Mabel Ann Morse Hakes

Author Unknown[1]

Maiden Name: Mabel Ann Morse[2]

Birth: April 10, 1840; Macomb, McDonough Co., Illinois

Parents: Justus Morse and Elizabeth Towne

Marriage: Collins Rowe Hakes;[3] March 29, 1857

Children: Ann Eliza (1858),[4] Avis Caroline (1860), Sarah Melissa (1862), Hellen Lotheta (1864), Lottie Mabel/Mable (1866), Harriet Jane (1869), Effie Elizabeth (1871), Patty Celinda (1874), Collins Riley (1875), Nettie Luella (1878), Daniel Edgar (1881), Ruby Amanda (1886)

Death: January 19, 1908; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Ann, as she was called, was the daughter of Justus and Elizabeth Morse, who had joined the Church before her birth. Although the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed when Ann was only four years old, she remembered him well. He loved little children, and she remembered his kindness and that he held her on his knee. Her father had hidden the Prophet for several nights in his cornfield, and stood guard when his enemies were seeking his life.

Mable Ann Morse and Collins Row Hakes, photograph by Hartwell, Phoenix. Photo courtesy of Philip Stradling.

Ann’s mother died in 1845, and her childhood was greatly saddened on this account. The family was driven from Illinois with the other Saints and crossed the plains in 1850 in a company led by Amasa Lyman and Brother Charles Rich. During times of discouragement on that long hard journey, this little girl would lean against the wagon wheel and pray for the Lord to help them.[5]

They spent the winter in Great Salt Lake Valley and then continued on to San Bernardino, California, where she was baptized January 1, 1852, by William J. Cox.

Her early life was not easy, but perhaps because of this, she learned early and well the lessons of self-control, mastery of tongue, and a deep understanding of the sorrows of others. Her own children never heard her voice raised in anger; she never argued or quarreled with anyone. Sometimes in moments of stress she would leave the house for a few minutes then come back in pleasant and smiling. She befriended many a motherless girl and boy in her lifetime and helped the weak to be stronger.

As the Hakes family responded many times to the call to settle new frontiers, they more than once had the opportunity to share their food with the Indians who appeared at their door. Once, when all they had to eat was corn meal mush, some Indians came who were so hungry that they scooped the mush up with their hands and licked it off boiling hot.

All their encounters with the Indians were not pleasant, however. One day when Collins and all the other young men in town were away serving as soldiers in the Black Hawk War, an Indian walked into the Hakes home saying that he disliked young Hakes, so was going to take his wife; [the Indian] grabbed Ann. Her mother-in-law, Eliza, quickly seized the butcher knife and started towards him. Seeing that she meant business, he let Ann go and ran away.

In 1868, she was chosen to be a counselor in the Kanosh Ward Relief Society in Millard County, Utah. This began a forty-year period of service, during which time she held one office or another in ward or stake Relief Societies wherever she lived. After they moved to Mesa, Arizona, she was president of the Mesa Ward [Relief] Society from 1885 to 1890, when she was chosen to be a counselor on the stake board. In 1892, she was called to preside over the Maricopa Stake Relief Society, which she did faithfully and well. Among other things, she and her counselors traveled with horse and buggy to raise funds to build a Relief Society Hall.

From the beginning, her home was always open to Church visitors from Salt Lake City. At one time, Brigham Young approached Kanosh with a conference party. He sent a man ahead saying, “Go to Brother Hakes’ house and tell Sister Hakes to have dinner ready for twenty-five people in one hour.” She had a good meal waiting for them when they arrived. During the course of her lifetime, many of the General Authorities stayed at her home and ate at her table.

Mabel Ann Morse Hakes (seated) with husband, Collins, and children. Front row (left to right): Harriet Jane, Collins Rowe (father), Ruby Amanda, Mabel Ann (mother), Daniel Edgar, Effie Elizabeth; Second row: Collins Riley, Ann Eliza (406), Lottie Mabel, Sarah Melissa. Photo courtesy of Phillip Stradling.

Heber J. Grant, who later became President of the Church, knew her well.[6] He said that she was an excellent cook and admired her for goodness of character as well as the spontaneous and ready wit with which she was blessed. She had a way of saying humorous things in such a way as to take care of herself in any situation, yet without giving offense. Her wit was most amusing to others, but she never smiled at her own jokes, making her funny remarks in seeming innocence. President Grant said that he had watched her as long as he had known her to see if anyone ever got the better of her verbally—that he didn’t believe anyone ever would, and that her husband certainly never had.

She was the Mesa Representative to the Woman’s Suffrage Convention in Chicago in 1893. Here one irate gentleman speaker said that women had no business in public affairs but should be home sewing buttons on shirts and darning their husbands’ socks. To everyone’s delight and his discomfiture, Ann arose with dignity and informed him that he would be pleased to know that all the buttons were on and the socks darned before she left home.

Two years before her death, she suffered a stroke and was never well again. Her children took turns caring for her in their homes. In spite of her suffering, she never murmured or complained, and always did for herself all that she was able to do. She died January 19, 1908, and was buried in Mesa, Arizona.

Ellis and Boone:

Not mentioned in this sketch is the family’s move to Bluewater, New Mexico, in 1905. Ann Hakes was released as president of the Maricopa Stake Relief Society in 1904 because of this move.[7] Her husband was made the first bishop of the Bluewater Ward in 1906 and served until 1915.[8] However, Ann may not have spent much time in New Mexico because she died in 1908, after her children had taken care of her for two years following her stroke.

In 1893, Collins and Ann Hakes attended a national Hakes reunion at Niagara Falls and then the Chicago World’s Fair. A sketch for Collins states that “it was a joyous occasion for he and his wife, who had spent many years of their lives on the western frontier.”[9] As part of the World’s Fair, the World’s Congress Auxiliary organized the World’s Congress of Representative Women, a week-long congress devoted to women’s suffrage and other women’s issues. Almost 500 women from twenty-seven countries spoke, and 150,000 people came to the congress; it had the largest attendance of any congress held at the World’s Fair. Although Ann Hakes’s retort to her heckler is a charming bit of Arizona history, probably the most important part of this congress for LDS women was the healing of a rift between LDS women and women who had been outspoken against polygamy. The Utah delegation, not all of whom were LDS, sponsored a program on May 19, 1893, and at the closing, Emmeline B. Wells asked that Rosetta Luce Gilchrist come to the stand. Gilchrist then sat between Wells and Zina D. Young as a symbol of universal sisterhood. Most participants probably knew that Gilchrist had published a fictional account, “Apples of Sodom: A Story of Mormon Life,” which was derogatory to the Mormon lifestyle. This demonstration of forgiveness by Wells and Young was a first step toward cooperation between LDS women and the national suffrage leaders.[10]

Louisa Bonelli Hamblin

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Louisa Bonelli

Birth: October 29, 1843; Winegarten, Thurgau, Switzerland

Parents: Hans George Bonelli and Anna Maria Aman (Ammann)

Marriage: Jacob Vernon Hamblin; November 16, 1865

Children: Walter Eugene (1868), Inez Louisa (1871), George Oscar (1873), Alice Edna (1876), Willard Otto (1881), Amarilla (1884)

Death: December 10, 1931;[11] Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

Louisa Bonelli, the daughter of Hans George Bonelli and Maria Aman, was born October 29, 1843, in the little mountain town of Winegarten, near Berne, Switzerland, a region near Italy where Italian is frequently spoken. The family name, Bonelli, is Italian. The story is that during the sixteenth century, two brothers Bonelli were on the losing side of a political uprising in Italy and were forced to leave the country to save their lives. George Bonelli’s progenitor made it safely into Switzerland, where he married and was absorbed with the German-Swiss of that area.[12]

Louisa learned to work when she was very young. At the age of six years, she had the task of knitting all of the stockings for the family of eight. She never had time to play but would watch the other children while she sat knitting. It was the custom to bake and do the laundry in the spring and in the fall. Everyone helped and it took two months to do the job.

Louisa Hamblin with children, Alice Edna and Willard behind chair, Inez ouise (probably left) and Amarilla on floor; Williams Gallery, Safford. Photo courtesy of Church History Library.

Missionaries from America came to the family, and they were all baptized when Louisa was ten years of age, in the winter of 1852. It was so cold that the ice had to be broken, and their clothes were frozen stiff before they could get to the house and change them. Some of their neighbors, suspecting what was happening, sat in the edge of the forest to watch the baptism.

Louisa had to walk one and a half miles to go to school. After joining the Church, she was treated so badly by her associates that her parents sent her to the city to live with friends, members of the same faith, to attend school.

For five years following their conversion, the Bonelli family saved every possible “pence” to apply on a fund to pay their way to Utah, in America, the land of Zion. In 1857 they sold their home and auctioned off their household goods. Father and Mother, sons George and Daniel, and daughters Mary and Louisa went by stage coach to Paris and on to Le Havre on the French coast and across the English Channel to Liverpool, England, the gathering point for European Saints. Imagine leaving the beautiful green mountains and blue lakes of Switzerland for the barren deserts of the West, not even knowing what it would be like; but they had the spirit of gathering.

The emigrants boarded the ship George Washington and set sail for Boston, crossing the ocean in six weeks.[13] Louisa said, “I never was seasick and didn’t know enough to be afraid. I used to stand on the deck and watch the great waves roll up. Sometimes they would wash over me, but I held on to the post and enjoyed it.” From Boston they went by train to Albany, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Chicago, the latter being only a little town at that time. They waited in Iowa City three weeks while the handcart company was forming and the handcarts were being constructed. Then the carts were loaded with necessities only. Companies were organized in hundreds and fifties and tens. The overall captain of the company was Israel Evans, and the subcaptain was named Huntington. This company left the latter part of May 1857 and consisted of 149 people, 28 handcarts, and 4 mule wagons to haul extra provisions.[14]

Quoting Louisa:

The weather was warm and lovely. I walked all the 1300 miles to the Salt Lake Valley, helping to pull a cart most of the way. In the company was a crippled girl about eight years of age. She had to be carried all the way. I had my turn at carrying her on my back. As time for making camp neared, the children were permitted to leave the train and gather fuel (buffalo chips) for the campfire. This was like letting school out, and we enjoyed running about and being released from [pulling] that handcart.

Flour and bacon were the main items in the diet. Meat from an occasional buffalo added variety. Some of our group did not know how to bake bread over a campfire and at first they just mixed their flour with water and ate it raw, until they learned from the others.

Louisa Bonelli Hamblin. Photo courtesy of Scott Lee.

Later, rains came and mud replaced the dust of the trail. Louisa often had to stop and dig her wooden shoe out of the mud and put it back on her foot.

There was an old woman in the company. Everyone was expected to either push or pull, but this old lady held to the cart and was a drag because she was weak. Some of the people reported her to the captain, and she was warned. When Mary and Louisa heard of this, they took pity on her and told her, “You can hold onto our cart and we will not tell on you.”

The Missouri River was crossed by ferryboat, but the other rivers had to be forded and gave plenty of trouble and delay. This handcart company reached the valley on September 12, 1857, just in time to help with harvesting, and thereby [the company members] earned enough wheat and vegetables to see them through the winter.

George Bonelli was a weaver. The family was directed to go south to Santa Clara in the Dixie country where their trade as weavers would be useful in the cotton that was expected to be grown there.[15] Wool was, of course, usually used for clothing. It was Louisa’s job to pick the wool free of sticks and burrs and then to wash it. She had little time for anything else and had little schooling in America.[16]

On November 16, 1865, Louisa married Jacob Hamblin in Salt Lake City. She was his fourth and last wife.[17] Jacob was called to serve on the frontiers making friends with the Lamanites and in charge of Indian affairs.[18] In the spring of 1870, he moved his family to Kanab, where they lived for several years.

Jacob, having been relieved of his missionary duties, moved his family to Arizona (Eagar) in the spring of 1881 and in a short time moved them on to Pleasanton, in New Mexico (now Glenwood), a new and isolated area in Indian country. The renegade Chief Geronimo passed this way on his many raids, and they had many an Indian scare. With Jacob being away so much of the time, Louisa had double responsibility. If the signal was given, she would have to move her children into the big community store and fort, often awakening them in the middle of the night. She said that one family discovered, after making a quick transfer, that they had forgotten to bring their baby and he was asleep in his crib. Two young boys were dispatched to go back and bring the baby. During the three years they lived in Pleasanton, upwards of twenty people were killed by the Indians within a radius of ten miles.[19]

Quoting Jacob [Hamblin Jr.] (son of Priscilla):

I lived with Aunt Louisa for one year at Pleasanton. I was only a young man. We were trying to open up a new farm there. Bacon and Johnnie cake were about all we had to live on. The way Aunt Louisa cared for her home and table deserves praise. Everything shone with cleanliness. She would mend and patch my hose and my shirts and iron them so fine that I would be proud to wear the patches. She taught me real economy. She covered a box with newspaper, for my things. Should I think my socks were too old to mend and throw them away, she would send the girls to get them and I would find them all clean and mended in my box.

One of the nicest things I ever heard Aunt Louisa tell was at an Old Folks Party at Nutrioso. In giving a little history of her experiences when crossing the plains, she said there were men in the party who talked of the farms and homes they hoped to have, where they could live in peace and grow the wheat and potatoes and food needed for their family. Others talked of the gold they were going to have and how they would be rich. Those who wanted to get gold drifted away from the Church and, so far as she knew, died in poverty. Those who talked of home and farms did build fine homes and lived in peace and plenty.[20]

The water at Pleasanton must have been contaminated, for in the summer of 1886, the whole community was stricken with a fever. There were not enough able-bodied to care for the sick. Jacob Hamblin was among those stricken. Louisa nursed him, since Priscilla, another wife, was among the sick ones. Early in the morning of August 31, 1886, the word spread over the little town, “Jacob is dead.” The story of his death and burial has been published by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, March 1950.[21]

Louisa Bonelli Hamblin and unidentified child; Margaret J. Overson, photographer. Photo courtesy of Overson Collection, St. Johns Family History Library.

It soon developed that the settlers did not have clear title to their lands and the community was abandoned. Louisa spent the winter of 1886−87 with the Maxwell family in Pleasanton. In the spring, Fred Hamblin, Jacob’s brother, came and took her to Alpine, Arizona, and helped her get established in a log cabin. Her oldest son, Walter, was eighteen years of age. He helped support his mother by driving freight teams and working on the railroad near Flagstaff and across northern Arizona. Louisa managed to get the necessities of life for her six children. Her youngest was two when Louisa was left a widow. She was a hard worker and a good manager.[22]

Louisa was a small woman with black hair, which had only a very little gray when she died. She was slender and quick in her movements. She had blue eyes. She had three sons, Walter, George Oscar, and Willard Otto; three daughters, Inez Louisa, Alice Edna, and Amarilla.[23] When her children had all married, she went to live with her daughter Inez (Lee) in Thatcher, Arizona, for the final twenty years of her life. She died December 10, 1931, and was buried in Thatcher. It was impossible to take her to Alpine for interment beside her husband because heavy snows made all highways impassable.

Ellis and Boone:

Two well-known figures from completely different generations have provided brief references to the life of Louisa Hamblin. Stewart Udall, her great-grandson, and a prominent figure in U.S. politics and the environmental movement, mentions Louisa in his book about rethinking the history of the Old West. Although he states that much of his information was based on Pearson Corbett’s biography of Jacob Hamblin, Udall is imprecise with dates, gets the wives confused, and provides no references. He does, however, mention the short time during 1885 that Louisa and Jacob Hamblin spent in Mexico to avoid prosecution for polygamy which adds to this sketch. A century earlier, while Louisa was still living in Utah, the Colorado River explorer, Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, ate meals at her home for three weeks and “found her a very nice, sensible woman.” He described her as “rather attractive in her personal appearance.”[24] Each of these two men reminds us of Louisa Hamblin’s place in western and Arizona history.

Margaret McCleve Hancock

Roberta Flake Clayton

Maiden Name: Margaret McCleve

Birth: September 17, 1838; Crawford, Down, Ireland

Parents: John McCleve and Nancy Jane McFerren

Marriage: Mosiah Lyman Hancock (1843);[25] January 9, 1857

Children: Moroni (1857), Margaret Clarissa (1858), Mosiah Lyman (1860), Levi McCleve (1862), Elizabeth Jane (1864), John Taylor (1866), Joseph Smith (1867), Sarah Catherine (1869), Mary (1872), Amy Elizabeth (1873), Thomas (1875), Rebecca Reed (1877), Annie Minerva (1880)

Death: May 4, 1908; Taylor, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Taylor, Navajo Co., Arizona

Few pioneers of Arizona ever had the experience of having free access to the beautiful grounds of the lord’s estate, and yet the early childhood of the subject of this sketch was thus spent.

Margaret was the third of ten children, born in Belfast, Ireland, on September 17, 1838, to her parents, John and Nancy Jane McFerren McCleve. Her father was one of the caretakers on this large estate situated near the ocean. The children were allowed to roam where they wished, and in them was born a love for the beautiful that always remained with them. Living so near the ocean, she and her brothers and sisters liked to follow the waves and dash through them when they were not too high. In [the following] years, when trials came so thick and fast it looked as though the trouble might engulf her as did the waves on the Irish shore, the pleasant memories of her happy childhood sustained her.

Margaret McCleve Hancock. Photo courtesy of Krauss, Perry and Lora, 155.

About the year 1845, two Mormon elders came to their home, and her father and mother accepted of their teachings. After the missionaries left, the family did not see any more members of the Church for four years. Margaret and her sisters Sarah, Catherine, and Isabell were baptized after dark in the Irish Sea, August 25, 1850, by John D. T. McAllister.

When Margaret was twelve years old, the desire to go to America was so strong that every cent that could be spared from the family income was saved for the trip. It was soon found that it would impossible for all to go at once, so the two eldest daughters were sent with some friends who were emigrating at that time in the hopes that they might get work to help the family.[26] This was indeed a sad parting, one that Margaret never forgot. It was three years before the family was reunited when the remainder of them finally accumulated enough to bring them to the land of their dreams.

The sea voyage of the family lasted five weeks, and there were many storms, so the ocean trip was anything but pleasant. When they landed, they went from Boston to Winter Quarters, [Nebraska] or [Council Bluffs] Iowa by rail. Here they had to stay about two weeks while the men fixed up handcarts to convey their belongings.[27] What seemed [like] only the bare necessities were put on these carts which were drawn and pushed by the parents while the children walked along, the smallest ones clinging to their mother’s skirts. But even as meager as their belongings were when they started on the long trek across the plains, everything possible was left by the side of the trail as the parents wearied.[28] The father fell a victim of fatigue and lack of nourishment as he deprived himself that his children might have his portion, and finally he died and had to be placed in a wayside grave.[29]

Undaunted, the brave wife and mother kept on with the company. Everything was so new and strange. The first Indians they saw almost frightened the children to death. Just as supplies were about all gone, others were sent out from Salt Lake City, Utah, and before they reached their destination, President Brigham Young himself came out to meet them. The meeting of the mother and her daughters was saddened by the loss of their beloved father. The girls had found homes with excellent families and were able to assist their mother in providing for the family.

Margaret McCleve Hancock. Photo courtesy of Krauss, Perry and Lora, 155.

On January 9, 1858, when she was twenty years old, Margaret was married to Mosiah L. Hancock. They settled in Payson, Utah, where they lived a few years, then moved to Salt Lake City. Even here they remained but a short time, when they were called to help settle Southern Utah, and from there to Arizona in 1879. When the family was ready to start, her husband was called away on Indian service. Their eldest son was nineteen years old by now, so Margaret decided to undertake the journey as planned. She seemed to possess the courage of her mother in this undertaking, so in company with her husband’s brother and family, she and her children came along. They reached Taylor, Arizona, on New Year’s Day, 1880.

Pioneering experiences in three places in Utah had taught Margaret what pioneering meant, but even those hardships were mild compared with some that she passed through in helping settle this new country so far away from civilization. Her husband joined the family later, and they made their home permanently in Taylor.

Margaret was a natural-born nurse, and as there were no doctors in this country at this time or for many years after, she gave her services wherever they were needed. Margaret was called and set apart by Stake President Jesse N. Smith for a mission to the sick and afflicted. She was an excellent midwife and has assisted in bringing hundreds of babies into the world. Nor did her interest in them end when they were babies, as she always knew and claimed them as her own.

She was the mother of thirteen children; the eldest died in infancy, the others lived to maturity. The greatest sorrow that ever came to her was when her son Joseph was taken away from her. It was the day before he was to be married. Everything was ready for the glorious event, everything but one little last-minute errand to the store in Snowflake, three miles away. With a smile and a jaunty wave of his hand, he rode away on a highstrung young mare they had raised. He was riding along when suddenly she reared up and fell over with him; in some way the horn of the saddle hit him, crushing his skull. Help soon came to his assistance, and he was rushed to Snowflake to the doctor, but as nothing could be done for him, he was taken to his home in Taylor. He never spoke after the accident, but when his mother came to his bedside, he looked into her eyes and squeezed her hand. His burial occurred on the day and hour that he was to have been married.[30] It seemed this loss was more than Margaret could bear, but her faith sustained her, and she tried to ease her own pain in making others’ [pain] lighter.

In 1907 she had two serious illnesses and many times her life was despaired of, but through the tender kindness and loving care of children and friends, she recovered and lived, a comfort and blessing to all who knew her until May 4, 1908. During her last illness, she heard of her husband’s death; he was at that time with a son on the Gila River.[31] He did not precede her long into that land where she looked forward to a happy reunion with all those “she had loved and lost a while.”[32]

Ellis and Boone:

As a midwife, Margaret Hancock’s picture hangs on the wall of the Doctor’s Room at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum in Salt Lake City. James Jennings, however, told a more personal story about Margaret Hancock as a midwife:

Margaret Hancock's cabin in Taylor, 2014; Diane Kriter, photographer. Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

One of my most cherished memories is of the little notion store operated by Grandma Hancock in the living room of her home. Upon entering I stood with mother before a counter, behind which Grandma stood. She kept babies under this counter, or so I was told, and whenever any family wanted a new baby, it was no problem. Just go to Grandma Hancock’s store and she would reach under the counter and hand one over, no charge. I was five years old when mother went down and brought home our baby brother, who was later to become Judge Renz L. Jennings. I marveled at the simplicity of the process.[33]

Margaret’s marriage to Mosiah L. Hancock was a second marriage for Mosiah, and he eventually had three other families. It is therefore not surprising that Margaret is the family member who is important to the history of Taylor (with other wives and children settling elsewhere). The Taylor community has preserved her cabin as an example of the pioneer heritage in this area.[34]

Marium Dalton Hancock

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP Interview[35]

Maiden Name: Marium Dalton

Birth: February 1, 1864; Virgin City, Washington Co., Utah

Parents: John Dalton Jr. and Ann Casbourne[36]

Marriage: Mosiah Lyman Hancock (1860);[37] November 2, 1881

Children: John Lyman (1883), Charles Levi (1885), David Ammon (1887), Heber Joseph (1889), Alta May (1891), Margaret Ann (1893), Hyrum Smith (1896), Oliver Perry (1898), Richard Hobson (1900), Daniel Wells (1902), Amanda Zelpha (1904), Warren Edward (1906), Ella Lavora (1908)

Death: October 29, 1944; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Born of pioneer parents, Marium Dalton herself became a pioneer. She was born February 1, 1864, at Virgin City, Washington County, Utah, the daughter of John and Ann Casbourne Williams Dalton. When only a child of eight years, Marium says she had to go out to work and earn her living, working for a neighbor with whom she stayed for two years.

When she was ten, her mother had a paralytic stroke and the whole care of her devolved on Marium and her sister Jemima, who afterwards became Mrs. Simon Murphy. They carried their tiny little mother, who at her best never weighed more than eighty pounds, around in their arms like she was a baby. A miracle of healing was effected through the faith of the two daughters, who carried their mother to see Brigham Young on one of his rare visits to Southern Utah; he blessed her and promised her life and health. “She was instantly healed and walked home unassisted,” remarked Marium.

As soon as her help could be dispensed with at home, Marium again sought employment that the little she could earn, besides her own board and keep, might be used to assist the family. “When I was fifteen years old, I came home one day and found mother with no shoes to wear. I took the only ones I had off my feet and put them on hers, and I, myself, went barefooted, though I was almost a grown lady. Under other conditions this exposure would have been rather humiliating, but, for my dear little Mother, no sacrifice was too great for me to make.”

Marium arrived at Taylor, Arizona, December 28, 1879, and went to work for the family of Joseph McCleve. Her mother was now a widow, and Marium continued to work out for various people to help support her and her brother and sister.[38]

For almost a year she “kept company” with Lyman Hancock. They were married in the autumn of 1880. Their bridal trip was made in a covered wagon to St. George, Utah; there they remained during the winter and until May of the next year. Upon their return, Marium and her husband went to live at Snow Flake Camp, as Pinedale was then called, taking up a homestead. They were among the first permanent settlers. About three or four weeks later, they were joined by Mr. Angle and his son George.[39] The following is Mrs. Hancock’s version of some Indian trouble they experienced, and is quoted as mention is made of other pioneer families living in the vicinity.

“On June 2, 1881 word came for us to go to Taylor at once as the Indians were on the warpath. Lyman then went out to hunt the horses and came across the Indians just north of Snow Flake Camp. He left off hunting the horses and hurried back to let the other settlers know that the Indians were almost upon us. I had everything packed in the wagon ready to go to Taylor, but had to leave it all and start out on foot with my husband.”

Mariam Dalton Hancock family; seated, left to right: Alta May, Marium (mother), Daniel Wells, Richard Hobson, Mosiah Lyman (father), Margaret Ann; standing: Oliver Perry, John Lyman, David Ammon, Hyrum Smith, c. 1904. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

They were soon joined by the Angles and all went to where the Brewer brothers lived, got them together, and went to the Mortensen ranch. By now there was quite a group of men and they considered themselves safe. There they remained overnight.

“The next morning Lyman and some of the men went to where we were living and all we had left was what we stood up in. The Indians had destroyed or taken everything. They killed the chickens, broke the stove, tore up all the books but one, the Book of Mormon, tore up our pictures, and carried the remainder of our belongings away.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hancock went to Taylor, and he worked there until he had accumulated enough means to build another home. Then they returned to Pinedale where their eldest son, John Lyman, was born. During their absence, Jacob and Charles Brewer, Will, Fred, and Beeley Gardner, and Alf Gillespie had settled there.[40] After a short time, the Hancocks moved to Luna Valley, New Mexico, and then to Williams Valley, New Mexico.

“While in Williams Valley,” says Mrs. Hancock, “we were driven into town again by the Indians. This was the worst ordeal I ever went through. We didn’t know what minute the Indians would come and kill us. The men stood guard for two weeks. We didn’t gain anything by going to New Mexico but another son whom we named Charles Levi, so we returned to Pinedale.”

There the family lived for ten years and four more children were born. Thinking to better their condition, another move was made, this time to Bryce. They only stayed there one year, and back to Pinedale they came. Mrs. Hancock is the mother of thirteen children, nine of whom grew to maturity.

When her children were small, Mrs. Hancock washed, carded, and spun yarn and knitted it into socks for her husband and stockings for herself and children. Her husband earned the wool by shearing the sheep. As wool was only three cents a pound much of this time, she utilized it in the making of yarn, mattresses, and warm wool comforts.

In the year 1921, in February, Mrs. Hancock was advised to take her husband to a lower altitude as he was ill of heart trouble. They went to Willcox to the home of their eldest son, and on July 18, 1921, Lyman Hancock passed away.

Mrs. Hancock worked very hard for three years trying to educate her three youngest children. At the end of that time she had to go to Long Beach, California, and have a cataract removed from one of her eyes.

Marium Dalton Hancock. Photo courtesy of Krauss, Perry and Lora, 155.

Many occasions presented themselves to prove that the Hancocks were friends of the Indians, in spite of some of the depredations they had suffered, in common with the other early settlers, at the hands of Native Americans. And friendships thus formed were enduring, as instanced by these stories told in Mrs. Hancock’s own words:

When our first baby was about a year old a band of Apaches came to our house. There were about twenty of them. Before we knew it they had come right into the house. My husband’s gun stood in the corner. The Indians wanted to look at it but he would not let them near it. Finally the leader of the band walked up to my husband, lifted his hat up and peered into his face. He then said, “Me sabe (remember) you.”[41] He was the Indian Lyman had found wounded in Water Canyon, about three years before, where he had been shot by the soldiers from Fort Apache, and had taken to Mother Hancock’s home in Taylor where she nursed the Indian until he was well and able to travel. Then she divided what food she had with him and he left. As soon as the Indian recognized Lyman, he began talking very fast to the others and they all went out of the house and the leader took two deer from the saddle and gave them to us.

Another time, after Mrs. Hancock had been away for some time, upon her return to Pinedale, an educated Apache named John Williams came to see her, and in gratitude told her she was all the same as his mother because she had fed him when he was a little boy and told her he would never forget her for her kindness.

Mrs. Hancock is dividing her time among her children, where she is always an appreciated and welcome guest.[42] She passed away October 29, 1944, and was buried in Mesa by the side of her daughter. Her husband, Lyman, had requested that he be buried by the side of his father. His request was granted.

Ellis and Boone:

This sketch details many interactions with Native Americans, some of which are different from the usual fears.[43] Even before Church members moved to the Rocky Mountains, missionaries were sent to Native Americans.[44] Brigham Young’s approach in the West, as stated by Latter-day Saint historian Leonard Arrington, “was to be friendly, promote peace, trade fairly, avoid extreme reactions or retaliation, and maintain distance.”[45] Missionaries to Arizona were not only sent to build communities but were also given the task of teaching Native Americans. However, as David Flake wrote, “Soon after the creation of the Snowflake and St. Johns stakes in 1887 all missionary work among the local Lamanites was suspended, mainly because of opposition of the government Indian agents. This suspension lasted almost fifty years.”[46]

Most of the women in these sketches brought their fears of Native Americans with them to Arizona. Mormon towns in Arizona were settled after reservations were established, and by 1886, Geronimo and other renegade Apaches were in Florida and Oklahoma. As Widtsoe Shumway wrote in his book about Alpine, “The Apache were especially feared. A mixture of fact or fable grew up around their fierce and no-holds-barred warriors. The Alma, New Mexico massacre, and the burning of Quemado by Victorio in 1880, and the killing of approximately 1,000 whites in southern Arizona and Mexico during Geronimo’s rampage, and other hit and run tactics made deep impressions on whites throughout early Arizona.”[47] Shumway then discussed Native American and Mormon relations in Bush Valley and concluded, “By 1886, the Indian ceased to be a real threat . . . but people had heard and told so many stories that for a long time they continued to be [intimidated] and were constantly on guard and suspicious.”[48]

Lyman Hancock, and probably to some extent Marium, learned to coexist in peace with the Apaches.

Emma Swenson Hansen

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP

Maiden Name: Emma Swenson

Birth: March 3, 1863; Spanish Fork, Utah Co., Utah

Parents: August Swenson and Bertha Olsson[49]

Marriage: Joseph Christian Hansen; March 24, 1881

Children: James August (1883), Nellie Jane (1885), Edna Bertha (1888), Pearl Catherine (1890), Clara Almina (1893), Joseph Delbert (1896), John Harvey (1899), Minnie Adele (1901), Emma May (1904), Fern Lucile (1907)

Death: March 20, 1945; Joseph City, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Joseph City, Navajo Co., Arizona

Joseph City, Arizona, is a little hamlet so small that the pulsing, throbbing population of the earth will know nothing of its human-like character and how life, for more than sixty years, has evolved from the pioneer stage to that of a modern-day village which boasts of possessing most all the conveniences which the age has produced. Joseph City is a unique community because it was founded by a group of young people who were sent as colonizers to the bleak Arizona desert by the powerful Mormon leader, Brigham Young.

Joseph Christian and Emma Hansen with their children, about 1890 (from left): Nellie, Mary (daughter of Sophia), Edna, James, and Pearl. Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

The settlers, for the most part, were couples in their first years of wedded life, who answered the call of a mighty leader, remained true to their trust, established homes, and built up a community for their children to possess. These sturdy pioneers lived harmoniously together, and because of unity among their small numbers, their efforts in building up a new country stand as a monument which time can scarcely erase.[50]

Today only a few of these pioneers remain, but should those four or five gray-haired souls suddenly become known to the world, they would be loved and honored because of those moral graces of integrity and thrift which they so outstandingly possess and which humanity everywhere respects and reveres.

Emma Swenson Hansen is truly representative of those who early fought the elements to make the desert a fit and habitable place for white men to enjoy and be glad and proud to call home. She was the second child born to Swedish immigrant parents in Spanish Fork, Utah, March 3, 1863. Her childhood years were mostly spent in Spanish Fork except for a brief time when the Swensons accepted a call to help establish a Mormon colony on the Muddy River in the state of Nevada. The Swensons were always rated high as agriculturalists, and on the Muddy, crops grew surprisingly well. The summer squash that grew on the vine were counted and numbered 145. Other crops grew in like proportions, but due to government regulations concerning taxation, the colony was abandoned after a few seasons, and the Swensons returned to their home in Spanish Fork.

It was in this place that the golden-haired Emma received her education, for which her father paid in produce from his farm. Not all the children of her day were thus favored, for many families were not able to part with any of their produce to pay even for a meager education. The brilliant George H. Brimhall was one of Emma’s instructors, and during the later years of her life, the fine old teacher paid tribute to Emma’s marked ability in penmanship.[51] Emma ranked high with her class in arithmetic and still has in her possession a little book, A Voice of Warning, won as a prize for being the best in spelling.[52]

Not all the education she possessed was learned in the log schoolhouse where slab boards were made into crude seats and where writing was done on slates. Emma was a sturdy Swedish girl, and her parents taught her how to make soil bring forth its bounties. In her childhood she worked long hours hoeing weeds, digging potatoes, milking cows, and doing other tasks about the farm; but tasks like these in the great out-of-doors developed strength of body and taught her many lessons which her quick intellect could grasp and assimilate, to be used when hardships should be grim and difficult to bear.

Spanish Fork had always been her home, and never had she left the family circle for even a few days until she was eighteen years old. It was shortly after her eighteenth birthday, March 24, 1881, that this girl with a youthful round face, honest blue eyes, and golden wavy hair became the wife of Joseph C. Hansen. Joseph had also spent his life in Spanish Fork until he was chosen to help make a settlement on the Little Colorado River in Arizona. He had lived there for three years and had come back to Spanish Fork for a winter’s visit during 1880−1881. In the spring of 1881, he turned his face again southward, taking with him his wife Emma.

The trip back to Arizona was long and tedious, for the horses [had to] travel over weary stretches of desert, up steep mountains and down into the barren lowlands again, cross the Big Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry, [pass] over the desolate wastes [known as the Painted Desert badlands], and then stop in the vastness of these wastes at a mere fort, where a few brave souls were striving to maintain a colony. The Little Colorado River, which stealthily wound its way through the lonely forsaken valley, was lined here and there with a few unlovely, crooked cottonwoods. No other trees relieved the severe and grim aspect of the scene.

“Would you like to go back?” asked the gallant husband as they neared their desert home. The young bride, lonely for her kin and the flourishing town she had left behind, wept, and in her bitterness she answered a most yearning, “Yes.”

But to go back was impossible. Joseph C. Hansen was not a man to go back on his word. He would do his part to make the wilderness a home for succeeding generations; he would do his utmost to answer duty’s call.

Upon reaching the fort [at Allen’s Camp] where the colonists lived to insure protection, the Hansen’s were royally received, and like another member of a large united family, Emma, amid crushing heartache, entered into the duties of life at the fort.[53]

While Emma and her husband still lived at the fort, her first child (a son) was born. With the added burden, she assumed her proper role with other young mothers who took turns going up the river six miles to where the men were striving against all sorts of odds to put in a dam whereby water could be sent through a system of canals to their thirsty farming lands. Here the women cooked in a tent for their valiant heroes, amid flying dust and other discomforts, and did their best to prepare palatable food from the staples—beans and flour.

Because the teams [had to] be fed and cared for during the Sabbath while the men worshipped at the settlement, cuts were drawn each Saturday night to see who must remain on the job over Sunday. It happened that Joseph Hansen drew the fated bean one windy Saturday eve. Sunday came howling in as only an Arizona dust storm can usher in a new day. To add to the disagreeableness of the storm, the horses broke away, thus forcing the husband to leave his wife and two children alone within the mere shelter of the camp tent while he went on foot in quest of the straying animals.[54] His search was long and vexing while the wind grew more fierce. During the prolonged absence, the camp tent was blown down, leaving the bewildered wife to seek the shelter of a wagon box. It was here, pitifully huddled together, that the husband found his family after his trying search for the lost horses. It seems that those dust storms in the uncivilized country presented one of the worst trials that early pioneers had to endure.

The elements were all wild and seemingly beyond the control of a handful of settlers, who had nothing but their physical abilities and splendid powers of endurance to cope against the furies of nature. Fifteen times their dam in the [Little] Colorado River was swept away by treacherous floods, but still the colonists persevered, learning from work and better experiences how to make the arid alkali lands yield them a comfortable living. The last big dam, a cement structure, has withstood the ravages of the worst floods known.[55] At last, when grey hairs announced the passing of many years, Joseph and Emma Hansen, with their staunch associates, beheld a permanent reward for the expenditure of many long and faithful efforts. Their accomplishments can rightly be rated among the noblest in the conquest of the great Southwest.

When the families at the fort separated to build homes, the Hansens made them[selves] a temporary little structure in the fields. From here they moved to a lot in the newly made townsite, where they built a two-roomed house. This served them for a few years until a big brick house of two stories was constructed. After more than forty years, it now stands as silent tribute to its worthy builders, who made of their house a home which was always decently furnished and kept in good repair. In its big front room, the children kept their musical instruments, for Emma and Joseph Hansen were both lovers of music. In her early days, Emma played the organ and the accordion. Her singing voice also helped to add cheer to the somewhat dreary and changeless life of the pioneers.

All of the eleven Hansen children were given musical training, and many of them proved to be musical leaders for the small community. Their tedious practice periods were never annoying to the parents, who were always proud and willing to have their children learn to enjoy and give to others of their musical talents. In other fields of education, the children were encouraged to develop the possibilities of mental endeavor and otherwise add to their usefulness. In times when scholastic training was to be had only through great cost and in distant places, these sons and daughters were spared from the busy life of the farm and earned for themselves places of honor and trust in pioneer institutions of learning. Three of the daughters became successful teachers, one son and two daughters fulfilled honorable missions for their church, and all of the eleven children have been worthy of respect and esteem because of their home training and privileges granted them by exceptional and upright parents.

Because of the spirit that prevailed in the home, because of the unselfish character of its occupants, [and because of] the big lawn, the vines, and shrubs which surrounded the Hansen home, it was always a logical gathering place for many social events. The big front room was not too good or too nice to be used in the early gatherings before the church house was built, and the Hansens opened up their home to give room to some of the Sunday School classes. Joseph and Emma Hansen were unitedly public spirited and their loyal support and generous giving for public enterprises was to them a joyous duty. With uncommon pride, the father justly boasted of his wife’s honesty in the payment of tithes and offerings, for it was she who always carefully and neatly kept the accounts of the family proceedings.

The busy mother filled positions in the ward, acting as treasurer of the Relief Society, serving in the first ward presidency of the Young Women’s organization, and for many years faithfully making her visits as a Relief Society visiting teacher.

Emma Hansen was always unassuming, unpretentious, and modest. She was never domineering, but her family was obedient and knew their work and place. They respected their mother, for she never displayed loss of self-control. Her dignity was not marred with nervous irritations or outward show of unlovely excitement. Though not a fast worker, she was most thorough in the many skills which she possessed and developed. Her head was used to save unnecessary steps, and she acquired unusual ability and powers in good home management. There are few women who could do so many things and do them so superbly well as this pioneer mother. It was a marvel to others of her own sex how she could go into the fields and work with her husband, who truthfully claimed that none could load hay as well as could “Emmy.”

Her gardens were always her pride, and well they might be, for her produce was in demand because of its quality, and her expert hands made a beautiful job of packing and bunching vegetables for market. In this affair the whole family assisted, and many times the late hours of the night had been spent in preparing vegetables for market. From the Hansen orchard, tons of fruit have been picked, crated, or stored. Always the efficient mother worked with her sons and daughters, teaching them by proper example unexcelled lessons in thrift and labor.

She knew how to spin and wove a piece of cloth for several dresses. In the barn, a carpet loom was kept, and all the worn out clothes were eventually turned into bright new carpets. Six of the eight Hansen girls were given new homemade carpets as a gift from Mother to embellish their own homes. Even today, in her seventy-fourth year, she crochets homemade rugs whose oval forms lovingly grace the floors in the homes of her sons and daughters. She is a true giver and considers not the cost of time or effort which is expended in the gift.

Her quilts were quickly made, yet with a precision that characterized them above the commonplace. Today as an old lady her hands shake and tremble, but she is still considered one of the village’s best quilters, and her original quilt designs always find favor.

Emma Swenson Hansen on her fiftieth birthday. Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

In the little log house, which once served as a home, stands a honey extractor and bee equipment. For years, this dear woman has assisted in caring for bees, extracting and storing honey. Her age makes no difference to her; she still helps to gather the bees’ golden store of sweetness. Until very recent years, she has milked cows, for the Hansens always kept well supplied with dairy stock, and the mother as well as her daughters were first class hands at milking cows. Each morning as soon as breakfast was eaten, whether the weather was warm or cold, blustery or calm, she went with pails of warm milk to feed the little calves and to care for her flock of chickens. She even gathered alfalfa, cutting it with a scythe to give the swine a goodly daily ration. She provided her table with eggs and generally had some to sell. She cured her own pork, hardly ever being without fine bacon, shoulders, or hams. For more than thirty years, her family was never without homemade butter. It was with a feeling of hurt pride that the mother had to submit to creamery butter after an unparalleled record of providing so nicely for her household use as well as selling many pounds of extra good butter to satisfied customers.

Her cellar has always been stocked with home-preserved food. The jellies were particularly fine, as well as the many fruits and vegetables. Many a modern cook might be envious of her ability to make delicious bread, pies, and doughnuts, while her roast chicken and Danish dumplings had a flavor of their own.

She did all the sewing for her family and even made the shirts for her grandsons, who proudly say, “They look just like the store-bought ones.” The family shoes were half-soled by her skillful hands; in fact, she was so frugal and gifted that one wonders if there is anything she could not do.

Because both parents were so diligent in teaching their children the joy of willing work, all contributed to the family income, resulting in a degree of independence. Diversified talents were developed and honest labor brought forth its fruitful harvest.

The pioneers of every time and place have had to endure physical suffering as best they could because of their remoteness from doctors and hospitals. They cared for each other in sickness or death, neighborly kindness and good will taking the place of scientific aid. The Hansen family suffered through the epidemics of measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever, flu, and were even in quarantine for smallpox and diphtheria with no break in its members. The mother suffered greatly from toothache, and no dentist being available her teeth decayed in her mouth, leaving aching snags and roots. When the first dentist came to the little town, Emma availed herself of his skill and got herself some new teeth.

The death of her devoted husband on May 4, 1930, at the age of seventy-six, was a very great sorrow to her. For forty-seven years they had loved and toiled together. It seemed she could not go on alone. The marriage of her youngest child shortly after the death of her husband left her more lonely than ever. With her usual self-control, she bore her loss bravely, but soon her golden hair was streaked with gray and suppressed heartache wrote lines on her patient face.

Emma Hansen’s natural resourcefulness would not permit her to waste useful time in needless pining. Two of her winters were spent in Mesa in the Arizona Temple. In the summer of 1933, she took a trip to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair. From the ease with which she got around and her enthusiasm, no one would ever guess that she was past three score and ten.

After the children all married and had homes of their own, part of the old home she rented out, retaining enough for herself. This she made very pleasant and attractive.

Her chickens supplied her with spending money, continued with her garden, tended pigs and bees. Makes quilts, rugs, husks corn, and the rest of the time she reads and does innumerable kindly deeds for her friends and family. Earnings from her investments are loaned out to those in need.

At seventy-four she has a total posterity of sixty souls, ten children, and fifty grandchildren; of that number, only two infant grandchildren have died.

One of the cherished memories in the lives of her children is the homemade toys and goodies at Christmas time; even in the leanest years old Santa always came and brought cheer and happiness.

Emma Swenson Hansen’s life has been a model of excellence, and the sunset of her life is glorified through the vivid reflections of the past; its brilliance mingles with the softer shades of the present, intensifying the beauty of her old age. She has ever exemplified the beautiful ideals of never wasting time, energy, money, or natural resources and has used to good advantage all of her God-given graces. She passed away March 20, 1945.

Ellis and Boone:

Roberta Flake Clayton, who interviewed Emma Hansen, wrote this sketch for the FWP, and submitted it on January 23, 1937. Consequently, the end of the sketch is written in present tense, describing Emma Hansen at age seventy-four. Clayton added only the last sentence when transferring the sketch to PWA.

Because this information was originally written for the FWP, there is no mention that Emma Swenson was Joseph C. Hansen’s second (plural) wife. Daughter-in-law Alice S. Hansen wrote that Joseph “had brought his first wife, Sophia and their small daughter, Mary to spend the winter visiting in his home town of Spanish Fork. The Hansens had come from St. Joseph, Arizona where they had been called to help establish a colony. With the arrival of spring it was time to return to the new Arizona settlement and help put in crops for another year’s harvest. Feeling that he should live the law of ‘plural marriage’ Joseph wisely sought for the most capable girl he could find to take back to the lonely desert home.”[56] So, the wagon trip back to Arizona included Joseph, Sophia, Mary, and Emma.

This also explains the confusion about the number of Emma’s children. Alice Hansen wrote, “While living at the Fort the youthful Emma cared for Joseph’s first wife Sophia who succumbed to an intestinal disorder on August 4, 1883.[57] Emma then assumed the role of stepmother, rearing the motherless four year old Mary. Being a stepmother is sometimes a source of anxiety and frustration but Emma was unfailing in this task. She tried hard to be a real mother to the lonely little girl, accepting Mary as one of her very own. Sophia’s death occurred just one month before the birth of James August, Emma’s firstborn.”[58] In this sketch, Emma is first listed as having eleven children and later as only ten, although the second number may simply reflect Mary’s death in 1904.[59]

Finally, George S. Tanner and J. Morris Richards, later historians in Joseph City, added this about her Emma’s life: “Since the Hansen family was largely composed of girls, some of them worked in the fields along with the men. This was particularly true of the mother, Emma, who cultivated an extensive garden both for home use and for sale to peddlers. Her husband may not have been exaggerating when he called her the best gardener in the county.”[60]

Loretta Ellsworth Hansen

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP Interview

Maiden Name: Loretta “Rettie” Ellsworth

Birth: April 12, 1868; West Weber, Weber Co., Utah

Parents: Edmund Lovell Ellsworth[61] and Mary Ann Bates

Marriage: Hans Hansen Jr.; October 1, 1885

Children: Fannie Gertrude (1887), Winnifred (1889), Mary (1891), Metta Katrina (1893), Georgianna (1895), Donald C. Edwards (1897)

Death: March 29, 1940; Lakeside, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Lakeside, Navajo Co., Arizona

Loretta, “Rettie,” the daughter of Edmund and Mary Ann Bates Ellsworth, was born on April 12, 1868, at West Weber, Utah. The home, at that time, consisted of two rooms, and there were twelve in the family. The boys slept in the barn.

At the early age of nine, Rettie began the duties of motherhood, assisted by two of her sisters. Twin girls were born in the home, and she took over the care of one of them while Nellie and Julia took the other.[62] The hardest part of this child-raising was when the babies had to be fed at night, and the little mothers would have to get up and heat the milk over a “coal oil” lamp. Their labors of love were rewarded, and Effie and Ellie grew up to be beautiful women.

When Rettie was eleven years old, there was a terrible outbreak of diphtheria in the little town, which took the lives of many children, among them a very dear little friend of Rettie’s. She and five other members of the Ellsworth children were stricken at the same time, and when Rettie heard of her little pal’s death, she wanted to go too. She would put her feet out from under the bed covers so she could catch cold, and when the medicine was left by her bed she would empty it out. But fate decreed it otherwise, for instead of Rettie going, two brothers and a sister were taken, all three within four weeks.[63]

In August of 1880, the Ellsworth family left Utah. Six wagons were loaded with the family and their belongings; then there were the cattle and horses to drive. Loretta, who was then twelve, and her eldest sister and two brothers took turns, day about [alternate days?], driving the stock. There were no saddles, so they had to ride bareback. Modesty and custom forbade the girls riding astride in those days, and it was sometimes hard for the girls to sit “sideways” when their horses went over high boulders or had to chase out after the herd.

Their destination when they started was Mexico, but when, after six weeks of travel, they reached Show Low, Arizona, and Mr. Ellsworth saw the beautiful scenery, the tall pines, the clear streams, and good soil, he decided to locate there and [he] bought the Cluff Ranch.

The ranch was near the reservation, and the family lived in constant fear of the Apaches. There were frequent uprisings, fighting even among themselves; one of the worst was enacted during a “Tulapai party” when Chief Petone and two other Indians were killed and two seriously wounded.[64] Rettie’s father and mother were standing outside their home and a shot lodged in the wall behind them. Mr. Ellsworth took the two wounded Indians to his home and nursed them back to life. One of them was Alchesay, who became Chief in Petone’s stead. By this act of kindness, Rettie’s father and family were looked upon with gratitude by the Indians, and they and their belongings were safe from renegade bands. The most dreaded of these were Geronimo’s, the very mention of whose name caused terror in the hearts of women and children and filled even the bravest man with fear and anxiety.

One of these raids was in 1881. A fort was built and all of the ranchers and people living in nearby communities gathered in. Rettie says, “None were injured, but I will never forget the nights of terror I spent, thinking every sound was Indians coming to murder us. I never told of my fear, but I am sure the others were as frightened as I was. We would hear of ranchers and travelers being horribly murdered and didn’t know but what we might be next. I remember I would make light of my mother’s fears while at the same time I would be terrified. With the capture of Geronimo, the Indian trouble quieted down.”

The Ellsworth home was the gathering place for the young people for miles around. Rettie and her half-dozen grown brothers and sisters were a jolly group, and her parents made her friends welcome. Singing, reading, music, dancing, and [playing] games occupied the evenings. Good schools were provided, and the home influence was of culture and refinement and produced a family of excellent men and women.

In those days, possibly because of the responsibility placed upon them, childhood was short, and at the age of fourteen and sixteen, girls and boys were grown up, and around seventeen and nineteen assumed the duties of married life. When she was seventeen, Rettie promised to become the wife of Hans Hansen Jr., a fine young man she had known since coming to Arizona.

Loretta "Retta" Ellsworth Hansen. Photo courtesy of Marion Hansen Collection.

On September 29, 1885, they and her brother Frank and his betrothed, Edna Merrell, started on their wedding journey to St. George, Utah. It took them six weeks to make the round trip. This is one of the breathtaking incidents Rettie relates of that trip: “One morning, way out on the desert, the boys were greasing the rear wagon, we girls, at the other washing dishes, found ourselves completely surrounded by large prairie wolves. We lost no time climbing into our wagon and the boys killed wolves as long as their ammunition lasted. It was a thrilling sight to see about fifty large wolves lined up like soldiers. At the sound of the gun they would jump back a few paces still facing us, then would step forward again. The howling of the wounded, and the firing of the guns finally frightened them away.”[65]

Upon the return of Hans and Rettie to Arizona, they lived in a small lumber room near the home of Hans’s father for the first year. During this time the Ellsworths moved to Mesa, Arizona. This almost broke Rettie’s heart, as the family was a very affectionate one. Especially did she miss her half of the twins, who were now nine years old and whom she had always loved and mothered.

In the fall of 1886, Hans and Rettie moved to another house. There they were very happy and especially so when their first child, a little daughter, was born on June 30, 1887. Here they continued to reside until near the close of 1888, when Hans received word of the death of his brother-in-law, Sanford Jaques, in Tempe, leaving a wife and four small children.

Hans took his family and went to the assistance of his sister Annie. They left behind all they had accumulated, including five cows and calves. These they never saw nor heard of again. Rettie was glad to be with her family again, and the Hansens remained in Mesa for two years. The latter part of 1890, they returned to Show Low and began life over again.

They both worked with a will and were very comfortably fixed with a nice log house and the necessities of life, when, in the Autumn of 1892, while the family was visiting friends about a mile away, their home, with all they owned in the world, was burned to the ground. They always believed it was set afire by Indians.

The one-roomed house they lived in the first year of their married life now offered them shelter again, but now instead of two, the family consisted of five, for three darling baby girls had been born to them.

They were alone at this place all that winter as Father Hans Hansen Sr. moved his family ten miles south of Show Low to a place they called Woodland. In the spring, Hans and Rettie joined them there. They built a small room with a dirt floor to live in until they could do better. Here their fourth daughter was born.

A two-room lumber house was built on their present location, which they homesteaded. Their fifth daughter was born in this house. No two of their children were born in the same house. The next move was into a three-room house nearby and here the five lovely daughters grew to womanhood.

In 1902, Hans Hansen Jr., who was born on August 24, 1862, in the southern town of Washington, Utah, was called on a mission for his church to Denmark, the birthplace of his parents, Hans Nielsen Hansen and Metta Katrina Adsersen. These “calls” are never compulsory, and though, at times, it is a trial of faith and always a great sacrifice to all concerned, they are seldom refused. With a love for the gospel that had done so much for his father’s family, Hans left his home, his five children, and the brave loving wife who bade him “God speed” with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes and was gone for twenty-seven months.

The following is the story of his mission told from his lips:

In 1900 I attended conference in Snowflake where Apostle Francis M. Lyman was in attendance.[66] In this talk, he requested all men who had been on a mission to stand. When they sat down, he asked all of those who would like to go on a mission to arise. I was in the group that stood. While we were still on our feet, he made this solemn statement, “I promise you, in the name of Israel’s God, that He will open the way for every one of you to go on a mission if you sincerely want to go.”

I sat there with these thoughts flying through my mind: that big mound of debts that I had not been able to pay, leaving my wife and five girls alone on the ranch with no one to help run it, and the small wage that I always received when I worked away from home. I wanted to go on a mission, but it seemed like an utter impossibility. I told my wife, when I got back to the home where we were staying, all that had been said and done, and she said, “Then you are going on a mission.” I asked, “How, with all of the debts that I owe, could I ever pay them and make enough to keep me on a mission?” She said, “But Daddy, you heard Brother Lyman’s promise.”

When we got back to the ranch, I began to think seriously of the promise made at conference; I could not get it out of my mind for long.

One day I was up in the woods beyond my field. I found a secluded little spot, and there I got on my knees to pour out my soul to my Heavenly Father, explaining my dilemma, my indebtedness, and my inability to make any money, and if he wanted me to go on a mission, I needed help badly. I begged that the way would be opened for me to go on a mission.

That very spring I was sent for to come to the Scott ranch. Robert was my brother-in-law, and he and his brother George wanted me to use my team to make them some reservoirs. They contracted with me for this work on my own terms. I worked all summer making more money than I had ever made before. I was through before winter and had enough money to pay all my debts and to allow for some badly needed clothes.

Next spring, Mr. [Bill] Morgan and Mr. [Jim] Porter wanted me to make some reservoirs for them which I gladly did.[67] At the end of the summer I had enough money to pay for a twenty-seven month mission in Denmark.

I had to leave my family on the ranch alone without funds. My wife felt that they could take care of themselves. I finally arranged with a young Danish boy to stay and run the ranch. But the most severe drought the country had ever known dried up the spring that watered my place and not a thing could be grown for the two years I was gone. The girls had to haul water from a creek a mile from the ranch.

I left for Denmark on the 5th of December 1902 and returned on the 16th of March 1905.

My first companion was an old man that was extremely hard to live with. No one else could tolerate him, so I was given the task of living with him or having him sent home, so I stuck it out with him until his release came.

I was studying hard to learn the language and needed help, but the old fellow refused to answer my questions or help me in any way. He refused to go tracting with me so I was left to work it out alone.

I was out tracting one day and unknowingly entered a saloon where men were standing at a bar. I hurriedly passed out some tracts and left without a word. When I got outside I said, “Father in Heaven, surely I can do better than that.”

The next place I entered was the home of a minister. He had an open Bible before him, and he was arguing with his daughter and a friend. I had not been there long until they started asking me questions. I was answering all of their questions, and they seemed satisfied. Finally, the daughter said, “Well, you are a minister and are you going to let that man get the best of you like that?” The father said, “You are a minister’s daughter, can you do any better?”

When I had been in Denmark about a year and a half, I was having a great deal of trouble with a hernia that eventually put me to bed. My companions had to leave me there alone, and I lay there wondering what I was going to do. I didn’t have the money for an operation, so I took my troubles to my Heavenly Father and told him I needed help.

The President of the Mission heard of it and offered me an honorable release which I refused and sent word back that I was finishing my mission.

Later in the day, while I was lying there alone, the door opened, and my father, Hans Nielsen Hansen, who had died in 1901, walked into the room, bent over my bed and pushed my clothes apart and put his short, chubby hands over the hernia and pushed very hard. I said, “Oh Daddy, you are hurting me.” There was no answer, but a constant pressure until I felt something slip back into place. He straightened up and said, “Now you will be all right in a few days,” and walked out of the room. They were the only words he had spoken.

In a few days, according to his promise, I was back to work again, well and strong to finish my mission. I returned home on the 16th of March 1905, with twenty-five cents in my pocket.

During this time, Rettie and the girls (the eldest, Gertrude, was fifteen when her father went away) managed the affairs at home so well that he returned free from debt. Rettie had taken in washing and sewing, boarded school teachers in the winter, and taken the responsibility and work of providing for the six of them, each happy to assist when not in school—but their education [could] not be neglected.

It was a joyous occasion when the family was again reunited. Life took on the usual routine when in June 1911, fire again robbed them of all their earthly possessions. Hans was away on business, and Rettie, who was now the only midwife and nurse in those parts, was called out by sickness when the fire was discovered, but too late to do anything.

“Friends and neighbors from far and near donated toward our clothing and to start a fund for another house,” recalls Rettie with grateful remembrance.

A one-room lumber house was built for a storeroom and also for a bedroom for their adopted son. In it was all of his clothing, household supplies, windows, doors, and hardware for the new house, two saddles, and various other things, when fire, for the third time, took its toll. The frame building and all its contents were in ashes in a few minutes. They managed to save the tents in which the remainder of the family was camping. These continued to be their only dwelling places until the much coveted home was completed, six years later.

Gertrude went to Weber Academy, in Ogden, Utah, while David O. McKay was President; she attended school for two years, 1906 and 1907.[68] While she was there, Rettie had to go to Ogden to undergo a very serious operation. She was gone for two months, returning much improved in health.

The winter of 1908 and 1909 was spent in Snowflake where the girls attended high school. This was a very happy time for Rettie as she had so many friends there and all of her children were with her.

In 1910, two of her daughters married and moved to the Salt River Valley. In 1912 and 1915, two more were married and left home, leaving only the baby girl, Georgia. Her desire was to become a school teacher. Her first school was in Vernon, Apache County, in 1922. She taught there two years. She was teaching in Taylor in 1924 when one of the children in her room came to school with diphtheria. Georgia contracted it and went home. In a week, [on] October 17, she died. Her friends were numbered by her acquaintances who joined her parents in their grief at her untimely death, which her mother never entirely recovered from.

“For many years in our first married life” Rettie says, “we had a hard time to keep the wolf from the door. The last fifteen have been much better.” They have a beautiful country home with every modern convenience. An air of comfort, culture, and refinement permeates the place. Choice pictures adorn the walls, easy chairs, a bookcase filled with the best books, a radio, birds, and flowers make the place a veritable paradise. It has not come without work and patience. Hans has always been a hard, conscientious worker—this lovely home is entirely the work of his own hands. He has a rule that he strictly adhered to—never to buy anything until it can be paid for.

For thirty-five years [meaning this was written in 1937], Rettie has been a nurse. She says, “I have taken care of all kinds of sickness and have assisted over three hundred babies into the world. Have gone in all kinds of weather, walked two miles to a car, taken off my shoes and stockings and waded streams of water, and since my rheumatism is so bad I have gone when I had to have a man on each side of me to help me into the car. Never have I refused to go if I were able. Have done this without pay in the majority of cases, but have always been glad and thankful to be of some service in the world.”

She and her husband have grown old gracefully and beautifully together. They were beloved by all who knew them. It is such as they that make earth a Heaven and give all a desire to strive for the same love, peace, and contentment.

Ellis and Boone:

Although this biographical sketch was based on an FWP interview, Loretta Hansen herself was committed to personal and pioneer histories. She began a diary on March 19, 1918, and wrote an autobiography while in Lavern, California, December of 1925.[69] Clayton did not update this sketch for PWA except by adding the long quote from Hans’s mission. Loretta Ellsworth Hansen died on March 29, 1940, and Hans Hansen died on October 7, 1953; both are buried at Lakeside, the town they worked so hard to build.

For her birthday in 1925, Rettie Hansen received a birthday poem from Roberta Clayton. Part of this poem tells about people from outlying communities coming to Snowflake for quarterly conferences that were not only a time for church services but also were a time for renewing friendships:

At conference time when friends from far and near

In covered wagons, buckboards, buggies, carts,

To Snowflake came the word of God to hear

Sweet solace to their overburdened hearts.

I still recall how days before were spent

In cleaning house and cooking things to eat

In preparation for the great event

When relatives and friends again would meet.

And as a child, how anxiously I’d wait

And scan with eager eyes the passing road

That I might open wide our own big gate

To usher in the wagon with its load.

And if perchance it was the Ellsworth crowd

And dear kind Rettie was among the rest

My heart sang praises and I was so proud

Because she was the one I liked the best.[70]

Mary Andsersen Hansen

Author Unknown, FWP[71]

Maiden Name: Mary Adsersen (Maren Pedersen)

Birth: September 28, 1849; Tange, Gørding, Ribe, Denmark

Parents: Peter Adsersen and Anne Cathrine Lauritsen

Marriage: Hans Neilsen Hansen; May 15, 1865

Children: stillborn (c. 1867), Niels Samuel (1869), Annie Catherine (1871),[72] Mary Jane (1873), Lauritz (1875), James (1877), Andrew (1879), Marcena (1882), Augustus (1884), Julia Sabina (1888), Maria May (1889)

Death: September 3, 1911; Pinetop, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Pinetop, Navajo Co., Arizona

Far away in Tange, Jyland, Denmark, on September 28, 1849, to Peter Adsersen and his wife, Annie Catherine Lauritsen, was born a baby girl, destined to play an important role in the pioneer life of Arizona, as was also her only sister, Kristen.

Peter was a tailor by trade and his wife a milliner, and the daughters assisted their parents, thus learning both useful arts. While very small, the girls had to gather straw and braid so many yards each day, the amount increasing according to their age and ability. This braided straw was then sewed and fashioned into hats of all sizes and shapes and ornamented and adorned to suit the customers. There was no play for the little girls until their task was done; thus they learned in their childhood that duty comes before pleasure, and this characterized the lives of both.

Mary and her mother emigrated to America about 1860 and settled in the town of Washington in Utah.[73] Kristen had come with some friends four years previously and shortly after her arrival had become the wife of Hans Hansen, one of her own countrymen. She had two children, Annie and Hans Jr. When her third child was born, she and the infant son both died, and her mother and sister took the two remaining children.[74]

On May 15, 1865, Mary married her sister’s husband and became the mother of eleven children: six sons and five daughters. After their marriage, they took Hans Junior. The daughter, Annie, remained with her grandmother.

A very comfortable home was provided by her husband and Mary was very happy in her adopted country, though she found the language difficult to learn. She depended upon her husband to interpret for her whenever he would, but he taught her the necessity of her learning it [English] for the children’s sake.

Mary spun and wove cloth for their clothes, but when a new arrival was expected she felt that she could not use the rough homespun for the clothing for the tender little body so she traded one of her prized feather beds that she had brought with her from her native land for calico at a dollar a yard. This was painstakingly made-up and the best of care taken of it that it might serve for two or three babies.

After a factory was built in the little town, Mary worked in it, making linsey for dresses and shirts and jeans for trousers. She provided two dresses at a time for her daughters, one “for Sunday” and the other “for everyday,” however, the Sunday one had to be worn when the other was being laundered. These clothes usually lasted a year. When the girls grew larger and calico went down to fifty cents a yard, each had a nice one only to be worn on Fourths of July and other extra special occasions.

Mary Adsersen Hansen. Photo courtesy of Marie Noble.

Mr. and Mrs. Hansen were beginning to get quite comfortably fixed, as both were hard workers. He was an excellent brick and stone mason and plasterer, and she could do whatever circumstances required. They were beginning to raise some fruit, and nearly everyone raised cane, and the children could have homemade molasses for almost every meal, when in the summer of 1879, they were called to settle in Arizona. Hard as it was for this frail little woman, she was willing to accompany her husband.

They traded their home for horses, cows, and wagons, loaded in what they could, and with six children they started out, Hans Jr. driving the cows. When they reached Kanab, they were followed by a messenger with a letter from Denmark telling Mr. Hansen of the death of his father and that there would be some money for him when the estate was settled. As there was no mail service and he had no idea where he would locate, Mr. Hansen thought it best to return to Washington and remain until the money came.

Annie had just been married a short time, so she, her husband, Sanford Jacques, and an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Adair, were engaged to take the outfit on to Arizona.[75]

There was about $800 which the family received, and with a portion of it they bought a sewing machine and some other things for their new home.

In August 1880, Hans Jr. and Mr. Jacques returned, bringing the two wagons, and the trip to Arizona was again undertaken. It was long, and a tedious journey. The road was little more than a cow trail. The fording of the Colorado and perilous trip over “Lee’s Backbone” was never forgotten by Mary or the older children, neither was the terrible wind and hailstorm that almost tore the wagon covers from the wagons and were only held on by the united efforts of the mother and children who had taken refuge in one of the wagons while the men were in the other. The storm had come up suddenly and the men thought it would soon be over, but it so increased in fury that they could not go to the relief of the family who screamed in their fright. The poor horses were tied to the wagons and as the hailstones took off chunks of hide, they jumped and jerked till it seemed they would tip the wagon over. It looked as though all would be killed, but they escaped with a scare and a severe wetting. An early camp was made as soon as wood could be found, and their bedding, clothing, and themselves dried before a hot fire.

Finally, they reached Adair, or “Fools Hollow” as it was then called, where they found their daughter Annie and soon built a log room adjoining hers. After the crops were gathered that fall, Mr. Hansen got a good job of mason work in Fort Apache. Here he received fair wages, but there were no stores near so the family often had to go without the necessities of life. Salt was obtained from the salt beds a couple of days travel away.[76] This was in lumps about the size of a small marble and was rolled with a bottle to make it fine enough for table use.

Mr. Hansen returned from Fort Apache in the spring, and he and his sons took up a dry farm about a mile and a half south of their first location and put in a crop.

In the late summer of this year, 1881, the Apaches began causing considerable trouble, and one night about sundown word came that they had gone on the warpath and were headed toward the settlements and that all the people in those parts were to gather at Cooley’s Ranch, where Corydon Cooley had a large house, with as much haste as possible. A fort was built around the house and wagon covers fastened together and stretched over to keep out the sun and rain. It was built out of thick logs with portholes to shoot through in case of an attack.

Mary Adsersen Hansen (standing in doorway), with grandson Boyd Hansen and daughter Marcena Hansen Penrod holding guitars. Photo courtesy of Lloyd Stock.

The men took turns standing guard and the women [took turns] doing the cooking. Here they remained until peace was again restored. They returned to their farm but as there was no water on it and they could not find any by digging wells, they moved again, this time up near a wash, where they dug a well and found good water. Here they built another log house. This one served as a Sunday School house and a dance hall by moving the beds and furniture, as well as a home.

In 1884, Hans Hansen was called to be bishop of the Show Low Ward, which had members scattered from Juniper (Linden) to Pinetop. Bishop Hansen regularly traveled to all these towns on his little bay mule. This all made more work for Mary, whose health was very poor and was so overworked anyway. Besides the cooking, washing, ironing, housework, and care of her six children, she made everything the family wore except their shoes; even these she made for the smaller ones, cutting the uppers from the tops of old shoes, or old felt hats if these could be had. Her husband would put on the soles with wooden pegs he had made. He also carved lasts for the various sizes from wood.

Each member of the family was fitted out with two pair of stockings, which was part of her summer’s work, and these were ready when the cold weather would no longer permit bare feet. The boys’ hats were made from jeans or denims to match their trousers, and the girls had denim bonnets to keep the freckles off. Mary was very proud and very particular. No one else’s children should be cleaner or neater than hers. Early in life her children were taught to work, and she permitted no slip-shod methods. She never failed to inspect their work, and if it was not well done it had to be done over.

The “stork” visited the home of the Hansens with regularity and was always welcome no matter how hard the times. There was no need of a doctor. A faithful old midwife took care of both mother and child, and it didn’t matter to her what she was paid in, or if at all; she was but doing her part in colonizing a new country.

Mr. Hansen went to Mexico on a visit to one of his daughters who had married and moved there and liked the country so well that he decided to move there. Mary’s health had been failing for a long time and he hoped the change would do her good, but it did not and she was bedfast most of the time. The climate seemed to agree with him, and he felt fine until he suddenly passed away August 2, 1901. This was a great shock to Mary, from which she had a hard time recovering. As soon as she was able to travel, her children brought her back to her home at Lakeside.

All of her children were married [except for] the two youngest, a boy of fifteen and the baby girl. They early went to work at whatever they could find to do to help support her, and she did fancy work and sold it to help along.

She spent much time visiting around among her children, and after four months of serious illness, died at the home of her daughter, Jane, on September 3, 1911, and was buried in the land she had done so much to help redeem.

Ellis and Boone:

An informal photograph of Mary Adsersen Hansen, apparently taken after her husband’s death, shows her sitting in a rocking chair with a picture of her husband and two quilts next to her. One quilt is an appliquéd flower and circle design, and the other is a simple nine-patch variation set “on point.” In the early years of Hansen’s married life, she spun and wove cloth for their clothing. Then, right before coming to Arizona, when they received $800 as an inheritance from Hans’s father, they bought a sewing machine. Although we do not know if Mary Hansen made these quilts entirely by herself, by 1900, Mormon women in Snowflake and Woodruff were working together to complete quilts for each other. As quilt historian Mary Bywater Cross wrote of Mormon quilt-makers in Utah, “The time they spent making quilts marked the beginning of women and their families moving from a pattern of home-centered to community-oriented activity. Pioneering in a new region required constant effort just to survive during the first years. As families became established, a wider allocation of tasks freed them for other responsibilities and concerns.”[77] In particular, Relief Society organizations encouraged working together to produce quilts, take care of the sick, dress the dead, and serve as midwives. Cross then concluded, “For all these women, these stitched treasures of transition contain the message that their lives were ones of accomplishment and personal achievement, as they survived the challenges of joining a new religion and adjusted to living in the arid desert of the Intermountain West.”[78]

Louesa Park Harper

Louesa Harper Rogers, FWP

Maiden Name: Louesa Park[79]

Birth: December 13, 1846; Winter Quarters, Douglas Co., Nebraska

Parents: John Park and Louesa Smith

Marriage: Harvey John Harper;[80] December 29, 1866

Children: Louesa Bee (1868), Alberta Jane (1870), Eleanor Eliza (1872), Lavina (1874), Harvey John (1876), Alfred Park (1878), Albert B. (1880)

Death: June 20, 1913; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

My mother, Louesa Park Harper, was born December 13, 1846, at Winter Quarters, Nebraska. She emigrated with her parents, John and Louesa Smith Park, to Utah in 1847.

Her parents were both emigrants from the old world; her mother, born June 24, 1818, at Farenhorn, Kent County, England, came with her parents in 1829, and settled in Canada. John Park, coming from Scotland as a young man, met and married Louesa early in 1840.

It was not long after their marriage that both accepted the gospel taught by the Mormon missionaries and decided to go West with other members of their church. They left Canada in 1846 with two wagons and four yoke of cattle. They passed through Nauvoo, Illinois, and joined the company at Winter Quarters, where their fourth child was born and where they remained during the winter of 1846/7, in the spring going on with John Taylor’s company.

Upon their arrival in Salt Lake City, they built a log cabin on the old Fort Square, now known as Pioneer Square. It was a great relief to have even a log house to live in as they had lived in their wagon boxes what time they had spent since leaving Canada.

In 1849, after living in the old fort for two years, they were called by President Brigham Young to go with other Saints and settle on the Provo River. Here again a fort was built for their protection and all lived in it. The Indians were very troublesome, helping themselves to anything they could steal and carry away. They also tried to steal some cattle at one time. They got possession of some, which they drove away so fast that they got overheated and died. Louesa’s husband, John Park, and other men followed the Indians, over took them, recovered the carcasses of the animals and took them home. The hides were used to make shoes for the family and the tallow to make candles to furnish light for their homes.

Harvey John and Louesa Park Harper. Photo courtesy of Graham County Historical Society.

The people were all very poor at this time, had very little to subsist upon and but scant clothing. John Park engaged in farming and making a home for his family. Their clothing was made from flax fiber, the flax being grown by themselves, and the fiber obtained by soaking the flax in water until the strands would separate easily, after which the fiber was dried and beaten up fine, and then spun into thread on a spinning wheel. This thread was made into cloth on a loom. John’s father was a weaver in Scotland.

The wheat that made their flour was grown by themselves, then ground by hand and later by a burr mill into flour, a coarse variety with nothing taken out of it. The girls of the family helped grind the flour on the hand mill. They used also to help in the field. They could yoke up the oxen as well as any man could. They could also plow, harrow, and haul wood. Their schooling was what they could get at the fort in the wintertime.

In those days, sweets were very hard to get. Louesa made syrup from the juice of watermelon and squash boiled down. They gathered honeydew from bushes growing on the river bank and washed it off into a clean receptacle and boiled the sweet water into syrup.[81] At one time Louesa’s mother was very sick, and her husband gave a dollar for a “drawing” of tea. When she drank it, it was just the medicine she needed to make her well.

There was great excitement when Johnston’s army entered the valley. This family, along with others, determined to defend their homes and their belongings.[82] The army, while appearing to be a menace, was a blessing in disguise. The settlers found a ready market for all their surplus produce and were able to trade for all kinds of provisions, clothing, and work animals.

When Louesa was nineteen, her older sister, Mary Ann, married and went to Murray, Salt Lake County, to live. Louesa went with them. Here she met Harvey John Harper, son of Charles and Lavina Dilworth Harper, who lived in Big Cottonwood and who were pioneers to Salt Lake City in 1847–49. Louesa Park and Harvey John Harper were married December 29, 1866, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and made their home at Big Cottonwood, where later two little girls were born: Louesa Bee and Alberta Jane. In 1870 they were called to Bear River and started the town of Randolph. They were released in 1877 and moved back to Salt Lake City. I loved to hear my father, Harvey John Harper, tell of his courtship with my mother, Louesa Park. He said her character was above reproach, and that she was very pretty, good complexion, grey-blue eyes and rosy cheeks, just medium height, and weight about 145 pounds. She was clever and very plainspoken and wasn’t afraid to say “No.” She was very neat in her clothes and had a sweet disposition and could sing. He loved to hear her sing because she sang in a “man’s tone of voice.” As she became older, her voice became softened, and she could carry the soprano beautifully. Some of her favorite songs, as I remember them, were: “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” “Cold Chilly Winds of December,” “When You and I Were Young Maggie,” and “Do They Think of Me at Home.”[83] This last one was especially her favorite because she always lived so far away from her people. Her favorite church songs were “My Own Mountain Home,” “Come, Come Ye Saints,” “O Stop and Tell Me, Red Man,” and many others.[84] She loved to entertain and usually entertained the visitors from Salt Lake.

Our home was a large one-room log house and a lean-to. This house was hewed logs chinked up with mud plaster. Our first home in Randolph was just a log cabin with a fireplace. This cabin later served as a storehouse. At that time, Randolph was the coldest place on the map. I’ll say that I didn’t ever hear my mother complain, but I can remember lots of lovely things we used to do, such as going haying with my father to do the cooking while the hay was being put up. It was the natural hay with patches of beautiful pinks all through the fields. We also would go in crowds gathering sarvisberries and on fishing parties, and to the sawmill that my father owned in the mountains.[85] Later, he and William Howard built a shingle mill, which blew up in the year 1876.

My mother did all of her own sewing, and at this time two more little girls and two little boys had come to bless our happy home. Mother had an old lady, Mrs. Bramell, with two daughters, who did the washing. I would look at those two girls in real pity to think they had a mother whose face was so full of wrinkles, and then I would look at Mother’s face, beautiful and rosy, not knowing that time would work such havoc. My mother was a wonderful cook, not through book learning, but through natural knowledge of combinations of foods. She likely learned a lot of this at home from her mother, as all of her people were good homemakers. My mother raised seven healthy children. She was clever, and with bright intellect she understood the principles of the gospel and read the scriptures with an intelligent mind and could explain them to us children in a way that I could never forget. She did not have much education but loved good reading. She stood loyally by my father in all of his undertakings, and when the mill blew up and they lost all they had in worldly materials, there was nothing left to do but to work together and start all over again. As soon as they could, they went back to Big Cottonwood, where they first started from about nine years previous.

At this time, in 1880, my parents decided to try again and make another home. Salt River Valley, Arizona, was their choice and destination. Leaving Utah in the fall of 1880, they made their way to Arizona, in company with a brother, Edwin, who was about twenty-two years of age; Jesse Moses and his wife, Bell Woodruff, a daughter of Wilford Woodruff, and five children; three wagons, eight horses, and one cow, which was soon disposed of.[86] One of the wagons, the one that Uncle Edwin rode in, was one that his father, Charles A. Harper, had made to cross the plains in, in 1847. He was a wheelwright by trade. Well, when I was twelve years of age, we started out with lovely things to eat that my mother had prepared. What I liked especially was a two-quart jar of ground cherry preserves and homemade molasses. She also baked good yeast bread and sourdough biscuits. I never heard tell of sourdough before or since. Anyway, it took the place of sour milk and made delicious hot bread.[87] I know I was my mother’s little nurse, as I had to take care of my little brother, Park, the one just older than the baby. We had some nerve-wracking experiences at crossing the grand old Colorado River at the old Pierce or Scanlon Ferry.[88] But we made it all O.K. with thanks to our Heavenly Father’s care.

We arrived at Hackberry on December 24, 1880, Christmas Eve, and ate our Christmas dinner at this place. We had, for special dishes, molasses cake and homemade candy, cooked on the campfire. We entered Phoenix the first of January 1881 with skinny horses, the last end of provisions, and some of us shoeless. I know I had on a pair of my mother’s old shoes, and I would hide my feet if anyone came. My father spent his last dollar and fifty cents for a sack of flour at the old Smith mill between Tempe and Phoenix.

My father was persuaded to go to Lehi by Henry Clay Rogers, who was doing blacksmithing for Charles T. Hayden at that time.[89] He [Rogers] would come to our camp by the river a short distance from where he was working and tell us the most terrible stories about the vermin and reptiles. We could almost feel them crawling up to the light of the campfire, and we would jump once-in-awhile, thinking we had a scorpion or centipede crawling around our neck. But he was so jolly and friendly, we fell for him right away. My father took his advice and traded for a forty-acre tract covered with mesquite trees so thick and full of thorns we could hardly get through. But the best piece of land was in Lehi. We bought this piece from David P. Kimball, who lived nearer the town site. We were just one mile west of the center of Jonesville, now Lehi, and although we raised some of the most wonderful melons, which weighed from ten to thirty pounds, and our garden stuff couldn’t be beat, we had to give credit to my mother, for she and the boys raised them while my father freighted. Here we had some hair-raising experiences. Our stretch of land was right on the bank of the Salt River, a powerful river at flood time, and [near] the Indian trail from their village to Tempe, and this was terrifying to the white people who did not understand the ways of the Indians. At this time the Indians were drinking a mescal beverage which they made from a plant in the mountains, and way into the night they would keep the trail hot with their whooping and yelling. It sounded to us like war whoops. Many times while left alone when my father was away freighting, my mother gathered us children into the bedroom, which was just a covered wagon, and prayed for the Lord to protect us, and to bless us with a comfortable feeling that we might get our wanted sleep and rest. We would certainly be glad for the light of day and would waken refreshed. At that time, the storms were terrible. One time the lightning struck right before our eyes and close to the corral. It struck and burst a large mesquite tree all to pieces. Another time, we were huddled together in our little [wagon box] bedroom.[90] My father had gone to Mesa on old Pony, a riding horse we owned. The thunder and lightning was terrible; the rain poured down in sheets; my mother had us children around her in our little nook, asking the Lord for protection and to bring our father home safely. It seemed like the roar and crack of the thunder would cut the words right out of her mouth, and our ears would fill up until we could hardly hear. In a little while the storm subsided, and my father came riding in on little old Pony and yelled, “Mother, Louesa, are you all safe? Thank God for that, for I was afraid you would all be washed into the river. Why, on the Mesa as I was coming along, the water was up to Pony’s knees and where did it all go to? It was terrific; the worst I have ever seen. Oh, I am so happy we are all together.” At this time, our home consisted of a tent, two covered wagon boxes, and a big shed that my father had built. We raised grain, alfalfa, figs and had a nice vineyard besides our garden stuff.

Replica Pioneer Jubilee pin; David H. Ellis, photographer. Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

My father got so he could spend more time at home while his brother did the freighting, so he built a one-room house of adobes, flat roofed, Mexican style. How my mother and I did fix that room up! We swiped some of Dad’s boards and built us a cupboard and wardrobe, and covered the dirt floor with straw and a homemade carpet that we brought with us. It was driven down into the ground with pegs, and how we enjoyed that room, words cannot express.

We also had three weddings performed in that beautiful room, my own and my two sisters. About four years after I was married, my father built a nice new brick house with four rooms and a pantry. It is still being occupied, but by strangers.

Lehi was a thriving little community with good dances and entertainment. My mother was a natural nurse and seemed to understand conditions, and she was always successful with her patients. She was called on at all times of the night or day, and she was always willing to go and assist. In programs and parties, she was always called on to sing.

After living in this country for some years, she was privileged to visit her home and relatives in Utah in 1890. At that time, she was presented with the Pioneer Jubilee Pin of 1847, and which I now possess. About the year 1910, my mother’s health began to fail and she continued to get worse until June 20, 1913. After much suffering and an operation, she passed away. She was buried with the love and appreciation of many friends and relatives whose lives she had spent hers to bless.

Ellis and Boone:

Louesa Park Harper was one of the pioneers who entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 (as an infant in the Joseph Horne Company). She was therefore eligible to receive one of the gold-plated 1897 Pioneer Day Semi-Centennial Jubilee badges given out to approximately six hundred remaining pioneers. Each badge was approximately one and a half inches wide with the words “Utah Semi-Centennial Pioneer Jubilee” and an image of Brigham Young in the center surrounded by a wagon (1847), beehive, train (1897), pony express rider, and four bees. However, she would have received this pin in 1897 and not 1890.

This sketch was originally published in April 1932.[91] Then Clayton changed it somewhat for the FWP and just retyped it for PWA. There are some interesting details and information about other family members found in the 1932 version that have been left out of the FWP and PWA versions. The three versions of this sketch illustrate the problem of identifying the voice of a particular sketch. It seems likely that F. T. Pomeroy edited the 1932 version for The Genealogical and Historical Magazine of the Arizona Temple District, and that Clayton’s language is found in the FWP and PWA versions. Even if a handwritten version were found purportedly written by Louesa Rogers, the propensity of pioneer descendants to recopy sketches, and feeling free to make changes during the copying process, would not necessarily show the voice of Louesa Rogers. It seems likely that each of these different voices is apparent in the lightening story. “Splintered a large mesquite tree right before our eyes” may have been Rogers’ or Pomeroy’s words, and “burst a large mesquite tree all to pieces” may have come from Clayton or Rogers. Even the direct quote is different in the 1932 and FWP versions; the sentence, “Oh, I am so happy we are all together,” was added in the FWP version and sounds very much like Clayton’s voice.

Barbara Belind Mills Haws

Matilda Haws Lewis

Maiden Name: Barbara Belinda Mills

Birth: July 1, 1836; Duffins Creek, Ontario Co., Ontario, Canada

Parents: John Mills and Jane Sanford

Marriage: William Wallace Haws; December 1, 1853

Children: Hannah Jane (1854), William Wallace (1856), George Martin (1858), Sarah Ellen (1861), John Gilbert (1864), Mary Angelina (1867), Rhoda Matilda (1870), Millie May (1873)

Death: March 30, 1936; Pima, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: Pima, Graham Co., Arizona

On January 2, 1794, John Mills petitioned for land in Ontario, Canada. In New England he was a Tory, but in Canada he was a Loyalist. The British government in Canada helped all those who had remained true to England during the American Revolutionary War. These Torys were helped to flee the Colonies after the peace terms became known. Ten thousand Loyalists shook the dust of the Colonies off their feet, never to return again. John Mills was among this ten thousand. He was from Sussex, New Jersey.[92] He had suffered public whipping at the post and had been imprisoned and had lost all of his property in New Jersey. He was recommended for 200 acres in Flamborough, Wentworth Co., Upper Canada.[93]

With John came his wife and his sons, John Jr. and Joseph, and [his] daughters, Phoebe, Mary, Rachel, Hannah, and Sarah, who was the wife of George Boils/Boyls.[94] George was a volunteer from New Jersey, who deserted from Staten Island, New York.[95] He was in Colonel Barton’s camp.[96]

Barbara Belinda Mills Haw and granddaughter Beatrice Birdno. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

Matthew Mills petitioned from his residence in Grimsby for land in Markham twp., York County on October 13, 1801.[97] He married Hannah Boils, daughter of George Boils and Sarah Mills, whose father was John Mills, the Loyalist. The John Mills, son of Matthew Mills and Hannah Boils, married Jane Sanford. Barbara Belinda was their daughter.

Barbara Belinda was born at Duffins Creek, Pickering Twp., Ontario Co., Upper Canada, July 1, 1836, at a little sawmill her father had built.[98] The country was new and infested with bears, wolves, and many other animals. The wild cries of these animals at night was fearful and many were the long, lonely nights and days spent at the mill

The winters were long and cold. A large fireplace was in each home, with big double doors so that the oxen could draw a big log into the house and then exit. The log was rolled onto the fireplace and a bright fire was kept going night and day. On the fireplace, all the family cooking was done in iron pots and Dutch ovens and frying pans.

When Barbara was a few months old, John Mills sold his mill with the purpose of moving to some milder climate for his health. While they were making preparations for leaving, John Taylor, on his first tour of Canada, came as a humble “Mormon” missionary to Duffins Creek and taught them the gospel. On February 6, 1837, John and wife and several relatives went to the mill-pond and were baptized. A hole was cut in the ice, which was very thick on that cold day when Elder Taylor baptized them.[99] In about two weeks, they were confirmed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What joy filled each heart.

Now John knew where he was going to move. He took his family to Kirtland, Ohio, where they joined the other members of the Church. It was in February 1838 that they clasped the hand of Joseph Smith in Kirtland. That was a great day for them, and from that time on, they knew that their lives would be with the Mormons.

They only stayed a short time in Kirtland to enjoy the love of the Prophet and Saints. From Kirtland, they journeyed on to Far West, Missouri, where they arrived in time to witness and know the distress of the Saints there in consequence to the persecutions of the mobs. Many of the Saints were without homes and were ill. John and Jane and their three children all had the ague and fever. One day, Jane was very sick, but she saw her little children ill and hungry. She felt that she must arise and fix something for them to eat, which was corn grated on a homemade grater of nail holes punched in a piece of tin and nailed to a board. Because of the mob, the Mormon men were unable to go to the grist mills to get their corn ground. Jane made some warm gruel and with a prayer of thanksgiving she saw her little ones eating and feeling better. So the Mills family were healed and well again.

In March 1839, they left Far West and went to Pike County, Illinois, where they stayed until Joseph Smith escaped the mob of Missouri and located a gathering place at Nauvoo. What a wonderful privilege to live in the city of the Saints with grateful hearts. Little Barbara, now a child of seven, stood with her father and mother and sister, Sarah, and brother, Martin, and the Saints of Nauvoo and listened with rapture when Joseph preached from the housetop.

October 1846 found the Mills traveling to Winter Quarters to join the Saints, who were cold, hungry, and suffering from sickness. The Mills family was blessed with good health, while many died from the hardships of that winter. In the spring of 1847, they traveled on to Kanesville, Iowa, where a little girl was born to them. The baby never moved and was laid to rest in the graveyard of the Saints.

That fall, the family moved on to Council Bluffs, where the oldest daughter, Sarah, was married to Thomas Ashton. The spring of 1850, John Mills started across the plains for Salt Lake to build a home for his family in the new Zion. Jane remained behind with the family to follow the next spring, for Jane felt she couldn’t leave Sarah, who was expecting a baby and was in no condition to travel.

On August 18, Sarah gave birth to a baby boy. They named him John Mills in honor of Sarah’s father. Sarah never really regained her strength after the baby was born, and on September 3, 1850, she passed away, leaving her baby in the care of her mother. Sarah was laid to rest among the Saints who had died “before the journey was through, happy day all is well, they were free from toil and sorrow too.”[100]

The following spring, Jane started for the great valley, in the Morris Phelps Company, her son Martin driving the team for her. That October, they arrived safely in Salt Lake.[101] How thankful they were to all be together in Zion. They settled at Provo, Utah, and John again built a sawmill. But even here in Zion there were trials and sorrows. In June 1853, John and his neighbors had to move together to the fort on account of Indians.

Five generations; seated front: Barbara Belinda Mills Haws; back (left to right): Loren Leamond Follett, Sarah Ellen Haws Follet, Loren Leamond Follett Jr., and baby Jack Follett. Photo courtesy of eastern Arizona Museum and Historical Society, Pima.

Barbara was now a young woman. She had never gone to school in her life, but she could spin and weave cloth, knit, and sew, with her needle and thimble, a very beautiful stitch. She was also a good cook. She was small, a cheerful girl with a ready smile. Light brown hair and blue eyes were among her physical characteristics. For months she had kept company with William Wallace Haws. William was a sober boy, dark, big, and handsome with massive dark brown curly hair and deep blue eyes. He served as a major in the Deseret Militia.

On December 1, 1853, Barbara and William were married. They built a home where the old BYU Academy now stands. Soon there were children in the Haws home: Jane, Bill, and George.

Then, [in 1857,] Johnston’s Army [was approaching] Utah. William was a major in the army [or militia, also known as the Mormon Resistance,] and went out to Echo Canyon with other men to prevent the U.S. Army from entering the Salt Lake Valley.[102] Barbara and the children anxiously awaited his return, praying each night for his safety as the little family prepared to retire. It is said that General Albert Sidney Johnston of the U.S. Army was never out-maneuvered by anyone except Brigham Young and the Mormons. And so it was that Barbara gratefully welcomed William home, safe from battle, which had been avoided.

There were crickets and grasshoppers that plagued the pioneers, making food scarce and hungry stomachs. William was called to fill a mission back in the states and Barbara was left to provide and care for the family the many months he was away.

All cooking in these times was done over a fireplace. You can imagine the joy of Barbara, the day William brought home a cook stove from Salt Lake. She felt like a rich woman. There were many pleasant hours as well as the time put in to provide food and clothing. The Haws family enjoyed dancing, singing, parties, and picnics, of which there were plenty. There were conferences in Salt Lake, where they always thrilled to the sermons of the Prophet Brigham Young and the other leading brethren of the Church. To these people, the gospel was a way of life.

More children came to swell the joy of the home and to add work and sorrow: Ellie, Mary, Rhoda, Milly, and little John who stayed in this world only a short time. He was buried in the Provo graveyard.

Another luxury was added to this happy home. William was employed on the police force in Salt Lake for a year. His wages were $2.00 a day and out of this, he saved $95.00, which paid for a sewing machine for Barbara. Barbara was indeed a proud woman to possess such a luxury.

In 1875, William married a second wife, Martha Barrett. It was hard for Barbara to share William, but this was Church policy, and Barbara never questioned the doctrines of the Church.

When it was decided to send Saints to settle in Arizona, William was among those called to go. He took his two families, and with wagons piled high with household goods and bedding, food supplies, farming implements, occupied chicken coops, grain for the animals and fowl, and children, they set out for a new home in Arizona. They traveled in company of quite a few families who were also going to build new homes in the Arizona Territory.

The long trip from Provo to Forestdale in the Mogollon mountains was pleasant in spite of dust, sandbanks, mud holes, broken wagons, hot sun, wind and rain, sickness, Indian scares, and outlaws. They built a big campfire at night, and sometimes there was singing, dancing, and storytelling around [it]. Oftentimes there were ranches and settlements where relatives and friends lived. At these places, the wagons always stopped for a few days or a few weeks while the animals and weary travelers rested. The group always stopped on Sunday, no matter where they were, to rest and worship.

Forestdale was a beautiful little ranch where William stopped to make his home. The snow was very deep in the winter, and the valley was a lush green all summer. There were many Apache Indians near where they made their home. One day an old woman wanted to trade her papoose to Barbara for a squash. The Indian got the squash, but Barbara also insisted that she should keep her baby, as a trade was unnecessary. A young Indian brave once came to the house and asked Ellie to make him a shirt of the bright red calico, which he had purchased from the trading post. Ellie made the shirt for him, and he insisted in arranging her hair in the way of an Apache woman. He then asked William if he might have his daughter for a wife, at which William explained that Ellie was already promised to a man named Will Follett.[103] The Indian left quite satisfied with the explanation.

To help out with finances, Barbara, who was an excellent cook, went to Fort Apache to cook for a few months. While there, the Indians came and staged a war dance and surrounded the fort. There was much excitement among the women. Some were hysterical, others were praying; Barbara was very much interested in what was going on among the soldiers, and she closely watched the maneuvers of the Indians. One woman came to Barbara and chided her saying, “Mrs. Haws, why aren’t you joining us in prayers?” “I’ve already said my prayers,” was Barbara’s answer.

Jane, Bill, and Ellie were now married, and Jane and Bill were living in Provo. After a few years of farming and dairying, William decided to move on to Pima, Arizona, on the Gila River. George had married and lived there and highly recommended it to his father. Again the wagons were loaded and the family moved on. Pima proved to be a delightful place.

At this point of our story, the U.S. Government began legislation against polygamy, the practice of marrying more than one wife at a time. Eventually, the U.S. Marshals began hunting down all polygamous families in the Arizona settlements. William knew it would only be a matter of time before they would come after him. A place had been located in Old Mexico, close to Casas Grandes, where the Mormons were going. William pondered for many days as to what he should do. Finally, he approached Barbara with, “I guess I will have to strike out for Mexico.” Barbara had been awaiting his decision for days. She knew that if he were arrested, he would have to spend possibly several years in a prison. She had moved many times with this man and even though both were no longer youngsters, she knew they would survive another move and more if necessary.

Finally, it was decided that she would stay and try to maintain the farm they owned in Pima. William and Martha would go on to Mexico, get settled in a new home as soon as possible, and as soon as an adequate living could be established, Barbara would sell the Pima farm and join them in Mexico, or William and Martha would move back to Pima.

The morning they left, Barbara stood by the gate after William and Martha had long passed out of sight, and thought about all that lay ahead of them. Would she ever be able to endure this separation?

Mary and Rhoda married, and still William did not send for her. Letters were few and far between, as there was no regular mail service. Their son George had become an object for the marshal’s search, and he too had found it necessary to go to Mexico. He wrote to Hyrum and Rhoda [Cluff] to bring his wife, Susan, to Mexico. Barbara made the trip with them. She took with her all the extra food and clothing she could spare. Everyone had told them of the hard time the Mormon people were having in Mexico. At last the long trip was made in a wagon and finally they reached the settlement where, once again, she was with William. How sweet those days were! She and William walked [talked?] for hours discussing their situation. William expressed his regret at their separation but his gratitude that Barbara was not subjected to the hard and meager life of this Mexican settlement.

Back in Pima, Barbara took a job cooking at Fort Thomas, and she sent every extra penny to William in Mexico. Her aim was to make life a little easier for William and Martha and their children, so far away. About this time, a special problem came before the president of the Mexican Stake. Five Mexican women who had joined the Church were widows with children, and all five were desperate, as they had no way of providing for their children and no home for them. It was decided that five of the LDS men in the colonies should marry them and provide for them. William was asked to take the woman named Tooley, who had one small boy.[104] Now William had two families to provide for, and still Barbara was in Pima. When word reached Barbara of this new addition of their troubles, she cried. But again, she worked harder, always hoping that in just a few months, perhaps she would again be able to join William and they could resume a home life.

The mail was slow and [letters were] far between, but William wrote whenever he had a chance to send a letter. His last letter had sounded discouraging. He wrote that he had not been feeling too well. Now another letter came, this time from Rhoda. William had died weeks before, although the letter had been written at the time of the funeral.[105] Barbara read and reread the letter. For hours she sat with the letter in her hands. It seemed that her whole life lay before her. She remembered Nauvoo, Salt Lake, Forestdale, and Pima. She remembered their little Johnny, who was with his father now. What a grand time they must be having. She belonged to William, and he to her. They would meet again someday.

Barbara went many times to Mexico to see her children there and to visit William’s grave. She never went to see Martha. Martha’s boys would often go to see Aunt Barbara, and she always made [a fuss] over them.[106] She always visited the Mexican wife, Tooley, and her children. Aunt Tooley was a very neat housekeeper, and her home, though small, was always spotless.

Barbara was a great walker. Wherever she was, she always spent hours walking out into the country or hills. Her grandchildren loved to accompany her, for she was a gifted storyteller, and on these occasions, she often walked and told these children stories. When she was eighty-five years old, she got her second sight and could see without her glasses. She liked to do cross stitch, and many were the beautiful checked gingham aprons she made for her granddaughters and friends. She was always busy sewing, knitting, quilt making, and as she worked, she hummed a little tune very low.

In her last years, she was bedfast from falling and breaking her hip. No one heard her complain. She died March 1936. Had she lived until July, she would have been 100 years old.

Ellis and Boone:

Beginning with William’s marriage in 1875 to a second wife, polygamy greatly influenced all aspects of Barbara’s life. Polygamy was probably part of the reason for coming to Arizona and certainly was the reason for William and Martha’s move to Mexico. Even after William’s death in 1895, Barbara had the complicated relationship of two other widows and two other families. This sketch makes it sound like there was a rift between Barbara and Martha; while that may have been true, Martha Haws died on September 2, 1916, in Salt Lake City, nearly twenty years before Barbara died. The author of this sketch, Barbara’s daughter, certainly discusses the difficulties with living polygamy, hints at some of the complications, but does not make it the only aspect of Barbara’s life worth reporting.

Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Sarah Francelle Coleman, called Francelle or Lell

Birth: March 22, 1860; Pinto, Washington Co., Utah

Parents: Prime Thornton Coleman and Emma Beck Evans

Marriage: Joseph Neal Heywood; January 12, 1876

Children: Joseph Neal (1876), Spence Coleman (1878), Martha Emma (1883), Ella (1884), Ida Etta (1887), Leland (1892), Serepta Francelle (1894), David Evans (1896), Sarah Velma (1898), Robert Tassie (1900), Irving Yates (1902)

Death: February 9, 1937; Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., California

Burial: Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood was born in Pinto, Washington County, Utah, on March 22, 1860. Her parents were Prime Thornton Coleman and Emma B. Evans Coleman. She was their first child. Later they had another daughter and two sons.

In the early seventies, Francelle’s father was called by the Church authorities to take the Pinto herd of cattle to a ranch near the Nevada line.[107] Three days travel over desert among foothills and through groves of pine and cedar, in a heavy wagon loaded with necessary household goods and dairy equipment, brought the family to a clear stream of mountain water.

There was work for all to do. Francelle helped milk cows, and worked in the house washing dishes, helping with the making of cheese, and rolling salt. In her diary, Francelle wrote, “It seems now as I look back that I spent years rolling salt with a rolling pin. In some way, the sacks had become wet. The salt had hardened into lumps which had to be made fine for the butter and cheese.”

There was still time for fun, such as horseback riding, picnicking, and reading. Even though Francelle’s family had little opportunity for formal education, there was a great desire to learn, and much good reading and discussions about worthwhile things filled many long evening hours.

The nearest neighbor to the Colemans was José C. Franselia, known as “Spanish George.”[108] He owned a ranch, a band of horses, and all the men that worked on his ranch. It was ten miles distant and was known as “Spanish Hollow.”

A few miles beyond Spanish Hollow, a Bennion family from Utah was camped for the summer, to graze sheep. Several Sundays that summer Francelle and her family traveled in covered wagon, with their picnic, to visit at Spanish Hollow or with the Bennions.

Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood, 1918. Photo courtesy of Richard Heywood.

As summer advanced, the spring rains that fed the creek on which Francelle’s family were located began to dry up. The cattle wandered up and down the creek bed to find the holes of water. Soon there was no water, even for household use. Something had to be done. Spanish George happened along and saw the situation. He knew Prime T. Coleman was an indefatigable worker, dependable and honest, and would be an asset to his ranch. So a partnership was formed between the two men, and the Coleman family was on the move again.

At the end of two days, the family had driven into Spring Valley just as the sun had dropped behind the mountain. Its rays glimmered on the white and pink cliffs at the mountain’s base and were reflected in the hundreds of sparkling springs that nestled in the green meadows and mirrored the cliffs and great pines towering above. It was a picture that brought peace and contentment to the weary Coleman family.

Here, Francelle’s family camped near the home of William B. Maxwell, a hot-blooded Southern aristocrat and a member of the Mormon Battalion.[109] After a short time there, the Coleman family soon traveled the fifteen-mile stretch to Camp Valley, their destination.

They moved into a three-roomed, dirt-roofed, squatty house. But the mother soon created a “homey” spirit that permeated the entire ranch. The father with his kit of tools put a shelf here, a cupboard there, straightened sagging doors, cleaned the yards, and gave an air of thrift to the ranch.

When fall came, Francelle was sent to Pinto to attend a three month’s school. She boarded with Margaret Haskell.[110] After the holidays, Francelle’s father came to take her home. They stopped in Spring Valley on the way to visit the Maxwells. The Maxwell girls were very excited and talked like magpies, telling of the new young man teacher that was coming there soon to be their “Master.” In the midst of their jabber, her father called, “Fr–a–n–celle!” He always prolonged the already long name.

“Fr–a–n–celle, I’m waiting for you.”

After reaching home, Francelle’s mother arranged for her and her sister Etta to attend the school in Spring Valley when it opened there. They were to board with “Ma” Maxwell.[111]

The few weeks spent at the ranch before school began were [busy ones. W]ith the help of two boys, Francelle, her sister, their mother, and a hired girl, cooking was done for twenty-five to thirty men.[112] The diet was beef three times a day, soup, vegetables, black coffee, hot biscuits, cheese, butter, and chilies.

When word came that school would soon start, Francelle and Etta were taken by their father to Spring Valley. Mr. Joseph Neal Heywood was the young “School Master.” The three months summer school began in May 1873. The three mile walk to and from school along the foothills, across the soft meadow grass, was always a pleasant memory to Francelle. She really and truly felt sorry when school closed and she would be returning to the ranch and “Master” would be leaving.

Back at the ranch, their mother warned the girls against being free with the class of men at the ranch. Elijah Pomeroy, whom Francelle’s sister Etta later married, was the only man with whom they were allowed to go riding.[113]

Arrangements were made at the ranch by Spanish George to celebrate September 21st as Mexican Independence Day. Many guests from near and far were invited. One among the many guests that began to arrive on September 20th, in wagons, carriages or on horseback, was a young man, Enoch Bennion.[114] He and Francelle fell in love with each other, but before any plans for their future life together could be made, his sudden death put an end to the romance.

In the fall of 1873, the Coleman family moved to Spring Valley, near the schoolhouse. One Sunday evening, after having had supper and a visit with the Maxwell girls, Mr. Heywood (no longer just called “Master”) insisted upon escorting ’Lell home. (Francelle was then called ’Lell). As they walked rather quietly toward her home, he slowly and deliberately made the following statement: “I don’t want you to answer now, but when you are old enough, I want you to marry me.”

Francelle asked, “When do you think I will be old enough to answer?”

“Oh, there is plenty of time. You can talk with your mother about it and see what she thinks,” he replied.

Francelle said, “I can tell you now that I like you.”

“All right then, someday you will be my little wife,” he answered.

As Francelle entered the door, after Mr. Heywood left, her mother discerned something had happened to Francelle, that she was in love. Later in a conversation overheard between her mother and father, after Mr. Heywood had asked if he could marry Francelle, she learned that her father had told him, “I think she is only a child and I want to make something of her.”

She said that after years of experience with her own children, the first query was easily answered, but that the second question in her mind always remained a mystery. The ever moving tide of life carried ’Lell safely through the perilous stream of childhood and launched her safely on the emotional waters in the “Bay of Romance.”

In May 1873, Mr. Heywood went to Nevada to teach. Sometime in the summer of 1874, ’Lell became engaged to marry him. The period between engagement and marriage should have been one of romance, as to most girls it would have been. But being only fourteen years old, ’Lell continued in her childish sport of horseback riding and helping with the milking, cooking, and washing dishes. Moreover, during that summer, Mr. Heywood had gone back to his home in Washington, Utah.

Francelle and Mr. Heywood—the name Francelle always used in speaking to him or of him throughout her life—were married January 12, 1876, in Spring Valley. Mr. Heywood went to Carson City, Nevada, to procure the license for marriage. After returning with it and while showing it to ’Lell’s mother, it slipped out of his hand and almost went up the fireplace. Francelle often wondered just what her life might have been if the license had actually “gone up in smoke.”

Material had been purchased for a beautiful wedding dress. But just prior to the marriage, a lady had passed away. Since it was impossible to buy in time or at the time material for her burial clothes, the material supposed to have been for Francelle’s wedding gown had to be used for burial clothes. So Francelle was married in a green alpaca dress. Later, July 17, 1876, the couple was sealed for time and all eternity in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Pioneer life in those days was very rugged. Francelle and Mr. Heywood and their family moved to Upper Kanab, Utah, with her parents and their families. Joseph Neal Jr., the Heywood’s oldest child, had been born in Spring Valley. Spence Coleman Heywood, the second child, was born in Upper Kanab.

Later the family moved to Arizona. After their arduous journey, the pioneers finally arrived at their destination on January 15, 1881. They first settled in Alpine. Martha Emma (Mattie), Ella, Ida, Leland, and Serepta were born there. Ida, Mattie, and Serepta, the girls who died while the family was living in Alpine, are buried there.[115]

Some of the hardships suffered by these early pioneers were fear of the Indians on the war path; heavy rains that caused the sod-roofed houses to leak long after the rains had ceased [and] also caused vegetables to rot in the ground; [and] the variety of wheat that had been planted was not suitable for anything but sticky bread, and no fruits were available.

Francelle had much heavy work to do, work that only a man should do, but no other help could be provided, as every family in that area had had more than enough hard work to do, and it was necessary for the women to help in order to survive.

Besides helping with the men’s work, Francelle had all the household duties to perform, with the help of the children who were old enough, such as cooking, sewing for every member of the family, milking cows, making cheese and butter, and doing nursing when there was any illness in her own family or in other families where her help was needed.

She and Mr. Heywood worked together, training their children to maintain high ideals [and] to strive for the best education possible. [They worked] to teach the [children] the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to teach them the importance of earnestly living God’s commandments, developing spiritual values in life, and understanding the goodness of God and his love for all His children.

While in Alpine, Mr. Heywood was called to fill a mission for his church in New Zealand. He was gone three years. Francelle taught school in St. Johns, in a nearby town called Egypt, and in Luna Valley, New Mexico, to pay his expenses while gone and to support the family.

After Mr. Heywood returned from his mission and after Serepta passed away, the family moved to St. Johns, Arizona, but they kept the home in Alpine and the father and older boys still maintained the 160-acre ranch at Alpine.

In St. Johns, Velma and David were born. After four years of living in St. Johns, the family moved to Thatcher, Arizona, where Francelle’s parents were then living.

One reason, and a very important one, that the family moved to St. Johns and then later to Thatcher was because of the heart condition from which Francelle was suffering. She needed to be in a lower altitude. Even then, the doctor gave her only ten years to live at best. However, in the lower altitude of Thatcher, her heart improved. Robert and Yates were born in Thatcher.

Mr. Heywood was accidently killed on May 17, 1904, when thrown from a buck-rake while working in the field. His neck was broken. He was fifty-two. ’Lell was forty-six. This was a great tragedy for Francelle and her family.

Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood, with her mother and some of her children, about 1894; from left, Sarepta, Francelle, Ella, Leland (holding baby bottle) Heywood, and Emma Coleman; photographer Margaret J. Overson. Photo courtesy of Richard Heywood.

Only a short time before this happened, Mr. Heywood had purchased a twenty-acre farm with a small down payment and what seemed a very heavy mortgage at that time. So it was imperative for Francelle to find some kind of remunerative work to do in order to support her family and be able to keep the farm. She felt it was necessary to keep the farm, because it would give work for her growing boys, with the many jobs required on a farm, and so would keep them out of mischief. It was a very smart thing to do, as it kept her family working together, building very close family ties. The boys have all become successful, honorable, educated men and have reared fine families of their own, due to their mother’s insight. Of course, the two girls, Ella and Velma, had their share of the chores and joys of family life through the training and way of life provided by their mother’s untiring efforts.

Immediately after her husband’s death, Francelle began preparing to take the required examinations to once again become a teacher. She felt that if she could teach school, her working hours outside the home would correspond with the school hours of her children. Then she could be home with her children when they were home. That helped the ones inclined to be “wayward” to learn to walk “the straight and narrow path.”[116]

She took the examinations three times before successfully passing them. Her dogged determination just would not allow her to give up.

During that time, she also suffered months of severe illness, a combination of typhoid fever, bronchitis, and whooping cough. Her mother nursed her. Kind neighbors asked her who she would like to have take her children when she died. She answered, “I am not going to die. I can rear my children better than anyone else can, and I will live to do it.” And she did.

Francelle’s own schooling, because of her pioneer life, had been very limited, but she was determined to learn all she could and she became an excellent and much loved teacher. She usually had to teach in a town other than Thatcher, the town in which she lived, driving there by horse and buggy. The School Board in Thatcher, called “Trustees,” wanted to import their teachers, college graduates, from the East.[117]

After all her children, for one reason or another, had flown the home nest, the twenty-acre farm was sold, and Francelle purchased a home in Mesa, Arizona, where her sister lived. She taught school for a brief period at Blue Point, a few miles from Mesa. Then she retired from teaching, which she had done for more than twenty-five years, besides rearing her family.

When Leland decided he would like to become a dentist, he came to Los Angeles, California to attend the University of Southern California. His lovely wife, Margaret, qualified as a teacher in the Los Angeles City Schools and taught in order to help him. They had a little daughter, Josephine, so Francelle came to Los Angeles and lived with them to help and to care for the little girl while they were both in school.

After Leland graduated from dental college in June 1928, he and his family moved to Arizona. Because Francelle’s health was better in the low altitude in California, she made her home with Velma the remainder of her life. Her heart finally gave up. She passed away in Los Angeles, February 9, 1937. She was almost seventy-seven years old when she passed away. She was taken to Thatcher, Arizona, for the funeral and was buried beside her husband. Five of her sons served as pallbearers.

Francelle was never idle, even after she had reared a family, helped with the grandchildren, and retired from many years of teaching. When not doing necessary household chores, she was always busy knitting, crocheting, netting, sewing, reading, or writing sketches of her life and interesting experiences, in both prose and poetry. She always kept her high ideals, gave encouragement to others, and was a friend to everyone, especially to those who seemed to be in need.

Ellis and Boone:

A much longer and much franker biography was written for Francelle Heywood by her daughter-in-law Margaret. Grandson Richard Heywood thought the following information should be included here (the quotes are from Margaret’s sketch, but other information was edited by Richard).[118]

Of the trip to Arizona, Francelle’s sister Etta Pomeroy wrote, “My sister, Lell, and two children drove one wagon to which were hitched a very fiery, high-strung span of sarel [sorrel] mares, afterwards said to be one of the finest teams in Apache County.[119] Sitting beside her on that high wagon seat of the covered wagon were her two little boys, Neal, just turned four years old, and Spence, two.”[120]

Years later, speaking of the journey, Lell said, “It was a most shattering experience. The driving to the Colorado was not so bad, and being ferried across the river was interesting; but the driving over Lee’s Back Bone was the most terrifying, grueling experience of my life. Actually, there was no well-marked road. It was a trail perilously narrow in places, wider in others, but always steep hills or dangerous dugways or curves. Sometimes I wonder how I did it.”[121]

When the family moved to Thatcher, they first moved into a large tent, later moving into a small three-bedroom house. Lell was happy to be living again near her parents and set to work, with their help, to make it comfortable and homelike. By late summer of 1895, the family was prosperous enough for Neal to be sent to Provo for school and then he served a mission.

When Joseph Neal Heywood Jr. returned from his mission, he wrote, “There was no question of their need of me. It was pitiful to see their condition. Mother, of course, was never very well. Father, not strong at any time, had been sick; and there were four small children: Leland, ten, David, five, Velma, three, Robert, one, and Yates on the way.”[122] Yates was born November 11, 1902.

All the Heywood and Coleman people had a rather intense desire for knowledge and for education. When remembering the time spent in Apache County, Lell’s son, Neal, said, “Small as I was, I was seat-mate to my mother and subsequently my grandmother in the rough lumber seats in one-teacher schools. Mother taught the first school in Alpine, Arizona. The patrons sending their children would donate commodities such as flour, sugar, or such as they possessed. In those one-teacher schools all students were in reading classes, not grades. The age range was from six-year old to adulthood.”[123]

The descendants of Francelle Coleman Heywood have, through the ensuing years, used education to make their own lives better and to improve the communities where they lived.

Ann Horton Matthews Holladay

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Ann Horton Matthews[124]

Birth: December 15, 1838; Noxubee Co., Mississippi[125]

Parents: Joseph Lazarus Matthews[126] and Rhoda Carroll

Marriage 1: Marion Perkins, 1853 (div)[127]

Marriage 2: Thomas Wiley Middleton Holladay;[128] April 1, 1856

Children: George Thomas (1857), Joseph John (1859), Daniel Wiley (1860), Julia Ann (1862), David Archibald (1863), Charles Eugene (1865), Lenora McRay (1867), Henrietta Caroline (1869), Rhoda Polly (1873), Franklin Hollis (1876)

Death: January 10, 1923;[129] Pima, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: Pima, Graham Co., Arizona

Ann Horton Mathews was born December 15, 1838 in Nebraska, Noxbec, Mississippi.[130] Her father owned a large cotton plantation and had many slaves. Among them [was] Ann’s own Negro Mammy whom she loved dearly but had to give up when her parents sold their land. They gave their slaves their freedom. After the missionaries brought the gospel to them, they felt it was true and her family joined the Church and began getting ready to join the Latter-day Saints, when the Saints were living in Nauvoo. Ann was baptized in the Mississippi River when nine [eight] years old.[131]

Ann Horton Matthews Holladay. Photo courtesy of Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:397.

Her people were among the Saints driven from their homes after the Prophet Joseph was murdered. It was a trying time for one so young to be left at Winter Quarters with her mother and two older sisters, when her father was chosen as one of the five scouts to go with Brigham Young’s first company to the Rocky Mountains in 1847.

Her father returned that winter; he took the family and helped others to make the long, hard journey to the chosen Salt Lake Valley that was to be their new home. Ann remembered well this long hard trail, walking part of the time. This family reached the valley in 1848, and found many other Mississippi Saints located on farms near the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon. They made this little settlement their home also. It was named after John D. Holladay [Ann’s future father-in-law]. It was a few miles from Salt Lake City and still bears the name Holladay. Here by a campfire on November 2, 1848, Ann’s oldest sister Mahalia Ann Rebecca was married to John Daniel Holladay. Ann had another sister, Julia Antoinette, and a baby brother who died as a child. She had eleven half brothers and sisters because Church authorities considered Joseph Mathews, her father, worthy to live in polygamy; so he married Polly Boss in 1848, a gifted nurse who bore him nine children, and later in 1865, he married Martha Jane Potter, who bore him two sons.

These families stuck together through thick and thin, and Ann had plenty of experience in helping raise their children, her mother being frail after the death of little Anson.

In 1851, Ann’s father was once more needed as a scout and pioneer and, with his family and the Holladay family, and many others, went with Charles Rich and Amasa M. Lyman to California to settle San Bernardino.[132] Ann remembered her father telling his family that the Prophet Brigham Young had told the leaders of this company they would build a city on a rich plain from which they could look up at high mountains and see two arrowheads on its side. These proved to be deep canyons but look[ed] exactly like arrowheads. Sure enough, after a long, hard journey in wagons with ox teams and horses and cattle, this company went down through the desert they had crossed going from Utah through Nevada and part of California, and finally settled on the great rancho bought from a Mexican, Don Antonio Maria Lugo, for $77,500.[133] The down payment was made and the settlers began to lay out the city, and folks were given the right to begin building homes. There were about 437 men, women, and children. The women lived in their wagon homes, planted gardens, and helped the men build a stockade fence around a large plot of ground to protect them from Indians and renegade Mexicans. While some of their men built the first road into the San Bernardino Mountains to bring timber to the valley, others built sawmills [or] flourmills and raised great fields of grain. Of course, Ann had plenty of church activities with many of the young people, [who] enjoyed hayrack rides, candy pulls, and dancing at the bowery in their spare time. She was a good camp cook and seamstress, making all her own clothes, and, helping others, she became a good nurse.

Everyone enjoyed the grand celebration the town had called Thanksgiving for their great harvest on September 4, 1852. There was a new bowery built, banners and flags hung, and one huge strip crossed the front of the stage; it said: “Holiness to the Lord.” Ann helped Aunt Polly, as she called her father’s second wife, who had borne four little babies, and [Ann] knew the grief of seeing two of her little half-brothers die while in San Bernardino. Then, Ann married a brother to her sister Mahalia’s husband, Thomas Willey Middleton Holladay, on April 1, 1856.[134] They owned a lot and a fairly good house, where her oldest child George Thomas Holladay was born on January 10, 1857, in San Bernardino. Here, two years later, Joseph John Holladay was born on May 27, 1859. He died on June 3, 1859. Because the United States government had sent Johnston’s Army to Utah to exterminate the Mormons, these Saints, ever ready to obey their prophet leader to defend their friends and religion, gave up their newly made homes and once more made their way by covered wagon back to their church home, Utah, to do what good they could.

This was a long hard journey for Ann and her little boy, but her husband was a strong, husky young man and they reached Utah in the winter. Another baby boy came to them while they lived in Payson, Utah, on April 26, 1860. They named him Daniel Willey. Later these young folks made a good home in Spring Lake, Utah, where the Holladays owned and operated large farms. They helped bring water from the canyons to irrigate them and enjoyed hunting and fishing on Utah Lake.

Thomas and Ann had their first little girl, born on January 4, 1862, here in Spring Lake. They named her Julia Ann for his sister Julia and her own name Ann. Then they moved to Santaquin near there and had born to them six other children including David Archibald, who was scalded to death when five months old, Charles Eugene, Lenora McRay, Henrietta Caroline, Rhoda Polly, and Franklin Hollis.[135] When this little boy was a little over two years old, about 1879, Tom and Ann again left their home and with many other families, among whom were her father and mother and his two other wives and families, and Tom’s brother-in-law and their families, and his new son-in-law and three married sons and their families. It was another call from their inspired builder Brigham Young for some of the Mormons to go build up settlements in far-off Arizona. There southern-born people desired a warmer climate in their old age, so they gladly made the 800-mile trip again in covered wagons pulled by ox teams and horses to their new and last homeland: Gila Valley, Arizona.

Ann and Thomas had been to the old Endowment House and had been sealed by the priesthood for time and eternity according to the laws of their church on September 27, 1862, and their young people who were married had all had their ordinances performed there. Her father had filled a mission to the southern states, where he converted many of their relations who came west later.

Ann, being an older woman [who had] born ten children of her own by this time and having so many relatives in this new land, naturally became the best midwife in the Gila Valley, and for years she could be called anytime, day or night, to deliver new babies anywhere in the valley. She traveled [by] horseback with her little black satchel of instruments and was not only the midwife but tended many other sick [people] and became known as Aunt Ann, the best doctor and nurse in the valley. Ann and Tom settled in Pima, then known as Smithville, where her daughters and families settled while her father, Joseph Mathews, and his sons settled a few miles west, and they with others made a town known for many years as Matthewsville, later changed to Glenbar.

In Pima, Ann buried her son Eugene after he had been shot in 1895 because he stuck up for his dog (and helped raise his three orphan children),[136] her own mother Rhoda Carroll who died at the age of seventy-eight,[137] and her son-in-law Jack Green, who was killed out in the hills.[138] Because his hands were good identification marks for his body, they had been laid over a campfire and burned to a crisp by his murderers. She took in his wife, Rhoda Polly, and her three sons and raised the sons till the last one married in 1910. Her son Wiley was brought to her home to die because his body had been crushed till a silver dollar was bent in his pocket by a mine cave-in.[139]

When she and her husband were old, in 1908, she insisted he go live with his daughter Henrietta Waddell, and she kept the old adobe home in Pima until a few years before her death, when she sold it to her granddaughter Julia Nuttall and husband and moved into a small lumber home put on her daughter Rhoda Polly’s home lot, where they could help care for her better. She died January 11, 1923 and was buried in Pima Cemetery beside her mother, Rhoda Carroll, on January 12, 1923. She left a numerous posterity.

Ellis and Boone:

The Holladay family was at least accidentally associated with the Wham Paymaster Robbery of May 11, 1889. The robbery occurred only a short distance past the Holladay ranch house as the payroll was being carried between Fort Grant and Fort Thomas. Ann’s youngest son, Hollis, “was in the group of young men that swam in the Gila River, who discovered some of the guns supposedly used at the time of the robbery.”[140] Mormons were blamed for the robbery, although some were lapsed, or later excommunicated, Mormons. Eventually, a trial was held in Tucson, but all were acquitted.[141]

The deaths of Eugene Holladay and Jack Green were both indirectly associated with the Wham Paymaster Robbery. A little more than two years after the robbery, in late November 1891, John Secress Green, who was married to Ann’s daughter Rhoda Polly, was shot near Kyrene, Arizona, south of Tempe. He fell into the campfire with the result that the body was partially consumed, and when the body was found on December 21, 1891, it was interred at the murder site. Lyman Follett, who had been tried for the Wham robbery, then showed up at Pima with a “power of attorney” and sold the Green ranch. Rhoda Polly, as widow, received none of the money. By early December 1892, Follett was arrested for the murder, but charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.[142]

Ann’s son, Eugene Holladay, who had been a close friend of Green, then became involved in gathering evidence against Follett. In November 1893, Green’s body was exhumed, but no further indictments resulted. Also involved were two Hunt brothers who purchased a portion of the Green ranch and ran a distillery near Pima. Eugene Holladay was killed on August 29, 1895, by John Hunt at the distillery after an altercation between the two men (partly over a dog). Hunt was also acquitted because he swore it was self-defense.[143]

All of these events undoubtedly took a toll on the Holladay family; Ann was living alone in Pima, Graham Co., Arizona, in both 1910 and 1920.[144] The sketch for Ann’s son Hollis, however, has a few short sentences describing a more pleasant time: “Hollis came to the [Gila] valley at the age of six in a covered wagon. He lived in Pima, Arizona, most of his life. As a young man, Hollis and his brother gathered bat guano from Red Knolls to sell for fertilizer.”[145] Mundane events must have been welcomed by Ann Holladay.

Rebecca Jane Durfee Houghton

Roberta Flake Clayton, Interview

Maiden Name: Rebecca Durfee

Birth: March 11, 1878; Belmont, Nye Co., Nevada

Parents: Joseph Smith Durfee and Ruth Ann Robinson[146]

Marriage: Reuben Benjamin Houghton; October 16, 1893

Children: Reuben Joseph (1916)

Death: July 8, 1942; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Born in Belmont, Nevada, [on] March 11, 1878, the daughter of Joseph S. and Ruth Ann Robinson Durfee, Rebecca came to Arizona when only five years old and settled with her parents in the Verde Valley.

She began her schooling at the age of seven when there were enough people up and down the valley to have a school. Her father had hauled lumber from Flagstaff and had built the one-roomed building and the desks and benches. This first school was held in 1885 with Miss Angie Jordan as teacher. She had come all the way from Portland, Maine, to visit a brother who had come West, and was prevailed upon to teach the school of fourteen children from the nearby ranches.

Rebecca Durfee Houghton with her son and two nieces; the children are (left to right) Leah Weakly, Reuben J. Houghton, and Georgia Weakly. Photo courtesy of Steve Houghton.

The Durfee children had to walk two miles, but that was not a hardship, says Rebecca, because they were so anxious to learn something and the weather was mild even in the winters. There were only eight months of school because the children were needed to help on the farms in the summers.

Rebecca’s chief pleasure was horseback riding, a pleasure she enjoyed much of her life. She always had her own mount. “Cooley” was her favorite, and to quote her “was the best little horse ever tied up in that much hide.”

The only diversions of her girlhood were an occasional dance or school play in which she always took part. Her home was a pleasant one, however, as her mother had a happy faculty of making the best of everything and was a good singer. Rebecca inherited from her Scotch Highlander grandfather plenty of grit, endurance, a jovial disposition, blue eyes, and black hair.

She found pleasure in her outdoor life and also had many suitors in the cowboys who were often at her home, but she gave her love and affection to Reuben B. Houghton, whom she married October 16, 1893. He had come to Arizona from California in 1882 and bought a ranch on Oak Creek, now known as the Page place for Mr. Houghton’s partner, James Page.

The wedding was the biggest event that the country around had ever known. It took place at the home of Mr. Page, and there were over one hundred grown people present besides the children that had to be brought along. Folks came from Flagstaff, Prescott, and all the surrounding country. It took over a ton of hay to feed the horses and the wedding supper cost $222. The women folks did the cooking. The wedding dress was of white henrietta cloth, trimmed with white silk lace.[147] The bride looked charming with her raven locks done up in the prevailing fashion and her clear, rosy complexion that needed no assistance from drug stores to make attractive. Justice of the Peace Robert McRoberts performed the ceremony. A big dance followed, and lasted until sunup the next day.

Mr. Houghton also had a forty-acre farm about twenty-two miles from her parent’s home, and though it was so near, she did not go home for six months [because], like her mother, she was a homebody. The first year she raised and marketed 360 turkeys besides being a hand on the farm. The Houghtons lived on the Oak Creek Ranch for two years, then traded it for 250 head of cattle and moved from there to Cherry Creek, where they stayed for five years.

Rebecca’s nearest neighbors were half a mile away, and the post office was three miles. Her husband would be gone on the range eighteen or twenty days, but she was a good shot and did not know the meaning of fear. One time there were thirty-four Indians camped near her home for a week gathering walnuts. They knew she was alone, but they also knew she had a gun and was not afraid to use it if necessary, and they did not bother her.

When they sold out there, they bought a ranch on the Hassayampa River, twelve miles from Prescott, where they got their supplies. Here she had her first divided skirts and rode among the cattle all the time, she and her husband looking after them themselves. Rebecca had been a good rider all her life and was never hurt by a horse, though she had one fall with her once. Another time she was riding a young pony that reared up on his hind legs, and she let herself fall for fear he was going over with her. Nothing did she ever do that she enjoyed like this free open life.

Her home was always the stopping place for transients, cowboys, prospectors, politicians, or anyone else that happened their way. Her husband was a good provider and she a good cook, which was a pleasing combination. An open door and a hearty welcome awaited all who came.

West/Riggs/Houghton Hotel, Snowflake. Photo courtesy of Steve Houghton.

For ten years on this ranch, with a wide-brimmed Stetson hat and her spurs as “persuaders,” she made an efficient cowhand; then they sold out and moved to Dewey, where they bought a lumber yard and had charge of a feed corral and stable.[148] They remained there during part of 1910 and until the latter part of November 1911, when they moved to Snowflake, reaching there December 4, 1911.

Their next investment was in a two-story house of nine rooms, and they went into the hotel business. Rebecca had kept a free one [meaning hotel] all of her married life, so she was capable of handling the public. She managed it nicely until 1920, when the illness of her husband made it necessary to give him her whole attention.

In the town of Snowflake, on May 24, 1916, came her greatest blessing—her firstborn and only child, a son, whom she named for his father. This boy was his mother’s constant companion, giving to her all the joy and happiness that a son can give.

It was in Snowflake also that the great joy of conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to her and made complete the story of her life.

Rebecca was a great reader, had a remarkable memory, and was a good conversationalist. Her home was her kingdom, her garden and chickens her pastime, but often she longed for her horses, cows, and life on the open range, a longing that remained with her until her passing from this life.

Ellis and Boone:

Although Reuben and Rebecca Houghton each had early Mormon ancestry, living in Nevada and along the Verde River did not afford an opportunity to be part of a congregation. Reuben Benjamin Houghton was born in January 1852 at Keokuk, Lee Co., Iowa; his father had died at Sugar Creek in 1851. His mother, Susan Conklin Gilson Houghton, then took her two children by Gilson and two children by Houghton to Utah with the James C. Snow Company of 1852. She died along the trail. It is not clear from limited research where Reuben Benjamin Houghton grew up or what surname he used before coming to Arizona.[149] Both of Rebecca’s parents also crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers.[150]

Nevertheless, Rebecca Houghton was not baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until she moved to Snowflake as an adult. Tansey Houghton, Rebecca’s daughter-in-law, later wrote that Reuben and Rebecca Houghton were on their way to Springerville to look at a ranch. When they arrived in Snowflake, Don Riggs sold them the Riggs Hotel. This building was originally built by Ezra West, so it was also known as the West Hotel. The property was L-shaped and large (three-quarters of a block); it included a big barn and a livery stable. Family members still reside on the property where the hotel stood.

Melissa Caroline Johnson Hunsaker

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Melissa Caroline Johnson

Birth: February 19, 1853; Savannah, Andrew Co., Missouri

Parents: Jarvis Johnson and Hester Ann Jackson

Marriage: Alexander Beckstead Hunsaker;[151] November 29, 1869

Children: Alexander (1870), Edgar (1872), Polly May (1874),[152] Essie Vernisha (1877), Jarvis Elbert (1879), Edna Melissa (1882), Abraham Leone (1884), Hester Lila (1886), Mary Ada (1888), Grace (1890), Velda Jean (1892), Oral Hugh (1898)

Death: January 17, 1921; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Melissa Caroline Johnson Hunsaker was born February 19, 1853, in Savannah, Missouri. Her parents were Jarvis and Hester Johnson. She was the second child of five children and was only six years old when her mother died. The following year, her father moved his family to Utah, where he remarried. Melissa Caroline then went to live with her step-grandmother.

She stayed with her step-grandmother until she was sixteen, when her step-grandmother died. Since her father was left with a large family, which included twins a few hours old, Melissa Caroline returned to his home to help care for the little ones. She spent one year with him, and it was during this time that she became acquainted with Alexander Hunsaker, whom she married November 29, 1869, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. They returned to make their home in Honeyville, Utah, until Alexander was called to labor among the Shoshone Lamanites. They labored among the Lamanites a total of nine years, during which time they lived in Washakie, Utah.

Melissa Caroline Johnson Hunsaker. Photo courtesy of Collection of the Children of Glenn Orth Stapley.

Soon after they entered this field of labor, Melissa was called to work in the Relief Society as first counselor. In this capacity, she labored among the people, teaching them the arts of housekeeping, clothing, knitting, and taking care of the sick. She labored faithfully among these people. When [Melissa and Alexander] were released in 1884, Melissa had borne a total of seven children, all of whom were living.

Melissa and Alexander and their young family returned to Honeyville but not for long. It was during this year that they were called to help settle virgin country in Arizona. They accepted this call and moved their family first to the Gila River country, spending one winter in Layton. Next, they moved to Snowflake where they lived two years. Finally, they moved to the Maricopa Stake in the Salt River Valley and located in what was known as the Alma Ward in Mesa. This ward was later called the Fourth Ward, and the “old” Fourth Ward Building (which now temporarily houses the Mesa Community College) was built on a corner of their property directly east from their home.

It was during the long journey from Utah that Melissa had the most harrowing experience of her life. The Hunsaker family had left Honeyville in the company of Alexander’s two brothers, Gordon and Hyrum, who assisted in driving the herd of cattle. When they reached the northern part of Arizona, they stopped at a small, abandoned cabin in order to rest for a few days. One morning, while Melissa was preparing breakfast, a band of Indians rode into camp and demanded food. Melissa was terrified, but with a prayer in her heart, she began to prepare extra food. While the Indians waited, they ransacked the contents of every wagon, looking for ammunition. Finally, they came into the cabin and sat in a circle and were fed. After eating, they went outside and held a powwow, then got on their horses, and to Melissa’s great relief, rode off. She was deeply grateful that no incident was provoked and that her family had been preserved from harm. The Indian band continued on to the next ranch where, for some reason, they killed all five members of the family residing there.

Soon after her arrival in Mesa, Melissa was again called to work in the Relief Society, this time as second counselor to Anna Kleinman, president of the Alma Ward Relief Society. [153] Later [Melissa] was chosen as first counselor and finally served as president of this group.

In December 1901, Melissa was called to fill the vacancy in the Maricopa Stake Relief Society presidency as second counselor to President Mabel A. Hakes.[154] [Melissa] labored here little more than a year when, in June 1902, she was chosen to serve as first counselor, the vacancy being caused by the death of Francelle Robson.[155] In 1905 Sister Hakes was released as she was moving to Bluewater, New Mexico, and Melissa Hunsaker was called to serve as Relief Society president of the Maricopa Stake. Here she labored faithfully for seven years, when she chose to be released because of ill health.

During the years spent in the service of the Relief Society, she was a shining light to all her co-workers. She was a noble woman, the mother of twelve children, eleven of whom she reared to adulthood. Her family loved and revered her, and met often at her home to honor her and show their great love.

Ellis and Boone:

Alexander Hunsaker passed away on June 10, 1910; Melissa Johnson Hunsaker died on January 17, 1921. They are both buried in the Mesa Cemetery.

The Hunsaker family’s moves when coming to Arizona (from Layton to Snowflake to Alma/Mesa) are not the normal sequence for Utah pioneers coming to Arizona, but they do represent a call to settle in Arizona with the specific location open. Elizabeth Curtis, who lived in the Gila Valley, reported that Erastus Snow told the people (possibly at Brigham City about 1880): “Brothers and Sisters, go somewhere but settle among the Saints wherever you do go. I think the Gila Valley is a very good place, but I do not advise any particular place, that is left to you.” Curtis concluded, “So, we decided to come here ourselves.”[156] Caroline Teeples told James McClintock that her husband wanted to move, and that Erastus Snow stopped in Millard County, Utah, on his way to Arizona in 1879. “Mr. Teeples had some fine teams of horses, mules and oxen,” she said, “and Erastus Snow invited him to come along with the party. He [meaning her husband] was not called to come here as most of the others were but had the privilege of settling just wherever he wanted to.”[157]

Nevertheless, one of the important contributions made by Melissa Hunsaker was her long years of service in the Maricopa Stake Relief Society. Relief Societies, as organized in Utah, were more autonomous than today. Most built their own buildings. Earl Merrill reported that the Maricopa Stake records for March 3, 1888, state: “At a priesthood meeting held at Mesa it was voted that the Relief Society of the Mesa Ward might build a house for meeting purposes independent of the Stake.”[158] Irene Pomeroy Crismon described a “long adobe room” that “belonged to the Relief Society. . . . They would hold Mutual in the Relief Society Room for the women. . . . Sunday School . . . would meet in the church house. The older ones would have class in the Relief Society Room.”[159] This was also the building where she first attended school.

An important part of early visiting teaching was the solicitation of contributions for charity work; this changed as the Relief Society began to operate more under the auspices of priesthood brethren.[160] Wanda LeBaron wrote of the Maricopa Stake, “The Church Budget program was changed in the 1930’s. Prior to that date the Ward and Stake organizations carried on projects to earn their own needed finances. The fantastic bazaars held yearly by the Relief Society were perhaps the most successful; but, of course, the Relief Society really needed more than the other groups” as they provided charitable help to their own members and the community as a whole.[161]

The end of Melissa Hunsaker’s tenure as president of the Maricopa Stake Relief Society was the beginning of the Relief Society’s emphasis on moral and social reform under the leadership of general president Emmeline Wells. The Relief Societies then supported legislation important to women and children, cooperated with other agencies in charity work, and campaigned for better public health services.[162]

Ann Eliza Tenney Smith Campbell Hunt

Burton R. Smith

Maiden Name: Ann Eliza Tenney

Birth: April 6, 1874; Payson, Utah Co., Utah

Parents: Warren Reed Tenney and Clara Victoria Longhurst

Marriage 1: Hyrum Burton Smith; February 24, 1890

Children: Burton Rush (1893), Carl Fountain (1896), Claradell (1900), Warren Reed (1903), Glennie (1907)

Marriage 2: Frank Campbell; October 13, 1919

Marriage 3: John Addison Hunt; February 24, 1933

Death: March 16, 1944; Phoenix, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Ann Eliza Tenney Smith was born April 6, 1874, to Warren Reed and Clara Victoria Longhurst Tenney at Payson, Utah. She was the third child in a family of nine children.

Because of his occupation as a millwright, her father was called to go on a mission to the settlements on the Little Colorado River. Sunset [was] on the east side of the river [and] Brigham City on the west side, below what is now the city of Winslow, about two miles. There the family had the experience of living under the law of the United Order, all things being in common, each man being assigned to perform the job best suited to his ability. The stake was presided over by Lot Smith the stake president; he also presided over the Sunset Order. They had a tanner who was also a leather worker, a potter who made dishes, a baker, farmers, stockmen, a sheep man, who was Uncle Locy Rogers, and a saw mill and grist mill man, who was Warren Tenney. The members all ate at a common table.

The old boiler and sawmill used in sawing the lumber for the St. George Temple was brought to the [Little] Colorado Stake and was put in shape to use; a water wheel to turn the grist mill was also built, all by Elder Tenney.

Ann Eliza Tenney with her brothers and sisters; seated, left to right, George Quail, Clara Longhurst (mother), Clara Victoria; standing: Emma Lamerica, Edwin Reed, Ann Eliza, Jess Milo, Heber Chase (front), Sarah Jane. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

After the Order was dissolved, the Tenney family moved from place to place, Warren always being involved as a millwright. Eliza, because she was with her father a great deal of the time, came to understand the workings of a steam boiler. Being a strong, young girl, she worked much as a boy might have done and was able to operate the steam engine of the sawmill when called upon, or the pump to supply water for the railroad where her father worked as a pumper, in the Williamson Valley near Mormon Lake and south of Flagstaff.

Prior to living in Flagstaff, the family had lived in Forest Dale, Springerville, Amity, Water Canyon, and Woodruff. Her schooling amounted to about four years, under adverse conditions of the times.

As a young girl in Flagstaff following her father’s death, she worked as a domestic servant for the Babbitt family and for the Riordan family.[163] Her services were always in demand and she had no trouble in having such employment while the family was there. The money received by her was in turn given to her mother to assist in supporting the family before and after the death of her father.

Sometime after the death of the father, the family moved to Snowflake, where her mother owned a home situated in the southwest corner of town on the banks of the Cottonwood Wash.

At this time, Eliza was a very strong young woman, due to the kind of work she had done with her father around the sawmills, etc. One day, she and a younger sister, Sarah, were walking and came by a house where Niels Hansen was plastering or laying bricks. As they passed near by, he flipped a bit of mortar at them. Eliza said to him “Niels, if you do that again I’ll throw you in that mortar box.” Niels took the dare, and she did throw him in the box as she had promised to do.

While the family was still at Flagstaff and Mormon Lake, Eliza had met a young cowboy, Hyrum Burton Smith, a son of Lot and Julia Ann Smith, and a romance had developed between them. On February 24, 1890, they were married by the Justice of Peace Andrew Locy Rogers, in his home at Snowflake. Preparations had been made for the wedding to be held in her own home, but a spring thaw had set in with a storm. The Cottonwood Wash was flooding, and the water had surrounded the home. Hyrum found it necessary to ride in and carry the bride out on his saddle horse. Fortunately, the house had been built on a high stone foundation. The wedding cake had been placed high on a table, but the water did not enter the house on account of the three-foot foundation. The cake was saved.

Following the wedding, Eliza went with her husband back to the Mormon Dairy south of Flagstaff at Mormon Lake. There she lived in summer, moving to the winter ranch on Canyon Diablo in winter. She spent many lonely times, often being left completely alone for as much as three weeks at a time. If she ever complained, no one ever mentioned it. She came back to Snowflake to be at home with her mother when her first child was born. The next son was born in Flagstaff.

In 1899 Hyrum purchased five acres of farm land and a house and lot in Snowflake from Mr. Albert Minnerly. The interests at Mormon Dairy were soon disposed of, and she moved with her two sons to Snowflake.

Ann Eliza Tenney Smith with daughter Claradell, 1900. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

Soon, Hyrum purchased a livery stable in Holbrook with a partner [named] Jack Smith. Eliza operated a hotel in the home, where the teams from the livery stable and the people using them stayed. Her food and rooms became well-known to many weary travelers who used the team and buggy as transportation and to the forest rangers who came to Snowflake.

When Hyrum sold the livery stable, he again went into the stock business, having both cattle and a band of sheep. He was accidently shot on March 16, 1910, leaving Eliza with both outfits, the cattle and the sheep, both of which were encumbered by mortgage to the banks.[164] She disposed of the cattle at once; the band of sheep was disposed of later in 1913.

That same year she purchased a homestead right and filed upon the land and made a ranch of it nine miles west of Pinedale. She proved up on this place and owned it until she passed away. The cattle she purchased with the ranch were finally sold, and the money placed in the Northern Arizona Bank, which failed. So the estate, except for the home and five acres of land in Snowflake, had disappeared. Through all her trials, she was never known to have complained about the situation.

She had gained considerable experience as a midwife, was an excellent practical nurse, and as long as she lived, she took cases into her home where the mothers had the best kind of care. Many there were who sang her praises, telling of the comfort given to them in time of need.

November 18, 1919, being alone except for the youngest daughter, Glennie, and feeling in need of a companion, she married Franklin Campbell for time and eternity in the St. George Temple. Their union proved to be a happy one for the couple. She did her best to be a mother to his children who were still at home, and he did the same for her little girl, who grew to love him dearly. He was stricken and died November 25, 1923, leaving her alone once more.

Following the death of Franklin Campbell, she continued living in the old home. She kept her cow and had chickens. The work of midwife gave some support for her. She had the mothers in many instances come to the home, where she could give her full attention to their needs. Numerous women have called her name blessed for the loving care given at the birth of their child.

During the ten years following the death of Franklin, her life had again been a lonely one, because her children were not with her, having moved from Snowflake. John Addison Hunt, a neighbor who lived across the street, had lost his wife, Nellie, some years before. The old friendship became a romance, and on February 24, 1933, they were married for time. This marriage did not work out for them. Each being well along in years, with fixed habits, likes, and dislikes, made [the marriage] incompatible, so they separated and he returned to his old home across the street. There was no bitterness and a friendship continued until death.

Her daughter Glennie, the wife of Garland Foscue Bushman, who had become a mother of three lovely children, was again living in Snowflake, which gave Eliza great joy having grandchildren nearby. This was not to last for long. Glennie passed away November 8, 1938. This was a sorrow which she was never able to overcome.

She took the children, Anna, Charles, and Clarence into her home, where she cared for them, again alone, while Garland was very much occupied raising the means to pay his debts resulting from Glennie’s illness and death. This took him into New Mexico. He was very seldom in Snowflake, so she had full responsibility for the care and keep of the children.

Ann Eliza Tenney Smith Campbell Hunt. Photo courtesy of Marta Moore.

[Then] Garland had again married a very lovely wife, Elsie Fern Schwantes, and had taken his children to Albuquerque, where they lived. The children had returned to Snowflake to be with their grandmother for a time. Garland had given his consent and arranged for Charles to visit with his grandfather, Preston Bushman, at Dry Lake. While there, he [Charles] fell from a horse and was dragged to death.[165] Eliza was greatly grieved by his death.

Shortly after this, she often complained of pains in her stomach but continued to work as usual. By the spring of 1944, she was unable to live alone so went to Phoenix for medical treatment and lived with her daughter Claradell DeWitt.

She passed away March 16, 1944, and was buried in Snowflake.[166] At her funeral, great tribute was paid her by the speakers, all of whom recalled her service to those who needed aid and comfort. It was said that she was a woman without guile. She was independent and during her life never called for help, always feeling that she could manage her business. She could work on the range or in the fields with any man.

As she presided in her home she was a queen, with all the lovely feminine graces enjoyed by lovely women. She never met a stranger and all who knew her admired her for her sterling qualities.

Ellis and Boone:

Although Eliza Campbell, as she was usually known, lived many years around Flagstaff and Tuba City, the move to Snowflake gave her a permanent home. Here she raised her children and each married a spouse from the area. The wedding trip of her son, Burton, illustrates the use of temples other than the St. George Temple. In early June 1915, four couples boarded the train in Holbrook: Burton R. Smith and Jessie Ballard, Pearl Hansen and Ben R. Hunt, Clara Hansen and John H. Miller, and Maurice Raban and Jennie Colvin. They traveled to California, changed trains at Barstow, and arrived in Salt Lake City about forty-eight hours later. There they were met by Lewis Swenson (a cousin of the Hansen girls) and Naomi James.[167] On June 10, 1915, four of the couples were married in the Salt Lake Temple, and the Rabans were married the next day. Amazingly, fifty years later all ten were still alive to celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary.[168]

Prior to the completion of the Arizona Temple in 1927, Latter-day Saints in Arizona had to travel to Utah to be married in a temple. Will C. Barnes later remembered the many couples traveling to St. George and called the Old Mormon Wagon Road the Honeymoon Trail.[169] But as soon as other temples were completed, the train was used to get to the Salt Lake City, Manti, or Logan Temples, particularly if there were relatives to visit in northern Utah. For example, Joseph and Emma Hansen were the only members of their family to settle in Arizona; they raised a large family in Joseph City and enjoyed visiting Swenson and Hansen relatives in central Utah. The oldest daughter, Mary, accompanied by other family members, traveled by wagon to be married in the Salt Lake Temple in 1904; all of the other children traveled by train, including Mary’s sisters, Pearl and Clara.

After their wedding, Burton and Jessie Smith first lived on a ranch near Clay Springs and then moved to Winslow where he worked for the Santa Fe Railway. He was always interested in creating a better community, and participated in, or served on boards for, the Winslow Memorial Hospital, Community Concert Association, Winslow PTA, Kiwanis Club, and Ministerial Association. He was bishop of the Winslow Ward for twelve years, was the first president of the Flagstaff Stake, and later a sealer in the Arizona Temple.[170] Burton Smith ended this sketch for his mother with “all who knew her admired her for her sterling qualities,” but surely this same statement could be made of him.

Anna Elese Schmutz Hunt

Autobiography

Maiden Name: Anna Elese Schmutz

Birth: March 22, 1860; Bollingen, Berne, Switzerland

Parents: Johannes Schmutz and Elizabetha Lehmann

Marriage: William James Hunt; March 22, 1878

Children: Annie Elizabeth (1879), William Albert (1880), Martha Louise (1883), Cilia (1884), Samuel Isaac (1886), Irene (1888), Charles (1890), Elroy (1892), Lester George (1897), Ida (1898), John Andrew (1901), Leonard (1907)

Death: January 16, 1951; Waterflow, San Juan Co., New Mexico

Burial: Waterflow, San Juan Co., New Mexico

I was born on March 22, 1860, in the town of Bollingen, three miles from the beautiful city of Berne, in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland. My parents were Johannes and Elizabeth Lehman Schmutz. When I was five years old, my father moved by team to La Chaux De Fonda, the French part of Switzerland.[171]

My schooling began when I was six years old. It was a French school. My father rented a farm, one mile from town. We lived in the second story of a large hotel that went with the place.

I was the seventh of a family of eleven children. We all had to learn to work on the farm. Father raised hay, flax, potatoes, grain, and vegetables for the market as well as for his family. Mother used to take in washings to help keep the family. With the help of other women, she would thrash the flax until it was like wool, then she would card it and have it woven into linen cloth for sheets, towels, and shirts for the family.

When I was eight years old, a scourge of diphtheria went through the town and one family lost all of their children. In another, all of them died but one little boy. Mother took him to our home, hoping he might escape, but he had been exposed to it and died, and then I took it and was very dangerously sick, but my life was spared for some purpose. I was isolated from the rest of the family and luckily none of the others took it.

I learned to knit my stockings when I was only seven. I started helping in the field when I was nine, carrying rocks off the land in a basket strapped on my back. At ten, I had to help keep the weeds out of the flax and the vegetable garden. Besides going to school in the spring, we children used to gather dandelions to sell for greens, and in the summer we used to go to the woods and hills to gather strawberries.

When I was twelve, we moved farther out in the country to another farm about three miles from town. I continued to help on the farm. I walked a mile to school and four miles to a Presbyterian Sunday School. We children did not mind those walks and went, rain or shine, in the springtime and summer.

My sister Lena and her husband, Christen Wenger, had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the year before, and when I was thirteen, two of the elders of that church came to visit them. We children had read much in the Bible, so we readily received the gospel message, and we were all baptized except my oldest brother. He never joined and was very bitter, doing all he could against it.

As there was so much prejudice against the Mormons and the elders, we went to a nearby stream and were baptized in the middle of the night. This was in March 1873, and we began making plans at once to leave our home and go to a land where people could worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, but it was May 1874 before we were ready to start. We packed the things we thought we could best take, then had an auction sale of our other belongings. Everything that could be done to prevent our coming was done. My father’s life was sought, but he miraculously escaped with only a painful injury. This persecution only made us more anxious to come, although of course there were regrets at leaving our homeland.

Anna Elese Schmutz Hunt. Photo courtesy of Cathy Cruea.

The latter part of May we started. The first day we traveled by rail and got as far as Basel, then to Antwerp. The day and night we traveled along the banks of the Rhine River were, perhaps, the most enjoyable of the whole trip because of the wonderful scenery. We spent a night in Amsterdam and from there to Rotterdam, Holland. Across the North Sea was the worst imaginable. We went on a sailing vessel that had been used to transport cattle. It was so filthy dirty that we were all sick, then to add to that it rained all day and night and part of the next day. I never think of that voyage without feeling sick.

We spent the night in Rotterdam [probably Dover], then boarded the train again, for Liverpool. I was a girl of fourteen and nothing escaped my notice. I particularly enjoyed seeing the beautiful farms and homes of the part of England through which we passed.

Liverpool lived up to its reputation for fog, and we saw very little of it as we were only there one night. The next morning, we went down to the wharf to take the big steamer to cross the Atlantic.[172]

It might have been the remembrance of our trip on the North Sea, or it might have been homesickness, but my mother cried and did not want to go on the ship as she said she knew we would all be drowned. Poor Mother; she was sick all of the eleven days we were on the water. Two of my sisters were too, but Father and I were better sailors and after two days and a half of feeding the fish, we were all right and enjoyed the voyage. The only thing that bothered me, aside from feeling sorry for Mother, Rosetta, and Bertha, was that I lost my beautiful colored ball in the ocean and saw it go dancing away on the waves. The Captain never even offered to stop the ship and let me get out and get it.

We landed at Castle Garden and there we had to stay for two days before our papers were ready for us to enter the United States of America. We didn’t bring much with us from our home, but I guess Father and Mother wished many times that we hadn’t brought anything before we left the custom house and every time we had to change from boat to train and from one train to another. We took the train for Pittsburgh and had to change in the middle of the night. I was so tired and sleepy that I forgot my shoes.

We had bread, cheese, and bologna to eat on the way across the Plains. That was pretty good. We were eight days on the train coming to Utah. When we reached Omaha it didn’t look like much of a town. Crossing the river on a trestle bridge was scary. When we got across to the depot, we saw our first Indian and that was about all we saw, as it was such a curiosity to my brothers, sisters, and me.

When we finally reached Salt Lake City, we were met by people from our own country who took us to their homes and cared for us while we stayed there. The next day was Sunday, and we went to the tabernacle to church. The building was being used, though it was not finished. We saw the large stones that were to be used in building the temple. Each one was numbered so there would be no mistake in their placing.

We were invited out for dinner after Sunday School, and I tasted my first custard pie. I didn’t know pies could be made without fruit. There was quite a company of us who traveled all the way together. We left for Provo the next day on the train. President Brigham Young met us at the station, shook hands with us, and welcomed us to our new country.

My eldest sister, Mary Ann, had come to Utah the year before we did, and she and her husband lived at St. George in southern Utah. That was our destination.

As none of us could speak a word of English, everything was arranged by the Church authorities for us. At each town through which we passed, we were met by some German speaking people if there were any; if not we were taken to other homes, where we were treated royally. Teams and wagons were supplied at each town to take us to the next, and so we fared fine. There was one piece of road I will never forget. It was over Black Ridge. The road was so narrow and steep. Father said he guessed we were going down to Hell.

As we neared St. George, our brother-in-law came out to meet us and took us on in his wagon. He had brought some early apples and some dried peaches, and we filled up on them. We were surely glad to see our sister, and she was to see us. She made some tea, which was the first we had ever tasted. None of us liked it. Everything was so strange and new to us, and there was a new language to learn. We spoke French and German, but this English seemed so hard.

When the wheat was ready to harvest, we children went three miles over Black Ridge to glean to get something to wear. We went every day for three weeks until we took the sore eyes and had to stay in a dark place for a week or two.

The first Twenty-fourth of July was celebrated in grand style. The band serenaded the town, then there was a parade and a good program. I guess it was good. They all seemed to enjoy it, but all we could understand was the music.

After the wheat was all gleaned and the peaches dried, I went to work for a family that boarded forty-five men who were building the St. George Temple. I wanted to learn the English language, and that and my board and a few clothes was about all the pay I got for working harder than I ever had. But at the end of the eight months I could understand pretty well and could make myself understood. I left that boarding house and went to work in private homes. The highest wages I ever got was $1.50 a week. That was in store pay.

When I was sixteen, I went to the Santa Clara and dried peaches on shares; then my sister Rose and I picked cotton. The winter was spent working out, then in May, two other sisters and I went to Mt. Trumbull to the sawmill to work in my brother’s boarding house. There is where I met the man to whom I was married when I was eighteen. The wedding took place March 22, 1878. We had a big wedding supper and dance. It was a very grand affair and we were as happy as two lovers could be. My husband was William James Hunt.

The first summer after we were married, my husband hauled copper ore from the mines to the smelter at Silver Reef. I kept myself busy knitting lace, making dresses, and making quilts for the winter. On January 2, 1879, our first baby, a daughter, was born. Then I had enough to do, caring for her, and when spring came, making a garden.

In the summer of 1880, we were called to go help settle Arizona. People had been going through these southern towns since January 1876. Some had returned because they hadn’t nerve enough to endure the hardships, but the larger portion had stayed and now we were to join them.

My sister Rosetta and I had married brothers, and we planned to go together to our new home.[173] My husband fitted up two wagons to take our belongings. He put a stove in one of the wagons and we were very comfortable, but before we had traveled far and seen what kind of roads there were, we knew that we could never be able to make it with the teams we had so we traded one of the wagons for more teams.

We were so packed in then that we could hardly manage at all. This was in November, and the weather was so cold that the men would have to walk to keep warm, and it was all I could do to keep myself and my two babies from freezing to death. The second night out, my eight weeks old baby almost died from colic. I stayed in the wagon and tended him; my husband brought my supper to the wagon for me, but I was so cold and worried that I could hardly eat.

When we got to Lee’s Ferry on the Big Colorado, we found a big company of emigrants there waiting to cross. There were only two boats, one that would take a team and wagon over at once [together], and the other was a small boat. We had to wait our turn. In the meantime, my husband helped to ferry the others across.

Our troubles were not over when we got across the dreaded river, for there was the terrible “Lee’s Backbone” to go over, and there never was a worse excuse for a road. It was very steep and narrow. If the horses had made a misstep or stumbled, we would have been plunged into the river or to our death. Just one big boulder after another; but we got over it without an accident.

Finally, we reached the settlements on the Little Colorado, visiting a day or two at each to let our teams rest, and reached Snowflake just before Christmas. There were only a few log houses besides the adobe ones that were here when the settlers came.

We tried to get some flour, meal, and other supplies but could not. It was 220 miles to the nearest store, and people were doing without themselves. We could only get some beef tallow and a sack of corn that the mice had eaten all the hearts out of, but we were glad to get that, and my husband took it to the gristmill, seven miles away, and had it ground into meal. We didn’t have soda or baking powder to raise it, but we ate the bread and were glad to have even that. Of course we baked it in a bake oven over the fireplace. Someone gave us some frozen squash, which we cooked to go with our corn bread, and it was not long before our husbands went out and killed a deer, so we fared pretty well.

Both families of us were living together, Rosetta and her husband and us. At first we were rather crowded in the small log house we were living in about half way between Snowflake and Taylor, but our men made a stockade out of cottonwood poles by setting the poles in the ground close together and daubing the cracks with mud.

In February, they got a job helping build the railroad through Holbrook, so they sent us supplies and something to eat.

Between April and May, we prepared to go over the mountain. Our intentions were to go to the Gila country.[174] We had a yoke of oxen and a wagon, and Alma had a span of horses and a wagon. There was barely a wagon road over the Mogollons. On the way, my husband got a crick in his back and could not do anything. My brother-in-law had to yoke up the oxen, and I had to drive them for two days, my husband telling me when to say “gee” and “haw.” It was quite an experience for me, but I did not tip the wagon over. This road was the same kind as the one over “Lee’s Backbone;” it was passable, that was all.

When we got to the little valley called Pine, our husbands’ uncle and some of our friends who lived there wanted us to stay and help build up that place, so we did, living there ten years. My husband put a shed over our wagon box, and we lived in it while he put in a crop.

In the summer, we built a log house in the center of the town. All the men helped to put it up, so it was soon built, all but the floor, and we did not get that in for two years because lumber was so hard to get. I used to carry water, dampen the ground floor, and pack it down. We had a large fireplace in which we burned huge live oak and pine logs.

For two years, we had no bread but corn bread, and did not have soda or baking powder to raise it, but we had plenty of milk and butter, with molasses to sweeten with. We had deer meat whenever we wanted it, as they were plentiful.

Until we built a log meeting house, we held our Sunday School and church at Price Nelson’s home. We had to work hard and looked forward to Sundays when we could all be together.

I learned how to make soap using hardwood ashes for lye. The ashes were put into a barrel, water poured over them; in a few days the water was dipped off, mixed with clean tallow, and it would make pretty good soap. I made candles out of beef and deer tallow.

We had no doctors, but Mrs. Nelson was a fine midwife and nurse and was with me when several of my babies were born.[175]

We were happy in our work. We had to depend on rains to raise our crops; sometimes they did not come and the crop was a failure. When it was a good year, we raised enough to tide us over. Our principle products were corn, potatoes, and sugar cane. There was a molasses mill, so we had plenty of molasses. We had very little sugar as that had to be brought from Phoenix, and it took two weeks to make the trip. We would go down once a year to get our supplies.

In the summer of 1882, the Apache Indians broke out from the reservation, and some of them came over the mountain and scared us so we had to get together and build a fort of pine logs to protect ourselves. Several people in other places were killed before they could get the soldiers to come out from Fort Apache and drive them back. They had a battle on Baker’s Butte.[176] We were surely frightened. We lived in the fort for three weeks, meantime our gardens suffered from lack of attention.

In 1883, my husband and our family went back to Utah to visit our folks. We went by Pearce’s Ferry, thinking it would be better, but there wasn’t much choice, only each one was worse than the other. Feed and water for the animals were scarce.

After getting back there, I almost died of cholera morbus.[177] My children took scarlet fever, and my daughter, Martha Louise, took it and died.[178] It was a great shock to me.

One of our horses died, so my husband had to go to work and get another, so we stayed there until the next fall. He worked on the thrashing machine and did anything he could find to do. We were three weeks on the road but were glad to get back to our home in Pine.

About this time, we got a sawmill down there and then I got my floor, a porch on the front, and later we added two more rooms, so we were very comfortable. My husband made bedsteads out of lumber and a rope out of rawhide, which he stretched back and forth to make the springs. Then we had mattresses filled with corn shucks, so they did very well.

I made my husband a suit of clothes and a pair of overalls all by hand, and foxed the overalls with buckskin that he had tanned.[179] From buckskin, I also made shoes for the children.

We planted a fine orchard and had a large strawberry bed. When the men would go to Phoenix, they could get honey real cheap, so we got along fine for eats. We raised a large white bean that was called the biyo bean.[180] One time my husband and William Stark went down to the bean patch, and there they found a large cinnamon bear, just going down on the beans. They killed the bear and in that way saved the crop.

Some of our simple remedies were molasses and kerosene for hoarseness and sore throat. I had neuralgia in my face frequently, and I always kept a small bag of salt handy that I heated and held to the pain, and it would bring relief.

We had had so many crop failures that the people of Pine were advised to sell out and go to Tuba City. This was in 1890, so we later moved there. There was a small settlement at Tuba, one at Moabi, and one at Moenkopi. They were so near that we all joined in religious and social gatherings.

Our first house there was of lumber standing up. We set out an orchard, and when it was all in leaf the locusts came and ate all the leaves, but we got rid of them before they did further damage. We got grape cuttings from Utah and put them out and raised delicious grapes.

We built a rock house and got fifty acres of land on Moenkopi Wash. This we planted to alfalfa and grain and put fruit trees down there.

We raised enough vegetables to supply the school at Blue Canyon. My husband did a lot of freighting from Flagstaff to the local store. By hard work, we were beginning to prosper. We made friends with the Navajos and Hopis and lived very peacefully.

In November 1895, a great sorrow came to us when our three-year-old boy, Elroy, caught his little clothes on fire. He started to run, but our daughter, Annie, caught him and put the fire out with her hands. They were severely burned. Little Elroy lived two weeks; we were willing to see him released from his suffering.[181]

There was an end to our peaceful lives in 1901. Lot Smith had trouble with some Navajos and was shot by one of them.[182] They then went on the warpath, and had it not been for the assistance given us by the friendly Hopis, we might have all been killed. The government decided it would be best for us to move off the reservation; they bought our improvements, we left our homes and went elsewhere to begin again.[183]

We went to San Juan, New Mexico, bought a farm of 125 acres, but the river took 25 of it. Again we built homes, set out orchards, fought grasshoppers for two years, then black worms for another. We had plenty of trials all right, but we made the best of them.

I took frequent trips to Salt Lake City with my sons to visit my sister, and enjoyed them very much. When I went to San Juan, there were no doctors there, so I took up the practice of nursing, and have assisted more than 100 babies into the world.

When the flu was raging in 1918, I was called upon almost constantly for help, but when my husband took it, I had to care for him. He seemed to recover all right, though many people died from it. I did not take it, for all I was with it all the time.

In 1920, my husband had another attack but could not seem to get better, so we brought him to Arizona, hoping that would help him, and it did for a while, but on August 9, 1921, he passed peacefully away.[184] How I missed him and grieved for him.

I spent the winter of 1922 in St. George, Utah, where I went to put a grandson, whom I had raised, in school. I have many friends there. We had a good car, so spent a pleasant winter.

My eldest daughter died just eight [five] years after her father, so I know how cruel death can be.[185]

I rented our ranch to our boys, and now I make my home with my children in Arizona. I am enjoying life and good health. [I] have just passed my seventy-eighth birthday, March 22, 1938. My friends tell me I do not look more than sixty, and sometimes I do not feel more than that, but when I think back over the years with their joys and sorrows, I know I have lived every one of the seventy-eight. I am the mother of eleven children, have sixty-four grandchildren, sixty-eight great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren. I have all of my faculties, love a good time, [and] spend my days very happily. My winters are mostly spent in Mesa, where I enjoy taking part in anything I am called upon to do. I hope I shall live as long as my usefulness lasts. This is a pretty good old world after all. (Note: She passed away on January 16, 1951, near Farmington, New Mexico, and was buried in New Mexico.)

Ellis and Boone:

From 1840 to 1890, three steamships—the Wyoming, Nevada, and Wisconsin—transported almost one-third of all Latter-day Saint emigrants across the Atlantic Ocean. Of these, the Nevada of the Guion Line transported 9,600 Saints in thirty-five voyages.[186] The Schmutz family left Liverpool on June 11, 1874, aboard the Nevada, and arrived at Castle Garden (New York City) on June 23. As with almost all other LDS emigrants, they were in steerage, the lowest part of the ship and the cheapest passage.[187] Their twelve-day voyage was markedly shorter than the earlier sailing vessels; a steamship averaged 12.5 days versus an average of 35 days for sailing ships.[188] This was the second 1874 passage of the Nevada; the earlier voyage left Liverpool on May 6 and arrived in New York on May 21. Captain James Price was in charge of the ship for both crossings.[189]

This voyage of the Nevada had 243 LDS members aboard.[190] The Schmutz family consisted of John (56), Eliz. (50), John (19), Rosetta (17), Jacob (15), Elese (12), Gottlieb (11), and Bertha (9). The family is listed as from Holland, probably because Rotterdam was the European city from which they set sail to cross the English Channel. Other family members include Christian (born 1848), who did not come to America, Anna Rosina (born 1850), who died as a baby, and daughters Mary Ann (born 1846) and Lena (born 1849), who emigrated separately from their natal family. The Schmutz family left a large posterity in Utah and Arizona.

Photo Identification Note

In 1997, Arizona’s premier collector and historian of early Arizona photographs, Jeremy Rowe, published an interesting studio portrait identified as William J. Flake.[191] This man is dressed in a fringed, buckskin shirt, pants with fringe three to four feet long, and moccasins. He has a luxuriant moustache and a full head of hair. No Flake descendant who has seen the photograph believes the photograph is of William J. Flake.

The correct identification comes from the archives of the Navajo County Historical Society in Holbrook. Garnette Franklin, an early Holbrook historian and founder of this collection, placed two photographs there from her husband’s family. One image is this same photograph but soiled and damaged, and the other image is of this man with a young woman. The man in these two photographs is identified as Joseph Sponseller, who married Martha Louise Adams and lived in Taylor, Shumway, and Show Low until nearly 1920. Adams was twenty-five years younger than her husband, and by 1930 they had divorced. In 1930 and 1940, Joseph Sponseller lived with his daughter and son-in-law, William Franklin, in the Salt River Valley.[192]

It is unclear how Rowe’s photograph was incorrectly identified as William J. Flake. If the identification came from a cabinet card, which it did not, one could assume that Joe Sponseller gave a copy of this photograph to William J. Flake, and Flake simply wrote his name on the back as owner of the photograph.

Regardless, a similar problem exists with photographs of Anna Elese Schmutz and her sister Rosetta, married to brothers William James and Alma Moroni Hunt, respectively. Family members of Elese Hunt provided a photograph to Ellis, and then family members of Rosetta Hunt provided other photographs of Rosetta. The photograph of Elese Hunt was so similar to a photograph of Rosetta Hunt that it seemed likely the two photographs were of the same woman. A search on FamilySearch revealed an entirely different photograph of Elese Hunt, but that photograph was also identified as Rosetta Hunt. Therefore, the photograph included here is believed to be of Elese Hunt but should be used with caution; the only photograph that we include of Rosetta Hunt is with her husband, so identification is positive.

Happylona Sanford Hunt

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP

Maiden Name: Happylona Sanford

Birth: February 18, 1855; Springville, Utah Co., Utah

Parents: Cyrus Sanford and Sylvia Elmina Stockwell

Marriage: John Hunt;[193] March 19, 1887

Children: none

Death: August 12, 1927;[194] Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Few childless women have been a mother to so many children as Happylona Sanford Hunt. She just had that motherly way that endeared her to all, especially children.

Born in a home of plenty, “Happy,” or “Hap,” and later “Aunt Hap” as she was called, never knew what it was to go hungry as so many pioneers did. When she was born, February 18, 1855, her parents, Cyrus and Sylvia Stockwell Sanford, were in very favorable circumstances. They were among the first emigrants to Utah, but by thrift, frugality, and good management, they had plenty for their ten children, the first and last of whom came in pairs. The eldest twins were Almira and Alvira and the last two were Happylona and Saphronia. There was only one brother, but he early learned to take his part against all of these girls and was a match for all of them.

John Hunt with two wives, Sarah Crosby Hunt (left) and Happylona Sanford Hunt. Photo courtesy of DUP album, Snowflake-Taylor Family History Center.

Happylona and her twin sister, Sophronia, were both named for a favorite sister of their mother. This sister was married for some time before her only child, a tiny baby girl was born. For her babe she gave her life, and then little Clara was taken into the home and cared for as their own. Hap, accepting her as her especial charge, cared for her and loved her as though she were her very own.[195]

Whether it was her natural sweetness and fun-loving disposition or because she was the child of her parents’ mature years, Hap was always the favorite of her father, who petted and spoiled her dreadfully, at least so said her older sisters. An occurrence caused them all to humor her when she had typhoid fever. Long months she suffered from this dread disease, but won out and was getting nearly well, when one day a crowd of her young friends came with a sleigh and four prancing horses and begged her mother to let her go riding with them. Very reluctantly, the mother consented. With all their care, Hap took cold, had a relapse, and was much worse than at first. For many more long months, she lay between life and death. She was not able to leave the house for almost a year.

She had a wonderful faculty for making friends, so her circle was a large one. One of Hap’s schoolteachers was Charles D. Evans, but she always said she did not go to school to learn but for the fun she could get out of it.[196]

Along with her many friends were many young men admirers, yet she saved her great store of love for a man much older than herself, and who had buried one wife by whom he had had a large family, some of the children older than Hap. There was great excitement in the home of John Hunt when the children waited for him to bring from Springville, Utah, his new wife. Though they were married March 19, 1887, she did not come to her husband’s home in Snowflake, Arizona, until the following October. Whatever opinion the children had formed of her, all fell in love with her when she came. She was so kind and friendly, and she seemed to know just how to go about making home attractive, and preparing the food as they liked it, and then she could always see the funny side of everything.

During the summer after her marriage, she preserved and bottled quantities of fruit to bring with her, as her husband had told her that because of late frosts and high winds, little fruit was raised in the part of Arizona that was to be her home. The fruit, along with her wedding presents, clothing, etc., were shipped by freight. They became lost in transit and were not found for six months, and then only thru the influence of a friend of hers who had married a railroad man.[197]

Never blessed with children of her own, she mothered all those belonging to her husband, from the oldest to the youngest. If they were in need or in trouble, they knew just where to go for aid.

She knew how to make the best of everything that came into her hands. She always had a warm welcome for anyone who came to her door. Many were the people she entertained, from the presidency of the Mormon Church to her humblest friends. When the four stakes in Arizona held a united conference at Pinetop a number of years ago, her husband had a temporary house built in which to entertain the Church authorities from Salt Lake City. Hap was selected to be the hostess as she was an excellent cook and manager.[198]

For twenty years, she served on the old folk’s committee of Navajo County and every year helped to prepare the banquet. She found great joy in this work, and assisted with suppers, parties, and entertainments for which Snowflake was famous.

She frequently visited her aged parents in Utah, both of them living to a good old age; her mother was ninety-seven years old when she fell and injured herself, from which her death resulted.

During one of her visits to her native state, she took the flu and was very ill. Realizing that the end was not far off, she came back to her Arizona home and here on August 12, 1927, she passed away and was buried by the side of her husband. Her grave was a veritable mound of flowers, tokens of love and affection from her many friends.

Ellis and Boone:

The nature of Happylona’s marriage to John Hunt (as his third wife) is unclear here because this sketch was written originally for the FWP in the 1930s, and often polygamous marriages were not mentioned. This marriage was also not mentioned in Clayton’s sketch for John Hunt in PMA.[199] A better understanding of the family dynamics comes from Nettie Hunt Rencher:

Before the time of Happylona’s marriage to John Hunt, he had married Lois B. Pratt by whom he had eight children. Two years before Hap’s marriage, Lois had met with a serious accident which caused her death. John had also married Sarah Jane Crosby who at this time had two daughters, Martha and Eva; and two months after Hap’s arrival in Snowflake Sarah’s eldest son, Jefferson Taylor, was born.[200]

So Aunt Hap came into a really large family. Four of Lois’s children were married and four were still at home, Lewis, John, Nettie and Lois (Loie). After Aunt Hap had a home of her own, John and Lois lived with her part of the time. Later Sarah had six other children, and Aunt Hap mothered us all. When a little girl with blue eyes and light hair was born and named Francis, she was Aunt Hap’s joy and delight, and when she was two years old, Sarah let Hap take her for her very own.[201] Francis lived with Hap until she was twenty-one years old, when she married Franklin Campbell Jr., by whom she had three sons. She lived near Aunt Hap who still mothered them. The eldest two sons died in infancy. Francis had serious heart trouble and did not live to raise her youngest son, Lynn.

For a short time, Aunt Hap lived in an old log house Father had purchased; then, for many years, she lived in the tithing office where she helped receive the tithing. Later Father and the boys built her a comfortable new home on the corner of the same block where Lois and Sarah had both lived for many years. Her long desire was now fulfilled. She could entertain church authorities, friends, and her dear sister, Clara, who, with her husband, Nephi Packard, came from Utah to visit her. . . .

Aunt Sarah and Aunt Hap, as most everyone called them, lived in different apartments but under the same roof for many years, and never more than a block apart; but I never heard one unkind word pass between them, and, after Father’s death especially, they were pals and companions. Where you saw one, you usually saw the other.[202]

Rosetta Schmutz Hunt

Autobiography

Maiden Name: Rosetta Schmutz

Birth: March 18, 1857; Vechizen, Berne, Switzerland

Parents: Johannes Schmutz and Elizabeth Lehmann

Marriage: Alma Moroni Hunt; October 3, 1878

Children: Rozilla May (1879), Alma Moroni (1880), John (1882), Isaac Schmutz (1885), William Ammon (1887),[203] Philena Matilda (1889), Millie Bertha (1891), Noel E. (1893), Frank Elroy (1895), Dora Pearl (1897), Elizabeth Ann (1900)

Death: April 23, 1944; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Pine, Gila Co., Arizona

I was born in Vechizen, Berne, Switzerland, on March 18, 1857. When two years old, I was sent to my grandfather and grandmother Schmutz. My father Johannes Schmutz was very, very ill and was not able to stand the noise of his children. I lived with my grandparents about eight years, or until my grandmother died. Started to a German school when I was six years of age; was taken back to my parents who lived in the French part of Switzerland, attended a French school from then on until my father moved out in the country; then there was no more school for me. I was put into a family consisting of a man and his wife. He was a matchmaker by trade, and I was supposed to learn it, as the town was a matchmaking town.

About this time, my sister Lena and her husband joined the Latter-day Saint Church. She, it was, who brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to our home. Missionaries came quite often and held meetings with us. All the family embraced the gospel and joined the Church, except my eldest brother. The feeling was so strong against the Mormons, as they were called, that we all had to be secretly baptized at night. The family consisted of Father, Mother, four sons, and five daughters.

My eldest sister, Mary Anna, was the first member of our family to emigrate to Utah. Our household goods and farm implements were sold at auction; things went cheap, so we did not realize much from the sale. My father was a farmer by occupation.

We left La Chaux-de-fonds one early morning in June 1874. There were eight persons in our family.[204] We all walked to the train station. We reached Basil that night. The next morning was a bright beautiful one: it was rather warm walking; we were still on our way to the railroad station. There were two other girls who were sisters from some other part of Switzerland. One was rather heavy set. She took sick when we were on the train and died before noon that day. It was very sad. Her body was shipped back home to her folks. The money was refunded to her parents. That would help another member to emigrate and have the benefit. In those days, when a family could not all emigrate at once, they would send one or two members on to Utah, and the others would follow as soon as they could get the means.

After a day or two’s travel, we reached the Rhine River and floated down it all one day. It was a wonderful trip as the sights all along the way were beautiful. There was a young man on the boat who wanted to be real friendly with us but didn’t succeed. He wanted to treat us to a good meal, and we would have enjoyed it, but he was not a member of our church, so we did not take the hint and felt just as well or better.

When we reached Rotterdam, we got on a ship to cross the North Sea. Well, the ship was not very inviting. The hold was covered all over the floor with straw and that was where we were put that night. The stench was terrible; that was the worst part. In the morning, I felt so funny in the region of my stomach, so I went on deck as soon as possible and stayed there. We were on that ship two nights and one day. Traveled by train the remainder of the way to Liverpool. There we were delayed a day or two and were thirteen days crossing the Atlantic Ocean. No one who has never been seasick will ever know what I suffered, as I was sick from the time the boat left land until we reached it again. Wasn’t I happy when we sighted land once more. The ship was nice, and we had a safe voyage.[205]

Alma and Rosetta Schmutz Hunt. Photo courtesy of Roma Lee Hiatt.

We landed at Castle Garden, New York, but were told not to wander around the city, so I did not see much of New York. From there we traveled by slow train to Utah. A man could get off and on as he pleased and keep up with the train. Two young Germans who were train hands did that several times for our amusement.

At Omaha, Nebraska, I saw my first live Indian. I had seen pictures of Indians that an elder had with him. I did not think they were very handsome. Saw many after that on the way to Utah, and, at St. George where we afterward lived, they used to come to our door and beg for potatoes and meat or anything they could eat.

We arrived in Salt Lake City in time to celebrate the Fourth of July 1874. Then we took the train to Provo, and from there went by team to Utah’s Dixieland. We had a new teamster every day. Finally, we reached St. George, where my sister Mary Anne had located the year before. What a joyous occasion that was to see our loved one once more and to find someone we could talk to and be understood.

My father lived in St. George for some years, then went up to Harmony to make his home. It did not take me long to learn the English language, at least enough of it to understand a young Englishman, Alma Moroni Hunt, and he made love to me and asked me to be his wife. We were married October 3, 1878.[206]

In the spring of 1879, my husband and his brother William were called to Arizona to help settle this country. In the fall, when my first baby was only six weeks old, we started on our journey. There was one other family and we were very glad of their company. We had contentment, had no trouble. We passed one grave at the foot of Buckskin Mountain and passed quite a company of people at House Rock. When we got to the Colorado River, there was quite a company there, ferrying cattle across. It was quite a job to get them across. Some of them would turn and swim back as soon as they were landed on the other side. It was quite a thrilling time to watch them. When the cattle were all over, we crossed on the boat, and went up over Lee’s Backbone. If Mr. Lee had a backbone as bad as that, I surely pity him. It didn’t seem possible for the horses to pull the wagons up as the road was so steep and the boulders so big, and it was just as bad on the dugway on the other side. Everyone who ever came over that piece of road had great cause for thankfulness that they were not killed.

We had no bad luck on the trip and enjoyed good health. What a blessing health is. That winter was very cold, and after we crossed the river it seemed colder. The wind blew something awful. When we got near the Little Colorado with its sand and gravel, it would almost blind us. The cold became intense, and it would almost freeze the washcloth in my hands.

We landed in Snowflake, after three or four weeks traveling. It was a beautiful day. I did not know a soul, and if it had not been for my husband and baby, I would have been very lonesome. My bedroom was a wagon box all that winter. The snow was deep enough to cover the fences, at times. In the spring, we moved up on a little ranch, lived there that summer and the next winter. The next spring, we started out to find another home; crossed the Mogollon Range, intent on going to Mesa to locate. We had to put on our specks to see the wagon road, it was so faint. When we got down into Tonto Basin, we found three families—the Allens, Nelsons, and Houghs.[207] These people wanted us to locate with them, and here we have lived ever since at the pretty little place called Pine. There were no stores nearer than Globe or Phoenix. What did we do when we got out of groceries? We did without, managed someway. Our neighbors were very good and kind. Mr. Nelson had a mill on which he ground corn meal. That is a pretty good substitute for flour, if you did not have to have too much of it, but at that it was better than barley meal.

People raised cane—sugar cane—and made good molasses. Raised tomatoes and we used to make green tomato preserves (when the frost came too soon for them to ripen) and sweeten it with molasses. We did ground cherries the same way. Many a candy pull the young folks enjoyed in those days. I used to make good molasses cake. We didn’t go hungry that I know of. We raised the finest kinds of vegetables here, and deer were plentiful. My husband killed one once with rocks. It was like this—my husband and our little black dog were out in the woods and met a deer. He did not have a gun with him so he threw rocks at the deer. It thought it was the dog so paid all its attention to the dog, and my husband pelted him with rocks until he was dead.

Wild honey was plentiful also, and it was not hard to follow the bees to their trees and get what honey we needed. One time Mr. Hough almost choked to death when he and my husband were robbing a bee-tree. He got a piece of honeycomb in his throat and had hard work to get it out. We raised peaches and dried them to make pies in the winter. There was plenty of game of all kinds, mountain lions, bear, etc.

My children were all born in Pine but two; raised six boys and five girls to man and womanhood. The two youngest of my sons have died. Both were married. One died in Whipple Barracks near Prescott, from the effects of the war. He was in the Army one year and nine months. He left a wife and three sons.[208] The other one was accidentally killed on the Fossil Creek road. He had enlisted and been in training but had not seen actual service. He had a wife but no children.[209]

This country used to be the abode of the famous Geronimo, but he had been taken away before we came; however, there were renegade Indians around here. One morning they killed a young man and wounded his brother. He died shortly after. Then the people got scared and built a log fort here in Pine, and we all moved into this fort for protection and lived there that summer. The same fall, the government sent troops in and killed these Indians on the mountain near here, and the place is called Battle Ridge.[210] We had no more trouble with the Indians after that. There were two friendly Indians, Shorty and Nan, who used to work around for the white people, but they were not seen around here anymore.

Our first schoolteacher was Mr. Bill Houston.[211] He taught in a one-roomed log house for a year or two until they built a larger building. Now we have a good district schoolhouse and a high school, but are planning to build a new high school. There are thirty-six families here now. We have three stores and three service stations.

In the olden days, we used to have to substitute, make our own, or do without lots of things. I made my starch of potatoes. I would wash them, peel, and grate them real fine. Put water on them and then drain it off. Repeat that until the starch was all out of the grated potato. Let it stand and settle, pouring the water off and drying the starch, then it was ready to put away for future use, for puddings or laundry purposes. Some people made starch with grated corn. Made my own soap, and used oak ashes to settle and soften the wash water. Did not always have bluing.[212]

I made hats of straw for my children in the summers and cloth ones for winter. Made candles of tallow, and we were glad to get them. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and we had lots of cause to invent, as things were very scarce in those days.

My husband died April 7, 1920, in Pine, Arizona, the place he had done so much for to help establish.

Here the sketch ends, but the beautiful and useful life still goes on. Three of Mrs. Hunt’s children have married and live in Snowflake.[213] Their mother often visits them and has a wide circle of friends here as well as at Mesa, where she spends most of her winters. Her children are all useful, honorable citizens, reflecting the teachings of a good father and exceptionally fine mother.

Cheerful, happy, always thinking and speaking the best of everyone, devout in her religion for which she left her native land, honest, noble and sincere, are only a few of her virtues. These have left their imprint upon all who know her. Time had dealt very kindly with her, and she is a very beautiful and attractive woman, beloved by all who know her.

Her death occurred April 23, 1944. She was buried at Pine, Arizona, April 26, 1944.

Ellis and Boone:

Although four of Alma and Rosetta Hunt’s five daughters—Philena Miller, Pearl Willis, Millie Stratton, and Ann Turley—married Navajo County men and moved to Snowflake and Woodruff, Pine became the permanent home for the Hunts and their sons. In fact, Pine was known as a Mormon town. In the book, Rim Country History, the section on religious services began: “Without doubt, the earliest religious services in this area were in Pine, where a branch of the LDS church was organized in June 1881, with Rial Allen as Bishop. A log building was constructed in 1882, to provide a place for worship and also serve as the community schoolhouse.” The first Latter-day Saint chapel was built in Pine in 1915; it was not until 1935–36 that a Presbyterian church was built in Payson. Consequently, religious services in Payson were irregular, and funerals “required some make-shift arrangements. In some instances, friendly Mormons from Pine would provide the religious services at Payson for funerals.”[214]

Likewise, in this area, post offices and schools defined a community. Often post offices were in the front room of a ranch house, but schools were organized by the state if there were eight students in one location. Parents had to construct a log school with benches and a desk for the teacher, and then three men were assigned to look after the school. The Pine Creek school opened in 1882, mainly because the Mormon families were supportive of education for their children. Alma and Rosetta Hunt were active in church affairs, and Alma served for many years on the school board.

Sarah Jane Crosby Hunt

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Sarah Jane Crosby

Birth: November 26, 1862; Santa Clara, Washington Co., Utah

Parents: John Taylor Crosby and Martha Adaline Hamblin

Marriage: John Hunt;[215] March 18, 1883

Children: Martha (1884), Eva (1885), Jefferson Taylor (1887), Sheldon Ross (1889), Ita (1890), Arthur Sanford (1892), Frances (1894), Georgia (1896), William Ambrose (1899)

Death: April 15, 1941; Joseph City, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Very few people have the heritage or bravery and courage that was handed down from Jacob Hamblin, known as the “leather stocking” of the west, to his granddaughter, Sarah Jane Crosby Hunt. From her grandparents on her father’s side, she inherited the true spirit of the pioneer, although it was never Sarah’s lot to be deprived of many things that Mormon pioneers had to do without because she waited until November 26, 1862, to begin her pioneering.

She was born at Santa Clara, Washington County, Utah, and was the daughter of Taylor and Martha Hamblin Crosby, the eldest of a family of seven born to her mother. Jacob Hamblin was the peacemaker of the Mormon Church to the Indians. He understood the language of several tribes and knew their customs, traditions, and habits as few white men ever have. His wife, Lucinda Judd, shared with him poverty, privation, and anxiety.[216]

Her father was the only child of William and Sarah Harman Crosby. Both were born in Indiana, but at the time they accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ they were living on a large plantation in Mississippi. They owned a number of slaves, but when they decided to come West with the Saints, they gave freedom to all of their Negroes, but three refused to leave them.[217] They sold their plantation and moved to Nauvoo, later crossing the plains with the Saints. The remainder of their lives, they lived with their son until their death, which occurred in Kanab, Utah. Her grandmother Crosby was renowned for her gentleness, grace, and courtly manner of the aristocracy of the South.

While Sarah was yet very young, her parents moved to Kanab, Kane County, where she received some schooling, but her father was a big cattleman with a ranch on Buckskin Mountain, so early each spring her family moved there. Here she learned the duties and enjoyed the pleasures of ranch life. Horseback riding was her favorite amusement. She learned to make butter and cheese and milk cows. Sometimes when her father and brothers were gone, she would milk as many as thirty-two cows. Her father paid $25 for a cheese receipt [recipe] and soon the ranch became known for its butter, cheese, and hospitality, for the doors were always open to whites and Indians alike.

Sarah Jane Crosby Hunt. Photo courtesy of Roma Lee Hiatt.

The winter she was nine years old, her father bought an Indian girl of about the same age. She was an orphan and her grandparents were going to kill her because of scarcity of food. Sarah’s father traded them an old white cow, which they butchered right in the yard. The family named her Fannie, and she was raised as one of the family, receiving the same care and attention they did. She returned that love by her obedience to their wishes in everything but one: she refused to go to school when they wanted her to.[218]

When Sarah was fifteen years old, her mother died of a heart attack, leaving her the oldest of a family of seven. She willingly assumed the responsibility of the home to care for the family. After a while, her father got Sarah Jane Hales to live with them; later on he married her and nine children blessed this union.[219] The new mother was of a kind, mild disposition, and in the years Sarah lived at home, there was never a cross word passed between them, which speaks well for the good nature of both.

Sarah liked to remember that her first schoolteacher was her grandfather Crosby.[220] Among the games she liked to play were pomp pull-away, steal sticks, and ball. The ball was made by raveling out old stockings and winding them up. Sarah always had plenty to eat and to wear. Her father was a good provider, and everyone who came his way was welcome. Christmas was a glorious time in the Crosby home, everyone giving presents to everyone else. Sarah said that she never wanted for anything except for a mother’s love, but her grandfather tried to take the place, by holding them on his lap until they were big girls and singing them the funniest songs. She learned to dance at the children’s parties, but she never cared for round dancing as it made her dizzy. Sarah had plenty of beaux on her string, but at the age of twenty, she married John Hunt and was his second wife, coming immediately afterwards to Snowflake by team and wagon.

John Hunt was the bishop of Snowflake at the time. It is only reasonable to suppose she found life hard at first. She was full of life and fun and it was not easy to assume the role of a bishop’s wife. However, she soon adjusted herself and made her home a very pleasant one to all who came her way. Her two sisters visited her, and occasionally, she returned to her home in Kanab for a short visit, which was made, up until the last few years, by team and wagon. Then it used to take about two weeks travel, and now it can be made in a little over half a day. One of the sad things in Sarah’s life was the untimely death of her father, who was drowned while fording a stream on horseback.[221]

Sarah was very timid where public work was concerned and never aspired to any high positions but was always willing to do anything asked of her. She was the mother of nine children, all of whom grew to maturity and had families of their own.

Sarah Crosby Hunt with her daughters, front row, left to right: Georgia Jackson, Sarah, Martha; back row: Frances Campbell, Eva Standifird, Ita Turley. Photo courtesy of Roma Lee Hiatt.

Sarah never went barefooted as did most of the pioneer children, which accounted for her small feet. She wore a number 3½ shoe, and even when she was an old lady, she tripped along as lightly as a girl.

Her husband died on June 1, 1917. She lived alone in the old home most of the year. Some of her children lived near her, and she visited around among the others who were farther away.

She was always able to laugh at trouble and to cheer others who were afflicted. Her friends were numbered by her acquaintances who wished for her many more years of activity and that she might retain her faculties to the end of her days, and she did.

Ellis and Boone:

This sketch does not make clear that Sarah was a plural wife of John Hunt.[222] Nettie Hunt Rencher wrote:

John Hunt was a bishop in the Snowflake Ward in Arizona. He was advised by those in authority over him to accept the principle of plural marriage. So in the spring of 1883 he and his wife, Lois, made a trip to Utah. They stayed with their old friends, the Crosbys, in Kanab for a few days, and here they met the charming daughter, Sarah, so full of fun and laughter. Both John and Lois felt she was the one to add to their family. John spoke first to Sarah’s father and then, with his consent, spoke to Sarah about this important step. John and Lois were going on further north to visit relatives, and John was to receive his answer on his return. When he and Lois returned, to their pleasure and perhaps surprise, Sarah consented to marry John and go with them to the wilds of Arizona, to a land and people she had never seen. On March 18, 1883, Sarah was married to John Hunt in the St. George Temple, in the order of plural marriage, and Arizona was to be her home the rest of her life.[223]

It is unclear why Sarah’s death was not reported in this sketch. Perhaps Clayton wrote this sketch for the FWP but never submitted it. John Hunt also married Happylona Sanford in 1887 as a plural wife.[224] About the period after John’s death in 1917, Rencher wrote:

Now Sarah and Hap found more joy and companionship than ever before. At any assembly where you saw one, you usually saw the other. . . . Aunt Hap died first, passing peacefully away in her home in Snowflake, August 12, 1927, and is buried there. Now Sarah was really lonely, as all her children had left Snowflake but her eldest son, Taylor. . . . In the spring of 1941 she became very ill and was sick for some time. Her youngest son, Ambrose, lived in Joseph City. He took his mother to his home to stay a while, and there she passed away April 15, 1941. She left a large family and a host of friends to mourn her passing. She was buried beside her husband in Snowflake.[225]

Although Sarah did not live to see the end of World War II, her daughter, Ita Hunt Turley, included this note documenting the sacrifice from Sarah’s family: “All seventeen of her grandsons served in World War II. Ambrose [her son], Quince and Paul Hunt, and Hunt and Gyle Standifird gave all they could for freedom—their lives.”[226]

Notes

[1] This sketch was first published in 1952. Stradling, Collins Rowe Hakes Family, 30−31.

[2] Her given name, and that of her daughter, is spelled both as Mabel and Mable.

[3] “Collins Rowe Hakes,” in Clayton, PMA, 209−11.

[4] Ann Eliza Hakes Leavitt, 406.

[5] MPOT lists Justus Morse as leading a small company (nine wagons and forty-one people) himself; however, they were in contact with other wagon companies. Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich were not part of the companies traveling to Utah in 1850. They did lead a wagon company to San Bernardino. Justus Morse was with Lyman and Rich in Kirtland, Missouri, Illinois, and San Bernardino. Lyman, San Bernardino, 3, 5–6, 9, 114.

[6] Heber J. Grant (1856–1945) was the son of Jedediah M. and Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant. Because Jedediah Grant died when his son was only nine days old, Heber was raised by his mother. He became a Salt Lake City businessman and was called as an Apostle in 1882. The doubts he felt upon receiving this calling were removed with a spiritual manifestation while traveling in Arizona. He became president of the Church in 1918 and dedicated the Arizona Temple in 1927. Ronald W. Walker, “Heber J. Grant,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 564–68.

[7] See Melissa Caroline Johnson Hunsaker, 281.

[8] Wilhelm and Wilhelm, History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, 88.

[9] “Collins Rowe Hakes,” in Clayton, PMA, 209–11.

[10] Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 138–40.

[11] An incorrect death date for Louisa appears in some places. She died on December 10, 1931, and her death certificate was filed on January 8, 1932. AzDC, Louise Hamblin.

[12] There is considerable variation in the spelling of names in this family probably due to translation from a foreign language.

[13] This time span is likely for the entire trip from Switzerland to America. The George Washington was a large square-rigger with three decks. It departed Liverpool, England, on March 28, 1857, with 817 Latter-day Saints and crossed the Atlantic in unusually good time (23 days) under the command of Captain Josiah S. Cummings. The Saints were happy with his captaincy, and he replied, “I am free to acknowledge that on no previous voyage have my passengers conducted themselves so orderly and peaceably as those in your charge; cleanliness, morality, sobriety, reciprocation of favors and general good behavior were pre-eminently conspicuous in their conduct and character.” Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 86.

[14] The Bonelli family was part of the Israel Evans Sixth Handcart Company of 1857. This group was different from 1856 companies in that individuals had to buy their own outfits (about $50) because the Perpetual Emigrating Fund had run out of money. Sometimes the William Holmes Walker Freight and the Jesse Martin Wagon Companies traveled with them. MPOT.

[15] For a history of the Cotton Mission, see Arrington, “The Mormon Cotton Mission in Southern Utah,” 221−38; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 216−23.

[16] Louisa’s brother, Daniel, lived on the Muddy in Nevada and voted against abandoning the Mormon settlements. When others left, he moved south and established a ferry bearing his name at the mouth of the Virgin River (below the Grand Canyon). It is currently under the waters of Lake Mead. See Perkins, “From Switzerland to the Colorado River: Life Sketch of the Entrepreneurial Daniel Bonelli,” 4−23.

[17] This does not include the one or two Indian women Hamblin married. Louisa was twenty-two years old; Hamblin was forty-six at the time of their marriage. Farnsworth, “Jacob Hamblin’s Wives,” 49−51; Compton, “Civilizing the Ragged Edge: The Wives of Jacob Hamblin,” 155−98.

[18] For the most recent biography for Jacob Hamblin, see Compton, Frontier Life. The earlier Corbett biography emphasizes Hamblin family dynamics, including the years after Louisa’s marriage; Corbett, Jacob Hamblin, the Peacemaker.

[19] Pleasanton is in Catron Co., New Mexico, an area that suffered many Apache raids after 1876 as the federal government was trying to force Mimbreño Apaches from the Warm Springs Reservation, given them in 1856, and onto the reservation at San Carlos, one of the most desolate areas of Arizona. Betzinez and Nye, I Fought with Geronimo, 25, 49–53.

[20] Another version of this quote is in the March 1950 DUP lesson, with these two paragraphs reversed. It is not clear who made the changes; both Clayton and Kate Carter, as editors of PWA and DUP lessons, respectively, would probably not have worried about making some editorial changes. Jake [Jacob Hamblin Jr.], “Reminiscence of Aunt Louisa, wife of Jacob Hamblin,” in Daughters of Utah Pioneer Lessons, March 1950, 261.

[21] Udall, “Jacob Hamblin—His Later Years, Death and Burial,” in Daughters of Utah Pioneer Lessons, March 1950, 253–61.

[22] Compton wrote, “It is not clear how [Louisa] survived economically.” He did, however, document some of her moves and activities during her forty-five years of widowhood. Compton, “Civilizing the Ragged Edge,” 193.

[23] Udall, Forgotten Founders, 56−57.

[24] Compton, “Civilizing the Ragged Edge,” 197.

[25] When Dixie Hancock Krauss compiled information about her ancestors, the entry for Mosiah and Margaret Hancock focused mainly on Mosiah. Krauss, Perry and Lora, 2:144−55.

[26] Sarah (age 18) and Catherine (age 16) McCleve sailed from Liverpool on the Camillus. They departed on April 6, 1853, and docked in New Orleans on June 7. They traveled across the plains with the John Brown Company of 1853. MPOT.

[27] The McCleve family consisting of John (age 48), wife Nancy (age 41), and their seven children crossed the plains in the second handcart company, the Daniel D. McArthur company of 1856. This company left from Iowa City on June 11 and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 26. There were 236 people in the company; most of these emigrants crossed the ocean on either the Enoch Train or S. Curling, both of which disembarked at Boston. MPOT.

[28] Howard Christy wrote, “Few if any of the handcart emigrants had sufficient clothing to protect them from the cold weather that increasingly prevailed after October 1.” There was a seventeen-pound limit for adults, which only “made sense for summer travel,” and “the emigrants’ clothing had become ragged by the time they reached the last crossing of the Platte.” In fact, “some clothing and bedding was burned in mid-October, to further lighten the loads.” Hypothermia was exacerbated by starvation and exhaustion; there was no good solution to the problem. Christy, “Weather, Disaster, and Responsibility,” 28–29.

[29] John McCleve died on September 24, 1856, just two days before the company reached the Salt Lake Valley.

[30] Joseph Smith Hancock died on November 3, 1894. RFC wrote a very dramatic account of this accident in To the Last Frontier, 135−36. Lucy Flake’s own journal is more matter of fact: “a stranger was close by. he turned him [Joseph] over. thought him dead. came to our house and asked for the menfolks. said there was a dead man up there in the road. he wanted someone to identify him. Roberta said she would go. when she got there it was Joseph Hancock.” Flake and Boone, Diary of Lucy Hannah White Flake, 2:76 (periods added).

[31] Mosiah L. Hancock died on January 14, 1907, at Hubbard, Graham Co., Arizona.

[32] John Henry Newman, “Lead, Kindly Light,” Hymns (1985), no. 97.

[33] Jennings, Arizona Was the West, 152.

[34] For two of Margaret’s daughters, see Sarah Hancock Perkins, 526, and Rebecca Reed Hancock Tenney, 716.

[35] This sketch was originally written for the FWP and submitted on October 17, 1936. Only the last three sentences were added for PWA. Additional information and more photographs can be found in Krauss, Perry and Lora, 2:128−43.

[36] Ann Casbourne Williams Dalton, 132.

[37] For Marium’s mother-in-law, see Margaret McCleve Hancock, 238.

[38] Ann Dalton was not a widow at this time. John Dalton Jr. simply did not come with the family to Arizona; he died January 5, 1885 in Rockville, Washington Co., Utah, at the home of his sixth wife, Marianne Catherine Gardiol Dalton. Krauss, Perry and Lora, 2:175−78.

[39] These men do not seem to be part of the Caleb Angle family from West Virginia, who converted and came to the Gila Valley about 1890.

[40] Charles Brewer (1850–1917) married Suzanna Dalton, and Jacob Brewer (1833–1908) married Sabra Ann Follett, 66; both brothers remained in the Pinedale area. Will, Fred, and Beeley Gardner are the sons of George Bryant Gardner (1813–93) and Harriet Maria Beebe (1836–1913); both George and Harriet died in Woodruff, but these sons did not remain in Arizona. Alpheus Gillespie (1854–1906) married Georgia Ann Gardner, daughter of George Bryant and Harriet Beebe Gardner; after Georgia’s death in 1884 in the Tonto Basin, Alph Gillespie move to the Gila Valley.

[41] RFC added the word “remember” when she transferred the FWP sketch to PWA. Usually the Spanish word, saber, is translated as “to know.”

[42] This sentence ends the FWP sketch which was submitted October 17, 1936. RFC added the last three sentences for PWA sometime before 1969.

[43] For other friendly encounters, see May Louise Hunt Larson, 394; Mary Ann Smith McNeil, 431; Sarah McNeil Mills, 465; Julia Ellsworth West, 767; and Annie Catherine Hansen Whipple, 783.

[44] Arrington and Bitton, Mormon Experience, 146.

[45] Arrington, Brigham Young, 211.

[46] Catholic and Presbyterian missionaries were on the Navajo Reservation during this period. “Snowflake Stake’s Involvement in the Southwest Indian Mission,” in Erickson, Story of Faith, 119; Flake, “History of Mormon Missionary Work with the Hopi, Navaho and Zuni Indians,” 79–93.

[47] Shumway, Alpine, Arizona, 29.

[48] Ibid., 32.

[49] As is common for other LDS Scandinavian emigrants, sometimes Bertha’s surname is listed as Pearson (patronymic) rather than Olsson (e.g., AzDC for Emma Swenson Hansen).

[50] Joseph City families lived together in accord, something not always found in other settlements. Charles Peterson thought that much of this harmony while living the United Order came from “an abiding concern for the individual. . . . Leadership there never rested heavily upon any one man but was spread through the entire association.” Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 112.

[51] George Henry Brimhall (1852–1932) was president of Brigham Young University from 1904 to 1921. During his tenure, academic requirements were strengthened and “higher criticism” marked liberal religious thought. He may be best known as a great orator; however, he began his teaching career in Spanish Fork where Emma Swenson was a student. Butterworth, 1,000 Views of 100 Years, 52–53; Wilkinson and Skousen, Brigham Young University, 183–230.

[52] Parley P. Pratt’s A Voice of Warning was first printed in 1837 and has been reprinted numerous times. Givens and Grow called this book “a work that served the church as its most powerful proselytizing tool—after the Book of Mormon—for more than a century.” Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 90.

[53] The residents of Joseph City were living the United Order at this time, and Emma Hansen was one of the women Phillips used to illustrate these activities. See Phillips, “‘As Sisters in Zion,’” 155−72.

[54] It seems likely that this incident took place between 1883 and 1885. Joseph Hansen’s first wife, Sophia, died in 1883, and Emma’s first child was born one month later. The two children would have been Sophia’s daughter Mary and Emma’s son James.

[55] George S. Tanner and J. Morris Richards described Joseph Hansen as “a splendid farmer whose crops always seemed to prosper. He had more to do with making important decisions about dams, ditches, and such practical matters than anyone else in the settlement, even though he had no formal training in the field of engineering. He was regarded as something of a progressive for he traveled extensively for his day, and he returned from his trips with many new ideas. He was the first to install running water in his home, to have a bathtub instead of the old wash tub, and to beautify his yard with grass, flowers, and shrubs.” Tanner and Richards, Colonization on the Little Colorado, 165.

[56] Hansen, Joseph C. Hansen Story, 20−21.

[57] Sophia’s children included twins Emily and Josephine (1878), Mary Sophia (1879), and Amanda (1881); only Mary survived early childhood.

[58] Ibid., 23.

[59] See Westover and Richards, Unflinching Courage, 236−40. This book also contains biographies for many of the Hansen children and grandchildren.

[60] Tanner and Richards, Colonization on the Little Colorado, 166.

[61] “Edmund Ellsworth,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:700–1.

[62] Effie and Ellie Ellsworth were born December 31, 1877.

[63] Loren died on November 11, 1879, and Emmaline died on November 19; the third child was Wilford, a son of Edmund Ellsworth and Mary Ann (Polly) Jones, who died on November 26.

[64] See comments from Ellis and Boone in Sarah Diantha Gardner Curtis, 121, for a description of how the Apaches made this fermented beverage. See Sarah Alice McNeil Mills, n. 145, 465, for further information about this incident, which was much more significant than simply a “tulapai party.”

[65] This quote has several problems. The term prairie wolf usually refers to the coyote. A pack of fifty coyotes seems impossible as coyotes hunt alone or in pairs, and a wolf pack seldom exceeds twelve. Perhaps two packs of wolves were temporarily near to feast on carrion. As conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote of his encounter at a wolf den in Arizona in the early twentieth century, “In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy. . . . When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg. . . . I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise.” This eliminate-all-predators mentality has changed, in part, because Leopold helped understand the relationship between predators, prey, and overgrazing. Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 129–32.

[66] Francis M. Lyman (1840–1916) was a son of Amasa M. Lyman and was made an apostle in 1880. He was president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles from 1903 to 1916. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1641; “Francis Marion Lyman,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:136–41.

[67] These men, Robert and George Scott, Bill Morgan, Jim Porter, and Will Amos, were sheepmen who grazed their flocks just north of the Apache Reservation. In 1905, the market for sheep and wool crashed, and some wanted to sell out. Hans Hansen bought property from Will Amos, which later became part of the town of Lakeside. Lakeside Ward, Snowflake Arizona Stake, 10–12.

[68] David O. McKay (1873–1970) was born in Huntsville, Utah, and became a popular teacher at Weber Stake Academy. Although he was ordained an Apostle in 1906, he served as principal of the Weber Academy from 1902 to 1908. He became president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1951 and served until his death in 1970. James B. Allen, “David O. McKay,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 3:870–75.

[69] Gertrude Hansen Standage. Biographical Information Regarding Hans and Loretta Ellsworth Hansen, MS 9303, CHL.

[70] Clayton, “To Rettie Hanson,” in Clayton, Rhymes, Rhythms, Rhapsodies, and Reveries of Roberta, 101.

[71] Pioneer Women of Navajo County (partial manuscript PWA, Mesa FHL, 3:36) gives a June 19, 1937 date. The FWP sketch was included in PWA without change.

[72] Annie Catherine Hansen Whipple, 783.

[73] Mary, her sister, and her mother are not listed in MPOT. The family is at Washington, Washington Co., Utah in 1870, with Hans (32), Mary (21), Niels (1), and Hans Jr. (7) in one household, and Samuel Adair (64), Annie Adair (54), and Annie Adair [Hansen] (9) in the next household.

[74] Metta Kathrine Adsersen was born on February 6, 1839, married Hansen on February 15, 1856, and died on December 19, 1864.

[75] This was likely Samuel Jefferson Adair, who had married Mary’s mother. Anne Adair died in 1884 at St. Johns, Apache Co., Arizona; Samuel died on July 6, 1889, at Nutrioso, Apache Co., Arizona.

[76] Settlers in northern Arizona usually traveled to Zuñi Salt Lake, New Mexico, about thirty-three miles east of St. Johns, for salt. McClintock reported that some freighters would come back with as much as two tons in one load. Other salt deposits were found along the Verde, Salt, and Colorado Rivers. McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 156–57.

[77] Cross, Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations, 198.

[78] Ibid., 187.

[79] This given name (and that of her mother and daughter) is sometimes spelled Louisa.

[80] Louisa Bee Harper Rogers, “Harvey John Harper,” in Clayton, PMA, 225−26.

[81] Honeydew was the excretion from aphids on plant leaves. For another account of pioneers using this for food, see Elizabeth Clark McBride, n. 17, 421.

[82] In 1857, President James Buchanan, believing the Mormons in Utah were in rebellion, sent an army to Utah under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston. Determined to not be driven from their homes again, the Saints slowed the army down on Plains, negotiated a compromise through the efforts of Thomas L. Kane, and fled south in June 1858, planning to torch their homes rather than defend them (as indicated here) or let others benefit from their hard work. Richard E. Bennett, "Utah War," in Garr, Cannon, and Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, 1282–84.

[83] These were popular songs of the day; three of the four were included in the 1932 DUP songbook, which included a mixture of popular, pioneer, and inspirational songs. “Silver Threads Among the Gold;” George W. Johnson, “When You and I Were Young;” J. E. Carpenter, “Do They Think of Me At Home?” in Durham, Pioneer Songs, 136–37, 129, 54–55.

[84] Emmeline B. Wells, “Our Mountain Home So Dear”; William Clayton, “Come, Come Ye Saints,” Hymns (1985), nos. 32 and 30; W. W. Phelps, “O Stop and Tell Me, Red Man,” Songs of Zion, no. 224.

[85] Serviceberries (Amelanchier utahensis): the spelling, sarvisberries, reflects early Utah dialect. John Moses Browning grew up in Ogden, and, as an adult, taught himself French so he could speak with his firearms production plant in Belgium. In discussing the “crudities of speech” in early Utah settlements, John Moses once said, “Now, why in the world did we go to the trouble of saying arrer? Arrow is a smooth and easy word, while arrer is a jawbreaker. Try it.” Browning and Gentry, John M. Browning, 40.

[86] Edwin Harper died on July 24, 1881, in Mesa. Phoebe Arabell Woodruff (1859−1939) was married to Jesse Tilton Moses (1848–1928).

[87] Although today we associate biscuits with baking soda, sourdough bread rises through a fermentation process. A starter culture is made by mixing water and flour. The starter is then left uncovered for several days to a week to capture wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria from the air. At baking time, a small amount of dough is saved for the next starter and is renewed with more flour and water. This process is ancient and was the principal method used to make bread through the Middle Ages. It is particularly useful for flours with little gluten (for example, rye). Freezing does not kill the starter but heat will, which is probably one reason that Louesa Rogers, living in Mesa, was unfamiliar with sourdough bread. The name comes from the mildly sour taste.

[88] PWA spelling was Scrantlin. Pierce’s Ferry was located where the Grand Wash meets the Colorado River. McClintock stated, “About midway between the Virgin and Grand Wash, about 1881, was established the Mike Scanlon ferry.” McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 97.

[89] Henry Clay Rogers (1833–1902, husband of Emma Higbee Rogers, 599) was with the first group of Latter-day Saints who came to the Salt River Valley to settle (Jones or Lehi Company); he helped pick out the site for Lehi. Johnson, Perkins, and LeBaron, Our Town—Mesa, Arizona, 11–13; “Henry Clay Rogers,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:526.

[90] Corrections in this sentence come from the 1932 sketch published by F. T. Pomeroy; Rogers, “Brief Biography of Harvey John Harper and Louisa Park Harper,” 22.

[91] Rogers, “Brief Biography of Harvey John Harper and Louisa Park Harper,” 7, 16−24.

[92] The largest number of Loyalists who left after the Revolutionary War were from the middle colonies (of which New Jersey was one). Historian Maya Jasanoff estimates that 60,000 people and 15,000 black slaves fled to all areas of the British Empire. About half settled in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. The 10,000 mentioned here is the approximate number who settled in Ontario (Upper Canada) and Quebec. Some of the Loyalists who came to Upper Canada in the 1790s, first fled to Nova Scotia and others came from western New York. Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles, 6, 9, 198−209, 398.

[93] Upper Canada Land Petitions “M” Bundle 1, 1792–1795 (RG 1, L 3, vol. 327), Public Archives Canada.

[94] Each Loyalist was entitled to 200 acres of land for loyalty to the Crown; those in the militia or military were entitled to more acres depending on rank. Also, each son and daughter of a Loyalist was entitled to 200 acres of land at age twenty-one. From 1789 to c. 1812, most settlers were also granted 200 acres. Land surveys began in Upper Canada in 1784. The first land grants were in the eastern counties and then moved west. Sandy Wunder to Ellis, email, February 19, 2015.

[95] George Boils was granted Lot 23 in the 9th Concession of Markham twp, York Co., Ontario, on October 14, 1801. Sarah Boils, as daughter of John Mills, was granted Lot 23 in the 3rd Concession of King twp., May 4, 1804. Upper Canada Land Petitions “B” Bundle 5, 1797–1802 (RG 1, L 3, vol. 32) and Bundle 7, 1802–1806 (RG 1, L 3, vol. 34), Public Archives Canada. George Boyls died July 9, 1841, age eighty-three years, six months; Sarah, his wife, died September 6, 1832, age seventy-five years, ten months. Boyls/Boyle Cemetery, Markham twp., York Co., Ontario; http://www.geneofun.on.ca/cems/ON/ONYOR14767. Some descendants of the Boyls family are members of the Community of Christ church.

[96] The 1st and 4th New Jersey Volunteers (Loyalist) were part of the garrison of New York City. They fought at the Battle of Springfield on June 23, 1780, under Colonel Joseph Barton. The Continental troops did not let the British advance, and this became one of the last major battles of the Revolutionary War in the north. It seems likely that “deserted” in this sentence is from the American perspective and that George Boyls will be found to have still been with the New Jersey Volunteers when they were disbanded in New Brunswick in 1783. Thomas Fleming wrote, “We have forgotten the wounded, bitter Americans . . . who fought and bled and died . . . out of angry conviction that the Continental Congress was much more tyrannical and dangerous than George III.” Fleming, Forgotten Victory, 299–300.

[97] Matthew Mills was granted Lot 11 in the 8th Concession of East Gwillimbury twp., York Co., Upper Canada on November 24, 1803. Upper Canada Land Petitions “B” Bundle 5, 1800–1801 (RG 1, L 3, vol. 331), Public Archives Canada.

[98] PWA originally listed Duffins Creek in Leeds Co. This county was indeed set aside for Loyalists, with specific townships for specific soldiers, but Duffins Creek is in Pickering Township, Ontario Co. Leeds County is where John E. Page preached. During the summer of 1836, Page made 267 converts, and in 1837 he converted 400 more. Page urged these converts to gather to Zion; by 1852, only one Mormon family remained in South Crosby, and they had returned to Methodism by the next census. Warren, Hub of the Rideau, 63–65.

[99] The mission into Ontario was originally headed by Parley P. Pratt. In 1836, he baptized John and Leonore Taylor, who had been part of a Methodist dissenters group. John Taylor then preached in this area before moving to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1838. Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, 131−51.

[100] Loosely quoted from verse 4, William Clayton, “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” Hymns (1985), no. 30.

[101] John Mills served as a teamster for the Livingston and Kinkead Freight company, arriving in Utah on September 23, 1850. The rest of the family, including Sarah Mills Ashton’s baby and thirteen-year-old Barbara, left on June 9, 1851, with the Morris Phelps Company and arrived between September 26 and October 1, 1851. Barbara’s brother, Martin Mills, wrote a description of both the 1850 and 1851 trips (MS 28854, CHL), a portion of which can be seen at: https://history.lds.org/overlandtravels/sources/12417621844407597556/mills-martin-w-autobiography-and-journal-p-4-10-11. MPOT.

[102] In mid-September 1857, Brigham Young declared martial law and sent about eleven hundred men into Echo Canyon, through which the army would have to pass. These men built walls and dug trenches for defense, loosened boulders to roll down on the army, and constructed dams and ditches so the route could be flood when the army approached. Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, 306.

[103] Some references list Ellie’s name as Eleanor, but it was Susan Ellen. She married William L. Follett and died in 1939. (AzDC: Sarah Ellen Follett, William L. Follett, and Loren Leamond Follett.)

[104] William Wallace Haws married Gertrudis Guarneros on March 1, 1888; she died in 1929.

[105] William W. Haws died March 6, 1895, Colonia Pacheco, Chihuahua, Mexico.

[106] Made a fuss over them means a showy display of delight or approval, particularly a grandmother interacting with her grandchildren.

[107] Pinto is in Utah, in northern Washington Co., near the Iron/Washington Co. line. Spring Valley, their end destination, is in Lincoln Co., Nevada. This required Prime Coleman to travel northwest with the Pinto herd. Mormons settled in this area of Nevada as early as 1864, particularly at Pioche and Panaca. Spring Valley is at the upper end of the Meadow Valley Wash, which eventually empties into the Muddy River near Moapa. Today, Spring Valley is part of the Nevada state park system.

[108] A man or family named Franselia matching this description was not found in either the 1870 or 1880 censuses. However, with the sobriquet of “Spanish George,” one would assume that his given name was, in fact, Jorgé and not José.

[109] William Bailey Maxwell (1821–95), a member of Company D of the Mormon Battalion, later lived in southern Apache County but died at Mesa. McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 37; Wilhelm and Wilhelm, History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, 73; “William Baley Maxwell,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:753; findagrave.com #35124852. See also, Charlotte Martha Maxwell Webb, 758, for information about one of his daughters.

[110] Margaret Haskell: this is probably Margaret Johanna Edwards (1835–1916), wife of Thales Hastings Haskell. She was born in Wales and died in Manassa, Conojos Co., Colorado.

[111] Because William Bailey Maxwell had three wives and this is between censuses, the identity of this woman is uncertain.

[112] Missing words were added from: Margaret S. Heywood, “The Life Story of Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood,” 4; copy in possession of Ellis.

[113] Mary Annetta Coleman (1862−1946) married Elijah Pomeroy (1850−1916) in 1879. In 1884, Elijah married a second wife, Lucretia Phelps (1867−1966); see Sarah Lucretia Phelps Pomeroy, 547. It seems apparent that this three-month schooling began in May 1873 and not 1874 as reported in PWA.

[114] Enoch Bennion was the son of John and Esther Bennion; he died on November 28, 1873.

[115] Ida, two years old, drank lye from a can thought to be empty; Serepta, just past one year old, died of “summer complaint” (dysentery); and Mattie, ten years old, died of pneumonia on Christmas Eve. Years later, Francelle told her daughter-in-law, Margaret Eleanor Smurthwaite Heywood, “I don’t enjoy Christmas. Mattie died on Christmas Eve and was buried on Christmas Day. I simply can’t seem to forget.” Personal communication, Richard Heywood to Ellis.

[116] 1 Nephi 8:20.

[117] One explanation for these imported teachers (i.e., the desire to teach “American” values to Mormon children) comes from Woodworth, “Public Schooling in Territorial Arizona,” 95–134; see n. 36 in Annie Maria McRae Goodman, 216.

[118] Margaret S. Heywood, “The Life Story of Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood,” copy in possession of Ellis.

[119] Sorrel refers to a copper-red (chestnut) color, or horse of that color.

[120] Heywood, The Life Story of Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood, 8.

[121] Ibid.

[122] Ibid., 16.

[123] Ibid., 16.

[124] This surname is spelled both as Mathews and Matthews. Ann’s second given name is found as Horton, Holton, Hotton, and Hattan. “Ann H. Matthews Holladay,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:397.

[125] This is a best guess for location; FamilySearch.org records often list Neshoba, Noxubee, Mississippi, as Ann’s birthplace. However, in 1833 Neshoba and Noxubee were created as two separate counties from former Choctaw lands ceded to the United States under the Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty of 1830. Neshoba has always been part of Neshoba County. The 1840 census lists Joseph Mathews as a resident of Noxubee Co., Mississippi, with three slaves and eight free whites.

[126] “Joseph Matthews,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:713.

[127] Lyman, San Bernardino, 283.

[128] “Thomas Middleton Wiley Holladay,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:396–97.

[129] AzDC is indexed under Ann H. Halliday.

[130] See n. 125.

[131] Assuming Ann was baptized in the Mississippi River, nine is likely a typographical error.

[132] Joseph Matthews was a member of the high council with the organization of the San Bernardino Stake July 5–6, 1851. Lyman, San Bernardino, 54–55.

[133] Although PWA originally stated “Mexican Dan Antonino Mario Lupo for $775,” this is Antonio Maria Lugo, a longtime Los Angeles area rancher and head of a large family. “Dan” should be the Spanish title of respect, Don; Antonio is the normal Hispanic spelling, and Maria is a common male Hispanic name (versus Mario which is Italian). The price of the ranch was considerably more than the amount reported in PWA, but the number of initial settlers was correct. Ibid., viii, 40, 57–58, 101, 139–40.

[134] The Holladay family was part of the Mississippi Saints who spent the winter of 1846–47 in Pueblo, Colorado, and then moved to San Bernardino with Amasa Lyman and Charles Rich. Lyman, San Bernardino, 18–22.

[135] David Archibald was likely one year and four months old because he was born on December 28, 1863, and died on April 4, 1865. PWA listed “Santa or Saint Enine” as their residence.

[136] See comments by Ellis and Boone. However, the FindAGrave website for Charles Eugene Holladay (Pima, Arizona) has a slightly different version: “While working at the sawmill Gene developed a friendship with a young man by the name of Will Mangum who being younger than the other men in the camp was often picked on by a bully by the name of John Hunt. Gene defended Will and told Hunt to pick on someone his own size. On August 20, 1895, Gene Holladay was shot in the back by John Hunt at his distillery outside of Pima. He was carried to his mother’s home, lingered for a day and died.” Eugene Holladay left a widow, Mary Angelina “Ann” Haws Holladay, and children Ella LaVer (born 1890), Ethel Belinda (1888), and Lawrence Eugene (1894). In 1900, Mary Holladay married Will Mangum, and the website states, “Will was a true father to the Holladay children and grandchildren.” Findagrave.com #18326018.

[137] Rhoda Carroll Matthews died on May 13, 1896, in Graham Co., Arizona.

[138] John Secress Green was born in 1856 in Ohio and died in 1891. See comments from Ellis and Boone; 1860 census, John S. Green, Goshen, Belmont Co., Ohio.

[139] Daniel Wiley Holladay died on February 17, 1910, at Pima, Graham Co., Arizona.

[140] Chloe Dryden, “Franklin Hollis Holladay,” in Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 1:170.

[141] See Upton and Ball, “Who Robbed Major Wham?” 99–134.

[142] “Lyman Follett Jailed Yesterday,” Arizona Republican, November 26, 1892, 1; “Lyman Follett Lodged in Jail,” Arizona Weekly Citizen, December, 3, 1892, 3; Arizona Weekly Citizen, December 10, 1892, 4; “An Old Murder Revived,” Arizona Republican, October 30, 1895, 4. Additional information (but with some errors) is found in footnotes 61−63, Godfrey, “Writing in the ‘Waggon,’” 149−50.

[143] “Tragedy at Pima,” Arizona Republican, September 1, 1895, 1; “The Holladay Killing,” Graham Guardian, September 6, 1895; “An Old Murder Revived,” Arizona Republican, October 30, 1895, 4; “An Old Murder Revived,” Graham County Guardian, November 1, 1895, 1.

[144] Thomas W. Holladay died on December 10, 1921, at Pima, Graham Co., Arizona.

[145] Chloe Dryden, “Franklin Hollis Holladay,” in Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 1:170.

[146] See Ruth Ann Robinson Fuel Williams Durfee, 155.

[147] Henrietta cloth was usually black, although sometimes another color. It was a tightly woven wool with a slight sheen, and often had a twill weave (subtle parallel diagonal ribs) making it difficult to pull out of shape. This expensive cloth was extremely soft (like cashmere) and was used often for winter weddings.

[148] Dewey is in Yavapai County; it was earlier known as Agua Fria and now is known as Cherry Creek. Granger, Arizona Place Names, 342.

[149] Rebecca Winters was also part of the James C. Snow Company and died of the same cholera epidemic. The Houghton/Gilson children may have been under the care of Salmon Warner during their trip to Utah, and then they spent some time with their mother’s sister, Abigail, who was married to Joseph Smith. MPOT; findagrave.com #94254798.

[150] Ruth Ann Robinson Fuel Williams Durfee, 155.

[151] “Alexander Hunsaker,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:525.

[152] Polly May Hunsaker Stapley, 695.

[153] Anna Benz Kleinman, 370.

[154] Mabel Ann Morse Hakes, 231.

[155] Eugenia Francelle Pomeroy Robson (1845–1902) was the daughter of Francis M. and Irene Ursula Haskell Pomeroy and the wife of Charles I. Robson.

[156] McClintock interview with Mrs. Elizabeth Hanks Curtis, Farish Collection, ASLAPR.

[157] McClintock interview with Mrs. C. A. Teeples, Farish Collection, ASLAPR.

[158] Merrill, One Hundred Echoes from Mesa’s Past, 253–54.

[159] Ibid., 256.

[160] Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 91.

[161] LeBaron, History of the Mesa Arizona Maricopa Stake, 8.

[162] Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 182–210.

[163] Prominent early Flagstaff businessmen included Michael, Timothy, and Denis Riordan, associated mainly with the forest industry, and the five Babbitt brothers, who were mainly cattlemen; both families were involved in many other Flagstaff enterprises. Dean Smith discusses the death of Lot Smith in 1892 and the subsequent transfer of his holdings to the Babbitt family. Babbitt and DeGraff, Flagstaff, 28, 48–53, 59, 67, 70, 75–76; Smith, Brothers Five, 101−2; “The Five Babbitt Brothers,” in Clayton, PMA, 23−24; Farretta, “Progressive Era Community-Builders: The Riordan Brothers of Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, 1884–1904.”

[164] The AzDC for Hyrum B. Smith was issued at Snowflake, Navajo County, because he “lived in Snowflake this county and his home and family live there.” However, Smith was found dead in Apache County and no specific death date was assigned, simply March 1910.

[165] Charles Foscue Bushman, age nine, died on July 20, 1943, at Zeniff. AzDC.

[166] AzDC: issued and indexed as Eliza T. Hunt.

[167] Ellis, Ben and Pearl Hunt and the Homestead Dairy, 87–90, 95–97.

[168] Holbrook Tribune-News, June 10, 1965. With the Smiths living in Winslow and the Hunt and Miller families living in Joseph City, these couples often got together in the intervening years to celebrate their common wedding anniversary.

[169] Barnes, “The Honeymoon Trail to Utah,” 6–7, 17–18.

[170] Julia S. Rogers, “Burton R. Smith,” in Erickson, Story of Faith, 108.

[171] The end of this sentence, “in the northern part of France” was deleted.

[172] The Schmutz family traveled aboard the British steamship Nevada, which departed Liverpool on June 11 and arrived at New York City, June 23, 1874. See comments by Ellis and Boone; “New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957,” ancestry.com; Sonne, Saints on the Seas, 155; Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 152.

[173] See Rosetta Schmutz Hunt, 297.

[174] This refers to Gila County (Pine, Strawberry, Tonto Basin) and not the Gila Valley (Safford, Thatcher).

[175] Apparently, this means Lydia Ann Lake Nelson, 483.

[176] This is probably the Battle of Big Dry Wash. See Northern Gila County Historical Society, Rim Country History, 63–64; Sam Palmer, “The Battle of Big Dry Wash,” http://www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past/the-battle-of-big-dry-wash.

[177] Cholera morbus is gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines.

[178] Martha Louise Hunt was born April 12, 1883, in Pine and died June 4, 1883, in Utah.

[179] Foxed means trimmed with leather, usually referring to shoes, but in this case it may mean leather applied to high-wear areas of the overalls (e.g., the thighs if working as a blacksmith).

[180] With this description, biyo beans may be another term for Lima beans.

[181] FamilySearch.org lists Elroy Hunt as being born on October 10, 1892, at Tuba City and dying on December 15, 1895. However, FamilySearch also lists a Leroy Hunt, born on October 10, 1897, at Tuba City, and dying on December 13, 1899. These may be the same child.

[182] Lot Smith died on June 21, 1892. Navajo sheep got into Smith’s pasture and he ran them off. Then he began shooting the sheep, and the Navajos began shooting Smith’s cows and finally Smith himself. Smith was described as a “volatile [and] temperamental” man who got into disagreements with other settlers and later his neighbors. Tanner and Richards, Colonization on the Little Colorado, 160; McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 159–60.

[183] When the federal government decided this should be Navajo land, the Mormon settlers were compensated and had moved from Tuba City by February 1903. Ibid., 161.

[184] William James Hunt died at Jewett (Waterflow), San Juan Co., New Mexico.

[185] Annie Elizabeth Hunt Lee died on August 19, 1926, at Gallup, McKinley Co., New Mexico.

[186] Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 152.

[187] John Schmutz (and family), “New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957,” ancestry.com.

[188] Sonne, Saints on the Seas, 69 and 125.

[189] Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 152.

[190] Sonne, Saints on the Seas, 155.

[191] This photograph may still be available on the internet labeled as William J. Flake. Rowe, Photographers in Arizona, 1850–1920, 59.

[192] William J. Flake was born in 1839 and Joseph Sponseller was born in 1850. 1900–1940 census records for Joseph Sponseller in Arizona; FamilySearch.org records for Joseph Sponseller, Martha Louise Adams, and William J. Flake; Ellis, Snowflake, 25; Huso and Ellis, Show Low, 22.

[193] “The Life of John Hunt,” in Clayton, PMA, 236−38; “John Hunt,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:417–18.

[194] AzDC is filed under Capilona Sandford Hunt. Her given name is spelled in various records as Happylona, Hapilona, and Happalona. The John Addison Hunt family spelling of Happylona is used here. Happylona Sanford Hunt appears in the Frontispiece.

[195] Cyrus Sanford married Sylvia Elmina Stockwell on October 5, 1836; then he married Sylvia’s half-sister, Happylona Sophrona Clark, in 1863. Clara Jane Sanford was born on October 19, 1866; she married Nephi Packard and died on November 7, 1948 in Idaho. Therefore, Clara was Happylona Hunt’s half-sister (same father) or her cousin (daughter of her mother’s half-sister). Information on the Cyrus Sanford family is seen best at the Springville Cemetery website, findagrave.com #85096.

[196] Charles David Evans (1829–1908) was born in England and died at Springville, Utah. 1870 census, Charles D. Evans, Springville, Utah Co., Utah; “Charles David Evans,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:568.

[197] Happylona Hunt came to Arizona by train, likely through Colorado. Her belongings, including the fruit which froze and ruined other items, were eventually located at LaJunta, Colorado. Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman, 103.

[198] The Pinetop conference was held on July 4, 1892, and included people from the St. Joseph, Maricopa, St. Johns, and Snowflake Stakes. McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 170.

[199] “The Life of John Hunt,” in Clayton, PMA, 236−38.

[200] Sarah Jane Crosby Hunt, 301.

[201] Francis Hunt was born on December 23, 1894, and died on November 27, 1928.

[202] Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman, 103−5.

[203] “William Ammon Hunt,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:619.

[204] For a list of family members, see comments by Ellis and Boone in Anna Elese Schmutz Hunt, 288.

[205] The Schmutz family crossed the ocean on the steamship Nevada, which left Liverpool on June 11 and arrived at Castle Garden (New York City) on June 23, 1874. See Anna Elese Schmutz Hunt, 288.

[206] Rosetta’s sister married Alma’s brother. See Anna Elese Schmutz Hunt, 288.

[207] These were the Rial, Alex, and Marion Allen, Price Nelson, and John P. Hough families. Northern Gila County Historical Society, Rim Country History, 35, 82–83, 135–136.

[208] Frank Elroy Hunt spent nearly two years at the Veterans Home in Fort Whipple and died April 19, 1931. He passed away from the effects of gas in his lungs used during World War I. AzDC.

[209] Noel E. Hunt was a driller and powder man working for the Gila County Roads Department when he was killed by a rockslide, August 7, 1924. AzDC.

[210] This is probably the Battle of Big Dry Wash. See Northern Gila County Historical Society, Rim Country History, 63–64; Sam Palmer, “The Battle of Big Dry Wash,” http://www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past/the-battle-of-big-dry-wash.

[211] Northern Gila County Historical Society, Rim Country History, 136.

[212] Bluing was a liquid or powder used to rinse white fabrics to prevent yellowing.

[213] An unknown author, possibly RFC, added this paragraph and the next sometime between 1920 and 1944; presumably, RFC added the last paragraph with the death date shortly before publishing in 1969.

[214] Northern Gila County Historical Society, Rim Country History, 35–36.

[215] “The Life of John Hunt,” in Clayton, PMA, 236−38; “John Hunt,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:417–18.

[216] See Compton, “Civilizing the Ragged Edge: The Wives of Jacob Hamblin,” 155−98.

[217] William and Sarah Crosby were converts of missionary John Brown. Whether or not William Crosby freed his slaves when joining the Saints is unknown at this time. One slave, Oscar Crosby, was sent with John Brown to Winter Quarters and then traveled to Utah with Brigham Young’s Pioneer Company in 1847. Possibly the Martha Crosby who married Green Flake and maybe her mother, Vilate Crosby, were the other slaves who came to Utah with William Crosby. William and Sarah Crosby traveled to Utah with the Willard Richards Company of 1848, but there is no listing for Martha or Vilate Crosby. MPOT; Brown, Autobiography of Pioneer John Brown, 71–72; Dennis Lythgoe, “Black Slaves Were Among Earliest Pioneers in Utah,” Deseret News, July 22, 1997.

[218] Fanny Crosby married Aaron Porter Adair about 1877 and came to the Little Colorado River settlements with the extended Adair family. They settled just north of Show Low, and the small community became known as Adair. Fanny is listed as a widow with three children in the 1900 Snowflake census, but Aaron Adair was committed to the Insane Asylum in Phoenix in 1882 (where he died in 1911). Fanny died on July 22, 1914, in Flagstaff and is buried in Snowflake. As adults, Native Americans who had been adopted as children into LDS homes sometimes struggled to fit into the Mormon culture, but the Hunt family was particularly kind to many. Louise Larson Comish, a granddaughter of Bishop John Hunt, remembered Fanny Adair carding wool and “selling” yeast. Comish wrote, “I was never afraid to go to her house, which I did when we needed yeast to make a different type of bread from our usual saltrising. For a cup of flour, Fanny would exchange a cup of yeast. She dipped it out of a brown crock standing in her small, spotless kitchen. This little trade venture supplied flour to keep her family in bread.” Comish, Snowflake Girl manuscript, 38, copy in possession of Ellis; AzDCs: Fanny C. Adair, Aaron Adair, Aport Adair; 1880 census, Aaron P. Adair, Show Low Creek, Arizona Territory; 1900 census, Fanna Adair, Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona.

[219] Taylor Crosby married Sarah Jane Hales on November 6, 1880. PWA states that she was a widow, but this seems to be incorrect.

[220] William Crosby (1808–80).

[221] Taylor Crosby died on July 23, 1914.

[222] Roberta also did not mention Sarah’s marriage to John Hunt in a sketch prepared for PMA. “The Life of John Hunt,” in Clayton, PMA, 236−38.

[223] Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman, 98.

[224] Happylona Sanford Hunt, 294.

[225] Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman, 101.

[226] John Hunt Book, [14].