returned to make their home in Idaho. Their daughter Helen was born in Idaho Falls in 1905. Mr. Hoff added more land to the farm. In about 1906 they filed for 640 acres under the Homestead Act. That year they built a potato cellar, although the yields were sometimes disappointing, due to a lack of humus in the virgin land. Potatoes were marketed without the benefit of grading standards, but sacked and shipped from the fields. Although not from this farm, their first shipment of spuds from Idaho Falls to Butte was in 1898.

For a few years the Hoff family lived in California for the benefit of Mr. Hoff’s health. Following the death of Mr. Hoff in 1916, his wife Jennie and their two sons Phil and Mark returned to farm the land in 1921, where they lived in a tent for the first summer. Actively operating the farm, the sons finally paid off their debt in 1934, then built a nice house on a knoll overlooking the valley, and moved their piano from the shack into the new house. They acquired additional land to bring its acreage to 1360 in 1948, although only 450 were under cultivation. The remainder was for grazing and wasteland. Jennie Hoff was a charter member of the Idaho Falls Potato Growers Association. The family has also pursued the interest of aviation.

Helen attended local schools for the first four grades, then attended school in Long Beach, California, returning to Idaho Falls for the summer vacations. She graduated from high school in Long Beach, then from UCLA with a degree in Art Education. She brought her college roommate, Onita Cain, home, where Onita met Mark Hoff, whom she later married in 1930. Their first child Marilyn was born the next year, then four brothers: James, Robert, Marcus R. and John. All pitched in on the farm work, which then included Hereford cattle. Jennie died in 1956.

Both Helen and her niece Marilyn, who married Reed Hansen, became professional artists. Helen was well known as an art educator. She studied abroad for a year at the Royal Academies of Art in Denmark and Sweden, and later earned her master’s degree from Scripps College in California in about the late 1950s. She taught art and stage and costume design at the Polytechnic High School in Long beach, California.

On Christmas Day, 1940, Helen was married at Rainbow Ranch to Donald K. Aupperle, choir instructor at Idaho Falls High School. The two developed outstanding music and art programs, and produced beautiful shows enhanced by Helen’s stage designs. She taught art for 23 years in Idaho Falls, where she established the art programs, not only in the high school, but she also regularly taught art to the rural elementary schools and the junior high. Her students developed lifetime skills and art appreciation. Among her favorite subjects of painting were the native Americans; some of these paintings are displayed at the Museum of Idaho.

Mrs. Aupperle exhibited widely throughout Idaho and other intermountain states, and won many awards. She was given a medal by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, for outstanding service in the field of art history and art education. In 1948 she and local artists Fred Ochi, Ina Oyler and Suzanne Fonnesbeck founded the Idaho Falls Art Guild.

She died in 1971, remembered and honored by two generations of grateful students.

(Photo: Helen Hoff Aupperle, about 1940, courtesy Bob Hoff)

Rainbow Ranch in 2005, by Robert Hoff:

Rainbow Ranch is now operated by my son James. James and his wife Darla have two daughters, Savannah, 8, and Paige, 5. My wife Jane and I still “pitch in” when we are needed. Jane runs a harvester, digging potatoes and helps keep the books. Our son Tom (just married to Heather) works with our other business, Aero Mark.

We are concerned about the change we see coming that will affect Rainbow Ranch’s little creeks and rolling hills in probably a few short years. Economics is making farming and ranching difficult so close to the urban growth. How long this or the next generation can preserve its somewhat rural state only time can tell. Windmills will clutter its morning horizon soon and the evening view is rapidly filling in with developments. But looking up to the south toward Taylor Mountain, I can still picture what this special place looked like to Sam Taylor, and thirty years later to my grandfather Rasmus and his wife Jenny. It is good to record their presence and experience here while memories allow.