Annella Hunt Kartchner

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP[1]

Maiden Name: Annella “Annie” Hunt

Birth: February 15, 1862; Colton, San Bernardino Co., California

Parents: John Hunt[2] and Lois Barnes Pratt[3]

Marriage: Orin Kartchner; October 11, 1883

Children: Celia (1884), Kenner Casteel (1886), Jane (Jennie) (1888), Thalia (1891), Lafayette Shepherd (1893), Sarah Leone (1895)

Death: March 6, 1946; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Annella Hunt was born February 15, 1862, at Colton, California, near San Bernardino. Her parents were John Hunt, son of Captain Jefferson Hunt of the Mormon Battalion, and Lois Pratt Hunt, a lady of high culture and beauty. Their home at the time of Annella’s birth was located near the Santa Ana River, and on the morning of February 15, as the family was seated at the breakfast table, their house was surrounded by flood waters, overflowing the low banks of the river.

John Hunt hurriedly hitched up his team, and they drove to his sister Harriet Mayfield’s home, situated on higher ground farther from the river. Here, at midnight of that day, Annella Hunt was born.

The Hunt family remained in California until Annella was a year old, then made the long journey by team across the great American Desert and settled in Beaver City, Utah. Their three small daughters had whooping cough during that journey, and they had a terrible time, as it was a serious form.

Just before leaving California, John Hunt had all his family vaccinated for smallpox, even baby Annella just past a year old. This precaution proved to be a very great blessing to them all fifteen years later.

They lived in Beaver for eleven years, where the family went to good schools, and besides the three older daughters, two brothers and three other sisters were born. John Hunt was sheriff of Beaver County during the entire time, and his family had many anxious times when he was after men who had committed serious crimes or had escaped from the jail.

Annella Hunt and Orin Kartchner, 1883. Photo courtesy of Stinson Museum, Snowflake.

He finally decided to move away from Beaver and took his family to a small settlement on the Sevier River where they remained for two years. They next joined a group of pioneers who were going into Arizona or New Mexico, where new settlements were proving successful. It was a sad event in the lives of the parents and older children to bid farewell to their dear ones and lifelong friends.

The long journey was begun the day after Annella Hunt’s fifteenth birthday, February 15, 1877.[4] The company was composed of twelve covered wagons, some horse teams and some oxen, with a herd of loose animals to be driven.[5] As they journeyed through southern Utah, they often suffered from heat and lack of water. At one time their loose animals went without water for fifty-six hours. They crossed the Colorado River on the lower ferry, called Pearce’s Ferry. They were familiar with all fresh watering places and springs, from men who had gone ahead to blaze the trail and open the unknown wilderness for the hardy ones brave enough to take their families and build homes in the barren valleys where only Indians had ever lived.[6]

By the time they reached the foot of the San Francisco Mountains, they were travel-worn and some of their teams gave out, so they camped for a week. At such times, the mother and older girls would do the family washing, being prepared with tub and washboard for this purpose. Also, they would bake many loaves of bread, having learned to “set a sponge,” and do all the other necessary processes of bread making around a campfire.

Here at this camp John Hunt was able to exchange cows and oxen and loose horses, for a fine team of American horses, to continue the journey. But again there was a shortage of water, and one night in April 1877 as they were crossing the long desert between what are now Flagstaff and Winslow, Annella Hunt and her brother Lewis were walking, driving the loose cattle. Suddenly, the girl discovered a white object up in a tree. She found it to be writing paper, and knew it must be of great importance to them. She and her brother stopped their father to tell him of the discovery, and he at once lighted the lantern, and found it to be a notice of two large tanks of water not far from the road.[7] It had been left for their benefit by men who had gone ahead.[8] Hurriedly unharnessing the teams, the company spent two hours getting their thirsty animals down into those rocky tanks to be watered. They were very thankful for the finding of that little piece of paper, for they felt that it was a providential guidance to keep them from perishing.

When they reached the settlement of Sunset on the Little Colorado River, they rested there for two days. The leaders there urged them to remain and make their home with the Sunset Colony, but John Hunt decided to go on to the settlement in Savoia Valley, New Mexico. Two missionaries to the Indians were already there with their families, but outside of four or five families, the chief settlers of Savoia were Navajo and Zuni Indians and Mexicans.

However, these native inhabitants proved to be civilized enough to become good friends of the white settlers, especially in times of distress and sickness.

During that summer of 1877, Annella Hunt taught a little school under a bowery. Her own younger brothers and sisters and children of the other settlers were her pupils, and her salary was a new dress, given by Mr. Boyce, as payment for her teaching his boys.

During the late fall of 1877, a company of Mormon emigrants arrived in New Mexico from Arkansas. The family of Thomas West had contracted smallpox from camping in a Mexican house in Albuquerque, when the mother gave birth to a pair of twin babies. They drove on to the Savoia settlement, all of them either ill or exposed to the disease. John Hunt and his family cared for them and for others who took the disease throughout the long cold winter in the most terrible siege of smallpox that could be imagined or endured.[9]

Those who had been vaccinated fifteen years before, even Annella who was only a baby, escaped the disease and were called upon to their uttermost physical endurance to nurse the sick ones and to lay away those who died. The three younger sisters and two brothers all had smallpox in a quite serious form but none of them died.

In the fall of 1878, John Hunt was called to be the bishop of the new Snowflake settlement on Silver Creek. His family hailed the change with delight, as the Savoia settlement had been so isolated and lonely.

Now began Annella Hunt’s long, active life in Snowflake, where she served in every sort of public capacity. She was the teacher of the first little school in Snowflake, in the spring of 1879, which she taught in one of the little adobe stables built by Mr. Stinson who was the first owner of the site of the Silver Creek settlement. It had been carefully cleaned for a meetinghouse. She did not keep the names of her pupils, but has always wished she had, for very often a man or woman past middle-age will come to her and say, “I was one of the pupils in that first little school, which you taught in Snowflake.”

The following winter, she also taught the first school in the town of Taylor, three miles south of Snowflake. In the fall of 1881, Annella Hunt and her eldest sister, Ida Hunt, taught the Snowflake school, and in the spring of 1882, they taught the school in Taylor. Three or four months were as long as county funds permitted the schools to continue.

The three oldest Hunt sisters, Ida, May, and Annella, had passed a teachers’ examination under Mr. James Stinson, who was county judge, and they held certificates which entitled them to teach in Arizona schools. Annella taught altogether seven terms of school, most of them of only few months’ duration.

In September 1883, Annella Hunt left her home to become the bride of Orin Kartchner. They made the long journey by team, to be married in the temple at St. George, Utah, traveling in company with a brother of the bridegroom. They were married October 11, 1883. They remained in Utah nearly two months, the young husband helping with threshing and harvesting, then visiting with relatives and friends in Beaver and Richfield. They reached home December 17, 1883.

Their home was one log room on the old Kartchner lot, the present site of Annella’s younger sister, Mrs. Nettie Hunt Rencher’s home. On November 30, 1884, their sweet little baby Celia was born. She filled their hearts with joy but was not to remain with them to grow to womanhood.

Annie Hunt Kartchner with some of her siblings: front row, left to right, John Addison Hunt, Annie, Lewis Hunt; back row, Lois West and Nettie Rencher. Photo courtesy of Roma Lee Hiatt.

When she was three months old, the saddest event that ever came into the lives of the Hunt family occurred in Snowflake. Their mother, Lois Pratt Hunt, was accidentally burned so badly that she died a few hours later. Annella’s baby was asleep in a rocking chair in the room. In the brief excitement, the baby was forgotten for several minutes, when someone suddenly asked, “Where’s the baby, Annie?” As she rushed in to see if she was all right, a brother-in-law placed her in Annella’s arms, but bits of burned hair and clothing were all over her, though she herself was unharmed. The sweet little one lived to be one year and one week old and was then taken from her loving parents, leaving their hearts desolate.

Mrs. Kartchner was a member of the first dramatic company organized in Snowflake, and for many years she acted in plays of all sorts with important roles. The last time Uncle Tom’s Cabin was played in Snowflake, a committee visited Annella with an insistent request that she play the part of Topsy, which she had successfully portrayed many years before. She felt that it would be impossible, as she was at the time fifty-two years old. Finally she consented to take Topsy if her brother John A. Hunt could be persuaded to take Uncle Tom. Such was the ability of these two, in connection with a fine supporting cast, that a most excellent portrayal of these famous Negro characters was presented to an enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

When the play The Two Orphans was presented, Annella Hunt Kartchner was selected as the blind girl Louise, the sister Henrietta being Roberta Flake. A most touching and beautiful performance was given of this famous French play.

The last part Mrs. Kartchner played was in The Old-Fashioned Mother, when she was fifty-seven years old. Such was her dramatic ability, that when she was to weep in her part, she actually shed real tears, and in this old-fashioned mother, so vividly did she portray the pathos of a mother deserted, and about to be sent to the Poor House, that sobbing could be heard from every part of the auditorium of the theater.

Her guitar playing, both in playing tunes and accompaniment for singing, and her beautiful alto voice have always been a special feature of the famous “Hunt Sisters” singing. Her voice was still rich and mellow and remarkably preserved at the age of seventy-four.

She had a real poetic talent, which seemed to develop after her third or fourth child was born. While in her thirties and forties, she did a great deal of composing. She had about forty poems, especially songs, for some of which she also composed the music, to her credit. Her most important efforts were two epic poems, one for her brother-in-law, David K. Udall’s fiftieth birthday, September 7, 1901, written by special request of her sister Ida Hunt Udall. The other was for the golden wedding celebration of Bishop John Bushman and his wife, February 11, 1915. Many a farewell and reception, many a sad heart at times of death and affliction, many a birthday, and occasions of all sorts have been enriched and enlivened by a song or poem from her pen, with its personal touch and cheering tone.

In her own church, Annella H. Kartchner has held many positions throughout her life, and has been active and faithful in the performance of every duty, in all the organizations as secretary, counselor, teacher, song-leader, and as ward clerk over a period of ten years.

She never had very good health, even when she was a child. She had in her lifetime several serious illnesses, among them, “septic sore throat,” as it was called, typhoid fever, pneumonia, and once a serious attack of what was known as “quick consumption.” But her wonderful faith, her strict obedience to the Word of Wisdom of her church, and careful observance of simple rules of health, preserved her life to a good age, with fair health and retention of her faculties to a marked degree. She has borne six sturdy children, two sons and four daughters; all but the first baby girl survived her. They are K. C. Kartchner, Lafe S. Kartchner, Mrs. Jennie K. Morris, Mrs. Leone K. Fulton [later Decker], and Miss Thalia Kartchner [later married David Butler].

The Golden Wedding Anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Kartchner was celebrated at Snowflake in 1933, with an excellent program composed throughout by the sons and daughters. Two special features of this program were a duet sung by Mr. and Mrs. Kartchner, with guitar accompaniment, and a guitar duet which they had played together at the time of their marriage.

They continued playing their beautiful music until the time of her death. Annella lived to celebrate her 60th wedding anniversary with her family and relatives and friends. Her daughter Thalia had secured a school in Mesa so made a home for her parents there. Her father spent much time at the temple, but due to her failing health, Annella could not attend. After her eighty-fourth birthday on February 15, 1946, she continued to grow weaker till on March 6, 1946, she passed peacefully away. Beautiful funeral services were held at Snowflake March 10, 1946, with tributes in song, with tender loving words, and beautiful flowers. A marble headstone marks the sacred spot where she lies in the cemetery. Time lessens the loneliness, but such a mother leaves behind a bright memory of the beauty she created for a loving family, which enriches our lives forever and can never die.

Ellis and Boone:

The book Frontier Fiddler is a memoir of Annella’s oldest son, Kenner Kartchner. The main theme of this book is Kartchner’s love of music. He wrote, “Both Mother and Dad played the guitar and sang. Mother also was one of the Hunt sisters who were locally famous for their beautiful singing. I was taught to sing and play guitar accompaniment at scarcely seven years of age. At twelve I began playing an undersized violin, a sweet-toned copy of Stradivarius.”[10] An accompanying CD has many of Kartchner’s early fiddle tunes, and an appendix describes dance steps that the pioneers used for these waltzes, schottisches, two-steps, polkas, reels, and hoedowns.

In discussing his childhood, Kartchner gave the following description of his mother: “Mother had a brilliant mind, a good education for her time, and spoke faultless English. Her breadth of vocabulary and general knowledge were quite the exception in a frontier community with limited ‘book larnin.’ She patiently answered my thousands of questions on any and every subject and taught me to read, write, and foot up simple addition a year or more ahead of entering school in 1893 at age seven. It was a quasi-public school, financed locally, no county system having yet been organized.”[11]

However, it is not the description that Kartchner gave of his mother but her influence on his life that paints a picture of Annie Hunt Kartchner. As a young teenager, Kenner began playing for dances with Claude Youngblood. Kartchner wrote, “For some time I had ignored mother’s exhortations to stay away from Holbrook, Winslow, Adamana, Navajo, Pinetop, and other dancing communities where liquor was available, this in spite of an unswerving adoration for her at all times.”[12] And Kenner began having authority issues with his father who had returned from a mission. All of the problems came to a head on February 14, 1903, when Kenner, age sixteen, and a friend hopped a freight train without letting anyone know they were leaving home. They worked at various jobs around Flagstaff.

After about four months, Kenner’s father showed up to take him home, and the visit did not go well. First, Orrin demanded that Kenner immediately return to Snowflake with him. Then, Kenner wrote, “Fully aware of my love and respect for Mother, he played up the anxiety and sorrow I was causing her, bringing forth tears I could not restrain. Yet to give in was still unthinkable under the circumstances.”[13] They parted with some bitter words.

A few months later, Kartchner received a message that the Flagstaff postmaster wanted to talk with him. He wrote:

As might have been expected, Mother had written the postmaster to ascertain my whereabouts. . . . He was a kindly man . . . and gave me a good talking to about the debt we owe our devoted mothers. I hadn’t written home in several months, and it’s no wonder Mother was worried. The lump in my throat prevented free conversation for a moment, but I thanked him for his interest, apologized for causing the inquiry, and wound up using his desk to write Mother there and then.

Many a young fellow away from home is remiss in this regard, not from any lack of love and respect for his mother, nor real aversion for writing, but the shabby habit of putting off, of not fully sensing the anguish she is apt to suffer through his negligence. In this instance Mother replied by return mail and was so happy to hear from me that I resolved never to go that long again without writing.[14]

It was still several more months before Kenner Kartchner returned home. One day when he was playing at the saloon in Williams, he noticed his father at the front door. “This time,” Kartchner wrote, “I was really glad he came and told him right off I was ready to go back with him. Homesickness per se has never plagued me greatly, but frequent letters from home since the fall before had kindled a yearning to see the folks, Mother in particular, and whether Dad had come or not, I was ready to pay them a visit. Dad explained that he had not come after me but was in Holbrook and decided to drop out and see how I was getting along. His attitude had changed completely in respect to forcing me home and all was pleasant, as such a reunion should be. Saloon owners, bartenders, and gambler friends were delighted to meet ‘the Kid’s Dad,’ and spoke words of praise that made him feel good, despite his unalterable disagreement with their mode of life and the part I was playing in it.”[15]

After a short delay and many goodbyes, the two boarded the train and started the journey back to Snowflake. Kenner wrote this about the reunion:

That “blood is thicker than water” was never more evident. Nor had I ever realized fully the depth of family ties until that evening when we entered the old house. They are wonderful and should never be allowed to disintegrate. Greetings were accompanied by tears of joy. At supper, Mother and the four kids kept me busy answering questions about the year’s experiences. Some were soft-pedaled to suit the occasion, for saloon life, of all things, was farthest from family tradition and teachings. I was intrigued by changes in my brother and three sisters, how much they had grown in one short year, and how they could play guitars and sing together under Mother’s tutelage. In like manner they marveled at my appearance of maturity. . . . They were eager to hear the old fiddle again, especially the many new tunes I had learned, and thus we celebrated a happy reunion. Jenny was fifteen, Thalia twelve, Lafayette (Lafe) ten, and Leone eight. I was justly proud of them all, clean and sweet youngsters in mind and body [that] only a wonderful mother could produce.[16]

Margaret Jane Casteel Kartchner

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP[17]

Maiden Name: Margaret Jane Casteel

Birth: September 1, 1825; Cooper Co., Missouri

Parents: Jacob Israel Casteel and Sarah Nowlin

Marriage: William Decatur Kartchner;[18] March 21, 1844

Children: Sarah Emma (1846), William Ammon (1848), Prudence Jane (1850), John (1851), Mark Elisha (1853), James Peter (1855), Alzada Sophia (1858), Mary Marinda (1860), Nowlin Decatur (1862), Orrin (1864), Euphemia Ardemonia (1867)[19]

Death: August 11, 1881; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Margaret Jane Casteel was born September 1, 1825, in Cooper County, Missouri. Her parents were Jacob Israel Casteel and Sarah Nowlin Casteel. There may have been more than the six children whose names are known, but there were six brothers and sisters at least. Their names were Mary (St. Marie), Emmeline (Savage), Margaret (Kartchner), James, Joshua, and Francis Steven, called Frank, who made a journey down the Missouri River, supposedly to Texas and never returned. His fate was never known, and this was a great cause for mourning by his mother and brothers and sisters.

Margaret Jane Casteel Kartchner. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

The Casteel blood was of French extraction with mixtures of English, Scotch, and Irish. They were evidently of devout Christian faith, for Margaret’s father’s family, consisting of eight brothers and one sister, were given Bible names throughout. They were Abraham, Daniel Benjamin, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob Israel, Elijah, Mary (md. Daniel Wills—no child), and Charity (md. Zachariah Biddle).[20]

Very little is known of Margaret’s life until she was eighteen years of age, when she married William Decatur Kartchner, on March 21, 1844, in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. She was a skillful spinner and weaver. One square piece of her homespun cloth is still in the possession of her youngest son, Orin Kartchner. He tells of his brothers shearing their own sheep, and then watching his mother wash each fleece, card, spin, and weave it into cloth.

From any evidence known, Margaret did not have much schooling, but she was a woman of fine intellect and sterling character, modest and refined in manner, and deeply religious. She was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the age of fourteen in Pike County, Illinois.

She and her husband began a westward journey in company with a pioneer group in September 1844, but traveled only as far as Iowa City that year. Then spent the winter there, doing any work possible for means of subsistence, until another start west was made in March 1845.

There was much hardship and short rations of food, and Margaret Jane Kartchner walked for many miles of the journey because she was young and able-bodied. At one time during this hard journey, when their rations had been reduced to one gill of corn a day to the person without salt, they walked in water and mud, shoe-mouth deep, up the Iowa River with no road.[21] Then leaving the river, they turned westward across a large prairie toward the Sioux Indian country.

One day, some Frenchmen and Indians came to their camp and invited them to come and camp near their fort. They pointed to their thin cheeks, realizing how near starvation they were. The Indians gave them dried buffalo meat, which the pioneers thought to be the best thing they had ever tasted. They also brought them roasting ears of corn, and finally a Frenchman, Mr. Henrie, told the young Kartchner that his Indian wife was away and offered them a boarding place if Margaret would do the cooking. They gladly accepted his offer and sincerely appreciated his kindness.

About the middle of July, a chance came to them to go on a steamboat down the Missouri to St. Louis. They decided this was a good move under the circumstances. They had very few possessions to take on board with them, but Mr. Henrie and the Indians prepared two large bundles of dried meat for them. The boatman, seeing their destitute condition, was very kind to them and provided them with food and clothing. A rich French gentleman traveling for his health gave them a pair of blankets and ten dollars in silver, for which they gave him sincere thanks and appreciation.

William D. Kartchner had an older sister living in St. Louis, but she was proud and haughty and considered the young pioneer couple scarcely worth any notice from her. Margaret became seriously ill with intermittent fever, but the sister, Mrs. James Webb, seldom came to see her. However, a Mrs. Powell, wife of a rich southern planter, from whom they had rented a small room, came often and cared for Margaret, administering medicine and attending to her needs. When she was finally out of danger, her husband crossed the river and went on foot sixty miles to see his brother, John Kartchner. He came in his wagon and the young couple ferried their belongings in a skiff across the river, where he gave them a welcome and a comfortable home during the fall and winter of 1845.

William learned of a pioneer company leaving for the Rocky Mountains in the spring of 1846. His determination to join this company greatly annoyed his brother, who had made him fine offers of land if he would stay with him for five years. They finally parted in anger, and William and Margaret Kartchner joined the Mississippi Company in March 1846.

They had hired out to drive a wagon loaded with a thousand pounds of provisions, for a Mr. Crow. They traveled to Fort Pueblo on the Arkansas River by the latter part of July. Here, Mr. Crow broke his obligation, fearing his provisions would run short. This left the young Kartchners again stranded, without even a wagon to camp in. The company had halted here to await instructions from their leader, Brigham Young, and the Kartchners made a camp under a large cottonwood tree, and for a time were at the mercy of kind friends for food. Here, under this cottonwood tree, under these destitute conditions, their baby daughter was born on August 17, 1846, the first white child to be born in the state of Colorado, an honor for which, many years later, that state presented to her, Sarah Emma Kartchner Miller, of Snowflake, Arizona, a gold medal.[22]

Not long after the birth of their daughter, the father obtained work as a blacksmith, in which line he was skilled, at Bent’s Fort, eighty miles down the river.[23] The young wife and child were left to the kindness of a Mrs. Catherine Holladay, and the journey was made on horseback.[24]

The work was heavy, largely consisting of work for U. S. Army troops under General Kearny on their way to the Mexican War.[25] William worked there until late in the fall, thankfully receiving two dollars a day for his labor but was finally stricken with a serious attack of rheumatism and was obliged to return to Pueblo. His wife was often compelled to walk as much as a hundred yards through snow knee-deep to get a cottonwood limb for fuel.

Early in the spring of 1847, they began making preparations to resume their westward journey. With some of the money he had earned they bought an old wagon and provisions, another man of the party permitting them to use a pair of his oxen. William was still unable to walk but did repairing of his own and other men’s wagons by means of his blacksmith tools screwed to his wagon tongue, Margaret carrying the pieces to him which were to be prepared. When they reached Fort Laramie, they learned that they were only three days behind the pioneers under Brigham Young. This company traveled that distance behind them all the rest of the journey, reaching the Great Salt Lake Valley July 27, 1847.[26]

Margaret had another attack of mountain fever but recovered in less time than the year before. They located at a spring about nine miles southeast of the city and began the usual building of an adobe house, fencing, and farming the land allotted to them. Their food was very scarce, but William went once during the winter into the city and bought flour at fifty cents a pound to make bread for their little girl. The parents were without bread of any kind for nearly two months, until new wheat and corn were ripe.

In the winter of 1850, a call was made for a group to colonize San Bernardino, California. The Kartchners and Casteels were among those called to go, and a start was made in March 1851. They remained at San Bernardino until the latter part of 1857, when they were called to return to Utah. The Casteels did not make this sacrifice, and Margaret left her people in California.[27] She settled at Beaver, Utah, with her husband and children.

Another call was given to William Kartchner to help colonize on the Muddy River, a location near the present settlements of Overton and Logandale, Nevada. Margaret and her children followed William there in May 1866, but after several locations were made, and much land cleared and farmed, the settlements were abandoned in February 1871. They now settled at Panguitch, Utah. The hand-planed log house which they built in 1871 is still standing and in good enough repair for a family to be living in it at the present time. William Kartchner was the postmaster of Panguitch, and the hole for the posting of letters is still to be seen, covered with a small board.

Margaret was always busy raising chickens, spinning, weaving, and putting up fruit, both fresh and dried. By this time she had borne ten other children, her family consisting of six sons and five daughters. Two sons and a baby daughter died in infancy. One of the very saddest things in her life occurred at Mojave Crossing, California. Her daughter Alzada Sophia (Palmer) was born January 5, 1858, and the next day, James Peter, just past two years of age, died. Not wishing to bury him on the desert, so far from human habitation, the little body was placed in a metal churn, the lid soldered on, and it was hauled to Parowan, Utah, where it was buried.

In the spring of 1877, William D. Kartchner, sons, and sons-in-law with their families, were called to help in the colonization of the Little Colorado River settlements. Several months were spent in gathering provisions and stock, teams, wagons, and supplies for two years, and on November 15, 1877, they made a start for Arizona. The journey to Sunset covered two months and three days, and Margaret Kartchner was sick most of the time.

The Kartchners settled eighteen miles above Sunset and called their settlement Taylor. But during seven months, no dam was proof against the floods which swept them away as if they were nothing. After five dams had gone out, the entire settlement of Taylor was abandoned, and the Kartchner families moved to the new settlement of Snowflake on Silver Creek, a tributary of the Little Colorado, in August 1878.

Margaret Kartchner had spent thirty-four years of her life in helping to colonize four of the western states. She had walked many weary miles and had journeyed many thousands of miles over mountains and desert, where no roads eased the rocky way, behind slow, plodding oxen, months at a time, having only a wagon-box for her home. Now at last, she had reached a haven of rest, for Snowflake was to be her permanent home. A rather fine log house was built, and life seemed now to have settled into a more peaceful and less strenuous pattern of living. She took part in the activities of the new settlement, especially in the religious affairs.

But the hard years had taken a severe toll, and she lived only three years almost to a day after she began her life in Snowflake. On the morning of August 5, 1881, she was taken with a very bad cough and severe pain in her head. Everything possible was done for her relief, but she grew worse every day until the morning of August 11^th, when she passed peacefully away with a pleasant smile on her countenance. Speakers at her funeral dwelt on the upright character and virtuous integrity of this good woman. She had lived only fifty-six years, but her life had been lived to a rich fullness in deeds if not in years.

Ellis and Boone:

When William and Margaret Kartchner joined the Mississippi Saints and spent the winter of 1846 at Pueblo, Colorado, they formed friendships that lasted a lifetime. For example, John Hunt, later bishop of Snowflake, was with the Kartchners at Pueblo, San Bernardino, Beaver, and finally Snowflake. A list of the Mormon Battalion men, women, and children and the Mississippi Saints was compiled shortly after this group reached the Salt Lake Valley; Margaret is listed as twenty-one years old and William as age twenty-seven, a priest.[28]

Thirty years later, when the Kartchner family was called to move to Arizona, William was suffering from rheumatism and Margaret was equally unwell. Grandson Kenner Kartchner wrote that some family members complained about the impending hardships and thought that William might not survive such a trip. William’s reply, according to Kenner, “was to become famous in family tradition, an epitome of his devotion to the religion of his choice. He said, in effect, ‘On the day that they start for Arizona, I shall arise from my bed. I may fall, but I’ll fall with my face toward Arizona!’”[29] As noted here, Margaret, lived only three years after coming to Arizona and was a relatively young fifty-six years old when she passed away.

Anna Dorthea Johnson Kempe

Ellen Greer Rees[30]

Maiden Name: Anna Dorthea Johnson (Jonsdatter)

Birth: February 5, 1837; Glemmen, Ostfold, Norway

Parents: Joen Jensen and Birte Maria Hansdatter

Marriage: Christopher Kempe (Jensen);[31] March 10, 1866

Children: Johanna Christiana Frederika (1867), Betsy Amelia (1868), Amanda Christina (1871), Olena Dorthea (1874), Emma (1876), Ruth Leila (1880)

Death: January 26, 1907; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Anna Dorthea Johnson was born long ago, in 1837 in Norway, the land of the Midnight Sun, the land of fjords, frozen rivers, high mountains, short summers, a beautiful yet stern and hard land where an energetic people have produced a good life, not easy, and it has made a strong and rugged people.

Her folks were fishermen and fished much at night because the fish would bite better then. When she was quite young, she had learned to row a boat well. She made a trip to town alone on an errand, and someone asked her what was the matter with her face. She did not know that she was all broken out with measles. She learned to read, write, knit, sew, and was raised as a Lutheran, the religion then most common in the Scandinavian countries.

Anna Dorthea Johnson Kempe; Margaret J. Overson, photographer. Photo courtesy of Overson Collection, St. Johns Family History Library.

When she was grown, she received a little book containing about twenty-eight Latter-day hymns, some of the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Articles of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As she was very serious and religious at heart, she read and reread the book and was deeply impressed with the spirit and messages it contained. Anxiously, she contacted some of the LDS missionaries and attended their meetings. Soon she knew that they spoke the truth, and she wanted to join the Church.

Her folks did not feel the same, and she was surprised and hurt at their opposition, as they had been so kind and loving before. She felt that she must go on and accept this gospel nevertheless, which she did, though her home and her folks were never the same after that.

After being a “Mormon” for ten years, she was able to emigrate to Utah, a desire she had cherished, though it was hard to leave her beloved country and loved ones even though they had cast her off. She arranged to care for a well-to-do lady on the trip, and the lady would pay her ticket. At Copenhagen, she met a young lady about her age who was to sail in the same company. Her name was Dorthea Johnson, so much like her own name, Anna Dorthea Johnson. They were lifelong friends, though separated later.

The old lady was so disagreeable that Anna had to give up waiting on her. Dorthea, or Thea as she was later called, was sick all the way across the ocean, so Anna got her food. She was used to being on the water and did not get seasick on the trip.

There were 974 souls in that company. It was the largest company that had ever sailed from Europe. John Smith was the captain of the ship, the Monarch of the Sea. The roster of the passengers may be found in British history under date of April 28, 1864, at the Church offices in Salt Lake City. They left Europe April 27, 1864.[32] It was October 5 before they reached Salt Lake City. Anna, with her companion, walked most of the way across the plains. They often went barefooted in order to save their shoes.

Captain John Smith’s Independent Company left Wyoming, Nebraska, in July 1864. On September 2, Captain Smith telegraphed from Deer Creek (411 miles east of Salt Lake City) that he was waiting there with his wagons, having lost twenty head of cattle, and asked that some be sent to help him and his company continue the journey. Through the Deseret News, a request was made that ten or twelve yoke of oxen be sent out to this company immediately. Reports from those able to render assistance were to be sent to the Deseret News office or directly to Brigham Young. Captain John Smith, Presiding Patriarch of the Church, was returning from a mission to Scandinavia, and had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in charge of a large company of Scandinavians on the ship Monarch of the Sea.[33] The largest company over which he acted as captain in crossing the plains arrived in Salt Lake City October 1 or 5, 1864.[34]

They were met on the way by teamsters from Salt Lake City, and at once they began to learn the English language. Anna learned to speak it unusually well. She and Dorthea soon went to live in Provo because they were acquainted with the John Johnson family. Later Dorthea married one of his sons. Anna lived here about three months, and then the missionary whom she had known in Norway, Christopher J. Kempe, came and asked her to marry him. Her friend, Dorthea, was much disturbed. She was not married yet. The two girls were all prepared for housekeeping together. They had gleaned enough wheat for their flour and had stored some food for winter, and had planned to spend winter together.

When she arrived in Salt Lake City, it was polygamy times. It was being practiced with Church sanction. Very soon she and another Norwegian lady, a convert also, Olena (Olina) Oleson Torrosen, were married to a Danish convert and missionary whom they had both known in Norway, Christopher Jensen Kempe.[35]

Then began a life of real pioneering. They were among the early settlers of Provo, living first in a dugout home there. Later her husband built the first brick house there, and it was still standing, not long ago, near the business part of town. Then they moved to Richfield where they were prospering and very satisfied. A Church call came to them to go and help settle and develop Arizona. Many converts were constantly pouring into Utah, and President Brigham Young could see that new places must be found and developed to make homes for the growing population. So this took them far away (leaving their comfortable, new duplex home) to a strange and unsettled country, on the Little Colorado River.

Arriving at Lee’s Ferry, their six wagons with drivers and teams, their stock, and the two families were to be taken across the river on the ferry boats or by swimming the animals. My grandmother, Anna, who had been raised so near the sea, was delighted to see the water and the boats, and her fingers itched until she was in one of the boats with her children to have a ride. She was doing the rowing. (I wonder if she took her five weeks old baby?) Some of the men were pretty skeptical about her adventure, but she was thrilled even when the other wife had hurriedly exclaimed when her children had been invited to go, “No, no, I do not want my children drowned.” So with oars in hand, Anna rowed up to the bend and back down and around and up to the bend again, enjoying it very much and thinking of her beloved homeland.

The first winter in Arizona at St. Johns was pretty hard. Very little food could be obtained. They rationed a little wheat out each day and ground it with a little handmill. Here her husband made one trip into Albuquerque, New Mexico, for supplies and returned with some white flour and other things. Anna made some biscuits with it; the children came in from playing by the river, looked at them, and thought that they were some kind of cake. Her family lived for a time in their wagon boxes, placed low on the ground, combined with some brush sheds. The other wife had two small rooms, and these housed the first LDS Sunday School and day school in St. Johns, Arizona.[36] (Eventually, Christopher Kempe settled with his first family at Concho, but Anna stayed in St. Johns.)

Sunday School was being held one morning; Anna was bathing her young baby, Leila, when the cry of “Fire, fire,” was heard. All the Sunday School rushed out, grabbed buckets or anything that would hold water, then ran to the nearby river and soon had the fire extinguished, but not before it had burned a stack of brush and weeds that was to feed the milk cows during the winter. Some squash or pumpkins were stored in the stack and these were ruined. Her daughter Amelia, who told this, remembered it because her mother cried, and it was very seldom that she cried. Years of privations made for vigorous schooling and even with hardships innumerable, their faith never faltered, and their struggles mellowed them and made them stronger.[37]

Of course, she always had a garden and an orchard when possible. During the growing season, it was a daily task for her to work in the garden. There were weeds to be kept down, ditches for irrigating had to be made, and other tasks. She did not have any sons to share these labors. The fresh vegetables were such an addition to their food supply and so welcome that she did not mind the labor involved.

Her husband loved trees, studied them, and planted different varieties of them wherever he lived. Some real old ones may still be standing in Concho, paying tribute to that noble man.

Fruit was a luxury there in those days. Only on rare and very special occasions were bananas and oranges brought in from the railroad, about sixty miles away. As soon as she could, she had an orchard and different berry bushes, using every inch of space that she had. Like it was yesterday, I remember her early peach tree that had ripe peaches in July. Oh, how eagerly we watched them get ripe. It seemed like they would never ripen, and how good they were! The first fruit they “put up” there for winter was put in cans with a tin lid soldered on with some kind of rosin. They “dried” fruit for winter and found that quite satisfactory, and when they had glass bottles that seemed just perfect. Now we have frozen fruits. What development!

She wanted to go to a funeral. This was in 1888, and it was in Concho about twenty miles away. It was for the two young sons of “Auntie,” the other wife. They had died, two days apart of diphtheria. A neighbor started to take her in his wagon. It was cold and stormy weather. They traveled along, and the downpour of rain became heavier and heavier. All the washes were soon running a torrent. Soon they came to one that was so high that the driver said it was not safe to drive into it. There were big volcanic rocks around there that made it impossible for them to leave the road and hunt a new crossing. The driver suggested that they had better turn back and give up trying to go. “No, no,” she said, “there must be some way to get there.” They decided to ride the horses and leave the wagon there. As she was not used to riding horseback, Mr. Wilhelm tied her feet together under the horse so that she would be less apt to fall if the horse stumbled in a hole, and he tied a quilt around her as it was still raining, and in that way they arrived at the funeral. He led her horse.[38]

One winter, Grandma had three young men, students, boarding with her and her daughter Amelia, who with her three children had lived with her since Amelia’s husband had been killed by lightning. The high school Academy was in her town, so youth from surrounding towns came there for school.[39] The folks of these boys paid for their room and board mostly with produce and some cash. Grandma always had inverted pockets in her long, full skirts. (Styles did not change then as often as they do now.) These pockets held everything from a thimble to a nail and sometimes candy for the children. One time she missed a ten dollar greenback. It was not in the sugar bowl where she kept her money. She hunted for it and worried about it and finally taking Amelia into full confidence, she said, “Melia, do you think that Ira (one of the students) could have taken it?” That was her last hope, and yet she could not believe that he would take it. They decided that she was to talk to him about it. Then she had occasion to get out one of her skirts and clear out the pockets. To her surprise and joy, in the assortment of things was her lost money. She said, “Oh, Melia, I am so glad that I did not speak to Ira.” She was more pleased about that than finding the money.

She kept in touch and was friendly with her folks in Norway by correspondence. They were never baptized into the LDS Church in life. Upon the local settlement of her parents’ property, $100 was sent to her as her share. It came when she needed it so much. “With $80 of it she purchased a sewing machine and the first night that they had it she and her daughters sat up most of the night trying it out, making a dress. For $10 she bought a baby or child’s bed and of course $10 went for tithing.”

She always worked hard but sometimes after she had eaten her noon meal, she would say, “Now, don’t bother me for a few minutes.” Then she would put her bowed head in her hands and say, “Oh, blessed rest,” and for a little time she had well deserved rest as she dozed at the table.

Father Pedro Maria Badilla, see n. 40. Photo courtesy of St. Johns Family History Library.

The Little Colorado River, which was part of their very sustenance of life, had high periods and low, according to the rainfall. Some seasons it flowed ladylike and gentle, sometimes very low, like a ribbon, and after a heavy storm it could be at flood stage and dangerous. My mother, Anna, with her three children, lived right near it. A flood came one night. Her mother came to help her as my father was out of town. Grandma hurriedly piled flour, sugar, and other foodstuffs high on shelves or on the table. By then, Mother had coats and shoes on the children and they started to walk to a hill nearby. The water was up around the house and steadily rising. Mother said that when the lightning flashed the water looked like a sheet of glass. It was dark and raining and the way irregular with high and low spots. Grandma said later, “I did not know if we would make it without falling, but we did.” They reached high ground and were safe. That house went down, later, in a flood.

This river has brought much havoc and destruction, taking homes, cattle, horses, and many human lives. Its quicksand beds were very dangerous. Stock went there to drink as their only available place to get water and were caught in the sucking sands to die a slow, lingering, starving death. Yet how important [is] this river! It was the settlers’ only source of water until wells were dug (and often these produced no water) or by a rare chance a spring was located. The river supplied their water needs for their stock, gardens, orchards, trees, and mills.

There was a “Father” or “Padre” of the Catholic Church in the town. He needed a new robe. He knew that she did sewing for people and asked her if she would make him a robe. She was used to making nice silk dresses for the Mexican ladies and suits for the men, so she was not afraid to undertake this for the “Father.” But she had not counted on it being so heavy and cumbersome. He was a tall man; it was to be made of heavy cloth, full length, down to the floor, long sleeves, high neck and lined throughout, and, of course, black. It was warm weather; perspiration poured down her face, and her hands were moist as she worked on it. It was very heavy to lift, and she really labored as she finished it, but he was pleased with it, and she had saved him a trip to Albuquerque to get a new one, so she was happy.[40]

She always had a cow or two to provide them with milk and butter (and what buttermilk, oh me, oh my!). She would have felt lost without a cow to milk each morning and evening, and a calf to fatten for beef. She kept some chickens and usually a pig or so to help provide their living. Skunks were prevalent, and they killed and bothered her chickens. She set homemade box traps to catch them, and she caught some, but for the life of me, I cannot find out how she killed them then. Her daughters remember her catching them, but they cannot tell what happened then. Grandma had been through the varied experiences of pioneer life, yet she had not had occasion to handle a gun very much, so I doubt if she shot them, and her neighbors were not “shooting men.” In their own private way these small animals are pretty dangerous for a lady to handle.

She was a good cook, and many a time when I was a little girl, she would send me to take a fragrant dish of soup or pudding to someone who was ill. Need I tell you that I could not resist slipping my finger in and very guiltily and slyly tasting these delicious dishes.

Her mother taught her some of these sayings. She used them often, and her daughters (one of whom was my mother) used them also. In times of discouragement she would say, “Cheer up, this too will pass away.” President Abraham Lincoln had this same motto on a wall in his office. When they were troubled and hardly knew which way to turn she would say, “We see through a glass darkly and the end is not yet.” When it was hard to understand the actions of people and her daughters wanted to criticize them, she would say, “Never criticize the authorities.” Another that she said often was, “Consistency, thou art a jewel.” How true! These sayings helped them over some hard places.

Her strong testimony never wavered; her love for her fellow men grew and grew. She died, having lived happily and with a heart at peace with the world and went to the great beyond to meet her Maker.

Ellis and Boone:

Because Christopher Kempe had two wives, one in St. Johns and one in Concho, he spent time in prison at Detroit, Michigan, with Peter J. Christofferson and Ammon M. Tenney.[41] David K. Udall arrived later and wrote:

We arrived at Detroit at 11:30 p.m. on September 2^nd [1885]. . . . About nine a.m. the morning of the 3^rd I was taken to the basement and shaved and shingled. I also took a bath and then was given back my garments and given my prison clothes, consisting of hickory shirt, Kentucky jeans, coat, pants and cap; also brogan shoes and cotton socks, all of which appeared to be new. From here I was taken to the shop where Brother Christopherson works. Brother Tenney works in shop B and Brother Kempe in shop C. I recognized Brothers Kempe and Christopherson but mistook another man for Brother Tenney. It was three weeks before we were permitted to meet and converse, as prisoners are not allowed to speak to each other.[42]

A letter published in the Deseret News reported that Kempe and Christofferson were cell mates.[43] One year later, Tenney, Christofferson, and Kempe received a pardon from President Cleveland and were released. The Salt Lake Herald reported that they had been tried for a misdemeanor but sentenced as a felony. They arrived home on October 21, 1886.[44]

Although Christopher Kempe and his two wives worked hard to live polygamy, in death they were separated. Christopher died September 30, 1901, at Concho; Anna died January 26, 1907, at Mesa; and Olena died December 16, 1907, at Pima. Christopher is buried at the Erastus Cemetery in Concho, Anna is buried in the Mesa Cemetery, and Olena is buried in the Thatcher Cemetery.

Olena Olsen Kempe

Autobiography/Charlotte Kempe Mangum[45]

Maiden Name: Olena Olsen (Olesdatter)

Birth: May 20, 1843; Solar, Aanas, Glowegian, Norway

Parents: Ole Torsen and Helena Oterson

Marriage: Christopher Kempe (Jensen);[46] December 1865

Children: Joseph Christopher (1866), Hyrum Taraasen (1868), Helena Marie (1870), Nephi Taraasen (1872), Ovidia Serena (1873), Otto Hakan (1876), Eugene Nels (1878), Clara Ingeborg (1880), Charlotte Augusta (1881), Geneva Julia “Jennie” (1884)

Death: December 16, 1907; Pima, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

Olena Torosen Halversen Olsen, daughter of Ole and Helena Oterson Torsen Olsen, born May 20, 1843, at Solar Aasnas Glowegian, Norway. My brothers and sisters were Halver, Serena, Mathea, and Otto the baby, who died at the age of five leaving me the youngest and the pet of the family. I was baptized into the Lutheran church when a month old and confirmed when sixteen. I went to the priest to be catechized for six months before confirmation. I went to the district school until I was sixteen, then I went to Elbrom where I stayed at a hotel learning to cook for a year. I then went home and stayed until I was eighteen. Then my sister Mathea and I went to Christina to learn the dressmaking trade. We lived with the woman we learned dressmaking from. We went against our parents’ wishes so had to look out for ourselves, and we got into a poor old maid’s home where we hardly got what we wanted to eat. We stayed there the winter, and while there I got a mania for card playing which came very nearly proving my destruction. Every Sunday one of our friends joined us, and we played cards from early till late, just stopping long enough to eat a little. When my father found out about it, he soon stopped it.

Olena Olsen Kempe; Margaret J. Overson, photographer. Photo courtesy of Overson Collection, St. Johns Family History Library.

After I went home I could not content myself but desired to go back to city life so did not rest until I got back a year later. My parents were very much opposed to it, but I suppose it was to be so because I could not content myself at home. I went to a tailor master in Christiania to learn tailoring. I was there about six months, from fall until spring, when I got dissatisfied again and went to a factory where all kinds of sewing was done, and there I was associated with lots of girls. I was the second-best sewer in the house so got twenty-five cents a day or did sewing by the job.

All the time, I had a desire to see a Mormon, but could get no one to go with me. Finally, I went to their meeting alone, but was afraid to go in so went home. Then a girl friend from home, Nalia Nielsen, called to see me, and I got her to go with me. We stayed a while, and I liked the preaching and wanted to go again. So the next Sunday, I went with a Mormon girl from the factory. Your father [Christopher Kempe] preached, and I thought I never heard the preaching of the Savior before. Then I kept on going (this was in the winter) until spring, when I joined the Church on May 9, 1864, unknown to my parents.

I was baptized by your father. I stayed there until October when my parents wanted me to come home. I hadn’t told them I was a Mormon, and I didn’t want to go home so my mother came for me. I was boarding at a Gentile family’s home who were very bitter against the Mormons. The day Mother came, on Sunday, I was away at a birthday party at a friend’s. She came in about seven o’clock, and I got home at eleven, and during that time they had been telling her horrible Mormon stories until she was nearly beside herself by the time I got home. She wanted me to leave the Church and go home. She made me every promise if I would do so and said if I would I could have all the property and be respected, for she would never tell them I had been a Mormon. I wouldn’t go with her in spite of her heart-bleeding pleadings and with a heart-rending parting; we parted for the last time on earth.

She returned home, and when she got to the harbor, Father met her, and before he got to her, he could see she was bowed down in grief. When she told him of my refusal to come, he got on the next ship and came for me. Two days after Mother left, I was coming home from work at eight o’clock at night when my father met me on the street. He was crazed with grief. He grabbed me by the hand and squeezed it until I thought he would break it. Then he began to rail at me and the Mormons and attracted hundreds around us. He tried to drag me to the police station, but finally I persuaded him to go to the boarding place with me. I was then living with a good Mormon family, but he didn’t know it and none of us told him, so he tried to run down the Mormons to them, but they talked good about them and he quieted down a little after midnight. Then he didn’t dare leave me alone, so he sat up all night and I lay down awhile. Early in the morning, the lady gave him some coffee and cake, and then he said [that] while I packed up to go, he would go out and look around town an hour or so. As soon as he left, a missionary that was boarding there and I went another way, and I ran away to a place six or seven miles from there in the city limits. He was a livery man and a Mormon. I stayed there two days, and the second night he went to singing practice, and there he saw my father and three police men who were searching for me, so he said I could stay there no longer, so at four o’clock (nights in Norway are light at that time) I got up and left there. We went to several places to try to find lodgment, but they all advised me to go on. As I left each place, about five minutes after [later] Father and the police would come searching, but I just missed them each time. The missionary and I walked on to a place four miles away, and we stayed there guarding the place for three days. Every harbor and depot was guarded as I left this place at one o’clock at night and rode twenty miles out to Drobak where I took the steamer for Copenhagen. I arrived at Copenhagen without a friend and no money, but I had the address of the mission president. He was not at home, and the office men received me very coldly. Sister Leigburg came while I was there, and she took me home to live with her. I went with her to a cape factory and there got work at twenty-five cents a day. I stayed there until spring. I wrote home often sending my letters through the mission house at Christiania [Oslo]. Mother sent my grandmother’s feather bed and a few clothes by some of the emigrants. On the 1st of May, I left with eleven hundred emigrants from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany—among them your father and his wife.[47] When we had been out two weeks, she took sick with smallpox, and I waited on her night and day for four or five weeks. She died in Quincy, Illinois, and was buried there.[48] —Written [down] in 1939 by Charlotte Mangum. (The following was added by her daughter, Charlotte Mangum.)

The journey across the plains was a hard one, as Father and Mother walked every step of the way. After arriving in Salt Lake City in 1864, Mother worked about from house to house for several months, and then Father persuaded her to marry him. They had been married but three months when Father decided to take another wife which, of course, was an awful trial, though I think they got along well and certainly trained their children to love half sisters or brothers. Mother plied her trade of tailor in Salt Lake as elsewhere, always having the name of the best seamstress of any.

After a few months, they were called to Provo, and there Auntie went to the farm on the bench to live and mother lived in town. They lived here three years, and Lena, Hyrum, and Nephi were born. They built some of the best homes in Provo—Mother and Auntie sewing for the money—Father doing the work. In 1872, they were called to give up their homes and move to Richfield. Here, once again, Auntie lived on the farm, mother in town supporting, or practically supporting, her family with sewing, but here, as everywhere, having the name of being the best-dressed woman in town. Joe’s first baby dress was one mass of eyelet embroidery tucks and ruffles—all done by hand and beautiful, and it was by no means his only dress—sweeping the floor as he sat in his mother’s arms. A baby’s dress at this time was usually 1½ to 2 yards long. Mother spun her own yarn for many years for booties and stockings.

Not only did Mother keep an immaculate house, but she sewed for others almost all the time, did all the milking of cows until the children grew old enough, worked in the field like a man, and yet radiated sunshine. I was told by a friend of hers that she never saw a time when she couldn’t have sat on the floor and eaten from it, knowing it to be as clean as most people’s table.

She buried Hyrum in Provo and Nephi and Clara in Richfield. In Richfield once more, Mother and Auntie scrimped and saved, and Father built them at that time the finest homes in town, but they didn’t get to enjoy them, for once more Father got an idea that to get to Jackson County, he had to make the horseshoe curve by going though Arizona into Mexico and out into Jackson County.[49] So this time he asked for a call, which Mother and Auntie considered genuine, so once more they sacrificed all they had and came to Arizona arriving here in October 1880. No houses—no shelter—and winter coming on. Father finally found an empty Mexican house which had been used for a chicken coop into which we moved. He built a picket house for Auntie out on the farm, and so we tried to live. With flour $12 a barrel—no money and no work—the family almost starved, finally getting down to cane-seed mush. They ground the cane-seed on the coffee mill and cooked it. It was extremely unpalatable but wholesome, so the kids all thrived on it. But poor Mother in her delicate condition couldn’t stand the smell of it so had an awful time. She saved and sewed and got flour enough to make a little gravy each day, and for weeks that was the way they lived until finally the flour ran out, and the day before I was born (April 18, 1881), mother didn’t eat a bite.

The morning of my birth she arose, shook the flour sack, and made a small bowl of gravy. Before she could get the children around the table, she took sick, rustled the babies off to the neighbors saying, “Don’t tell anyone you haven’t had breakfast.” She covered the table with a white cloth and went to bed. When I was dressed and laid beside her, the midwife went, little knowing mother had not a bite to eat, for the children rushed home and devoured everything in sight. A short time later a neighbor, a Jewess, Mrs. Nathan [Pauline] Barth, and our savior, called with a tray of food. Mamma said, “Set it on the corner of the table.” But Mrs. Barth said, “Oh, no, this is for you.” Mamma began to cry and said, “How can I eat and my children starving?” Mrs. Barth said, “Your children shall be fed but not until you eat every bit on this tray.” She told me Mother ate like a hungry beast and sobbed like a baby. Then she [Mrs. Barth] took the children home [and fed them], and I was twelve years old when she needed a girl and from then on we never went hungry.

Olena Olsen Kempe with unidentified children or grandchildren; Margaret J. Overson, photographer. Photo courtesy of Overson Collection, St. Johns Family History Library.

When we had lived in St. Johns three years, Father was called to Alpine or Bush Valley, as it was then called. Auntie refused to leave St. Johns, so Mother pulled up once more and moved. Shortly afterwards, Father was sent to Detroit to the Federal Prison for polygamy, and we once more had a terrible time—poverty, cold, suffering—three years of it. Father was in prison eighteen months then returned, and three years later he was called to be bishop of Concho. From then on life was easier—more sewing for the Mexicans, and the little store we had was quite profitable. Mother was fairly happy though crushed and broken when in December 1889, Otto and Eugene, eleven and thirteen years of age, died and were buried in one grave.[50]

The whole family was down with diphtheria except me, and I took it when I jumped into Otto’s coffin, wound myself around him and refused to let him be buried without me. Oh, such a life! Many a time when we children couldn’t find the cows, we have known her to be out until twelve and one o’clock hunting for them. I can scarcely remember her going to bed at any time before one or two and up at five—so much to be done—so many Mexican dresses to make—boarders to cook for—visitors to entertain, for no one went through Concho from Salt Lake City to Mexico who did not stop at Bishop Kempe’s. If Mormons—no pay. We did have the joy of entertaining nearly every Apostle and President of the Church—privilege few Church members ever had.

Mother was president of the Primary ten years and hardly missed a Primary in all these years. Only once do I remember one when she was sewing a wedding dress for a Mexican who was to be married at nine o’clock the next morning but was coming for the dress that night. Primary time came and mother said, “I haven’t got this dress finished, so tell my counselors I can’t come to Primary though I expect I’ll be sorry.” So I ran to the counselors, who neither one could go, and back to Mama I went, who said, “Well, you’ll just have to go and hold Primary for me.” This I did though only about twelve years old. That night at eleven, Mother went to press the dress and found the under-arm gores wrong side out.[51] The poor dear just broke down and cried and said, “Oh, if I had only gone to Primary this would never have happened. Don’t you ever let work keep you from your church duties.”

When Mama resigned from her position as president of Primary, we had a surprise [for] her, which was the grandest occasion ever held in Concho. Every man, woman, and child in town was there, and each child in Primary brought her a quilt block with his name and age on it. I’ll never forget that time—supper and all. Mama, being president, gave me many opportunities—among them the privilege of taking part, reciting, or speaking in nearly every stake conference, and was she proud to have me do so!

She took in sewing enough to send Joe on a mission and was so proud of her missionary boy. While he was in Norway, Mama got some money from her estate (at the time she joined the Church her father disowned her and cut her off without a cent, but at this time her brother and sister relented and sent her several hundred dollars). She paid some on the place, bought us an organ, and had enough to send Joe to gather some 300 names and bring home a wife. Mother’s mother mourned herself to death over Mama joining the Church and her father soon followed, which always made Mama feel she was responsible for their deaths.

When Joe got home and found time he could leave for a while, [it was decided that we would go to Salt Lake City.][52] Mother furnished all expenses; Joe [furnished] the team and wagon, and in company with Brother and Sister Pulsipher and a part of their family, Mother, Jennie and I, Joe [and his wife] Lauretta [and their two children] Odelia and Otto went [on] that long, old, hard wagon trail to Salt Lake City, Utah, to do temple work for the names Joe had collected.[53] We were a month each way on the road and spent three weeks in Salt Lake City, a trip never to be forgotten by Jennie and me. Naturally with our food, bedding, and clothes, all of us could never ride at once, so Mother walked nearly every step of the way. Oh, what she sacrificed for the Church! Never complaining, but always planning something more to do. Jennie and I missed three months of a six-month school, but it was well worth it. Our trip was worth ten times the schooling.

Father’s store became prosperous enough that they were able to build the nicest house in town. Mother kept it so neat that it seemed a palace and was a home to everyone.

In August 1898, Mother sent me to school at Provo. Father went to Norway on a mission in December. In June of 1899, Mother came to join me and keep Jennie and me in school by keeping boarders, a happy year. In June, Mother and I came on home, and Jennie stayed another year in Provo. I taught school and paid Jennie’s way, so Mother had the easiest year of her life and from then on I turned over to her every cent of my wages, and she bought my clothes and kept the rest. Jennie and Papa came home in June. In September of 1901, Dad was run over by a runaway team and a load of hay and died two weeks later. In the following April, Jennie died, eighteen years old. This nearly killed Mother.

In August, I came down to Pima to teach school, and Mother joined me in November and for three years really enjoyed life and visiting old friends. In June 1905, [James] Harvey [Mangum] and I went to Salt Lake City to be married and then joined Mother at Concho. We lived with her until the next August. Otto [Kempe Mangum] was born in July, and Mama was so proud to name him. In October, Mama joined us at Pima but was only with us until November. She took sick and died December 16, 1907.

Ellis and Boone:

As noted in this sketch, Olena Kempe lost two of her boys to diphtheria, and then her daughter Jennie died at age eighteen. Jennie’s death had an interesting outcome as told in the memoirs of James Warren LeSueur.[54]

In January of 1898, James W. LeSueur of Apache County left for a mission to Great Britain. At the end of his mission, he was given permission to go to the Isles of Jersey and Guernsey to gather genealogical information and to preach to his relatives. While there, he got a telegram informing him that his brother Frank had been killed by outlaws near St. Johns and that he was to return to Arizona.[55] He wrote, “When I came home from my mission I missed my brother Frank very much. He and I had been like Jonathan and David in our love and companionship. I did want to see him again, and had a feeling that I would do so.”[56]

Shortly thereafter, James and his father went into the White Mountains to visit some sheep camps. All of the herders extolled Frank’s virtues and expressed their sympathy. James wrote, “When night came we made our bed under the pines and Father retired. I went out a short distance and engaged in prayer. I told the Lord that Father and I felt that Frank had been with us during the day on our trips to the various camps and that I knew he was not far away and wanted to see him in the work he was called to do. I had full faith that my prayer would be answered.”[57]

Later that night, his prayer was answered and James saw his brother preaching to relatives in the spirit world. Frank was assisted by a young relative who had died recently, and James also saw another young woman who was to be Frank’s wife. In his memoirs, James wrote, “Who was the young lady at the door? As I described her to my mother she declared her to be my cousin Nellie OdeKirk, who was thrown off a horse in Vernal, Utah, and her foot caught in the saddle . . . . When the horse stopped she was dead.”[58] Then James LeSueur told about the other young woman he saw:

A short time after this a young lady’s mother came from Concho (Sister C. I. [Olena] Kempe) who said her daughter Jennie had died recently and at her death bed called her mother and asked her to go to St. Johns and ask my parents consent to have her sealed to Frank LeSueur. She told her mother that Frank’s spirit had appealed [appeared] to her and told her that he loved her and wanted her for his wife and needed her in the spirit world. That she accepted his proposal. Then he told her she would die soon but for her to ask her mother to ask my parents to have the sealing as wife to husband attended to in the temple for them.

My parents called me in and I asked if she [Sis. Kempe] had her picture. She produced it and it was the photo of the young lady who was “to be Frank’s wife.”[59]

Sometime later, the sealing of Jennie Kempe to Frank LeSueur was done in the Salt Lake Temple. James LeSueur then married and moved to Mesa in 1906. He was president of the Maricopa Stake during the time the Arizona Temple was being built, and he was called to be part of the temple presidency. LeSueur wrote, “Why I should have been given such a grand vision. . . . Without this vision I doubt if I would have been half as zealous or had the courage to [gather genealogy] and work for a temple.”[60] This vision and this sealing were also a comfort for Olena Kempe after the death of her daughter.

Note: For all of the problems with moving a Scandinavian name into American English, see Olena Olsen Kempe, KWJZ-FM3, at FamilySearch.org.

Sarah Jane Curtis Kempton

Unidentified Son or Daughter

Maiden Name: Sarah Jane Curtis

Birth: September 28, 1847; Keg Creek, Pottawattamie Co., Iowa

Parents: Joseph Curtis and Sarah Ann Reed

Marriage: Alvin Bradford Kempton;[61] January 1, 1868

Children: Alvin Joseph (1869), Richard Hyrum (1871), Asa Bradford (1873), Zetta Jane (1875), Eliza Anna (1877), Delia Caroline (1881), Laura Sophronia (1884), Zilpha Miriam (1887), Heber Curtis (1890), Calvin Ira (1893)

Death: July 12, 1939; Eden, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: Eden, Graham Co., Arizona

Sarah Jane Curtis was born September 28, 1847, at Keg Creek, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, to Joseph Curtis and Sarah Ann Reed. She was the oldest of eight children, so found plenty to do in the house, also helping with the outside chores.

Sarah Jane only had the privilege of attending school six months in her life. However, being a studious child, she learned to read and write and also did quite well in arithmetic. While a girl at home, she did most of the family sewing. Many times she helped shear the sheep, spin the yarn, weave the cloth, and make the dresses.

At the age of twenty, she met a young man, Alvin Bradford Kempton, whom she fell in love with. After a very short courtship, they were married at Payson, Utah, January 1, 1868. From Payson they moved to Salem and from there to Burrville, Utah.

Alvin Bradford and Sarah Jane Curtis Kempton; Sarah is holding the book Wife and Mother: Inspiration for Every Woman. Photo courtesy of Lucille Brewer Kempton.

While living in Burrville, many of their relatives and friends were moving to Arizona, so this good family decided to make the move at this time. The family consisted of father, mother, three boys, and two girls.

After bidding fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends goodbye, they started to Arizona in a covered wagon. It was a long hard trip. They spent two years on the way, as in Northern Arizona there was a railroad being built so Father spent sometime working on it.[62]

The Apache Indians were on the warpath at this time. As they were traveling along, two Indian men on horses rode up to the side of the wagon and said “Stop,” so Father stopped. One of the Indians asked, “Have you got a gun?” Father said, “Yes.” The Indian said, “Let me see it,” so Father handed him the shotgun. The Indian took it and looked it over, then handed it back and said, “No good.” Then rode away. Mother was very frightened and glad to see them ride off.

They traveled on for a few more days and finally arrived at Pima, Graham County, Arizona, where they lived a few years. At this time there were three boys and three girls in the family. Sadness came into the family as two of the little girls, one eight and the other three years old, passed away of diphtheria just five days apart.[63] They were buried in the Pima Cemetery.

Alvin and Sarah Kempton family; front (left to right), Asa, Dick, Alvin, Sarah, Jorde; back, Laura, Heber, Zilpha, Cal, and Annie. Photo courtesy of Lucille Brewer Kempton.

Not long after this happened, the family moved across the Gila River to a town that was afterwards called Eden.[64] At Eden four more children were born making a family of ten.

Mother was a true Latter-day Saint woman, always ready and willing to work in the Church. She worked in the Primary, Sunday School, YWMIA, and the Relief Society.

Mother lived to be nearly ninety-two years old. She passed away July 12, 1939, at her home in Eden, was buried on July 13, 1939, in the Eden Cemetery after a long and useful life.

Ellis and Boone:

The railroad that the Kemptons stopped to work on was the Atlantic and Pacific, later known as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. It followed the Amiel Whipple survey route of 1853, and the towns of Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, and Ash Fork sprang up along its route.[65] Many of the Mormon men found supplemental work using their teams and scrapers to build the railroad grade. John W. Young, Jesse N. Smith, and Ammon M. Tenney secured the first contract in 1880 for a section about 150 miles northeast of Snowflake. They also arranged for food supplies to be sent from Albuquerque to the hungry settlers.[66]

Later, Young arranged a second contract for railroad grading closer to home; it was to be completed by July 1881, but the provisions of the contract were much less favorable. In addition, Young went heavily into debt for supplies. Needing a larger labor force than could be found in the fledgling Mormon communities, men like Alvin Kempton were encouraged to interrupt their trek to new homes, and some even came down from Utah specifically to work on the railroad. Ultimately, Young could not pay his Mormon workers, and many simply received some remuneration in the form of inflated supplies from Young. Peterson wrote that “no evidence has been discovered that those who lost most complained,” but Young is a controversial figure in the history of Mormon settlement in Arizona.[67]

At Eden, Alvin Kempton became a school board member, the postmaster and ran a small store out of his home, and a foreman/manager for a ranch owned by an uncle and niece, Drs. Tripp and Underwood. Sarah supported her husband in these endeavors, including living on the Tripp-Underwood ranch from 1891−93.[68]

For her photograph, Sarah Kempton chose to hold, and therefore prominently display, a book titled, Wife and Mother; or, Information for Every Woman. The thirty-fifth edition of this book was published in 1888 by Drs. Pye Henry Chavasse and Sarah Hackett Stevenson. All of the information was about women’s issues, including raising children. For the introduction, Stevenson wrote, “The attempt to popularize medical science is for the most part of doubtful value.” However, she then justified this book by stating that “The more one really knows about his own system the more willing he is to trust the judgment of a man or woman who has spent a life time in the study of the human system.”[69] This book did not give information about the skeleton, muscles, etc., but did give general advice which surely was useful in pioneer frontier times. It may be that, although not mentioned in this sketch, Kempton served as a midwife. For example, pages 188 to 192, gives “Hints to Attendants in Case the Doctor is Unavoidably Absent,” but the entire discussion of obstetrics would have been useful to any midwife. Stevenson also discussed how to make cow’s milk more like human milk for a baby that could not be nursed, and then cautioned against using a white rubber nipple because it contained “carbonate of lead, which is sure poison—sometimes slow, but none the less sure.”[70] Although much of the information in this book is seen as incorrect or useless today, it was still the best information available to a pioneer woman and obviously important to Sarah Kempton.

Caroline Marion Williams Kimball

Effie Kimball Merrill, FWP[71]

Maiden Name: Caroline Marion Williams

Birth: April 24, 1843; Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois

Parents: Thomas Stephen Williams and Albina Marion Merrill

Marriage: David Patten Kimball;[72] April 13, 1857

Children: Viroque (c. 1850) adopted Native American, David Patten (1860), Thomas Stephen (1862), Quince Knowlton (1867), Effie Isabelle (1869), Lola Gay (1870), Heber Chase (1872), Charles Colton (1874), Crozier (1879), Albina Vilate (1881), Thatcher (1883)

Death: December 22, 1916;[73] Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

Burial: St. David, Cochise Co., Arizona

Mother was the daughter of Thomas S. and Alvina M. Williams. She was born April 24, 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois, and with her parents joined the famous “Mormon Battalion,” which arrived in Salt Lake City July 29, 1847.[74]

Mother grew up to be a beautiful girl and was educated in the Salt Lake schools. Her father was very proud of her; he wanted her to get a good education and would give her nice presents to encourage her. Mother’s father was one of the largest freighters in Salt Lake in the early days. He ran sixteen-mule teams from Salt Lake to California, hauling dry goods and groceries. When Mother was thirteen, her father gave her a beautiful locket and chain made out of gold from California. He also gave her pretty silk to make some dresses.

As Mother grew into womanhood, she made many good friends, among both young and old; everyone loved her sunny disposition and cheerfulness. When she was only sixteen years old, she met Father, David P. Kimball, who was only seventeen, and they were married on April 13, 1857, when Mother was only seventeen years old.

Although they were young, they had old heads on them and realized there were lots they would have to do. Mother and Father spent their honeymoon on Antelope Island, where they enjoyed horseback riding, visiting places of interest, and having a wonderful time.

After returning from their honeymoon, they took up their abode with Father’s mother, Vilate Kimball, where they remained for a year or more. Father continued to work for his father, Heber C. Kimball, teaming and farming, while Mother was busily engaged in duties of the home, cooking, spinning, and preparing herself so she could take care of her own home.

During the later part of 1858, Father looked after his father’s Grantsville ranch. This was Mother’s first home after her marriage. Several hundred head of cattle that pastured on the nearby ranges had to be looked after during the summer months and then driven onto the Kimball Island, fourteen miles north where they remained for the winter.

Caroline Williams Kimball; Savage and Ottinger, photographers. Photo courtesy of Church History Library, PH 1596.

Mother was very fond of pretty horses, and Father gave her a nice riding pony; she enjoyed helping Father drive the stock. Every year, two or three hundred tons of hay was cut with scythes, then cured and put up to feed the oxen that were engaged in hauling freight across the western plains. Mother cooked for a large crowd of men and did lots of outside work to help on the ranch.

The Skull Valley Indians were quite troublesome in those days. On several occasions, while Father had charge of the ranch, Indians stole large herds of stock. Father took part several times in trying to subdue the [Indians]. Mother was a very brave woman. Many times the Indians would come when she was left alone. They would talk very mean, but Mother would give them something to eat, and always had a prayer in her heart, asking the Lord to bless and protect her. And he did watch over her many times.

In the year 1865, Father left to go on a three-year mission to England. Mother was left alone with three children, all boys. She worked and toiled hard to keep her family and Father on his mission. I have heard Mother say how happy she was that Father would go on that mission, although it was hard to stand, only being able to hear from him about every six months.

When Father returned from his mission, he had to leave again as he took up contract work, hauling goods across the plains. Again Mother was left alone, to care for the family, but she was a woman that never complained or murmured at what she had to do.

When Father had completed his work on the Central Pacific Railroad and freighting with teams, he had accumulated what was then considered a fortune (nearly one hundred thousand dollars). Father then returned to his family and was so happy to be back with them, when he got a call from Brigham Young to go on a mission, as president of the Bear Lake Stake of Zion. Mother was very happy in one way, and in another, she thought it was very hard to leave the home she had worked so hard for.

She said, “David, I have never held you back from doing good, so we will go, and do all the good we can.” On July 19, 1869, Mother and Father started on one great mission. Their outfit consisted of three six-mule teams, loaded with household goods, machinery, and other necessaries as would be required in building up a new country. There were about fifty head of cattle and horses.

When Father reached Paris, Idaho, he purchased several valuable lots. On these he built good houses and barns for the winter, as the winters were cold and severe. They soon had a nice comfortable home, and Mother was very happy. For five long years, Mother and Father worked among the poor and sick, and soon the settlers in that country began to feel the benefits of their great leader. Many times there would be as many as twenty-five people come from Salt Lake to conference. Mother would always welcome them, and she said, “Wherever there is heart room, there is house room.”

Mother was blessed with a good Indian girl, that her father gave her when the girl was eight years old. Her name was Viroque. The Mexicans and Indians were preparing for war in Mexico. They were going to kill the little Indian girl, so Mother’s father bought her from the Mexicans. Mother raised the Indian girl to be a wonderful housekeeper, and she was neat and dressy about herself and very kindhearted and generous to all.[75] She lived to be twenty-one years old and was married to a good white man. She was married a year when her baby came, and both mother and baby died.

Mother and Father spent most of their means in the Bear Lake Stake. When Father was released, he and his family returned to their Salt Lake home, where relatives and friends gave them a warm welcome. Mother was more than overjoyed to be back in her dear old home. She used to tell us children how she loved to hear the birds sing and listen to the creek, which ran a little ways from the house.

It seemed it was not for her to enjoy the home she loved and the place where she had spent her childhood days, for Father came home one day, the last of the year of 1876 and said, “Mother dear, I have another call.” She almost fainted away, but after Father had finished telling her about Arizona being so wonderful, she smiled and said, “Oh David, how can we ever break up our home again?”

Father looked downhearted for a minute, then he said, “Caroline, I would rather have my right arm cut off, than to refuse a mission after being called by the president of our Church.” Then Mother with tears in her eyes and with a trembling voice said, “Yes, David, we shall go and help build up the awful rugged Arizona.”

Mother felt bad when she thought of taking the boys out of school, but Father cheered her up and told her that traveling to Arizona would be an education to them, and they would be pioneering a new country, where the sun shined, and they would soon have a good home and schools.

So Father sold his home and gristmill to the highest bidder and prepared for his Arizona mission. Father had been told that cattle were bringing big prices in the new country, so he decided to make the journey with ox teams. Father bought ten yoke of oxen and twenty head of cows.

We bid all of our friends farewell, and on the morning of July 14, 1877, Father, Mother and family with Solomon Kimball, Edward E. Jones, and family started to Arizona.[76] Mother drove a span of horses on the big carriage, as Father had to drive one of the ox teams, and my brother David drove the other team.

As we were coming along the road the other side of St. George, the ox team Father was driving ran off the roadway and caused Father to jump from the wagon. He sprained his ankle; this almost caused blood poison. Father suffered a great deal and could not take much responsibility, so my little brother Tom, who was only thirteen years old, had to take Father’s place driving the ox team.[77]

When Mother would see the terrible roads ahead, she felt as though she could never drive the team. I remember many times the front wheels of the carriage would be up in the air, so high we children would all scream. She drove from Nephi to Hackberry, over every foot of the road. Sometimes the men would have to make the road by cutting down trees and bushes. All the time Father’s leg was awful, but he had faith that it would be alright, and faith healed it so that he was able to be around again.

It was a time of hardship and trials, as the Indians were on the war path. Mother would sit up at night, watching over the camp while the men would herd and watch the cattle.

We had many hardships as the oxen traveled so slow, and we could hardly make the watering places. Sometimes we did not have any water to cook with, and Mother would say, “David, do you think we can ever make the journey?”
Father would smile and say, “Of course we can, Mother Dear. Have courage and faith, and we will fulfill our mission.”

Both man and beast had to have courage and faith to journey on. It took six months traveling from the time we left Utah till we reached Hackberry, a little mining town in the northern part of Arizona. Here Mother and Father decided to stay until Father could sell his oxen and get horses.

Mother was a good hand with a gun but decided she would take more lessons, as she never knew when the Indians would come. So when Father was home one day, they decided they would like to practice shooting at a target. While Father and Mother were practicing, twenty young Indians heard the shooting, came over to the house, and asked if they could shoot at the target too, and Mother let them.

They all tried to see who could hit it, but Mother was the best shot among them. They all cheered her and told her she was good at shooting. Therefore, she always thought they respected her and always seemed afraid to say or do anything out of the way around her.

On October 2, 1877, Father and his small company started to Salt River Valley.[78] When they arrived, they settled in the little village of Lehi long enough to build a comfortable home, and Father helped to establish schools and other buildings. Mother and Father were friends with the Indian people living in the area, and helped them in many ways.

Mother and Father were here only a short time when Father was called on a mission, to preside over the St. David Ward at the head of the San Pedro River. This was a great disappointment to Mother, but once again they left their home to fulfill a mission.

At St. David, they settled again and established a home. Everything was cheerful and everyone happy, when Father died and Mother was left with ten children and a baby three months old.[79] After Father’s death, everything looked dark and gloomy to Mother. Although she had some grown sons, life was very hard and a struggle to go on, but Mother always tried to be cheerful and make the best of life without the dear mate-to-be by her side.

She was a lover of books and would pass away the evening reading. She always taught us children the Golden Rule and would tell us if we would always remember it we would never go astray.[80]

Mother brought into the world seven sons and three daughters. Five of her sons filled honorable missions. She had seventy-six grandchildren, eighty-two great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren at the time of her death.

Mother was a lover of music and song. Her favorite songs were “Sweet Alice Ben Bolt” and “Darling, I am Growing Old.”

She lived to be seventy-eight years old, and died December 22, 1917, at Thatcher, Arizona. Her body was taken and laid to rest by the side of Father’s, at St. David, Cochise County, Arizona.

Ellis and Boone:

When Caroline Williams married David P. Kimball, she married into the large polygamous Heber C. Kimball family. Caroline stated that she first lived with her mother-in-law, Vilate Murray Kimball, and apparently meant at Heber C. Kimball’s “plantation” as he called his ten-acre plot in Salt Lake City which was filled with homes, barns, storehouses, and gardens. Her first home was on the Heber C. Kimball ranch near Grantsville.[81] Not mentioned here is a polygamous marriage for David Kimball. About 1871, he married Juliette Merrill, but she died January 17, 1872, age nineteen. Heber C. Kimball preached the need for younger men to marry polygamous wives, but Stanley Kimball wrote, “In this respect neither he nor [Brigham] Young was successful with his own sons.”[82] Only three of Kimball’s thirty-one sons who lived to maturity took plural wives, and for David it was only this very brief marriage.

This PWA sketch has an incomplete account (including some incorrect dates) of David and Caroline Kimball’s eventful trip into Arizona; additional information comes from the FWP sketch for David P. Kimball.[83] After crossing the Colorado River, the company met several Hualapai and also found that they needed new shoes for their oxen. One Native American man was willing to go to Mineral Park by foot and thought it would take about a week. He was given $30 and instructions for the blacksmith. Some in the party thought he would not return, but he did. The oxen received their new shoes and the party continued on, nearly dying of thirst in the Hualapai Desert. The FWP sketch then describes the next portion of their trek:

On the 2nd day of October 1877, David P. Kimball at the head of his little company, continued on this way and began that distressing march over a seventy-five mile desert, marked only be a dim wagon trail. For the next three days and nights, men, women, children, and animals were tested to the limit. It was a life and death struggle for them all . . .

About eleven o’clock on the night of the fourth [day,] they struck a sand wash and lost their way. The children were crying for water, and humans as well as animals were famishing. What to do under such conditions was enough to drive the ordinary man insane, but their wise leader, who on other occasions had passed through similar experiences, was not easily discouraged. Well versed in the wisdom and instincts of animals, under such conditions, he gave orders to unyoke the cattle and give them full liberty to go wherever they wanted to go. His past experience had taught him that they would find water if it was anywhere to be found. He also had two of the strongest men in the company, his brother Solomon, and Edward E. Jones, mount horses and follow the thirsty and tired animals to any direction they might go.

These instruction[s] were carried out to the letter, and soon the famishing herd of horn stock, with their heads lifted high, started in an easterly direction, as rapidly as their tired limbs could carry them. The men on horseback followed them. Every little way the men found animals of the herd that had given out on the way, but the men continued to follow the main herd until nearly daylight, when suddenly they came to a beautiful spring of water. The scene that followed can better be imagined than described! Within two hours from the time the strongest animals had reached the spring a number of those left behind came staggering along. Others had died.

After a few hours rest the men drove the cattle back to camp, a distance of about ten miles, and were overjoyed to learn that David had found the Hackberry water, two miles away, which was the means of saving the lives of the campers. The water here was a deep well, which doubtless accounts for [the animals] not scenting it. If the Kimball party had found the well that night it would have prevented the death of many of their cattle, to say nothing of the trouble it caused them in other things. Water, in that part of the country, is so scarce that one may travel from fifty to sixty miles in almost any direction without finding it, a fact which shows the danger lurking in Arizona deserts to strangers traveling without a guide.[84]

Both the PWA account and the FWP sketch for David P. Kimball tell about the men hauling supplies from Hardyville on the Colorado River to Hackberry for about two years. There was water at only three points along the seventy-five-mile route, but the Hackberry people gave them $3.00 per hundred and the round trip could be made in “a little over a week,” so “the business paid very well.” The FWP sketch states:

By the middle of September 1879 Mr. Kimball had saved enough means to enable him to continue his journey toward his destination. He left Hackberry with 9 wagons and 24 head of work horses and mules. When he reached Prescott, he contracted with the merchants of that place to haul one hundred feet of lumber from a sawmill to town. Later he secured a contract to haul some mining machinery to the Tiger mine. All of this work was done under many difficulties, but the compensation he received was very attractive and enabled him to take with him on his way some means with which to buy land and assist in building a home.

He spent several months in the vicinity of Prescott and finally with his company reached Mesa the latter part of May 1880.[85]

Caroline Williams Kimball’s nearly three-year-long trip from Utah to Arizona lasting from July 14, 1887, to the end of May 1880, was the longest recorded for any woman in PWA; normally the trip took several months.

Olive Woolley Kimball

Andrew Gordon Kimball

Maiden Name: Olive Woolley

Birth: June 1, 1860; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Parents: Edwin Dilworth Woolley and Mary Ann Olpin

Marriage: Andrew Kimball;[86] February 2, 1882

Children: Maude (1882), Olive Clare (1884), Andrew Gordon (1888), Delbert Gheen (1890), Ruth Woolley (1892), Spencer Woolley (1895), Alice Ann (1897), Fannie Woolley (1899), Helen Mar (1901), Mary Woolley (1903), Rachel Woolley (1905)

Death: October 18, 1906; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Burial: Thatcher, Graham Co., Arizona

On June 1, 1860, a baby girl came to gladden the home of Edwin Dilworth Woolley and Mary Ann Olpin Woolley. She was born at their home in the 13th Ward in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was a very lovely child. She and her sister Ruth, just two years older than her, were both redheads, and the red hair was not very popular in those days as it was later. If anything happened of a disagreeable nature, they were to blame because of their red hair.

Olive Woolley Kimball. Photo courtesy of Church History Library.

Olive was a very good-natured and obedient child. As she grew older she was musically inclined and learned to play the organ quite well. Her two older sisters played some also. Her two older brothers, Burt and Orson, offered a prize to the girl who could first sing a song and play her own accompaniment, and Olive was the lucky one and won the prize of $5.00. Olive was called by her family and near friends by the name of “Ollie.” She was a very obedient child and grew to be a dutiful young woman. Her family members were small people in stature, and Olive never grew to be very tall, she only measured 5 feet, 1 1/2 inches.

One evening as Olive and some friends were playing cards in the home, her father came home and saw what they were doing. After they were gone, he said to her, “Daughter, where did you get those cards?” She said a friend had given them to her. He said, “Where do you keep them?” In reply to his question, she said she kept them in her dresser drawer. He said to her, “That is the best place for them,” and she never did play with them again.

Olive had many admirers as she was very popular among the young men. Among one of these that she seemed to prefer was a fine young man by the name of Andrew Kimball. He was a son of Heber Chase Kimball, one of the leaders of the Mormon Church, a counselor to President Brigham Young. Andrew was a tall young man and had dark complexion. They had a very happy courtship, and the time was set for their marriage, but had to be postponed on account of the death of Ollie’s father. Later, however, on February 2, 1882, they were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. They lived in the 22nd Ward for many years, first in Andrew’s mother’s house (she having passed away), but later they built them a nice home of their own. Their first child, a daughter Maude, lived only ten months and one half. When a second child, a daughter was born. She was named Olive Clare. When she was three months old, her father was called on a mission to the Indian Territory. They rented the home, and Olive and daughter went to live with her mother. She often went to stay with her sister Ruth, who lived in Heber City. Andrew was gone nearly three years, but a short time after his release from this mission he was called again, this time to preside over the mission and was away from home most of the time while president of the mission.

While home he was very active in his ward and church activities, thus taking him away from his family most every evening, and this left Olive home alone with her children. It was very lonely for her, but she never would let her loneliness keep her husband from doing his duty.

Olive was a great home girl, so went often to visit her mother and sisters during the day as Andrew was away most of every day. She would spend Sunday mornings at her mother’s with the children, then after Sunday School, Andrew would come and get them. During these years, in between presiding over the mission, he was a salesman traveling for different houses in Salt Lake, through Southern Utah and at times into Idaho. During this time they had other children come to gladden their home. Gordon was born April 6, 1888, Delbert G. was born September 16, 1890, and then came along another girl, Ruth, who came one early morning November 8, 1892. Olive had most of the raising and rearing of the children. She would get very timid at times staying alone so much of the time, so she rented part of her home so she would not be so lonesome. Her husband also was a fireman on the Union Pacific Railroad, running from Salt Lake to Juab.

In January 1898, she had another trial, but being the patient and loving wife she stood the trial. At this time her husband, Andrew, was called by the First Presidency of the Church to go to Arizona and preside over the St. Joseph Stake, headquarters at Thatcher. By this time they had two more children come into their home. Spencer W. was born one bright, early morning March 28, 1895, and Alice Ann born March 26, 1897. Andrew, after his call, went to Arizona to look things over and be sustained as the new president, and in the meantime, Olive was left to sell the home and furniture. Olive had not lived very far from her folks, so this call was a worry and trial for her, to have to leave all she had lived and worked for and go to a place that was more or less new and unknown to her, but being a dutiful wife and mother she more or less buried her feelings for her husband’s sake and for the gospel she knew was indeed true.

Olive Woolley Kimball; Fox and Symons, photographers. Photo courtesy of Church History Library.

They left for Arizona in the spring of 1898. Her daughter Alice was just one year old and very sick most of the way and for some time after their arrival. To add to her heartaches, all the children had sore eyes and other troubles shortly after arriving in Thatcher, but the people of the ward and stake were very kind and did all they could to make things pleasant and easier to bear.[87]

Ollie had a fine soprano voice, and she was asked often to sing in public. At one time while Arizona was still a territory, Mr. Brodie, then Governor of Arizona, with his wife and small son visited the Gila Valley, and were entertained at the Kimball home.[88] She sang at this time for the governor.

Olive was a good manager. She did all her own house work with some help from the older children. Andrew, as president of the stake had many visitors. When the General Authorities from Salt Lake would come, they were taken care of at the Kimball home and Olive was very gracious and good in making them feel at ease. The Sunday the governor was there, several young people came and serenaded the visitors and put on a nice program. Among the musical numbers Olive and daughter Clare sang a duet. Olive played the piano. Mrs. Brodie complimented Olive very highly, remarking she felt she was a very remarkable woman, being able to do her own housework for a large family and entertaining visitors as they came. She was also active in her church duties. She was president of the ward Relief Society and later was the first counselor in the stake with Elizabeth Layton (402). When people often came to see her husband on business or otherwise and found he was not at home at the time, Olive would always entertain them and make them feel welcome.[89] She had a sweet and mild disposition and would go more than half way to avoid having misunderstandings or feelings.

In the fall of 1906, she became quite ill. Thinking that a trip to Salt Lake would help her and so she could see her folks, Andrew consented and made proper arrangements for her to go. She was also asked to represent the Relief Society at the conference if she found her health would permit, but she was able to attend but one session. Her illness became worse, and she was taken to the hospital to undergo an operation. She always had a dread of hospitals and operations. She died shortly after, her husband at her bedside before her passing.

A funeral was held for her in their old ward, and then Andrew took her to Thatcher for burial. There was a wonderful funeral; many hundreds of people from all over the stake came to pay their last respects. All the Relief Society sisters and her daughters were dressed in white, and this was the largest funeral that had been held up to that time.

This story was compiled by her son Andrew Gordon. We just might mention that all her children as they grew up were good Latter-day Saints and active in their Church work.[90] Her daughter Ruth died in 1915 at a young age, and Helen Mar passed away when about the same age as her mother, 46, in 1948.

Her son A. Gordon has been a stake patriarch for some time and was a bishop for many years.[91] Her son Spencer W. was chosen and set apart as one of the Twelve Apostles in 1943.[92] Clare is now past her 80th birthday and has been a Relief Society secretary for many years.

Ellis and Boone:

In July 1977, Graham County historian Ryder Ridgway drove to St. David to interview Alice Kimball Nelson, the youngest daughter of Olive Kimball. Alice said that her mother “had money of her own, so she helped my father finance the construction of our home. I remember my father planting a still standing pecan tree in the front yard at the time the house was being built, so it’s nearly as old as I am. Our home was a most pleasant one. A windmill-tank combination furnished us with plenty of water. . . . Three Church Presidents have stayed in our home as have many of the apostles.”[93]

Then in 1980, Ryder Ridgway wrote a newspaper column extolling the virtues of seven women who had contributed to the settlement of the Gila Valley. He began:

Behind every good man, so the saying goes, there is a good woman. . . . For instance, the busy yet serene life of Olive Wool[l]ey Kimball, would be a case in point. This lovely lady married Andrew Kimball, Feb. 2, 1882, a union blessed with seven children including Spencer who presently serves the LDS Church as its 12th President.

After the Kimball family’s 1898 Graham County entry, the wife of the president of the St. Joseph Stake aided her husband in his many endeavors and played a role in many of her church’s activities.

According to 94-year-old Thatcher native, Edward (Ed) Moody, Olive Kimball and his mother, Malinda Lewis Moody, were close friends who visited often. It was during one of these visits that Olive laughed and told of a request made by four-year-old Spencer—“Mother, can I have a piece of bread and butter so that I can fast?”[94]

When PWA was originally published, Spencer W. Kimball was serving as an Apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and members in Arizona were thrilled to have one of their own in the leading councils of the Church. Then on December 30, 1973, he became President of the Church and served in this capacity until his death on November 5, 1985. His son Edward described President Kimball’s last illness: “During these last days, Spencer several times said, ‘My life is at an end now. She’s so happy, oh so very happy.’ When nurse Barbara Herrin asked, ‘Who?’ he said he was talking of his mother, the mother he had lost when a boy of eleven and missed deeply all his life.”[95] He was referring to Olive Woolley Kimball.

Anna Benz Kleinman

Orson Conrad Kleinman[96]

Maiden Name: Anna Benz (Bentz)

Birth: June 1, 1836; Weininger, Zurich, Switzerland

Parents: Heinrich Benz and Elizabetha Lang

Marriage: Conrad Kleinman;[97] February 8, 1857

Children: John Conrad (1858), Henry Benz (1860), George Willie (1862), Anna Louisa (1864), twins Ottilia and Sybella (1866), Andrew Phillip (1870), David Franklin (1872), Daniel Heber (1874), Orson Conrad (1877)

Death: December 8, 1908; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

In the little village of Weininger near Zurich, Switzerland, lived the family of Heinrich Benz and his wife, Elizabeth Lang, with their children, Johan Heinrich, Anna, Regula, and Anna Barbara. The father’s line takes him back to Casper Benz, who lived in 1580, all of the same village and province. The mother’s line of Lang goes back to Heinrich Lang and Regula Schmid, of the Province of Unter Oetwil, living in the year 1587.

The oldest son, Johan Heinrich was born November 20, 1833, and joined the navy in his early manhood, and little is known about his whereabouts. Johan never joined the Church, nor did he migrate to America as did his sisters, Anna and Regula. Anna Barbara, or Sabra, as she was called, remained in Switzerland and never joined the Church. Anna was born June 1, 1836, and her sister Regula, July 1, 1839.

Anna and Regula learned early the art of silk weaving, as taught by their mother, who kept a loom in her own home and was very proficient and skillful, so much so that she exacted perfection in the output and was severe in her demands upon the young girls, who toiled early and late at the painstaking work. They could have found ready employment in the silk factories in Zurich, but remained at home on the insistence of their mother, until they heard the tidings of the gospel and soon were converted and were baptized in April of 1854. Anna was then eighteen years of age and Regula only fifteen. Early the following year, they set sail for America, arriving in Utah, after the long wearisome stretch across the plains, in the year 1855, just one year prior to the coming of the famed handcart company.[98]

Anna Benz Kleinman. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

Among the Swiss Saints who had come to Utah with the first pioneers was Conrad Kleinman and his half-brother John Conrad Naegle, both of whom had emigrated with their parents and their only sister and found a home in Canton, Rush County, Indiana, where they purchased land and began a small farm and orchard. It was here that the elders of the new-found gospel found them, and it was not long until the young men were converted, and their sole object was to visit Nauvoo and see the Prophet of the new dispensation. Conrad had inherited a small sum of money from the estate of his grandfather in Switzerland, about $450 in American value, and with this he had helped his parents in their purchase of their land, but the brothers were eager to leave all this so made the journey to Nauvoo, only to find the city in deepest mourning, due to the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum. Their only wish was to assist the Saints there in their great grief in helping to complete the temple and to act as guardsmen in the persecution and mob violence that followed the catastrophe of the martyrdom. Conrad brought his young wife, Elizabeth Malholm, from Indiana, where she had lived with her parents, although she was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. To this union a little daughter was born, but she died at birth. Elizabeth had no other children, but was called “Mommie” all her days for her benevolence and assistance among the sisters of the new found faith.

John Conrad Naegle, the younger brother, was among the first volunteers to march with the Mormon Battalion.[99] Conrad volunteered too, but Brigham Young told him he had other plans for him, and when the exodus took place from Nauvoo and preparations were made for the trip westward, Conrad was chosen to join the vanguard of scouts who were to clear the way for the main company of Saints making the historic trek to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Their part was to fell timber, clear the brush, and otherwise make the route passable and safe. He was obliged to leave his young wife behind, but she followed in one of the succeeding companies at a later date.[100] It was in Salt Lake that they again established a little home, beautifying it as the conditions and rugged pioneering permitted. It was on this trip that he visited the city of St. Louis, where his sister Marie had settled, marrying a man by the same name as her own (Kleinman), but she had never joined the Church and refused to come west.[101]

Upon Conrad’s return, knowing that she would never bear another child, Elizabeth consented to her husband’s taking a plural wife or wives, that he might have posterity. Two young girls (Mary Ann Germer and Anna Benz) had recently emigrated from Switzerland and had become active in the little community, and Elizabeth had become most friendly with them and thought them suitable as wives for her husband. Anna was then twenty-one. She consented, as did Mary Ann, and under date of February 8, 1857, in the office of President Brigham Young, they were both married and sealed as plural wives, Anna sealed by Heber C. Kimball and Mary Ann by Daniel H. Wells.[102] It was not unusual for such sealings to be consummated even before the endowments were given, since following the destruction of the temple at Nauvoo, there were no sealing ordinances administered until completion of the temple at St. George in the year 1877.[103]

Elizabeth, known fondly as “Mommie” in the new community, was like a mother to the young girls and supervised and dictated much of their household activities. She had made the stipulation that the first child born to the new union should be turned over to her to raise, and this was little John Conrad.[104] The family had been obliged to leave their home in Salt Lake, where Conrad had become first counselor to Bishop David Pettigrew of the Tenth Ward, and to assist in the settlement of Lehi, a little hamlet close to the city and needing energetic young families to begin another expansion. It was here little Johnnie died of diphtheria at the age of nine years. Two other sons and three little daughters were born here to Anna. George Willie was the third son of Anna and he died at one year, no doubt also of diphtheria. Anna Louisa, the first daughter, died at fourteen months, the result of an accident. She, a little toddler, was watching her mother peel ripe peaches for canning and reached for a slice, which she gulped and choked upon, and before the distracted mother could get help, she was dead. Two other little daughters were born, Ottilia and Sybellia, both dying in early infancy. Three children were born to Mary Ann in Lehi: Elizabeth Mary, Conrad Moroni, and John Martin.

John Conrad Naegle had moved his cattle and horses from California and found the Lehi country a vast pastureland for them.[105] So the two families were reunited. The two sisters, married to two brothers, were doubly close, and their children like one devoted family. Regula was the fifth wife of John Conrad, and he later married two other German converts. He had amassed considerable wealth and was able to assist greatly in the building up of the community and toward the completion of the Salt Lake Temple. At one time he was the highest tithe payer in the Church. He went on two missions to his native land, after going to Indiana and bringing back with him his parents and his boyhood sweetheart, Mary Louise Keppel, and seeing them comfortably settled in Zion. Upon his return from Switzerland, he had emigrated several young people, who found welcome in many of the homes of the Swiss Saints. Among them were the two Meyer girls, Matilda and Meena, and their younger brother. Matilda came to live with Anna and was like her own daughter. She stayed with the family and traveled with them in their migrations until her marriage. Meena made her home with Regula and was also like a daughter to her.

Lehi had become a thriving location, and the Naegles and Kleinmans were loath to leave it when the call came for the two families to move on and pioneer the rugged country of St. George in the southwestern part of the state. Again there must be the sadness of farewell, the parting with old-time friends, both of their native countries and those of the new-found community. Goodbye to well-cared-for farms and gardens, to little homesteads, made habitable and secure by their own hands, and to five little graves there in the village graveyard.

Mary Ann refused the new migration southward. She had endured enough of the hardships of colonization. But she consented for Moroni and Elizabeth to go, keeping John Martin with her. It was a long parting, for St. George was a long journey to make, overland in rugged and wearisome stages, and so she never met up with the family again. Anna, with her boy Henry and her adopted daughter, Matilda, joined with “Mommie” and Conrad, Elizabeth and Moroni, and along with the Naegle branch, set out for the distant Dixieland, as it was called. It was some great consolation that John Conrad Naegle had chosen his wife Regula along with his wife Verena to make the pilgrimage with him, and thus the two sisters began another period in the pioneering of the new land. This was in the year 1861.

History tells of the hardship and privation of settling in the St. George country. Surrounded by rugged and forbidding hills, with little reclamation done to afford water for farming, it was still the choice of Brigham Young that the site of St. George be dedicated for the building of the first temple in the west. It was rather an alkali district, and much drainage had to be done and preparation made for the erection of such an edifice. Aside from the help needed for the temple construction, President Young had designated the country as most congenial for the raising of grapes and for experimental projects in cotton. Knowing of John Conrad Naegle’s skill in wine distillery, in which Conrad Kleinman had often aided him, they were appointed to look after that industry, and thus the finest grapes grown in the state flourished in Dixie from which vast quantities of wine and fine distilled brandies were made, the latter to supply the drug stores in the cities with alcohol for the preservation of medicines. The wine was used extensively in the sacrament services, as in olden times, being stored in immense vats or casks in the basement of the Naegle home until it could be freighted by team to Salt Lake City.[106]

In addition to the wine and cotton industries, John C. Naegle had immense holding in cattle and horses, which he ran on the Buckskin Mountain and so was often away, and when the persecution against polygamy began, even in that remote region of St. George, he made the venture of colonization in Old Mexico, and so with his seven wives and their children, the parting of the ways had come, and Anna said farewell to her beloved sister, Regula, little thinking they would never meet again.[107]

With the completion of the temple in 1877, many of the Saints moved away from St. George, it having been made known that a life-giving spring had been discovered in the canyon above the little hamlet of Toquerville, and here the Kleinmans also made a change of residence, taking up a homesite and land for farming in the productive little town. Among those who went to cast their lot in the new settlement were the Spilsburys, the Battys, the Bringhursts and Bryners, the Haights, the Grangers, the Lambs, the Hills, the Stapleys, the Bagleys, the Willises, and others who soon put the spring water to use as a never ending source of fertility. Soon orchards began to produce the finest cherries, peaches, apricots, even figs, and of course, an abundance of grapes. Cotton also did very well. It was and is a garden spot in the midst of the hills and canyons round about, well sheltered from the frosts and severe winters of the mountainous country to the north and east. Here Elizabeth married Isaac Haight of Cedar City and left to make her home there. Here Henry married Susan Vilate Spilsbury, and Moroni married Lula Bringhurst.

“Mommie” continued her usefulness among the sick of the community, as she had wherever she had lived, and having learned the skill of midwifery, she had taught it to Anna and to Regula, both of whom became as skilled as herself. Anna was blessed with four more children, this time four sons, Andrew Phillip, David Franklin, Daniel Heber, and Orson Conrad, and as they grew up and the farm place became hardly extensive enough for them all, their father decided to make a trip around the settlements of Arizona, of which he had heard from those who were leaving. He and his son Henry went on a long buggy ride through the settlements of northern Arizona, but soon found those who were enthusiastic over their venture into southern Arizona, namely, the vast region of the Salt River Valley, and so they made the long journey down into that semitropical district. The lure of the frontier was calling again, and it took but a short visit to persuade him that he had found just what he wanted and just what would be best for his sons. And so in the year 1882, in the autumn season, they set out for the great stretches of the southland.

The party consisted of Conrad and Anna with Henry, Moroni, Lula (Moroni’s young wife), Matilda, Andrew, Daniel, and Orson. Elizabeth was living in Cedar City. Mommie decided to remain until word could be brought that would favor such a move, and David was designated to stay with her. Their first relay was down the Muddy to Pierce’s Ferry, then on and over the great desert to the Big Sandy.[108] They had chosen the autumn season to make the long journey, and it was in January of 1883 that the tired group drove into the yard of Uncle Dan Bagley, an oldtime Dixie settler, and was welcomed to pitch tent and remain until a homesite could be located. This was soon in happening, for Sister Bagley’s brother, Tom Willis, had signified his discontent of the country and was about to sacrifice his 80-acre tract and move to a cooler region.[109] Five acres of it were already cleared, ready for planting. It was in the Alma district, near the present site of Mesa, on which they had named the Stringtown Road. It was good to find on this street many of the families of their former home, all of whom had begun the erection of comfortable dwellings, and so the Kleinmans raised their tent house on the cleared five acres and at once began their spring planting. They had obtained the whole 80 acres from Tom Willis for one good work horse.

Alma became a thriving community with several more families moving in from Nephi, just west, where they had been having trouble from lack of water. Almost daily brought more settlers from the Dixie country, old neighbors and friends who made up an interesting group, all bent on extending the waterways and improving their farming facilities.

As early as 1883, the city of Mesa had a population of over three hundred, with a people ready for government. New wards were being organized, Alma among the first. New homes were springing up along the Stringtown Road, fine adobe structures replacing the tent houses. The Kleinmans were soon replacing theirs with a commodious adobe building with a lean-to, which served for many years. The orchard was laid out with seedlings and roots from Dixie, both flowers and fruits finding the soil most congenial. No finer apricots were grown anywhere than on the Kleinman site, one tree spreading its shade over the entire house and bearing an abundance of fruit year after year. Grapes were plentiful and were marketed by the ton to nearby settlements and often traded to the Indians for wheat.

A severe epidemic of smallpox struck the community just as the city election was held, which put a stop to public gatherings when once it was found out just what a desperate condition had developed. A lad, the son of the postmistress and storekeeper, had been violently ill with what the doctor pronounced a heat rash, and before they knew it for what it was, the whole town was exposed, and the heavy toll of over forty was counted before the disease could be brought under control. Homes were turned into mourning, some homes were turned into pesthouses; graveside funerals were held, and no one was allowed to enter the homes of the bereaved.[110]

The first school house was built from wood hauled all the way from Ft. McDowell, an army post to the north. Joseph W. Stewart of Alma donated the land, and George P. Dykes was the first teacher. The little children went to the Church building on 4th Avenue on land donated by George Staples. Fanny Dana, beloved daughter of Alma Spilsbury and who was a member of the first graduating class of the Tempe Normal, was their teacher.

Conrad Kleinman became first counselor to Alexander Hunsaker of the Alma Ward and was later ordained a patriarch by John Henry Smith.[111] Anna was called to be the first Relief Society president May 31, 1883. And Relief Society president she was in very deed. Used to hardship and privation, to rugged endurance to the conditions of three migrations, she had faced near starvation when crops failed, when drought and famine stalked the land, had weathered epidemics of smallpox, diphtheria, black canker, and typhoid, had seen nearly every home lay a little one away in the bleak graveyard, and in the midst of her own afflictions, had always proffered her heart and her hands to alleviate others in like distress. Taking provisions and home remedies from her own scanty supplies, she had day by day answered the call to the sick, sometimes driving long distances through rain or blinding dust storms to assist at birth, to assist at death, and often remaining days together to nurse and cook and care for families that were needy and bereaved. Her toilworn hands were never idle, and after the drudgery of the day, she found time to knit and made an art of it. Not only much-needed socks and mufflers and sweaters, but her pride was in reeling off finespun knitted lace, using the finest cobweb thread and such delicacy of pattern that the output would have graced any bazaar or museum.

The family acquired more land adjacent to their original eighty acres, and as their cattle increased they were removed to the ranch they had taken up near Superstition Mountain. This afforded work for their boys as they grew older. Henry had returned to Toquerville with his brother Moroni and Mommie. Lula refused to live longer in the southland, and Mommie felt that her presence there only brought persecution for polygamy upon a good husband who had suffered enough for that principle. Deputy marshals had intruded themselves into the little community of Mesa and a number of her leading citizens had been apprehended so that it was necessary for them to go into hiding. This they did by fleeing to a retreat in the mountains where they remained for many weeks until the deputies grew discouraged and departed. Mommie was glad to get back to her home in Toquerville, but it was only a short time until word came that she had passed on.[112] This solved the polygamy persecution for Conrad Kleinman. But a stunning blow came to the family when word came that their stalwart son Henry had been killed by a runaway horse while driving in Toquerville. Driving a span of horses with a light buggy, the horses took fright at something in the road, and while Henry held firm hold of the reins, he was thrown and his head crushed by a rock as he struck the ground. He died instantly.[113]

Then another calamity befell the family when their fine son Andrew Phillip, at the age of nineteen [c. 1889], was stricken blind in an accident as he was freighting to the Silver King Mine east of Mesa. He was driving a team and wagon and had stopped with his companion to lunch and rest the horses. An extra horse was led along, and it was while adjusting the harness as they set out again over the canal bridge that Andrew stooped to adjust the doubletree that the extra horse kicked him full in the face, rendering him unconscious and blinding him, breaking his nose and all but killing him outright. His companion brought him back to the city, and a Dr. Booth, recently from Salt Lake, and a very fine physician, took care of him. He went to every known means to sew up the ghastly wounded face and head and tried his best to save his sight, but that was hopeless. He was totally blind from that day forward.

Another accident that saddened the family was when Orson, the youngest child, and a boy of sixteen, was blinded in one eye, by a gun explosion. To save the sight of the one eye it was necessary to remove the injured one. This operation was performed by a specialist from Phoenix, who did the delicate surgery in the home, and it proved to be a very successful one, as no infection set in and, after a due period of time, the young boy could be fitted [with a glass eye?] and has gone through the rest of life with but few knowing of his handicap. He has often said how gladly he would give one of his eyes if it could have given sight to Andrew, whom he adored.

Andrew married a young girl who had come to live across the street from the Kleinmans, and while he never saw her, he always called her his lovely sweetheart until the last when he died of pellagra, and she was all devotion to him as she had been through the years of their marriage.[114] Nine children blessed this union, among them some of Mesa’s finest citizens.

With a degree of prosperity attending their efforts, with the children raised, their sons Daniel and Orson attending the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, with David taking music lessons (he married Eve Rappleye, who had come with her parents to make their home in the southland), they were able to send Orson on a mission to Germany. Daniel returned from school and married Elsie Pamela Robinson and built a home on Stringtown Road. The parents felt it was best to divide the homesite into equal parts for their sons, giving Andrew the home they had built, which was now quite a pretentious one, and, feeling they could still be of service to their church, they decided to return to St. George.

It was a matter of great pride that their son Orson had finished a successful mission and had visited the birth places of both parents, and that he had amassed a very valuable record, comprising scores of names, all ready for temple work. This, with the help of the genealogist in Germany and Switzerland was to give them ample ordinance work for many years to come. Orson returned and helped them with many of the sealings. He then returned to Mesa for a visit and again returned to Salt Lake and obtained work in the office of the Utah-Idaho Company, which position he held for eight years. He married Bertha E. Anderson, then stenographer in the office of the Presiding Bishopric, and they built them a home which was in the Emerson Ward of Liberty Stake. But the urge of the southland and a desire to unite with his brothers in the cattle business lured Orson homeward again, and so they have made their home in Mesa ever since.

It was in the temple that the father spent his last days on earth. Returning home from one of the sessions, he fell and broke his hip, an accident from which he never recovered. He died there November 12, 1906, and was buried in Toquerville, after services held in St. George. He was ninety-one at the time of his death.

The mother remained for some time in the companionship of her sister Regula, who had returned from Mexico upon the death of her husband, and together they continued for a time as ordinance workers in the temple.[115]

Their records finished, they both journeyed to Salt Lake to visit Orson, Regula going on then to Price, Utah, to visit her only daughter, Frances, and Anna going to Mesa to visit her three sons there. How gladly she was welcomed back by her many old friends and fellow workers, but her health failed rapidly and she too passed away on December 8, 1908, and was buried in the Mesa cemetery. She was seventy-two.

Ellis and Boone:

On December 4, 1924, thirty-four women, whose ancestors came to Utah before the completion of the railroad in 1869, gathered at the Rex Hotel in Mesa and formed the first DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) camp in Arizona.[116] This became the Cactus Camp. Gradually other camps were organized in Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa, and on November 13, 1941, the Henry Standage Camp was organized in the Alma District of Mesa. In 1954, the name of this camp was changed to the Anna K. Camp, honoring Anna Benz Kleinman, one of the original settlers of Stringtown (along Alma School Road, between 8^th Avenue and Broadway).[117]

Orson Conrad Kleinman compiled this biography of his mother June 1, 1965. His wife, Bertha Anderson Kleinman, was a recognized poet, receiving acclaim in both Arizona literary circles and the greater Mormon community. Two of her more well-known poems are “I Have Two Little Hands,” still sung by LDS children in Primary, and “Mary’s Lullaby,” sung each year at the Mesa Easter pageant.[118]

Notes

[1] This sketch was originally submitted to the FWP on December 12, 1936. It was left essentially unchanged for PWA, except a final paragraph about Annie’s death was added. Two paragraphs, relating to smallpox vaccinations in California, were omitted and have been restored.

[2] “The Life of John Hunt (1833−1917),” in Clayton, PMA, 236−38; “John Hunt,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:417–18; Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman.

[3] “Lois Barnes Pratt Hunt,” in Rencher, John Hunt—Frontiersman , 91−96.

[4] This date should probably be a week after Annella’s birthday; see Ida Frances Hunt Udall, 741.

[5] The numbers of “covered wagons and horse teams” varied as people joined and left the group; specifically, George Skinner probably did not travel the entire way with this company, and two men, Brothers Bentley and Cunningham, traveled the first part of the route as road surveyors. May H. Larson, “Our Move from Utah to New Mexico via Pearce’s Ferry,” Snowflake Historical Society Wagon Trails, no. 11 (June 1975): 3–4; no. 12 (September 1975): 3–4; Waterman, True Life Adventures of John Addison Hunt, 5.

[6] Early exploration of at least part of this route was extensive, specifically the Sitgreaves Expedition of 1851, the Aubrey Expedition of 1854, and the Beale Expedition of 1857. The Hunt party used the Beale Wagon Road when traveling east from Hackberry. For a discussion of these expeditions as pertaining to the Flagstaff area, see Cline, They Came to the Mountain, 16–48. Cline also mentions records from the Hunt group but confuses daughters Ida and May Cline, They Came to the Mountain, 67.

[7] Tanks are natural or artificial ponds of water.

[8] This group included the families of John Hunt, John Bushman, Henry Tanner, and Lycurgus Westover. From April 1 to April 20, they traveled in three separate groups to better utilize the little water they would find. Ida Hunt Udall implies that it was the lead group that left John Hunt’s party the message, and this message was probably found before Flagstaff. Ida Hunt Udall, FWP sketch, ASLAPR.

[9] The Hunt children who had not been vaccinated all contracted the disease and survived, but their friend Manassah Blackburn (age 26) died on January 4, 1878, after eight days of suffering.

[10] Kartchner, Frontier Fiddler, 37.

[11] Ibid., 10.

[12] Ibid., 39.

[13] Ibid., 57.

[14] Ibid., 76–77.

[15] Ibid., 79.

[16] Ibid., 80.

[17] Originally submitted to the FWP in 1936, this sketch was included in PWA unchanged. As such, it illustrates the greater detail of westward movement normally found in the 1930 sketches as compared to those collected in the 1950s and 1960s.

[18] For more information about the family of William Decatur Kartchner, including his plural wife Elizabeth Gale, see Thalia Kartchner Butler, “The William Decatur Kartchner Family,” in Clayton, PMA, 254−60.

[19] For sketches of three daughters, see Alzada Sophia Kartchner Palmer, 515; Prudence Jane Kartchner Flake, 194; and Sarah Emma Kartchner Miller, 458.

[20] These are the children found at FamilySearch. The list does not match the number of children Clayton reported; she also included Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego in the list.

[21] Gill is usually a liquid measure, one-fourth pint or one-half cup.

[22] See Sarah Emma Kartchner Twitchell Miller, 458; Ricketts, Mormon Battalion, 229−32, 250, 433; Bigler and Bagley, Army of Israel, 270, 460.

[23] Bent’s Old Fort, on the north side of the Arkansas River, was a significant outpost on the Santa Fe Trail. Built by brothers William and Charles Bent and Céran St. Vrain in the 1820s, this was a massive adobe structure with twenty-four rooms, walls fifteen feet high and two feet thick, and two cylindrical towers with cannons. During the war with Mexico (1846–48), the army made it a staging base, and the area was immediately overgrazed, the water befouled, and buffalo decimated. After a cholera epidemic in 1849, the fort was abandoned. Ferris, Soldier and Brave, 102–7.

[24] Catherine Beasley Higgins Holladay (1797–1877) was the wife of John Holladay and mother of five living children, ages 8 to 17, at Pueblo. Bigler and Bagley, Army of Israel, 460.

[25] Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny (1794–1848) commanded the Army of the West during the Mexican War. Fleek, History May Be Searched in Vain, 103, 380.

[26] It appears that Clayton believed that the Mormon Battalion’s sick detachment, women, and children arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 27 rather than July 29, 1847. The earlier date is used in different accounts in PWA.

[27] Lyman, San Bernardino, 416.

[28] Bigler and Bagley, Army of Israel, 457–60.

[29] Kartchner, Frontier Fiddler, 16.

[30] The original PWA sketch was difficult to follow, so two paragraphs were condensed and another was moved to better fit chronologically. This is also the sketch that Ellen Rees included, along with additional photographs, genealogical charts, and some remembrances by other grandchildren, in her book about the Christopher Kempe family. Rees, Christopher J. Kempe Family, 75–86.

[31] “Christopher J. Kempe,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:597.

[32] Elder John Smith, Patriarch to the Church, was in charge of emigrants but not captain of the ship. This huge clipper ship made the ocean crossing in only thirty-six days, but the death toll was high, reportedly varying from forty-one to forty-five people, mostly children. Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 146−47.

[33] From 1833 to 1979, the Patriarch to the Church was an officer who gave blessings mainly to members who lived in outlying areas without stake patriarchs. Many of these years, this office was a hereditary line through Joseph Smith Sr. In 1979, the patriarch was given emeritus status and the office was retired because stake patriarchs were usually available. Calvin R. Stephens, “Patriarch to the Church,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 3:1065–66.

[34] A paraphrased Deseret News article (unfortunately set off in quotation marks) was inserted here without any attempt to avoid repetition. This has been reformatted slightly, with quotation marks eliminated, to avoid duplication. See Journal History of the Church, September 2, 1864, CHL (not the dates listed in PWA).

[35] Christopher Kempe first married Christien Johan Fredericka Ingere on March 17, 1865, in Norway. She died at Quincy, Illinois, on June 22, 1865, from complications of smallpox, measles, or scarlet fever contracted during the voyage across the Atlantic. In December 1865, Kempe married Oline Olsen (Olesdatter), and on March 19, 1866, he married Anna Johnson (Jonsdatter). See Olena Olsen Kempe, 353.

[36] William C. Smith discusses the location of this first school, which Levi S. Udall said was held in the Kempe home, and added a date of 1880−81. Smith, “The Mormons as a Factor in the Development of the Public School System of Arizona,” 35.

[37] Christopher Kempe also served time at Detroit for practicing polygamy (see Olena Olsen Kempe, 353).

[38] This paragraph was moved to better fit chronologically. Although Ancestral File lists the death dates of Olena’s two sons, Otto and Eugene, as November 1898, it is probably 1888 as mentioned here or 1889 as in Olena’s sketch (356). “Mr. Wilhelm” is B. H. (Bateman Haight) Wilhelm who also lived in Concho.

[39] The St. Johns Stake Academy was established on January 14, 1889, operated for three years, and then reopened October 1900. Presumably this incident took place sometime between 1889 and 1893. Smith, “The Mormons as a Factor in the Development of the Public School System of Arizona,” 35−36.

[40] Father Pedro Maria Badilla (1827−1901), served the St. Johns Parish from 1880 until his death at Concho. Besides the St. Johns Catholic Church, he was also responsible for building the San Rafael Catholic Church in Concho and the original St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Springerville. He traveled regularly between these three towns to serve his parishioners. When he died, men and women of all religious persuasions came to attend his funeral mass. “St. Johns Parish History,” originally written in Spanish and translated by Fidencio Baca, copy in possession of Ellis; Udall, St. Johns, 15.

[41] 1900 census, Anna Kempe, St. Johns, Apache Co., Arizona; Ilena and Christopher Kempe, Concho, Apache Co., Arizona.

[42] Udall and Nelson, Arizona Pioneer Mormon: David King Udall, 135.

[43] “From a Prisoner for Conscience Sake: Gratitude and Hope Expressed by One of the Brethren in Detroit,” Deseret News, December 9, 1885. The letters of Catharine Romney recount many of the events of this period in the history of St. Johns; Hansen, Letters of Catharine Cottam Romney, Plural Wife, 21−110.

[44] “Pardoned the Mormons,” Salt Lake Herald, October 10, 1886; “Lovers of Justice at Liberty at Last,” Deseret News, October 9, 1886; “Convinced of the Illegality,” Salt Lake Herald, October 10, 1886; St. Johns Herald, October 21, 1886.

[45] This sketch was rewritten by Jennie Naegle Engstrom for Ellen Rees’ book about the Christopher Kempe family. Rees, Christopher J. Kempe Family, 63–73.

[46] “Christopher J. Kempe,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:597.

[47] This was likely the ship, B.S. Kimball, which departed Hamburg on May 8, 1865. Sonne calls this voyage “tragic” because three adults and twenty-five children died from measles and scarlet fever, “one of the highest death tolls of an emigrant company.” Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 34; Sonne, Saints on the Seas, 152.

[48] Christopher Kempe first married Christien Johan Fredericka Ingere on March 17, 1865, in Norway. She died at Quincy, Illinois, on June 22, 1865. In December 1865, Kempe married Oline Olsen (Olesdatter), and on March 19, 1866, he married Anna Johnson (Jonsdatter). See Anna Dorthea Johnson Kempe, 348.

[49] Latter-day Saints have been interested in the settlement of Jackson County, Missouri, ever since it was identified as Zion in 1831 (D&C 57:1–5). After the Saints were driven out in 1833, several men prophesied a return, and even today some families think about moving there and purchasing land. In an April 16, 1877, conference at St. George, Brigham Young said, “Are we going back to Jackson County? Yes. When? As soon as the way opens up. Are we all going? O no! of course not. The country is not large enough to hold our present numbers.” Journal of Discourses 18:355; Clark V. Johnson, “Missouri: LDS Communities in Jackson and Clay Counties,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:922–25; Crowther, Prophesy—Key to the Future, 86–90.

[50] Although Ancestral File gives these death dates as November 1898, it was probably 1889 as mentioned here or 1888 as Anna Kempe says in her sketch (351). Cemetery markers list these death dates as November 27, 1888, for Eugene and November 29 for Otto; findagrave.com #24894490, 24894492.

[51] A gore is a fabric insert, usually triangular or tapered and often on the bias, designed to provide more width, as in a skirt or sail, but here designed to provide more flexibility with a tight-fitting sleeve.

[52] This insertion comes from the book Ellen Greer Rees wrote about the Christopher Kempe family; it appears that one line of text had been left out of PWA. The book also states that the amount received from the brother and sister in Norway was $1000. Rees, Christopher J. Kempe Family, 72.

[53] David and Elizabeth Pulsipher of Concho; see Elizabeth Isabelle Jacobson Pulsipher, 560.

[54] “Autobiographical Notes of my Life by James Warren LeSueur,” J. W. LeSueur Collection, AHS, 24–32.

[55] Wilhelm and Wilhelm, History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, 238–42.

[56] “Autobiographical Notes of my Life by James Warren LeSueur,” J. W. LeSueur Collection, AHS, 27.

[57] Ibid., 27–28.

[58] Ibid., 31.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid., 32.

[61] “Alvin Bradford Kempton,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:135–36.

[62] The Kempton family was still in Burrville, Sevier Co., Utah, in 1880.

[63] Zetta Jane Kempton died February 4, 1884, and Delia Caroline Kempton died February 9, 1884.

[64] The family was in Eden for the birth of Laura Sophronia, born December 1, 1884.

[65] Walker and Bufkin, Historical Atlas of Arizona, 23, 46–47; Lubick, Petrified Forest National Park, 29–36.

[66]Journal of Jesse N. Smith, 243; Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 126–36

[67] Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 134.

[68] Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 2:73, 186, and 244−45.

[69] Chavasse and Stevenson, Wife and Mother, vii.

[70] Ibid., 269.

[71] It is sometimes difficult to determine authorship and date written, two things which help understand bias, meaning items omitted and items emphasized. RFC submitted this sketch to the FWP on January 13, 1939, and she transferred it to PWA with almost no changes. ASLAPR has two copies of the sketch (as they do for many) which only differ in paragraph breaks. However, a third FWP sketch (“written by her daughter, Fay Kimball McCaughey”) is almost identical including the use of first person, leading to the question: who is it that wrote, “I have heard Mother say . . .”? In addition, there is a version at the CHL which has some paragraphs combined and this statement: “Written down by Effie Isabell Merrill Robinson as her mother Effie Kimball Merrill told her the story.” “The Life of Caroline Williams Kimball,” MS 7424, CHL.

[72] W. Earl Merrill, “David Patten Kimball” in Clayton, PMA, 265−67; Edward L. Kimball, “Heber C. Kimball,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:781–84; “David Patten Kimball,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:601. According to Stanley Kimball, the family always used the spelling of Patton, but here the more familiar Patten is retained. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball, 66.

[73] Some sources at FamilySearch.org list this as 1917, and an AzDC was not located, but the headstone lists 1916. Also, the given name is sometimes listed as Caroline Maria.

[74] These were the families and sick that wintered at Pueblo, Colorado.

[75] The statement about being a good housekeeper was restored from the FWP sketch. Some information about Viroque Kimball is found in the 1860 (age 14) and 1870 (age 18) censuses. However, without knowing the name of a husband, it is difficult to know where to look for a burial which would have been some time before the family left for Arizona. 1860 census, David P. Kimball, Grantsville, Tooele Co., Utah; 1870 census, David P. Kimball, Paris, Rich Co., Utah Territory.

[76] Edward Evans Jones (1842–1927) was born in Wales and came to Arizona with his wife Letitia Wheatley (1856–1930). They settled in Lehi, Maricopa Co., Arizona, but left about 1902 and settled in Byron, Big Horn Co., Wyoming. By 1920 the family was in Salt Lake City where he died. An FWP sketch by Harry L. Payne described David P. Kimball’s trip into Arizona through the Hackberry route. It is clear in Payne’s account that “Mr. Solomon,” as was originally written in PWA, was David’s younger brother Solomon F. Kimball. Payne, “Early Experiences in Arizona,” FWP, ASLAPR. See also, “The Life of Caroline Williams Kimball,” MS 7424, CHL.

[77] It should be remembered that the ox driver always walked beside his team, something that David Kimball would have found difficult with his sprained ankle.

[78] This date is incorrect; see comments from Ellis and Boone.

[79] While living in Jonesville, David Kimball hauled freight between Maricopa Station and Prescott. In November 1881, he caught cold and was camped about ten miles out of Prescott. Two separate nights he saw, in a vision, his parents and others who were deceased. His father reproved him for wrongdoings but told him he could have two more years to set his affairs in order. Then David Kimball spent two and a half days wandering, lost in the Salt River Desert. When he thought he would die, his father and mother appeared again, gave him a drink of water, told him his friends would soon find him, and reminded him that he would live just two more years. David Patten Kimball died November 22, 1883 and is buried in St. David, Cochise Co., Arizona. For this story, told mostly in Kimball’s own words, see W. Earl Merrill, “David Patten Kimball,” in Clayton, PMA, 265−67.

[80] The Golden Rule, as stated near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, is “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” The NIV Study Bible notes that it “is found in negative form in rabbinic Judaism and also in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It [also] occurred in various forms in Greek and Roman ethical teaching. [However,] Jesus stated it in the positive form.” New International Version, Matthew 7:12.

[81] Kimball, Heber C. Kimball, 219–23.

[82] Ibid., 237.

[83] Harry L. Payne, “Early Experiences in Arizona [David P. Kimball],” FWP collection, ASLAPR, 1-3.

[84] Ibid., 6–7.

[85] Ibid., 8–9.

[86] Boyce Lines, “Andrew Kimball,” in Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 1:190; “Andrew Kimball,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:364–66.

[87] Not mentioned in here are the children born after coming to Arizona (see genealogical data at the beginning of this sketch).

[88] Alexander Oswald Brodie (1849–1918) was born in New York and graduated from West Point. He first came to Fort Apache in 1873, became commander of the Arizona National Guard in 1892, and was commander of the Rough Riders from Arizona. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Brodie governor of the Arizona Territory in 1902; he served until 1905. His administration was basically free from dissention and scandal; he vetoed a woman’s suffrage bill, encouraged dam construction and irrigation projects, and was concerned for the health and welfare of miners. Goff, Arizona Territorial Officials II: The Governors, 174–85; McMullin and Walker, Biographical Directory of American Territorial Governors, 49–51.

[89] Andrew Kimball (1858–1924), as president of the St. Joseph Stake, reported in the general Relief Society conference of 1908 that the sisters in Thatcher were invited to meet at the same time that the brethren had priesthood meetings, thereby promoting cooperation between the men and women. Also, when a photograph was taken of the high council, a similar photograph was taken of the wives, although this was after Kimball had remarried to Josephine Cluff. Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 173; Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 2:394; Taylor, 25th Stake of Zion, 118–25.

[90] These last two paragraphs were apparently added by RFC.

[91] Ellis, Latter-day Saints in Tucson, 73, 84, 121

[92] Spencer W. Kimball, “Spencer Wool[l]ey Kimball, President, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” in Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 1:192−93; Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:785–89.

[93] Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 2:393.

[94] “Dec. 3, 1980 Graham County Women of Note,” Burgess, Mt. Graham Profiles, 1:252.

[95] Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride, 413.

[96] PWA adds a date of June 1, 1965, that Orson Kleinman “compiled” this sketch; this may be the date he gave it to RFC.

[97] “Konrad Kleinman,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:661.

[98] Anna Benz arrived in Utah in 1855 with the Richard Ballantyne Company, but her parents and sister did not arrive until 1860 with the handcart company of Jesse Murphy. MPOT.

[99] John Conrad Naegle was a member of Company A of the Mormon Battalion. After reaching California and hearing of Brigham Young’s concern about having adequate food for the Utah pioneers during the winter of 1847, Naegle and seventy-eight other men reenlisted for an additional six months. Many of these men, including Naegle, then worked in the gold fields; Naegle amassed $3,000 in gold while in California. Ricketts, Mormon Battalion, 169, 223, 265−66.

[100] Conrad Kleinman was part of Brigham Young’s Pioneer Company in 1847; his wife, Elizabeth Malholm Kleinman, came later that season as part of the Abraham O. Smoot–George B. Wallace company. MPOT.

[101] The trip east must have been in 1855 or 1856. Conrad Kleinman traveled back to Utah in 1856 as part of the Abraham O. Smoot Company. MPOT.

[102] In 1860, Conrad was living with his three wives, three children, and Anna’s parents at Lehi. 1860 census, Coonrod Kline, Lehi, Utah Co., Utah.

[103] The logic here seems to be in error. Richard Bennett wrote that the Endowment House was “a place for baptisms and confirmations for the living and the dead, endowments for the living (including washings and anointings), and marriage sealings for both the living and the dead.” Bennett, “‘Line upon Line, Precept upon Precept,’” 50.

[104] This practice of giving a childless wife one child to rear is also seen in the sketches for Happylona Sanford Hunt, 296, and Christianna Dorothy Bertelsen Farnsworth, 173.

[105] John Conrad Naegle was head of a small company of nine people which traveled from San Jose, California, across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, to Salt Lake City in 1856; this group included his young wife and a small daughter. Previously, in 1853, John Naegle traveled to Shelby Co., Indiana, to marry Mary Louisa Kepple; they were living in California when their daughter, Rachel Louise Naegle was born in 1855.

[106] See Lancaster, “Dixie Wine.” Although Doctrine and Covenants 27:1–4 states that water can be used in place of wine for sacramental purposes, this practice was not universal even in early Utah history.

[107] Because this is an extremely long sentence and because some of the information is incorrect, a line of text may be missing. Anna Benz Kleinman and her family left Utah about 1883 and settled in Mesa, Arizona. John Conrad Naegle earlier took cattle and one wife, Verena, to Concho (1880), but he did not move to Mexico until 1889. Even then, Regula did not choose to go with him and instead remained at Toquerville. Naegle, Life and Times of John Conrad Naegle, 78, 181.

[108] The Big Sandy River is directly south of Hackberry and joins the Bill Williams River, which empties into the Colorado River.

[109] Daniel Bagley (1829–1907) first settled in Taylor and soon moved to Mesa. His wife was Mary Wood (1833–1906). Mary had no surviving brothers and no brother-in-law named Willis. Their daughter, Nancy Cedenia married Merrill Willis and they had a son Thomas (1873–1900). So, although Dan Bagley can be identified, Tom Willis cannot. Merrill and Cedenia Willis stayed in Taylor until 1894, although they visited the Bagleys sometimes in Mesa. See Nancy Cedenia Bagley Willis, 806.

[110] A pesthouse is a place to isolate people with contagious diseases during epidemics, often a hospital. For a discussion of this epidemic and the number of deaths in Mesa, see comments from Ellis and Boone for Julia Christina Hobson Stewart, 699.

[111] John Henry Smith (1848–1911) was ordained an Apostle in 1880 and was second counselor to President Joseph F. Smith from 1910–11. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1646–47.

[112] Elizabeth Malholm Kleinman died March 15, 1883.

[113] Henry Benz Kleinman died February 14, 1893.

[114] Pellagra is a chronic disease caused by nicotinic acid deficiency in the diet and characterized by skin eruptions, mental disorders, and gastrointestinal disturbances. Andrew P. Kleinman married Helen Isabella Pillings (1874–1949). He died February 26, 1922. AzDC.

[115] As noted earlier, Regula Naegle did not go to Mexico; she was living in Utah in 1900, 1910, and 1920; she died October 20, 1920 at Toquerville. 1900 census, Regula Naegle, Toquerville, Washington Co., Utah; 1910 census, Price, Carbon Co., Utah; 1920 census, St. George, Washington Co., Utah; findagrave.com #145891.

[116] Ethelyn J. Madsen, “Daughters of Utah Pioneers Preserve ‘Roots,’” Mesa Tribune, February 15, 1978.

[117] Ricketts, Arizona Daughters, 5, 7. Ricketts lists thirty-six women in attendance when DUP was organized in Mesa.

[118] Kleinman, “I Have Two Little Hands,” Children’s Songbook, 272; Graham, We Shall Make Music, 205. For a photograph of Bertha Kleinman, see Johnson, Perkins, and LeBaron, Our Town—Mesa, Arizona, 87.