Amanda Armstrong Faucett Sanders

Elmina Sanders Power

Maiden Name: Amanda Armstrong Faucett

Birth: May 6, 1810; West Columbia, Maury Co., Tennessee

Parents: Richard Faucett and Mary McKee

Marriage: Moses Martin Sanders; January 12, 1826

Children: William Carl (1826), Richard Twiggs (1828), John Franklin (1830), Rebecca Ann (1832), Martha Brown (1833), David Walker (1835), Joseph Moroni (1836), Sidney Rigdon (1839), Emma (1841), Eliza Jane (1843), twins Hyrum Smith and Moses Martin (1845), Moses Martin Jr. (1853)

Death: April 24, 1885; Gisela, Gila Co., Arizona

Burial: Gisela, Gila Co., Arizona

Amanda Armstrong Faucett was the daughter of Richard Faucett and Mary McKee. She was born May 6, 1810, in West Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee.

She was the ninth child in a family of fourteen children. She spent her girlhood days in Tennessee. She married Moses Martin Sanders, January 12, 1826. He was the son of David Sanders and Mary Allred, and he was born in Franklin County, Tennessee.

Amanda’s first two boys were born in Maury County, Tennessee. They were William Carl and Richard Twiggs Sanders. William Carl died before he was a year old.

Amanda and her husband moved to Montgomery, Kane County, Illinois. They lived in Illinois several years, and four of their children were born there. They were John Franklin, Rebecca Ann, Martha Brown, and David Walker Sanders.

Amanda and her husband Moses Martin Sanders moved to Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri. They became members of the Mormon Church in 1835. While they lived in Far West, Missouri, another son was born. He was named Joseph Moroni Sanders.

The Saints were driven from Missouri, and the Sanders family moved to Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. Four more children were born in Nauvoo. They were named Sidney Rigdon, Emma, Eliza Jane, and Hyrum Smith Sanders. Their son, Sidney Rigdon Sanders, died in Nauvoo age six years. Their daughter Eliza Jane and their son Hyrum Smith died while on the trek across the plains to Utah.[1]

Amanda Armstrong Faucett Sanders. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

While they lived in Nauvoo, Amanda’s husband Moses Martin worked on the temple. He had a good home for his family and other property. While the mobs were making so much trouble, he and his eldest son, Richard, were with other men trying to drive the mobs off, and his son John Franklin was at home with his mother and the younger children trying to protect them and their home. They were driven from Nauvoo in February 1846.

The Sanders family farmed, raised cattle, and hauled freight for several years. They lived in Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. (They crossed the plains and arrived in Utah in 1849–50).[2] Their last child, Moses Martin Jr. was born in Utah County in 1853.

Amanda’s husband was called by President Brigham Young to go to St. George and work on the temple. They had a good home there, and Amanda enjoyed having her grandchildren come to her home to play. Her husband died in St. George, November 9, 1878.

Her sons had a large herd of cattle, and President Brigham Young advised them to try to find a better range for them in Arizona. It took a few years to get moved. They rounded up the cattle, and Amanda’s grandson John Franklin Jr. and Mr. Hansen drove them to Arizona. It was a long, hard cattle drive.

They found a range on Tonto Creek, near Payson, Gila County, Arizona. John Franklin Jr. went back to Utah where his wife and child were waiting for him, and other Sanders families were in St. George getting wagons, horses, and other things ready for the move to Arizona.[3] While in St. George, they went to the temple where they received their endowments and did sealings and baptisms for their kindred dead.

Early in the spring of 1882, Amanda, with her sons and grandson and their families, left St. George in their covered wagons to make new homes in Arizona. It was a good trip; sometimes they would camp two or three days, while some of the men would find work. It took them about three months to reach their destination on Tonto Creek.[4]

They began to build lumber houses, plant fruit trees, shade trees, and plant gardens. The lumber came from sawmills around Payson and Pine, and some of their trees and seeds came from settlements in the Salt River Valley.

Amanda enjoyed her own little home; she wasn’t very well and seldom left her house. She enjoyed having grandchildren and little great-grandchildren come to visit her. She had many years of worry and sorrow during the time of the persecutions of the Saints and on the trek across the plains. After living in Tonto Basin a few years, she became ill and died in her home April 24, 1885. The settlement is now called Gisela and she is buried in the little cemetery there.

Ellis and Boone:

Moses Martin Sanders traveled to the Salt Lake Valley in 1849 as part of the Allen Taylor Company, one year before the rest of his family.[5] Amanda and her children John Franklin, nineteen; Rebecca Ann, eighteen (married to Henry Weeks Sanderson); Joseph Moroni, twelve; and Emma, nine, were part of the Warren Foote Company of 1850. This company suffered several deaths from cholera before they reached Laramie, Wyoming. Not mentioned in the MPOT database are Eliza Jane and Hyrum Smith Sanders because, contrary to the information in this sketch, both died before the family left Council Bluffs (Eliza died April 4, 1847, and Hyrum died September 27, 1846). The database includes a “trail excerpt” by Henry Weeks Sanderson.[6] Sanderson traveled ahead and wrote, “I arrived at Father Sanders place 12 miles South of Salt Lake City on Jordan river & he went & met the Company.” Moses Martin Sanders and Henry Weeks Sanderson were also part of the 1856 Rescue Companies that traveled east to help the stranded handcart pioneers.

As noted in this sketch, Amanda Sanders lived in Arizona only three short years and is buried in Gisela. Most of her life had been spent moving with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—from Missouri to Illinois to Utah and then to Arizona.

Hannah Elmina Allred Sanders

Edith Pearl Openshaw

Maiden Name: Hannah Elmina Allred

Birth: February 20, 1862; Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah

Parents: William Alma Allred and Almira White Aldrich

Marriage: John Franklin Sanders Jr.;[7] August 31, 1879

Children: Myra Irene (1880), Franklin Alma (1882), Lafayette (1884), Elmina (1886), Perry Ray (1889), Minerva (1891), John Lester (1893),[8] Carrie (1895), Edith Pearl (1898), Jessie Grace (1900), Laura (1902)

Death: September 29, 1949; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Hannah Elmina Allred was born February 20, 1862, in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. She was the fourth child of William Alma Allred and Almira White Aldrich.

Her parents, as young teenagers in Nauvoo, witnessed the mobbings and trials of the Mormons there. Their parents [Hannah’s grandparents] joined the Church soon after its organization and were with the Saints in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. They suffered many tribulations, but through it all they remained “true to the faith.” Her paternal grandparents are Isaac Allred and Julia Ann Taylor; the maternal grandparents are Levi Aldrich and Louisa Wing. With the exception of Levi Aldrich (he passed away before the westward trek), they all crossed the plains and settled in the Rocky Mountains.[9]

They didn’t enter the valley until after the return of the Mormon Battalion. It was at the request of Brigham Young that they stopped at Council Bluffs and helped raise food for the Mormons who would be crossing the plains at a later date.[10]

Hannah’s parents were married at Kaysville, Utah. Their first child was born there. Then they lived in Ogden, where the next two children were born. About 1860 they moved to Mt. Pleasant where Hannah was born. Before her birth, they went to the Endowment House in Salt Lake City and were married for time and eternity. Thus Hannah was born “in the covenant.” The trip to the Endowment House was made March 9, 1858.

When Hannah was about two years of age, her parents moved to Circleville. Everything looked so promising there, plenty of water and good fertile soil. Crops were planted and had grown to maturity. It looked like there would be a good harvest. The fields were waving with wheat, soon to be cut and thrashed. Then came the Indians. Their order was “Get out or be killed.” They hurriedly gathered their household possessions together, and driving their livestock, they started northward and settled in Fairview. Although only a little over three years of age, Hannah vividly remembered the trip and her fear of the Indians. She said her mother drove the oxen team that was attached to the wagon that held all their household possessions. Her father, riding horseback, drove the cattle.

The rest of her girlhood days were spent in Fairview. It was there she learned to love and care for flowers. Their yard always had an abundance of old-fashioned flowers that were shared with admiring friends. Irene Watson who started the “Watson’s Flower Shop,” in Mesa, Arizona, said she got the inspiration for having a flower shop from Grandmother Allred’s garden of flowers.

Hannah was always very industrious and learned to card, weave, knit, and crochet; she made candles, learned to bake, and sewed beautifully. She also learned the millinery trade and at one time made the remark, “If the Mormons had stayed on with the ‘United Order,’ they would have all been wealthy.” She also had fun. Sleighing was such a good winter sport. They would arise early on Christmas morning, get in the sleigh, and go to visit friends and relatives and wish them “Merry Christmas.”

Hannah was a beautiful young lady, tall and graceful. At the age of sixteen she was chosen to be “Queen of the May.” At this time the May pole was braided by the young dancers. It was a very important event, enjoyed by old and young alike.

Hannah Elmina Allred Sanders. Photo courtesy of Jayne Peace Pyle.

She told us some very inspiring stories. One was about the Indian raid of Fairview. It was the custom for the people to keep their cattle penned up in corrals at their homes at night. The next day, they were taken to the nearby hills and herded during the daytime hours. Her father was away at this particular time. Her mother went out to open the gate so the two boys who had the job of herding all the cattle in the community could also take theirs. As she was letting down the bars, she said she very distinctly heard a voice that said, “Not today.” She immediately securely fastened the gate and went to the house. Later that day, as the boys were herding the other animals, a band of Indians came down from the higher mountains, killed the two boys, and drove the cattle off to their camps. By being obedient and listening to that voice, her cattle were saved.

At the very young age of seventeen, Hannah married a handsome young man by the name of John Franklin Sanders Jr. This event took place on August 31, 1879. A home was made in Fairview for a year. Their first baby, a girl, was born there September 2, 1880. She was a beautiful black-haired darling and was given the name of Myra Irene. Shortly thereafter the Sanders families all started for Arizona, where President Brigham Young had called them to go. A stop was made at St. George. While there they went to the St. George Temple on November 20, 1881. The endowments and sealings were made at that time.

On the trip to Arizona, Hannah stated she was quite comfortable traveling in the covered wagon. She was the only woman in the party to have a cook stove in her wagon. She felt this was quite a luxury. She didn’t have to cook over a campfire as the other women did. The treacherous Colorado River was crossed on her nineteenth birthday. That experience was quite a fearful one. The crossing was made at Pierce’s Ferry.

Like her mother, Hannah had a divine gift, as is shown in the following story she told us. After the river crossing, they traveled on until evening and decided it was time to make camp for the night. Some Indians rode up at this time and offered them a pot of beans. Hannah graciously accepted them. Just then she heard a voice that clearly said, “Do not eat.” She took a tiny taste and found them to be sour. They didn’t eat the beans, instead they buried them. Then they hitched up their teams, rounded up the cattle, and traveled all night. They thought it might be some kind of a trick of the Indians to sicken them and then rob them of their horses and cattle. Is it any wonder that at a later date she was heard to say, “For the first forty years of my life I was always so afraid of Indians”?

The family continued their trip on to Tonto Basin, their destination. It is now known as Gisela. They remained in Tonto Basin until 1892. Five children were born to this couple while they lived there. Their names are Franklin Alma, Lafayette, Elmina, Perry Ray, and Minerva.

Upon leaving that desolate place, a new home was made in Lehi. They wanted the children to be reared in a Mormon community. Five more children were born there. They are John Lester, Carrie, Edith Pearl, Jessie Grace, and Laura. We children remember helping with the fruit canning, jam and jelly making. She was a good cook and kept us healthy with good simple food. Her homemade bread was so delicious and filling. She taught her children to be honorable and industrious good citizens. She was a good neighbor and was never too busy to help others when they needed her. Hannah was neat and clean. Her family remembers her as always combing her hair as soon as she dressed at morning and wearing clean, starched, and well-ironed dresses. Her house was immaculate, with homemade rugs and pretty doilies. The chimneys on the oil lamps were clean and shining.

She held positions in the Primary and Relief Society. Her husband passed away in 1912. At that time, she moved to Mesa and completed the rearing of her five youngest children. With her ability to sew well, she made our clothes and kept us neat and clean.

She died September 29, 1949, at the age of eighty-seven and a half and is buried in the Mesa City Cemetery. At that time she was survived by ten children, fifty grandchildren, and ninety great-grandchildren. We all honor and revere her blessed name.

Ellis and Boone:

If there is one area in Utah associated with the Allred surname, it would be Sanpete County. Both James Allred and his brother Isaac brought their large families to these communities, and their descendants have served in bishoprics and presidencies of all auxiliary organizations associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. James Allred is considered the founder of Spring City, and Isaac Allred, although also living in Spring City sometimes, usually lived in Mt. Pleasant. Isaac Allred and several of his sons were prominent violinists for the county.[11] After several moves, the town of Fairview became the home for Hannah Allred Sanders and her family.

Sanpete County, known for its agricultural products, was called “the Granary of Utah.” The summers were mild, and, although rainfall was only 10–12 inches per year, there was plenty of snow in the mountains. Similarly, Mesa usually had sufficient water for agricultural products, including flowers. As mentioned here, Irene Sanders Watson of Mesa got her inspiration for a flower shop from her Grandmother Almira Allred’s yard in Fairview, Sanpete County, Utah. People in Spring City, Utah, claim that the local killdeer with its multi-note call says, “Spring City is a pretty little town.”[12] Likewise, flowers from Watson’s Flower Shop have decorated miniature floats, gladdened the hearts of recipients at funerals, proms, or just special occasions, and made Mesa “a pretty little town.”[13]

Mary Luella Higbee Schnebly

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP

Maiden Name: Mary Luella Higbee

Birth: March 7, 1875; Winchester, Clark Co., Missouri

Parents: Louis Bryant Higbee and Cynthia Ann Waples

Marriage: Dorsey Ellsworth Schnebly; May 2, 1906

Children: Cynthia Marie (1907), Gertrude Reba (1908), twins Dorothy Alice and Daniel Ellsworth (1911)

Death: October 27, 1966; Farmington, San Juan Co., New Mexico

Burial: St. Johns, Apache Co., Arizona

In Missouri in the good old days, the principal of the rural schools had the right to recommend one of his pupils for a scholarship at some institute or college. Prof. Dorsey Ellsworth Schnebly was teaching school at Winchester, Missouri, and he selected Mary Luella Higbee as his brightest pupil and the one who would make the most of her opportunities; to her was given the distinction of going to college and preparing to be a teacher.

It was indeed a blessing to this young girl, who was ambitious to make something of herself, but whose hopes could not otherwise have been realized, because she was the “middle” in a family of seven children. Louis Bryant Higbee and his wife, Cynthia Ann Waples, were able to care for their family and only give them a common grade-school education.

Their farm was five miles from their nearest school, so the children had to go in a cart, buggy, or on horseback and many times suffered from high winds and inclement weather. But in spite of all disadvantages, Mary Luella never faltered, not even when she would have to go away to prepare herself for her chosen profession.

Born March 7, 1875, on this farm near Winchester, Clark Co., Missouri, Mary Luella spent many happy days during her childhood. There were an abundance of wild plums, cherries, grapes, berries, persimmons, black haws, and hickory, hazel, and black walnuts.[14] All of these the children gathered for their winter food. There would be barrels full of nuts, and the father would go to Warsaw, Illinois, and trade for a wagon load of apples so that during the long winter evenings there would be refreshments for the family and their frequent visitors. There was always popcorn to pass around. The games during these evenings were checkers, dominoes, caroms [billiards], and other such harmless ones. Gambling cards were never allowed on the place.

The father was a good provider. He raised the meats, wheat, corn, and other staples that his family consumed. The nearest store was eleven miles away, so many things had to be done without or substituted.

Luella went to a finishing school in Kahoka, Clark Co., Missouri, and began teaching when she was eighteen and taught for twelve consecutive years.

After two years teaching in his native state, Mr. Schnebly came west, first to Washington where he was principal of their high school in Pomeroy for a long time. Afterwards he came to Arizona and taught school, in all, twenty-five years.[15]

Always there was the remembrance of his honor student, and he went back to his home town once to see her, but she was away teaching and his vacation was so short he could not follow her. When, at the age of thirty-five, he decided to marry, he wrote to his sweetheart, who was then thirty-one, to join him in Flagstaff, Arizona, where they were married May 2, 1906.

Her husband had been teaching at Sedona, on Oak Creek, for some time. One of his school years was a record-breaking one, in that there was not an absent or tardy pupil during the entire time.

Mary and Dorsey Schnebly with baby Marie. Photo courtesy of Jeaneane Klefsky.

Mr. Schnebly, for whom the Schnebly Hill was named, took his bride to his ranch on Oak Creek, and there they continued to reside.[16] Their two eldest daughters were born there, and then Luella took them back to “show them off” to their proud relatives. While in Missouri, a pair of twins, a son and a daughter, were born to them—the little girl lived for five months, the son grew to manhood, began teaching at the age of eighteen, and is beginning his tenth year of teaching all in one school.

When the World War broke out, Mr. Schnebly answered a questionnaire and expected to be called into his country’s service, but he never was. He did his bit by teaching the youth of the land, and so interested was he in their education that his pupils gathered at his home many an evening for private instructions.

After leaving Oak Creek, the family moved to a ranch near St. Johns in Apache County. Mr. Schnebly taught for seven years in District No. 1. When the son was old enough to start in school, his mother was his first teacher, and he only had two teachers aside from his mother and father. The two daughters were pupils of their father.

The home life of the Schneblys was very simple and happy. Most of the time was spent on one of their cattle or sheep ranches [illegible number] miles from neighbors, and the family developed its own social life. The father was an excellent storyteller and reader, and the foundation of good reading was early laid.

The children loved nature and the great outdoors. They rode stick horses and hunted arrowheads and Indian pottery. On the rare occasions when there was water in the Zuni River [north of St. Johns], they went wading.

They did not lack for amusement though they were so far from other children. Their home life was all sufficient. Although the mother was a teacher and taught in every grade in school, she was first a mother, with a mother heart large enough to envelop all her pupils, which no doubt accounts of her thirty-one years of successful teaching.

Mr. Schnebly was a genial host, won friends by his jokes and good humor, and Luella had plenty of time to supervise the cooking and household and entertain her guests, as well as being a companion to her children.

After her husband sold their cattle and sheep interests, the family moved to California, bought a citrus grove, and remained there a year and a half. Returning to Arizona, they bought a home in Flagstaff and lived there while the children attended the normal school.

One winter that Luella looks back on as an experience she would not like to repeat was spent on the ranch alone when the three children were small. Snow that winter piled up to the depth of four and a half feet and laid on the ground most of the time.

In her young days in Missouri, telephones were unknown, but her teacher-lover fixed up a homemade telegraph line between their homes one mile apart, and it was often necessary for him to call her to give her an assignment or for her to call him to help her solve a knotty problem. Arithmetic was always Luella’s favorite subject.

On September 6, 1926, Dorsey E. Schnebly died in Phoenix, where he went on account of his physical condition.[17] His body was taken to St. Johns for burial. He was mourned by friends and former students, many of whom had made places for themselves in the business and social world. Luella has a home in Elfrida, Arizona, but visits around with her family, going occasionally to her home in Missouri.

When her children were asked what her outstanding characteristics are, these were some that were mentioned, and in the order named: generosity, agreeable disposition, sense of humor, understanding, confidence in her children, home-loving, industrious, faith in humankind.

Mrs. Schnebly has been associated with the school system from the days when the three R’s were taught in the one-room log house, to its present degree of efficiency, and bids fair to live many years to witness its further improvement. Though she gave up actual school work when she became sixty years of age, her children often go to her with their knotty problems. Eighty-seven years as school teachers is a record for a family of five, and the children give promise of teaching as long as their mother has. No one can estimate the wide spreading influence of this wonderful wife, mother, and teacher.

Ellis and Boone:

RFC submitted this sketch to the FWP on September 6, 1938, but did not include it in PWA. It may be she recognized that much of this sketch deals with the life of Dorsey Schnebly rather than Mary, because sketches for other non-LDS women were included in PWA.

Ultimately, however, Mary Luella Higbee Schnebly’s life did have a Mormon connection. Although the Schneblys were not Latter-day Saints while living in St. Johns, Mary’s children began joining the Church in 1928. Daniel, in particular, was influenced by an LDS roommate while attending school in Flagstaff. He then married Anna Flake, daughter of James M. Flake, in 1931. Mary Luella Higbee Schnebly herself was baptized on February 16, 1938. Before her baptism, she read the Book of Mormon, but she hid it under the mattress whenever anyone else was around.

Lisa Schnebly Heidinger, a great-granddaughter of T. C. Schnebly and writer for Arizona Highways, told of finally understanding this Mormon connection. She wrote, “The St. Johns cemetery yielded some of my own family’s Mormon history. My great-grandmother, Sedona, came west with her husband, T. C. Schnebly, at the behest of his brother, D. E. Neither my father nor his sisters knew where D. E. ended up after he drifted away from Oak Creek Canyon. When I went to St. Johns to do a story about Morris ‘Mo’ Udall, the venerable Arizona congressman, we were at the cemetery shooting video of headstones in the Udall plot. In the row behind them was a stone reading ‘D. E. and Mary Schnebly: Teachers.’ This, then, was where the wandering brother’s path concluded.”[18]

Phoebe Earston Johnson Scott

Autobiography

Maiden Name: Phoebe Earston Johnson

Birth: November 17, 1881; Concho, Apache Co., Arizona

Parents: Sixtus Ellis Johnson and Mary Ann Haslam

Marriage: George Washington Scott; December 12, 1899

Children: Mary Ellen (1902), Zina (1904), Nora Lavinia (1907), Pearl (1913)

Death: December 2, 1988; Glendale, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

I, Phoebe Earston Johnson, was born November 17, 1881, at Erastus, later Concho, Apache County, Arizona. I was the tenth child of Sixtus Ellis Johnson and Mary Ann Haslam.

My grandfather, Joel Hills Johnson, joined the Church in 1831, the year after the Church was organized. He was the first of the Johnsons to join the Church. My father’s mother was Annie Pixley Johnson, her name being Johnson before her marriage.

My mother’s parents, William Haslam and Ann France, heard the elders in far away England. They accepted their message, joined the Church, and came to America in 1854 when my mother was nine years old. Her sister Elizabeth, who was sixteen, died and was buried while crossing the plains.

The family settled in southern Utah where my father and mother later met and were married April 18, 1863. They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.

My mother was a plural wife, my father already having one wife (Editha Melissa Merrill [married August 3, 1851]). Later he took another, Mary Stratton [married August 31, 1867], so we were quite a large family. My own mother had thirteen children. Of these, two were stillborn, and seven died young. She raised four to adulthood [Ellis, Nora, Wallace, and Phoebe], and of those four I was the youngest.

Some of my childhood memories are a little knoll just a little way from our home where we used to go gathering wild larkspurs. I remember one day my mother was sick and Aunt Mary was over caring for her when we saw a snake. It frightened me so that I could never forget it. Another occasion I remember was going with my sister when she was baptized, and the lovely bouquet of flowers a lady gave to her.

In 1876 my Aunt Editha died, leaving five children. (This was while the family was still living in Johnson, Utah, and prior to their moving to Arizona.) After her death, my Aunt Mary took her children and cared for them as her own. [In 1880, Sixtus Johnson was living in St. Johns, Arizona, with his third wife and children from both Editha and Mary; by 1881, Mary Ann Haslam Johnson and her children were living in Erastus (Concho).[19]]

In 1885, my father decided to move to Old Mexico. There were too many of us to go all at once, so he took the others first, and then came back for Mother and her family. Our only transportation was a team and wagon, and it was a long and tiresome journey. We drove our cow and milked her on the way. I was between four and five years old at the time, and I remember how happy we were when we got to the end of our journey.

When the first families arrived, they settled on what was called the “Old Town Site,” but by the time we arrived they had laid out another town site, so we went there and were the first family to move into the town of Juárez. Our first home there was a rock house that Father built, and after living there for some time, my mother’s family moved to a small town up in the mountains which was called Cave Valley. It was while living there that Father’s third wife Mary passed away in childbirth, August 16, 1890. By this time, however, the children of Father’s first wife were grown and married, so Aunt Mary’s children lived with us, and my mother loved and cared for them as her own. The youngest one was two years old.

When we first moved into Mexico, there were twenty in the family, and times were hard, so we didn’t have all of the luxuries of the world, but we never suffered for the necessities of life.

Our next home was just a short distance away where Father built a frame house. It was here that I grew from childhood to girlhood. We were a happy family. I used to help Mother card the wool. She would spin the yarn, and we would knit our stockings. We made our soap, our starch, and as there was no electricity, many times we made candles to give us light. We used a washboard to wash our clothes on, and heated our irons on a wood stove to do our ironing. Yes, it was quite different from today when we can just push a button.

The first thing my father did every time we moved was to set out an orchard and plant vegetables so we usually had plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Juárez was where I first went to school. The first year I only went to school half the day since I wasn’t very strong. Father used to call me his “Frail Flower.” We lived there until I was fifteen, then we moved again. This time up in the mountains to a place called Chuichupa. It was a very beautiful town surrounded by tall pine trees, and there were flowers everywhere. I was the secretary in both Sunday School and Primary. It was just a small settlement, and the first year there was no school, so a cousin of mine and I had school for the children of the ward. It was just a free contribution, but we enjoyed it very much. At the close of our school we had a program and invited all the parents. One man gave each of us cloth for a dress. It was lavender and white. We made them just alike.

We really had good times sleigh riding and horseback riding.[20] One time I was dragged some distance by a horse, and I still marvel that I wasn’t killed, but I guess my time hadn’t come to go.

Our next move was to Nopala in the state of Sonora. My father was presiding elder there. The town of Oaxaca was five miles away, and we used to go there, but when the river was high we would go over the hills and cross just once in a boat. It was in Oaxaca that I met my future husband, George Washington Scott, and we were married there on December 12, 1899, by Apostle Abraham Owen Woodruff.[21]

The following December my husband and I, my sister Nora and her husband, Harlow Carlton, and Woodruff and Alice Judd with their six-month-old baby left Mexico to go to the St. George Temple. We went in two wagons, and we had a lovely trip until we struck snow in the mountains about thirty-five miles from St. George. I will just write what was written in the paper “The Dixie Falcon.”

Messers Carlton, Judd and Scott arrived in St. George Friday evening from Mexico. Their story is an uncommon one and shows that they had far from clear sailing at least the latter part of their journey. They left Mexico with two teams and crossed the Colorado River at Scanlon’s Ferry.[22] They struck heavy snow about 35 miles south of here and abandoned one of their wagons putting both teams on the other wagon, but this they were also compelled to leave, and put their wives on the horses, one carrying a little child, so completed their journey. Their provisions gave out and they were two or three days without food. They finally came upon a wagon loaded with beef. Someone had apparently been on their way taking meat to Pulsipher Saw Mill when the snow had become too deep, and they had taken the horses and gone back, knowing that the meat would freeze and be all right. They were provided with enough to relieve them though it had to be eaten by itself (without salt). It greatly renewed their strength. They are well taken care of here and will not care to risk another such journey soon. The Dixie Falcon[23]

From St. George we went to Virgin City and visited my grandfather Haslam who was then past ninety.

On August 7, 1901, my father-in-law, Franklin Scott, was killed by lightning [at Oaxaca], and just five years later his son, Franklin Scott Jr., was also killed by lightning.

Our first daughter, Mary Ellen, was born on March 1, 1902. I remember that our first house was a brick one. My husband made and burned the bricks himself. At this time I was very active in the organizations of the Church, being counselor in YWMIA, a Sunday School teacher, and a visiting teacher in Relief Society. Zina, our second daughter, was born on June 13, 1904.

In November of 1905, we had a flood which swept over the town of Oaxaca. It had rained for a week, and the Bavispe River rose until it flooded the whole town. People were compelled to seek higher ground in order to avoid the water. My husband was away at the time, so I took our two little girls, and three other children who were living with us, and went to the home of my sister-in-law who lived on the hill.

Oh what a night! All night we listened to the houses falling and wondered which was ours. When daylight came our house was down along with most of the others. There were only five houses left standing.

We next moved to Morelos, about twenty-five miles from Oaxaca. It was here, on May 15, 1907, that our third daughter, Nora Lavinia, was born. During the next five years, we built two homes. The last of these was a five-room adobe house in town, where we intended to make our home. However, in August of 1912, because of the revolution in Mexico, we were forced to leave our home and come to the United States for safety.

Just a short time before leaving Mexico, my father discovered that he had a cancer on his lip. He and Mother made a trip by team 125 miles to a doctor who operated on him. His lip healed so rapidly that the doctor, who was a non-Mormon, said, “Mr. Johnson, I want you to tell me about your life.” Father said, “There isn’t much to tell, but I have never used tobacco, liquor, coffee, or tea.” The doctor said, “That accounts for it.”

I should also like to tell two more faith promoting incidents:

My mother had dropsy. She became so swollen that it was impossible for her to lie down to sleep. She had been administered to many times. One day, when she had been very bad, my father and his brother, uncle David Johnson, administered to her. From that time on she began to get better, until she was completely well. One day, a stranger came walking down the road, leading a donkey. He asked for water for the animal. As the animal drank, he and Father stood there talking. Father told him his wife was very sick and that there wasn’t a doctor within a hundred miles. The stranger listened and seemed very much concerned. He asked several questions about her and then said, “You follow that trail that I just came over and about a quarter of a mile back you will find a bed of herbs with little yellow flowers on it. Gather it, steep it, and give her the tea. I am sure it will help her.” Father thanked him kindly. He lost no time in getting the herbs and making the tea.

One night, my daughter Ellen had such a bad sore throat. I think it was what we would call quinsy now.[24] Her throat was swollen so badly it was hard for her to breathe. There was no doctor. My husband was away from home; I was all alone. I had tried everything I knew. I went into another room and earnestly prayed for help. A voice spoke to me and told me what to do. I prepared the poultice and put it on her throat. She soon received relief and went to sleep. I used this same remedy many times, and it always worked.

After the revolution started, we went by team and wagon from Morelos to Douglas, Arizona, taking with us the few things we could, but leaving most of the things we’d worked so hard for behind. In Douglas, the United States government provided tents for the people to live in. We didn’t stay in Douglas very long; we moved to a ranch. Then about Thanksgiving time, we moved to Pomerene, Arizona. Here on January 21, 1913, our fourth daughter, Pearl, was born.

While living here, my father, Sixtus Ellis Johnson, passed away at the age of eighty-seven, June 14, 1916. He was a kind, loving father and was greatly missed by everyone.

We homesteaded there, but because of a scarcity of water, we moved again, this time to Gilbert, Arizona, near Mesa. It was the year the armistice was signed and during the terrible flu epidemic. I remember that for several weeks no public gatherings were held. From Gilbert we came to Mesa in 1920. In 1925, we bought a twenty-acre farm. We had a farm loan on it. These were hard years, and sad ones. In 1922, my mother passed away in Chandler, Arizona. In 1923, my mother-in-law, Sarah Scott, passed away in Gilbert. Then in 1925, my husband passed away in Prescott, Arizona, where he had gone to see if his health wouldn’t improve. Now we were left alone, my four daughters and I.

Three of the girls went through high school and one through college. We let half of the land go. We all worked hard but didn’t get the loan paid off until 1944.

Today is June 3, 1965. She [Phoebe] is eighty-three years old. She is a Relief Society visiting teacher and attends the Mesa Fourth Ward.

At the time of my father’s death, she was forced to go out as a midwife to help make ends meet. It was a great nervous strain, and her eyes went back [bad?] on her. Ever since she has had spasms of the muscles and her eyes go shut. It’s been a real struggle for Mama, but she hasn’t given up. She goes to the temple every time she gets a chance. She still makes us fig jam, and her cookie jar is always full of cookies. At one time, she crocheted each of her girls a bedspread, and has made us quilts by the dozen. She has helped us all in a financial way. She helped us get musical instruments for our children, and she gave each of her girls two city lots when she subdivided her place.

Ellis and Boone:

Phoebe Scott lived to be 107 years old; she died December 2, 1988. The author of the last two paragraphs is unknown but obviously one of her daughters.

Phoebe Johnson Scott left a remarkably clear account of relocations from Concho, Arizona, to the various towns in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. After 1912, her moves to Douglas, Pomerene, and Mesa, Arizona, were typical of the Sonoran refugees from Mexico during the Revolution.

James Henry Martineau makes a passing reference to George and Phoebe Scott in his journal. In November 1898, at age seventy, Martineau was ordained a patriarch for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[25] As such, he traveled throughout the Mormon settlements in Mexico giving a blessing to all those who requested one. In January 1900, Martineau traveled to Colonia Oaxaca with President Anthony W. Ivins and company. Martineau then continued twenty-five miles further to Batipito (later known as Colonia Morelos) and began surveying the town site. On February 11, a dependent branch of the Oaxaca Ward was established at Batipito with L. S. Huish as presiding elder. On February 18, 1900, Martineau recorded that while “at Oaxaca, I blessed Anna Naegle, Geo. W. and Phebe Scott by their request.” The next day he “started for home in a heavy gale, which broke limbs from the trees,” and arrived in Colonia Díaz on February 21, 1900.[26]

Margaret Hunter Shelley

Thomas H. Shelley and Marie Shelley Webb

Maiden Name: Margaret Hunter

Birth: July 29, 1859; Armadale, Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland

Parents: James Hunter and Mary Robertson

Marriage: James Edward Shelley; December 13, 1875

Children: Mary Maud (1876), Elizabeth Charlotte (1878), Sarah Ellen (1881), Margaret May (1883), Thomas Heber (1885), James Hunter (1888), George Elsmore (1892), Walter Clyde (1895), twins David Franklin and Ammon Edwin (1897), Eliza Marie (1900), John Edward (1904)

Death: May 6, 1931; Joseph City, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Heber, Navajo Co., Arizona

Margaret Hunter Shelley was born in Scotland, July 29, 1859. Her parents were converted to the Church in Scotland. When she was seven years of age, the family came to the United States landing on the East Coast. Money was seriously scarce with them. Her father and brother had been employed in coal mines. Those who know of wages paid in those mines at that time will realize that the family was in a condition of poverty. This being the case, they had to work at whatever and whenever they could as they wended their way to Utah. While on a job in Pennsylvania in a mountainous place, her little sister was killed by a rolling rock, the mother witnessing the tragedy. Carelessness of a worker who had been drinking caused the death.[27]

“Maggie,” as she was called, told of the long, tiresome travel before reaching Utah, and how that, if they had enough to eat, she had to work, and no schooling was possible.[28] In fact, three months in a schoolroom covered her entire opportunity. However, she learned to read and could do so intelligently, even in public. This, of course, was evidence of a bright mind.

Margaret Hunter Shelley. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

On reaching Utah, the town of American Fork was made their home. Here she met James Edward Shelley and in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City she became his wife for time and eternity. The marriage took place December 13, 1875. A foundation of a house was made with all intentions of living in comfort in that fruitful land just blooming with opportunity.

In February of 1876, a number of young married people were called by Brigham Young to colonize on the Little Colorado River in Northern Arizona. Their faith in the Lord and in the authority of the Prophet Brigham Young caused them to put aside their treasured plan of a home among friends and relatives in Utah and head for Arizona, along with others who were called. Note their faith and obedience to the will of the Lord.

After six weeks of cold winter weather, with their ox teams and few horse teams pulling covered wagons, they had reached their destination, which at first was known as Allen’s Camp. Then they moved a very short distance west where, for protection from Indians, they made a fort by making small living quarters out of cottonwood posts and logs. The houses were joined together, making sort of a mule shoe in shape. Here they lived what is known as the United Order, all eating at the big table and all supposed to share alike.

By means of dirt dams, water was turned out of the river a few miles above and farming began. However, this was very discouraging since many times the dams washed out leaving the crops to suffer and to make food short. There was no give up with such great pioneers.

Let us think for a moment on what these young wives faced at the time of childbirth. There were no doctors, and the midwives were not experienced. Twelve children were born to the Shelleys. Parents depended on the Lord.

Shortly after reaching Utah, all Maggie’s sisters and brothers and father passed away. Her mother survived, but had a stroke and became helpless. The writer remembers her lying in the home at Heber, Arizona, (Heber became the home in 1883) where he often moved her hand for her comfort. She was in this condition three years, and then passed away.

In 1887 [Margaret] and her husband did endowments and sealings for all the dead relatives they had record of. This they did for both the Hunters and the Shelleys. Maggie had very little information as to her relatives. A few years before her death, she said her grandmother appeared to her explaining that a mistake had been made and she was not sealed to her husband. She not only appeared once, but three times, pleading for the work to be done. Her husband, being an educated bookkeeper, believed all had been cared for and that he had made careful record. About three years before her [Margaret Shelley’s] death, at a family reunion, her attention was called to her many children and grandchildren and a promise was made that the mistake would yet be found and the sealing cared for. This promise pleased her very much, and she passed away with a feeling of satisfaction and hope.

About three years after her death, a granddaughter, Margaret Turley, was searching in an old family trunk. To her joy she found a record written in the handwriting of James E. Shelley (who as stated before was Maggie’s husband). There was a list of names showing names of wives sealed to husbands. This list was about eighteen inches long and there the truth was made clear. The list showed that the grandmother’s message about her not being sealed to her husband was true. The record was cleared, and a son, Thomas, and his wife, Eva Tanner Shelley, did the necessary temple work.

What a joy and how faith promoting this has been to the family of James E. and Margaret Hunter Shelley. She died May 6, 1931.

The following is submitted by Marie Shelley Webb, a daughter:

Living in the little town of Heber, many miles from a doctor, Margaret Hunter Shelley took care, after a midwife assisted in birth, of the new grandchildren that came along. But with the birth of the third child of her oldest daughter, a serious kidney infection set in. She remained bedfast and seemed to make no improvement. They had a doctor make a visit, but what he did for her did not seem to help.

She was lying very discouraged one day, when she suddenly said to her mother, if Uncle Sam Porter, a brother-in-law by marriage and a very good friend of her mother’s family, could administer to her, she would get well.

Due to the fact that he lived fifty miles away and no way but by horseback to get word to him, her mother decided her only hope was to kneel and pray that he be impressed that he was badly needed.

Her prayer was answered as Uncle Sam came home to his ranch house and told his wife he was going to Heber as he felt he was needed there, so the next night at sundown he came riding in.

He administered to her and she began improving at once, and lived to raise five more babies, who have been very active and carry with them the same faith that helped their grandmother through so many of her trials.

Ellis and Boone:

This area, Wilford, is near where the Shelley family settled after leaving Joseph City, c. 1886, F. A. Ames, photographer. Photo courtesy of National Archives.

Tanner and Richards, in their book about the early Little Colorado River settlements, wrote that when the Shelleys came to Arizona, James E. was twenty-four years old and his wife, Margaret, was sixteen, “the youngest of the brides of the Joseph City pioneers.”[29] John L. Westover and Electa Westover Turley recorded details of the birth of the Shelley’s first child:

Maggie and Jimmy had not shared the secret of their prospective parenthood with anyone [when they left Utah], but Maggie’s mother-in-law had eyes to see and heart to understand. She made the leave taking as painless as possible and presented Maggie with yards and yards of flannel. “My dear,” she quietly said, “you can use this I’m sure.” The valuable gift was carefully stored in the covered wagon.

The wilderness home in St. Joseph proved to be so uninviting and the work involved to raise that first scanty crop was tremendous. Maggie watched with admiring heart the faithfulness of her Jimmy. She had tried hard not to complain, but Jimmy had so little time for her. As the days drew nearer for the expected arrival of the new baby, Maggie became characteristically fearful and apprehensive. Not being able to suppress her fears any longer, she resorted to tears, crying out to the inexperienced Jimmy that she didn’t know what she was going to do. “Oh Jimmy,” she wailed. “Sometimes women die.” “Now, now Maggie don’t you worry,” soothed the young husband. “Sister Neilson will help you. She knows a lot. Why just the other day she helped old Brindle have her calf. The men experienced with cattle could do nothing but Sr. Neilson knew just what to do. The old cow got along all right.”

Maggie’s pride was hurt. Why couldn’t Jimmy understand her condition better[?] The idea of comparing her to an old cow was almost beyond endurance. However, St. Joseph’s early midwives were capable of ushering in new life be it calves or babies. Maggie’s new baby was delivered safely and properly clothed in flannel given by a knowing grandmother.[30]

Harriet Stronach Paynter Shill

Wright P. Shill[31]

Maiden Name: Harriet Stronach Paynter[32]

Birth: March 16, 1848; Cheltenham, Brimafield, Gloucestershire, England

Parents: William Paynter/Painter and Elizabeth Fawkes/Foulkes[33]

Marriage: Charles Goulding Shill; February 9, 1867

Children: Ella Deseret (1867), Milo Goulding (1869), George Washington (1872), Charles Victor (1875), Orson Obed (1877), Wright Paynter (1880), Ralph Freeman (1882), Renus Edmond (1885), Frank Erastus (1888), Harry Scott (1890), Otto Stronach (1893)

Death: June 20, 1931; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

About one hundred years ago (Mother was born March 16, 1848), there lived in Golden Valley, a small settlement near Cheltenham, England, a little black-eyed, black-haired girl, who was destined to become a great mother in Zion. No, she would be the last one to assert any claim to greatness and nobility should she be asked, but her posterity call her blessed and a great mother in modern Israel.

Harriet Stronach Paynter Shill, c. 1900, Mesa. Photo courtesy of Christine Schweikart.

Her parents were of the poorer class financially, but were thrifty and careful as it was necessary to be in England at that time, in order to provide for a growing family of children; the habits of thrift were implanted in this little girl. Her activities were similar to that of other healthy and normal children, and there was no doubt considerable mischievousness in her makeup as there is in most normal children.

Her education was very meager as free schools in those days were almost unknown, and most of what book learning she acquired was learned in Sunday School classes. However, she had an alert mind, even brilliant, for one of her opportunities.

She had an aunt who was a particular favorite and, besides her mother, she was perhaps her dearest and closest friend, and she was much in her company.[34]

About this time, the gospel as revealed through Joseph Smith was taken to England, and a very energetic missionary crusade was carried on throughout Great Britain. Her aunt became converted to the message the Mormon elders brought, and this little girl just in her teens also heard the elders and was convinced of the truth of their testimonies, and of course wanted to join the Church. Here, her troubles started, for her parents did not see as she did regarding the message of Mormonism and became very antagonistic; they forbade her hearing the Mormon elders, even forbidding her a home if she persisted in going to the Mormon meetings. This attitude of her parents drove her closer to her aunt, and she spent as much time in her company as she could, and in that way kept in touch with the teachings of the elders, and in due time was baptized into the Church, unbeknown to her parents, by Elder Miles P. Romney.[35]

Time came when her aunt decided to gather to Zion in America, and she wanted so much to go with her, but she was forbidden by her parents, and not being of age she could not go. Her aunt advised her to stay, and when she became of age she could follow her.

Her aunt left and many days passed before any word came from her. One night, this little girl had a dream or vision. She saw the great American plains and an emigrant train wending its way across the trackless wastes. A halt had been made by a fresh but lonely grave. When the burial had taken place, the captain of the company took a piece of board from the end gate of a wagon, and wrote the name of her aunt upon it and placed it at the head of the grave, saying some relative coming after may see it. Her heart filled with sorrow as this dream told her she never would meet her aunt in Zion.[36]

Two years passed, and she now had her chance to go to Zion. She landed in New York Harbor, July 4, 1866.[37] At Council Bluffs, she started across the Great Plains.[38] After many days travel she came to a country that seemed familiar. She said to her two girl companions, “This is the place I saw in my dream. The mountains and all looks just as it did in my dream. This must be the place where Aunt is buried. Let us find her resting place.” The girls said, “That was only a dream, you cannot find her grave in this wilderness.” “Anyway let us try,” said she, and after a brief search they saw the grave and the piece of board with the name of her aunt written upon it. There in the trackless American desert, far from human habitation, a faithful soul had been laid to rest. It was a great satisfaction to this young girl to thus be able to visit the last resting place of her beloved aunt, and when in Utah she met the man who marked the grave and got all the details of her death.

When she reached Utah, she met her future husband and was married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in 1867.[39] They made their home on Lost Creek at Croydon, a little settlement about forty miles east of Ogden, Utah. It was a small valley with towering mountains on either side. There were about twenty families in Croydon, and her neighbors were her dearest friends.

In that small community, there came the dread malady—diphtheria. Her nearest and dearest neighbor lived just 150 feet away, and imagine the fear and anxiety when, with a household of little children, her neighbor’s family was stricken and two fine children were lost to the dread disease. That situation called for the highest type of faith and fortitude.

Charles Goulding and Harriet Stronach Paynter Shill photographed on July 4, 1897, in front of their home in Mesa, Arizona. Included in this photograph are all eleven children, two daughters-in-law, one son-in-law, seven grandchildren, and the family dog. Photo courtesy of Christine Schweikart.

Her first child was an only girl. When her fifth son was born and when the baby was about five months old, she was stricken down with typhoid fever and had the following experience, which she has often told to me and other members of her family: It was a visit made into the spirit world. During her illness she became very low and finally passed away. Her passing was real, so real that Father and others made all preparations for her burial. Mother said she was conscious of her spirit leaving her body and could see her lifeless corpse as she was released from it, and she passed into the spirit world, and was taken in charge by someone who acted as a guide. She saw great concourses of people, and they seemed busy and contented. The surroundings were very beautiful, and she felt so good and longed to mingle with the people there, but she was told by her companion that she could not stay, that her work in mortality was not completed, and she would have to return to her mortal body. She said she did return and saw her body again, and she thought how impure the mortal tabernacle was and was loath to take it up again. Nevertheless, she entered her body again and was conscious of the preparations being made for her burial, and she worried then that she would be buried alive but was unable to communicate her fears to anyone. Father said he was busy making the coffin for the body, when something told him to go and bend her legs, and he did so and Mother said that caused her pain and was the first sensation of returning life. From that time on, she gradually gained strength, and during the time of her convalescence, my father sold his home in Utah and moved to Lehi, Arizona [about 1881], and five more sons were born to her, making a family of ten sons and one daughter, thereby rests her claim to being a great mother in Israel. To bear a family of that number in those days without the help of medical science as it is known today, and nurse them to maturity, and instill in them the principles of the gospel would amply justify her title to a mother in Israel.

She was a devoted and sincere member in the Church, a true Latter-day Saint, and had great faith in the powers of the priesthood. Many examples of that power in restoring the sick were seen in her family.

In this connection I wish to add my personal testimony concerning the healing power. One day, I remember asking Father and Mother if they had seen the signs follow the believer as was promised in the scriptures, and soon after there occurred this experience. My youngest brother, then just a child of two years, was afflicted and had been constantly annoyed by a severe cough until he was about worn out. Mother asked Father to administer to him and as soon as he did so his cough stopped, and Father said to me, “That is an answer to your question about signs following the believer.” The child had no further trouble with the cough. I consider this a very remarkable case of healing. With an older person, one might suggest that one might have such an influence over his mind as to cause a cessation of his cough, but with a little child that could not occur. So it was a testimony to me that the Lord surely hears the prayers of those who ask in faith. Many other similar experiences I have been permitted to witness.

She lived to see her family grown and to be honored and called blessed by them. Her posterity is numbered in the hundreds. That black-eyed, dark-haired girl and mother in Israel was my mother.

Ellis and Boone:

When Richard White wrote his new history of the West, he considered the different types of migration on overland trails. Although the Mormon migration had some aspects of the community or kinship model, he noted a second type migration, “far less common than community settlement,” which he called utopian. He wrote, “The Mormons provided the best example of it in the entire history of the West. Utopian migrants were not so much interested in maintaining an existing way of life in a better place as they were in creating a new and better way of life.”[40] The utopian model explains the acceptance of death along the trail. Harriet Paynter was sad, but accepting, as she came to understand that her aunt died trying to reach Utah. This search for utopia helps explain the high tolerance many pioneers had for such deaths.

White also described utopian societies as different “from that of the dominant society” and noted that “people who participated in utopian settlements usually sought some kind of separation from that society.” Both of these statements apply to Mormon settlements in Utah and Arizona. He wrote, “The Mormons thought a perfect society possible because of the spark of divinity that they believed all people carried.”[41] In Mormon society, this would probably be called “the Light of Christ.”

One copy of this sketch that Wright P. Shill wrote for his mother includes the title “Bishop 1911” after his name. Although he may not have been bishop of a Mesa ward when writing the sketch (he served from February 1, 1908 to November 1914), he chose to emphasize the spiritual aspects of his mother’s life rather than her pioneer accomplishments.[42] He saw his mother as a woman of faith.

Louisa Minnerly Shumway

Unidentified Grandchild

Maiden Name: Louisa Minnerly

Birth: January 8, 1824; Tarrytown, Westchester Co., New York

Parents: John Minnerly and Catherine Taylor

Marriage: Charles Shumway;[43] August 5, 1845

Children: Catherine (1846), Charles M. (1848), Wilson Glen (1850),[44] Peter Minnerly (1853), Louisa Adalia (1856), Joseph S. (1857), Levi Minnerly (1859)

Death: February 28, 1890; Linden, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Taylor, Navajo Co., Arizona

Louisa Minnerly was born at Tarrytown, Westchester County, New York, on January 8, 1824. Her parents, who according to record were also both natives of that same place, were John Minnerly and Catherine Taylor Minnerly.[45]

Little is known of her early life and family except that at least some of them came to Nauvoo with the Saints. It was here that she was married to Charles Shumway in August 1845 by Brigham Young.

At Winter Quarters, the family suffered great trials. Julia Ann Hooker, the first wife of Charles Shumway, passed away November 14, 1846, leaving three small children, one of which soon followed the mother. Louisa raised Andrew and Mary, the two that were left.

Louisa Minnerly Shumway. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

While at Winter Quarters, Louisa gave birth to a baby, but it did not live. She was very ill, in fact, near to death for some time. She was taken in by a kind neighbor, who nursed her back to health. While she was still bedfast, she happened to be left alone one day for a short time. The broom, which had been used to sweep up the hearth stone, caught fire. She forgot that she was sick and got up and put the fire out.

When the Saints were compelled to move westward, Charles Shumway went with the pioneer company in 1847, leaving his family to follow later, and he returned to meet them. When her husband went ahead to the Salt Lake Valley, Louisa remained with friends, resuming the journey later when she regained her health.[46] When the family arrived in the Valley, they lived in the old fort. Her son Charles was born there.

In answer to a call from Church leaders, Charles Shumway moved into Sanpete County. Here, Indian troubles were encountered. The family had just moved into a new adobe house when the Walker War broke out.[47] Word came to pull down everything before night. Accordingly, the new home was torn down along with other buildings in the settlement, and the families were moved to a place of safety at some distance.

This outbreak proved not to be a serious one. At times, provisions ran out so the breadwinner had to leave his family again. With several other men, he went all the way to Salt Lake City on snowshoes to get provisions.

After this, the family moved to Cottonwood, and Charles was called on a mission to the States, again leaving his family alone. It was during his absence that Johnston’s Army came to drive the Saints out of their homes, and the people had to move south. Upon his return, they moved again to Salt Lake City, and again back to Cottonwood. It seems the Shumways were always on the move, either for industry reasons or to answer the call of authority.

The next move was to Cache Valley. Here they lived at Wellsville, Mendon, and Franklin. At the latter place, a sawmill was operated by Grandfather and the boys. Amid all these moves and frontier hardships, Louisa was always the soul of patience and kindness and is remembered as such by those of her grandchildren who recall any memory of her. She was always industrious and thrifty. She spun and wove and was an immaculate housekeeper.

It was here in Wellsville that Elizabeth Jardine came into the family. She married Charles Shumway on March 29, 1862. She and Louisa were dear friends and lived together a good deal of the time, sharing the joys, sorrows, and burdens of pioneer life.

Charles and Louisa Shumway. Another photograph shows saved locks of hair from each. Photo courtesy of International Society daughters of Utah Pioneers.

In 1874 Charles Shumway was called by President Brigham Young to help settle Arizona. The move was made as far as Kanab, which place was home for one year; then they moved to Johnson. In 1879, Wilson and others of the boys left for Arizona with the cattle. The stock was driven across the Colorado River on the ice. They went to Concho, and in the spring of 1880 the family came, living at Concho only a short time and moving to Taylor in the fall. Shumway proved to be the ultimate place of residence, as the family soon were all there, industriously working building homes. Grandfather built the flour mill there, which has served the settlers of this country long and faithfully.

Here in Shumway, Louisa lived alone for many years. At different times some of her married children lived with her. Her grandson, Wilson A. Shumway, tells a little incident which shows how industrious and independent she was. He says she asked him to clean her pigpen but he, boy-like, procrastinated. A few days later, he happened around to look the job over and, to his surprise, the pigpen had been cleaned and scrubbed by his grandmother.

Louisa had no formal education, but she spelled her way twice through the Book of Mormon, and was known to be a great reader of that book. She always lived on the frontier just ahead of the development of schools and the Church auxiliaries, so she saw little or no church activity, but she was always interested in community life, though her realm was her home.

She went one time to Linden, Arizona, to visit some of the family living there. She was taken suddenly very ill and died there on February 28, 1890. She was the mother of seven children—Charles, Peter, Wilson, and Levi, who grew up, and three who died in infancy. There is quite a large posterity of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It is thought she very likely died of appendicitis. (Note—in a letter from Elizabeth, she says that Grandmother Louisa died at the home of Spencer and Lizzie Shumway. Spencer was a son of one of Grandfather’s wives—Henrietta Bird Shumway. They were very dear friends.)

Ellis and Boone:

The Shumway family moved many times with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Several times, Louisa moved separately from her husband, including the trek from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley. Louisa and her stepdaughter, Mary Eliza, were part of the Jedediah M. Grant/Willard Snow Company that arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on October 4, 1847. Mary Eliza wrote that her father had been sick all winter, but “President Young came past our camp one day while we were in Winter Quarters, in his carriage, and told Father he wanted him to go with him, but father was too weak to harness his team and said he would have to take his son along to help him, but if he did that, there would be nobody left to take care of his family, and get them on the way, west. Father found a man whose name was Byrd who wanted to go West, but had no way of transportation. When Byrd found that we had no driver for our wagon, he offered to drive our team of oxen. Father and brother Andrew, left with President Young’s company for the West, leaving his second wife, Louisa Min[n]erly, my youngest sister [Harriet], and myself to follow with the man, Byrd. One week after my father left us, my younger sister died of black canker.”[48]

Louisa Minnerly Shumway’s last move was to Arizona. Charles Shumway had three wives in Utah but only two came to Arizona: Louisa Minnerly and Elizabeth Jardine. Louisa died in 1890, Charles on May 21, 1898, and Elizabeth on May 26, 1935. Henrietta Bird Shumway died on May 3, 1910, in Kanab, Utah, but many of her children also came to Arizona.

Maria Annanettie Hatch Shumway

Autobiography, FWP[49]

Maiden Name: Maria Annanettie “Nettie” Hatch[50]

Birth: October 31, 1870; Franklin, Franklin Co., Idaho

Parents: Lorenzo Hill Hatch[51] and Alice Hanson

Marriage: James Jardine Shumway;[52] December 9, 1887

Children: Alice Elizabeth (1888), James Lester (1890), Ernest Hill (1892), Joseph Lorin (1894), Lorenzo Dow (1896), Lula Mae (1898), Calvert Lyle (1899), Nettie Hatch (1902), Almina (1903), Charles Purley (1905), Ezra Jardine (1907), Vera (1908), Thora Agnes (1910), Rawson (1912)

Death: November 18, 1945; Taylor, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Taylor, Navajo Co., Arizona

Having been asked for a short sketch of my life as a pioneer, I will endeavor to give it in the hope that what I may write will meet with approval and be of interest to all who may read it.

I was born in the town of Franklin, Idaho, October 31, 1870. When I was seven years old, my parents, Lorenzo H. Hatch and Alice Hanson Hatch, came to Arizona settling in the northern part of the territory at that time long before statehood was granted.[53] The trip was made by wagons drawn by ox and mule teams. There was my father, mother, five brothers, two sisters, and myself, one sister being a babe in arms. We left our home and traveled by team as far as Salt Lake City. Here, Father, realizing that it would be many years perhaps before we would again have the privilege of visiting a city, had the boys go on with the wagons. Himself, Mother, and we smaller children stopped in the city, and as he had business to see to, he hired a guide to show us the sights of the city which indeed was wonderful. Then, when we were ready to leave the city, he bought tickets so we could have our first train ride. We visited at Lehi a number of days. Then our train riding ended at a small place called York. By that time the boys with the wagons had caught up, so on we came. To me all this was glorious. To my precious mother, I think it must have been a feeling of awe and wonder to know just how she would manage through another siege of pioneering with her family in a new and unsettled land. She had already pioneered in early Utah days, also in Idaho, before this venture into Arizona. She was really and truly a pioneer woman.

J. J. Shumway holding James Lester with Nettie standing. Photo courtesy of Bernice Skinner.

For sometime, we visited at St. George, Utah, then on to Johnson, Utah, where we made another stop, waiting for other emigrants as we felt the need of company. A family by the name of Dean joined us, also an old gentleman whose name was Liston.[54] We traveled the old wagon road from Kanab, Utah, to Lee’s Ferry. By this time the weather became cold enough so the teams and cattle could be taken across the Colorado on ice.[55] The wagons and house furniture and the family were ferried across on the big boat. In due time, we reached the settlement of Woodruff and here we resided for about two years.[56] Then we moved further up the country finding only one small home in the place in which I have made my home. It was not long then until other settlers came and our town began to grow and was given the name of Taylor.

We were all pretty much in the same circumstances, poor, yet the fathers and mothers felt happy and willing to go ahead and colonize as best they could. At that time, all food stuff and other necessaries had to be hauled from Albuquerque, New Mexico, by team and wagon.

My father homesteaded a farm about two miles from town. After much hard work and we had gotten the water to irrigate with, times began to be better, at least we had more to eat. Father got a few cows and a small herd of sheep.

James and Annanettie Hatch Shumway, 1937. Photo courtesy of Ida Webb Collection, Taylor Museum.

My baby sister being several years younger than myself made it necessary for me to work and play with my brother just older. We were especially good pals. One of our tasks was to care for the sheep. One cold winter day, a wildcat frightened the sheep, scattering them, then what a time we had, wading in the snow to gather them before night. On reaching home, I sat down by the fireplace to warm my feet, which by this time did not feel as cold as when out in the woods. I immediately began to remove my shoes and stockings knit from woolen yarn. To my surprise, some of the skin from my feet came off with the stockings. Frozen, yes, and for three weeks or more Brother Bert had the task of the sheep by his own lonesome self.

There was other outdoor work that I could do to help, and it made me happy, such as strip the cane and feed the molasses mill when my brothers were too busy doing other things. Father owned and operated a mill, making molasses for the neighborhood. One time the boys overdid the thing and cooked a boiler of juice to candy. Then what a jolly good time we had with a hayrack load of boys and girls coming from town to the candy pull.

Besides the outdoor duties, I could help my mother to provide light by making candles, also by making lye soap, brooms, and other things the pioneers had to provide for themselves. Our house was of logs, two rooms, not much furniture. At that time most of our evenings as a family were spent at home. These to me were happy times. Mother was a gifted singer so some evenings we would sing hymns and old-time songs, sometimes scripture reading and games. One game was called The Game of Authors. This was of cards with the pictures and names of authors such as Henry Ward Beecher, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Elisabeth [Beecher] Stowe, Longfellow, Dickens, and others. This was instructive as well as entertaining. We made rag carpets, and in them Mother contrived to have a number of bright colors, obtained from berries, roots, and bark. Our curtains were kept clean and fresh so all in all it was anything but drab and dull.

I attended school for several terms. Our school terms were short, and it was necessary that even the children help in every possible way in the settlement of this new country. Their schooling of necessity was meager. Later, I attended the dances and other social affairs of the community.

As young folks at that time we had a lot of good wholesome fun and frolic. True, no cars to ride in; we were in luck to find a wagon. Then when luck prevailed we would go riding. We generally had four spring seats with four couples. Perhaps the boys would sing to entertain, then maybe the girls, then again if we all knew a certain song we would have a chorus together.

I soon was attracted toward my boy friend, James J. Shumway, and after a year or more of courtship we were married December 9, 1887. Arizona has always been our homeland; we have had a large family, eight boys and six girls. Two of the girls died in infancy, twelve living to adulthood.[57] The passing of one son who was killed on June 2, 1933, in the Richfield Oil Plant at Long Beach, California, was one of the greatest sorrows of our lives, being doubly so as he left a dear little wife and six small children.[58]

We had two sons enlist in the World War. One was overseas in the midst of the battle, coming home to us unhurt. The other was released from Camp Funston, Kansas, just ready to leave for overseas when the armistice was signed.[59]

Through much sacrifice and hard work we were able to educate this family, all getting three or four years in high school, five of them into college, four going through college, and being teachers in prominent schools. We have forty-six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Ellis and Boone:

James and Nettie Shumway lived to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. The following story was told by their son Ernest at that celebration. The story was really about his father, but it undoubtedly describes the home that Nettie made for her children:

Father had always taken much interest in young people, especially in their sports. He had always been willing to take his car and his boys to athletic competition. He, however, has been strictly opposed to Sunday sports and games and had adhered to his early training of keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I well remember one time when Taylor baseball team scheduled a game with Holbrook on Sunday. Taylor did not have a chance of winning the game without the services of three of Father’s boys. He was opposed, did not want to take his car and go along, yet he just couldn’t miss a game like this when his boys were taking such a prominent part, but still resisted and said we could not take the car and he was very much opposed to his boys playing ball on Sunday. These three boys were grown men and, of course, Father could not keep them from going, so finally said, “If you fellows want to go to Hell, I guess I had better go along to look after you.” We went, Father went, and we won the game.[60]

Maria Annanettie Hatch Shumway died on November 18, 1945, and is buried in Taylor, Arizona.

Maria Janette Averett Shumway

Blanche Shumway Hansen

Maiden Name: Janette Maria Averett[61]

Birth: March 20, 1859; Ephraim, Sanpete Co., Utah

Parents: Elijah Averett and Johanna Christene Nielsen/Carlsen

Marriage: Wilson Glen Shumway;[62] May 28, 1876

Children: Wilson Averett (1877),[63] Wallace Everett (1879), Clarence (1881), Louisa (1883), Elijah Gill (1886), Christine (1888), Albert Minnerly (1891), Louisa (1893), Blanche (1895), Coral (1901)

Death: July 22, 1924; Linden, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Shumway, Navajo Co., Arizona

My mother, Maria Janette Averett, was born March 20, 1859, at Ephraim, Utah. She was the daughter of Elijah Averett and Johanna Christene Neilsen.

As a little girl, she was left to care for the family of smaller children while her mother helped earn the livelihood. I remember hearing her relate the following incident: One day while her mother was gone, the child discovered a keg of wine stowed away in a corner. Being curious, she decided to taste it. She had no way of knowing that the liquid sucked directly from the “bung” is much more potent than when poured first into a glass, so she just stooped down and drank some of the wine right out of the spout. In a short time she became very happy, and when her mother returned and learned what had happened, she was shocked at such behavior, scolded the child soundly and promised, “Just wait ’til I tell your father.” Maria waited in terrified anticipation of what might happen when her father learned of her disgraceful conduct. When he arrived she was cold sober, but when he heard the story, he just laughed and said, “Was it good, daughter?” Never again did she have any desire to imbibe.

Wilson Glen and Maria Janette Averett Shumway. Photo courtesy of Margaret Shumway Sevey.

Maria had very little opportunity to go to school. She would work in people’s homes, and with what she earned she paid the teacher for her lessons in simple reading, writing, and arithmetic. They didn’t have free education in those days.

When Maria was about thirteen, her father was called by Brigham Young to help develop the “Dixie” country in southern Utah. They had lived for a while in Provo while her father worked as a stone mason on a factory. He lived in Washington for a while, built the fort at Pipe Springs, and finally settled in Kanab. Here, at the age of seventeen, she was married to my father, Wilson Glen Shumway. They had to live with his family with scarcely any room for privacy. Their first son, Wilson Averett, was born in Johnson, April 22, 1877, and soon after, with no home and no place to turn, the young couple was in despair, when a kind man, John Seaman, gave her husband work on his sawmill at upper Kanab, and Maria went along as cook for the hands. Her second son was born there and named Wallace Everett, the second name beginning with an “E” so the two boys wouldn’t have the same initials. His first name was for Sir William Wallace, the Scottish hero she had read about in a book.

The little family lived for a while at Pipe Springs, where Marie “waded in the slop to milk the cows.” One day while living there, every man in the place was called out to chase Indians who were giving them a lot of trouble (it was in this part of Utah that her brother Elijah was killed by the Indians), and she was the only person left in the settlement.[64] She spent the night alone with just her babies, but said she felt no fear. Such courage and fortitude marked her character throughout her life.

On December 14, 1879, Maria’s husband took her and their two children to Arizona. They settled for the winter at Grand Falls on the Little Colorado, about twenty miles below what is now Winslow, Arizona. Here, her husband built a house out of fourteen-foot logs and covered it with flat sandstones, and in this they were fairly comfortable that winter. She entertained President Wilford Woodruff in this place when on one of his visits to Arizona.

The family lived in Concho, Arizona, for a few years, and her third son, Clarence, was born there. Life was a struggle, and they endured some hardships for awhile, living in a dugout with a dirt floor and roof, which leaked so much that her husband held blankets over her and the children during one storm. They later built a log cabin in one corner of the fort or stockade, which protected the community from the Indians. There they were comparatively comfortable. My mother made some very dear and lifelong friendships while living there. They enjoyed many pleasant and friendly associations despite the misery they endured. The community organized a choir, and I remember a few of the songs she referred to later, such as “Goin’ Home” and “Hard Times, Come Again No More.”

In 1883, the family moved to Shumway where they lived the rest of their life. There was always much hard work and pinching to make ends meet. During these years in Shumway, Mother bore two more sons and four daughters. She suffered much in childbirth and had one stillborn child. She suffered for over thirty years from gallstones without even knowing what caused the excruciating pain she so often endured. Many times I was sent running for the elders to come and administer to her because the pain was so severe that we thought she couldn’t bear it. I’ve known her to take laudanum (a poison) to deaden the pain, and for some reason it helped.[65] There was nothing like aspirin in those days to relieve pain. So I would go to a neighbor, Brother L. D. (Hood) Rhoton, who was capable of great sympathy and faith, and he would come quickly and lay his hands on her head after the oil was used, and after his prayer of faith the pain would leave instantly and she would lie quiet, weak, and perspiring.

Wilson Glen and Maria Janette Averett Shumway family about 1895; front row (left to right): Christine, Wilson Glen, Albert, Maria, Blanche, and Elijah; back row: Clarence, Wilson, Wallace, and Louisa. Photo courtesy of Ida Webb collection, Taylor Museum.

My father earned the necessities of life by farming and sometimes hauling freight to Fort Apache, but so that we might have a few of the nice things, Mother added to the income by boarding the school teacher and serving meals or providing a bed for travelers passing through.

Our mother read as many good books as she could obtain. She took several magazines. I remember the Woman’s Exponent, which preceded the Relief Society Magazine. She took the Designer, Today’s Magazine, Comfort, and some others which have all long since ceased to be. She loved beauty to a great degree and always had house plants and flowers wherever she could get water to them. For many years she tore and sewed rags which she had woven by a loom into bright new carpets. These were padded underneath with fresh straw and for awhile were a luxury to walk on. Mother was always painting the woodwork, and calcimining the walls, trying to bring beauty into her drab surroundings. How well I remember the thrill of our first wallpaper, the first linoleum, and the first Axminster rug called an “art square.” These she got with her own hard-earned savings. We had a dresser bought second handed, which held a full-length mirror, and there were two slabs of marble over the drawers. Father gave the season’s crop of apples for an organ made by Daynes and Romney of Salt Lake City. Mother was very proud of all these things.

In those days when quilting was the chief activity of Relief Society, Mother was a faithful and diligent member. Later in life she participated in the more extended program of Relief Society when she was in the presidency. She was president of the Primary for some years. She was quite interested in genealogy, which at that time had some connection with the Relief Society. She made many yards of hairpin lace for me for which I was to help fix up her genealogy. The pedigree then was in the form of a wheel. She hated to write, but did write some letters of inquiry to relatives about their genealogy. I wish I had been more diligent and written her personal record while I had a chance to get it from her own lips.

A kind, sweet, dispositioned person was our mother; loyal and hospitable to her friends; ready to do her part in any church or community activity. She was always punctual and insisted on her family being so. She was faithful and devoted to her husband and family and always had their confidence, love, and respect.

When I was a child, Mother had a device known as a stereoscope, something like the View-Master of today. Through it we would get realistic views of many scenes, such as flowers, landscapes, famous buildings, and showplaces. Mother said, “Why there are beautiful places and things in this world that we never dreamed of.” She was soon to get her chance to glimpse some of these things as well as to see her first and only big city. For finally the disease she had endured resulted in a jaundiced condition. A doctor was brought quickly from Winslow. He diagnosed gallstones and said an operation was necessary. At that time Los Angeles was the nearest place where skilled doctors and equipped hospitals could be reached. So to Los Angeles she went, and there the stones were removed. While there, she visited a sister whom she had not seen for many years. She hadn’t even seen her own mother, who lived in Kanab, Utah—not so far away, but separated by the Colorado River, a great barrier since the Navajo Bridge had not yet been built.[66]

Finally, her mother, aged eighty-seven, passed away January 31, 1924, without Mother getting to see her again. But the reunion was to be sooner than she knew. On July 22, 1924, at the age of sixty-five, Maria Janette Averett Shumway went to meet the mother she had so longed to see.

Ellis and Boone:

Blanche Hansen’s description of the effort her mother took to provide beauty and culture in pioneer times describes many Latter-day Saint women. Rag rugs (with dyed accents), linoleum, and later an Axminster rug covered the floors of Maria’s home.[67] She used wallpaper, paint, and calcimine on her walls. Calcimine (also spelled Kalsomine) was a white or tinted liquid made from glue, zinc white, water, or coloring and was particularly useful over plastered surfaces. A marble-topped dresser complete with mirror was not found in every pioneer home, but it was a luxury that Maria herself worked and saved to purchase. She also had an organ to provide music. Finally, plants and flowers added to the beauty of her home; in the arid Southwest, many pioneer women reused water from bath or dishes to keep their plants alive.

The list of magazines Maria Shumway read is also helpful in understanding Mormon pioneer women. The Woman’s Exponent and Relief Society Magazine were both magazines for Latter-day Saints. The Woman’s Exponent was not an official publication of the Church, but it was closely tied to the Relief Society. Published from 1872 to 1914, it included poems, stories, and articles about social and political topics, including women’s suffrage and plural marriage. The Relief Society Magazine began in 1914 as a means to disseminate lessons, but it soon included articles, poems, and stories written largely by Latter-day Saint women.[68]

"Albastine, the Sanitary Wall Coating," which advertised itself as better than Kalsomine (whitewash). Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

Designer and Comfort were women’s magazines of the early twentieth century. Comfort was a magazine which came from the mail-order industry. These magazines began in the 1870s and were designed to promote a wide variety of products. Initially, a year’s subscription was fifty cents, but publishers frankly did not care if the subscribers paid or not. Money was generated from the advertisements. In 1907, the post office insisted on seeing a paid subscription list for a magazine to receive the second-class rate, and many of these magazines died. Comfort was one which survived by reducing its rate to fifteen cents a year.[69] It was geared to the rural housewife and products for her home.

But some of the most important women’s magazines in this era were byproducts of the pattern industry. In 1840, Eli Howe invented the sewing machine, and then Massachusetts tailor Ebenezer Butterick began marketing men’s shirt patterns. Initially made out of stiff paper, by 1867 Butterick patterns were sized and notched for better fit. He also expanded his pattern collection to include women’s clothing. At first he produced a catalog to sell his wares, but by 1873 he was producing the monthly magazine Delineator. A subscription for this magazine was $1.00 per year or 15 cents per copy. Eventually, Butterick began publishing two other magazines, including Designer, which tried to help women keep their wardrobes current without spending large amounts of money.Review and McCall’s had similar beginnings; they contained both regular magazine content and promoted current fashions and patterns. They both published a wide range of fiction and articles on social and political topics. Designer even had an automotive department. Nevertheless, the sewing machine, tissue patterns, and fashion magazines revolutionized home sewing, making fashionable clothing available to lower middle-class women, of which many Mormon women in Arizona were a part.[70]

Serretta Ann Daley Sirrine

Author Unknown

Maiden Name: Serretta Ann Daley

Birth: June 12, 1859; San Bernardino, San Bernardino Co., California

Parents: Phineas Marion Daley and Adeline Grover[71]

Marriage: Warren LeRoy Sirrine; January 18, 1877

Children: Adeline (1877), Seretta Ann (1880), Esther Ann (1882), Warren Leroy (1885), Maude Beatrice (1889), Ethel Mae (1892), Bertha Isabelle (1893), George Onel (1902)

Death: January 8, 1914; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Serretta Ann Daley, daughter of Phineas Daley and Adeline Grover, was born June 12, 1858, in San Bernardino, California.[72] Phineas and Adeline were blessed with six children, namely Phineas Marion, Adeline, Serretta Ann, Eugene, Orneitus Alonzo, and Emma Daley.

The presence of Federal troops camped in a canyon near Salt Lake City caused a feeling of apprehension to prevail over the main body of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, making it necessary for President Brigham Young to counsel them to dispose of their property and move nearer to Church headquarters. This was a means of providing protection and increasing their strength through greater numbers. Among the first families living in San Bernardino who gave heed to this call from their leader were the Daleys, Charles Crismons, and George Warren Sirrines. These faithful people had assisted in settling and establishing this great valley, which served as a halfway point between Salt Lake City and the West Coast, but the Lord had other plans for them, and this new crisis brought about a change.[73] They joined a company being organized by Apostle Charles C. Rich to make the trek.

Seretta and Warren Sirrine. Photo courtesy of Kenneth B. Noble.

They arrived in Salt Lake City in the fall of 1859. George W. Sirrine accepted an appointment to serve as one of the special body guards for President Young, and he settled with his family in this area, but others followed Elder Rich into Bear Lake County, Idaho, to settle. After five years, the Sirrine family rejoined their relatives and friends in Bear Lake Valley and found this beautiful place their choice for permanent residence. They prospered with large farms, fine cattle, and comfortable homes. George Warren Sirrine owned and operated a successful mercantile business in addition to his other interests. However, Church leaders recognized their ability in organizing and pioneering, which brought forth a new “call” that was announced in the April session 1877, semiannual conference convening in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Among the names read to the assembly was George W. Sirrine, chosen by Pres. Young to head this group who would go south with their families “to help settle the wastelands of Arizona.”

This was a surprise and somewhat of a shock, but they had confidence in their prophet and leader, who was known as a great colonizer. They recognized the hazards of such a long, hard trek over new trails, sometimes having to open new paths and blaze their own way, but these hardy, courageous people, went forward with wise preparation. Others caught their enthusiasm and joined with them, resulting in a large company under the leadership of G. W. Sirrine.

Serretta Ann Daley had met Warren LeRoy Sirrine, the handsome son of George Warren Sirrine and Esther Ann Crismon. Their sweet romance resulted in marriage on January 18, 1877, in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho. Their close friend “Uncle” Charles C. Rich performed the ceremony in an attractive setting in the Sirrine home. Warren, after hearing his father’s plans, agreed to accompany him, but he was rather dubious about taking his young bride, who was expecting a child, on this long, dangerous trip. His father reassured him with the announcement that Esther Ann was expecting another child, however, they were placing their trust in God and the blessing from their prophet, to see them safely through.

Serretta and Warren began serious preparation for the trip by first purchasing a strong new wagon, bed, springs, and mattress, a new cook stove, and a pretty rocking chair. Serretta spread her homemade rugs over the straw, and when all was in order, they had created a home-like atmosphere of warmth and comfort in their wagon sanctuary. Provisions were plentiful, making this group one of the best equipped pioneer companies to go forth on new trails. Serretta never questioned her husband’s good judgment—cooperating in all matters, similar to hundreds of other wives of her time, exemplifying courage and the true pioneer spirit.

This fine Mormon girl was not only lovely to look upon with her large dark eyes, lustrous black hair, fair skin, and healthy, well-formed body, but she had sparkle and a pleasing personality that attracted people—her friendship was enduring. She was sensible and well trained in the art of homemaking, having performed domestic work for those who could afford this luxury, receiving the top wage of $2.00 per week. Warren loved to relate incidents in her life that portrayed her good judgment and thrifty habits. One of his favorite stories told most often, was about the time in her youth when she purchased some pretty white material and made a ruffled skirt that was the envy of other girls who were not so adept in dressmaking. When the material yellowed with age, Serretta dyed it in a strong solution of “bluing” and wore it the following Sunday. The girls thought she had a new skirt and exclaimed over its pretty color.

Warren and Serretta’s first child, a girl they named Addie [Adeline], was born while their company was camped near Richfield in Sevier County, Utah, October 23, 1877. The following morning, Warren’s wagon fell into line with the train as it made ready to move upon the trail. Serretta, enjoying good health and not expecting any special favors, was ready and willing to continue their journey—not wishing to hinder her companion in any manner, again proving her worth as a pioneer wife and mother.

The company entered the Salt River Valley January 1, 1878, but this was not the end of their hardships, although they had endured a wearisome, long five months on the trail. It was deemed necessary to build at once a canal, and against great odds. Water had to be channeled from the river to the vast tableland that spread before their hungry eyes. After making temporary camp near the river and friends who had preceded them to this area and were already established on small farms in what is now called “Lehi,” they made plans for the work that challenged them. They were fortunate to have the advice and hospitality of the Jones, Rogers, Merrill, and other fine pioneer families.

Warren and Seretta Sirrine with family: front row (left to right), Warren, George, Seretta; back row, Ethel, Rettie, LeRoy, Addie, Annie, Maude. Photo courtesy of Kenneth B. Noble.

Serretta, like other pioneer women of her day, was behind her mate in all that he chose to accomplish. She cheerfully entered into the work of preparing and serving meals to the hardworking men and boys engaged in constructing the canal bed. This project had been discouraged by trained, educated, and experienced men who claimed it was too large and too expensive an undertaking for this small body of people, but they did not know the true worth and determination of these hardy Mormon pioneers—they did the impossible and with success, amazing the disbelievers.[74] When the water was available, the land had to be cleared, and Serretta did what most other women were doing—she worked by the side of her husband helping to grub out the chaparral and other desert growth. When their roomy, comfortable home was ready for occupancy, there they settled at last. They were filled with pride and thanksgiving for the blessings that had come into their young lives and began planning for their family that would bless this home just as their little Addie had brought joy and happiness into their lives in spite of the hardships of the past few months.

This fine couple found joy in work, and although they sought for the good things in life, they kept them very simple. Eight souls blessed their union, namely: Addie, Serretta Ann, Esther Ann, Warren LeRoy Jr., Maude Beatrice, Ethel Mae, Bertha Isabelle, and George Onel Sirrine. Four girls, Serretta, Addie, Maude, and Ethel, graduated from the Tempe Normal School and taught school with distinction throughout Arizona. Esther Ann, LeRoy, and George graduated from Mesa Union High School. Bertha Isabelle died in infancy and is buried in the Mesa Cemetery. Roy filled an honorable full-time mission for the Church, and many grandsons have and are preparing to fill missions throughout the world. Their posterity is carrying on in the true spirit of the gospel they loved so much.

In the summer of 1899, Warren and Serretta took their family by train to Salt Lake City where they could go through the temple for their own endowments and have their children sealed to them. They had made many sacrifices and saved over a long period of time for this choice experience. It was a glorious occasion for all, when they knelt at the altar and were sealed for time and throughout all eternity—surely there could be no greater joy. They had the delightful experience of visiting relatives and friends in Bear Lake Valley, where Warren and Serretta beheld their old homestead that had remained dear to their hearts. It was a lovely place at this time of the year, but they were content to return to their new home in “The Valley of the Sun.”

Serretta and Warren’s children were blessed with ability and fine talent in the field of music. They sang together in their home and at family gatherings. Their parents loved music and encouraged their children to develop this talent, bringing much joy and satisfaction into their lives. They were accompanied by Addie and Maude on the organ, and Maude and Ethel began harmonizing as a duet when Ethel was too small to be seen as well as heard, and she had to be lifted upon a chair or table when they appeared for the public which was quite often. Many members of Serretta and Warren’s large posterity are excelling in this line; some play instruments, sing, instruct, and conduct music, bringing honor and distinction to the name they bear.

Tragedy entered into their lives when Serretta became seriously ill with pneumonia after a lengthy siege with a severe cold that had left her in a weakened condition. She had refused to heed the advice of her loved ones and take a rest, but she insisted on finishing a quilt. It was too late for her body to build up any resistance due to the fact she was overweight and overworked. Complications brought her untimely death in the family home located on the corner of East First Street and North Sirrine in Mesa, January 8, 1914. She left a shocked and saddened family—Warren was distraught over the loss of his companion, and their little son, George Onel, was inconsolable in his grief, seeming to find no outward expression for his extreme loneliness.

Serretta was justly proud of her husband, and she had many good reasons. Warren LeRoy Sirrine honored his priesthood and Church membership through trying to the best of his ability to live the principles of the gospel. He practiced self-control, strict honesty—his word was as good as his bond. He earnestly kept the Word of Wisdom, never breaking a promise made to his dear mother during his youth, when she asked him to never use tobacco in any form and he agreed. Warren served as president of the Mesa Canal Board, succeeding his father. He served as a City Councilman and was instrumental in organizing the Zenos Cooperating Mercantile and Manufacturing Institution, usually known as the Zenos Co-op.[75] He was affiliated with the Mesa Milling Company where he worked as a manager before retiring. Warren was an ordained High Priest in the Maricopa Stake at the time he passed away on March 7, 1943, in the Mesa home of his daughter Addie S. Johnson. Both Warren and Serretta left a pattern of good example and worthiness for their numerous posterity to follow. They set forth nothing but the highest standards—working diligently to install in the hearts and minds of their sons and daughters, the basic truths of the gospel plan. They bequeathed a rich legacy—a good name, holding personal honor and personal integrity to be of vital importance. Their example is certain to inspire others to achieve greater accomplishments and to continue bringing honor to the name they bear. They were truly noble pioneers, and their names are recorded among those who accepted and met the challenge of leadership, braving hardships in order to overcome many things—portraying courage and fortitude. They are our pioneers!

Ellis and Boone:

Pregnancy and childbirth were not uncommon during pioneer travels, but the births in the Mesa Company were in direct contrast to the lack of births in the Lehi or Jones Company. As noted here, before starting out from Idaho, Warren Sirrine was concerned about his wife giving birth during the journey, but he was reassured by his father’s announcement of Esther Sirrine’s pregnancy. On October 23, 1877, the Mesa Company camped for a few days at Richfield, Utah. During this stopover, Seretta Sirrine gave birth to her first child. As Earl Merrill wrote, “Known as ‘Addie’, she would spend her life in the Mesa area, first as a school teacher, and then as the wife of Ellis H. Johnson and the mother of a large family.”[76] Then Merrill continued with this assessment:

The record does not state who attended the young wife during this, her first ordeal, but if her delivery followed the pattern typical in those days it was without benefit of a doctor, and possibly even without the aid of an experienced midwife.

But the wagon bed delivery room, staffed by concerned and compassioned women of the company, women inured to the hardships and emergencies of the frontier, proved an effective substitute for the maternity ward and all its resources that are available today.

At least, the mother and baby passed through the ordeal safely.

Rosetta, Francis M. Pomeroy’s 15-year old daughter, would write to relatives in Idaho two weeks later that “Sister Sirrine is getting along splendid. She stands the journey lots better than she expected.”[77]

Two other births occurred during this trip south. By the time the Mesa Company reached the settlement of Ballenger on the Little Colorado River, Charles Crismon decided to leave his wife, Louisa, and some of his children there because a midwife, Morilla Bates, would be available for the impending birth of his child. Little Louise Alexandra Crismon was born on Christmas Eve, and the family was shortly reunited when they came into the Salt River Valley with Jesse N. Perkins’ group.[78]

Then Esther Ann Sirrine gave birth to a daughter, Florence, on December 29, 1877. Six weeks earlier, Zula Pomeroy had written about encountering snow in southern Utah and thought that they were “beyond all that now.” This was not to be the case. The Mesa Company found two to three feet of snow when they awoke Christmas morning; they immediately began digging out and then traveled about six miles that day. The next day, they met the mail being carried by a buckboard and four strong horses. With a trail broken, the progress was faster, and most of the wagons dropped down off the Mogollon Rim at Beaverhead on December 29. One wagon, however, remained on the rim for an extra day. It was in the wagon of George Warren Sirrine, during the snowstorm on the Mogollon Rim, that Florence Sirrine was born. As great-grandson Kenneth Noble wrote, “Mothers and babies were healthy and did not seem to be adversely affected by the weather or discomforts of the rough mode of travel.”[79]

Finally, Merrill noted that women in the Mesa Company gave birth to two more children while the company was camped on the Salt River and before they moved onto the mesa. Then he concluded his discussion on childbirth with this comment: “Here, we might mention in passing that with the Jones company that proceeded the Mesa group there were no births on the journey into Arizona. In fact, the first birth did not occur until May 26, 1878, when Dudley, the son of Daniel P. and Mary Merrill Jones, was born.”[80]

Annise Adelia Bybee Robinson Skousen

Effa Skousen Duke/Autobiography

Maiden Name: Annise Adelia Bybee

Birth: April 22, 1857; Uintah, Weber Co., Utah

Parents: David Bowman Bybee and Adelia Higley

Marriage 1: Nathan Benjamin Robinson;[81] January 1, 1873

Children: Nathan Oscar (1874), David Lee (1875), Laura Annise (1877), May Adelia (1880), Phileon Benjamin (1882)

Marriage 2: Peter Niels Skousen; December 13, 1883

Children: Zebulon Niels (1884), Don Parley (1887), Verna (1888), Effa (1890), Hazel (1892), Marie Lulu (1894), Eva (1896), Anita (1898), unnamed twins (1899), Merle Tresa (1900)

Death: August 24, 1924; Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., California

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Annise was the daughter of David Bowman and Adelia Higley Bybee, early Utah pioneers. She was born April 22, 1857, in Uintah, Weber County, Utah. Her parents had thirteen other children, most of them born in Mountain Green, Utah, where her father farmed and ran a sawmill. Annise married Nathan Benjamin Robinson when she was sixteen. Here is a part of her life story as she dictated it:

I was married to Nathan Benjamin Robinson January 1, 1873, and was sealed in the Endowment House, April 10, 1873, and my first child, Nathan Oscar Robinson, was born March 8, 1874, in Mountain Green, Morgan County, Utah.

My husband received a call from the Church asking him to leave immediately to help settle Arizona. He left in January 1876 leaving me at home with a small babe. (Note: this was their son David.) He left with the first company leaving for Arizona with Lot Smith as their captain. They landed in Sunset, Arizona, in April or May and joined the United Order.

During the summer and fall of the year I cooked for my father’s mill hands, to keep me and my children, until he returned for us late in the fall of 1876. Nathan’s father, Joseph Lee Robinson states in his journal, “December 5, 1876 Nathan starts back to Arizona. He had a good outfit.” We left late the same fall in a big covered wagon, going by way of Salt Lake and down to the dedication of the St. George Temple. From there we traveled to Johnson, Kane County, Utah, where we lost one of our horses, forcing us to stay there the following year to get means to travel on with.

We rented a farm at Skutumpau where we raised corn. The farm was thirty-five miles from Johnson, and we had to cross the Skutumpau River seventeen times within five miles. We had some trouble with the Indians while there, as we lived near the Old Spanish Trail.[82] They often came selling beads, blankets, and liquor.[83]

We went back to Johnson in the fall where my third child was born.

We left during the winter for Arizona. We joined a small party going by way of Lee’s Ferry. I drove my own team all the way, as my husband was taking 100 head of cattle for Mr. Shumway. We would have to start out early in the morning on account of shortage of water, and have to let the cattle rest during the heat of the day; then we would travel until late at night.

We encountered many hardships during our trip. We suffered from both heat and cold. I had many things to do, having to care for my children as well as drive my team and care for them. I would make a bed in the back of the wagon for the children while driving late at night. We all had to sleep in our wagons on account of the snakes and wild animals. I also knit three pairs of stockings for my children while on the way.

While passing through Cannaro, Kane County, Utah, we broke a wagon wheel and had to stop and have it repaired.[84] When we came to the Little Colorado River [in Arizona], we almost lost our lives trying to cross. We were one or two hours behind the others, and the river had risen so we could hardly tell where the crossing was. But we ventured in and were almost across when we felt the wagon sinking in the quicksand and the horses just had their feet on the bank and could go no farther. My husband asked what we were to do. I quickly took Laura, my baby who was in long clothes, and handed her to him. He climbed over the horses and laid her on the ground, then returned and took the two little boys. We had three sacks of flour with us, and as that was the main part of our living, I didn’t want that to get wet, so I handed it to my husband over the horses. All the time the wagon was sinking more and more. We also had a crate of chickens, six hens and a rooster that were very choice to us. I could see they were drowning so I reached in and threw them one at a time onto the bank to Nathan. When he saw they were almost drowned, he wrung their necks. Then I got out.

In order to save the wagon, we took the horses off and fasten a big chain to the wagon tongue and then to the horses, who were good ones. They pulled our wagon out. We cooked our chickens and ate supper with thankful hearts. We thanked the Lord for sparing our lives. We found out later that one foot below where our wagon had been there was a twenty-foot hole, and as the stream was very swift, we would have been carried into it. Wagons arriving on the other side of the stream that night had to wait several days to cross because the water was so high.

Annise Adelia Bybee Robinson Skousen with Robinson and Skousen children. Photo courtesy of International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

We arrived at Sunset in March and stayed a short time. The United Order was broken up when we got there. We then went on to Snowflake and then to Show Low (Lone Pine), where we tried to make us a little house about ten by twelve feet, made of logs. I would help my husband on moonlight nights to chink the house in order to keep the cold out.

My husband got a contract with John A. West to work on the railroad in the San Francisco Mountains. I went along and cooked for fifty men for six months, doing all the work except washing the dishes.

I took suddenly ill and was in danger of losing my baby, so my husband took me home to his sister (Mary Jane West) in Snowflake. Then he went back to work. I was expecting a baby in a month when I became very ill so his sister sent for him. I started flowing: they got a blind woman (Abbie Thayne) to help me and finally stopped the blood. With her help and the help of the elders, I finally regained my health.[85]

Two weeks later my husband, feeling worried, returned home. He went out to find a cow, and as he rode down over the hill and down to Show Low Creek to find the cow’s tracks as she came to water, he saw some Indians killing a beef. They were hidden in a clump of cedars and saw him pass by on his way down to the creek. They shot him, fearing he would go and tell on them. Five shots were fired into his body. The Indians stripped him of all his clothes except his garments and then they felt very sorry because he was a Mormon. They threw his body in the creek and threw rocks as big as they could carry on to him. The Indians took Nathan’s watch and all his belongings.

When he did not return we were much alarmed. I walked the dooryard until late at night with my little children. At midnight I heard the whinny of a horse. It was Nathan’s horse with an Indian’s lariat on him. I awakened my boy Nathan to help me hook the horses to the wagon. I put the children in the wagon and we went to the barn where the other settlers were.

We were shut up in the barn all night with a big embankment for protection. The next morning at sunup we saw sixteen horsemen coming down the hill, and we feared they were Indians. As the men neared the barn we could see they were white men coming to help us find my husband. They went in pairs to look for him. Joseph Cardon kneeled down by the river and asked the Lord in silent prayer where the body was for he felt satisfied Nathan had been killed. He looked down the stream and saw one foot come up and go down. He fired his gun as a signal, and the men all came at once.

Bishop Standifird brought the news to me.[86] You can have a faint idea of my feelings. They brought the body in with his own team. We made his burial robes from some fine material I brought from the railroad. We kept him over night and left the next morning for Snowflake to bury him. A guard went with us all the way.

I never saw my home after we took his body away.

I went to see Sister West’s mother-in-law, who was dying. She had sent for me to come and see her so she could take a message to my husband. I am sure she did for he returned.

I went to Snowflake and was confined, having a boy. On the fifth day after the baby’s birth, his father returned and told me his name was to be Phileon. He said, “You have a lovely baby.” I asked him why he went and he said, “I had to go. I am on a mission.” The door was just ajar and I saw him go out. I didn’t hear any footsteps. His sister (Mary Jane West) was with me.[87] She said, “What is the matter, Annise?” I said, “Nathan has been here.” She said, “I know he has. I didn’t see him but I felt his influence.”

I lived in Snowflake sixteen months. The stock I had when Nathan was killed, I had Brother William J. Flake gather in for me to dispose of. He was a stockman, and he certainly was a father and did all he could to assist me. He gave me a home to live in, kept me in wood, and brought me a nice piece of meat every few days.

Two years later I was married to Peter Niels Skousen in the St. George Temple. At the same time he was sealed to Mary Rogers. I was his only for this life. The three of us had traveled to St. George in a wagon.

While there, President Woodruff, who had stopped at our home many times before Nathan died, sent for me to come to the office in the temple. He blessed me and told me the Lord was pleased with my work and would bless me for what I was doing. This gave me a lot of courage for I was not sure if I was doing the right thing or not. His words were verified for he knew.

Annise ended her story here, saying nothing about her second family. The first child born to Annise and Peter Skousen was Zebulon Niels, born at Springerville, Arizona. A short time after this they moved to Old Mexico, where their second son, Don Parley, and their seven daughters were born. These daughters were: Verna, Effa, Hazel, Marie, Eva, Anita, and Merle. These children and the Robinson children were raised as one family.

In 1907 Annise’s family and some of Mary’s children moved to Canada where they lived for many years. Several of the children were married while they lived there.

Annise died August 24, 1924, while visiting with daughter Hazel, in Los Angeles, California. She was the mother of eleven children.[88]

Ellis and Boone:

The death of Nathan Robinson on June 1, 1882, has been discussed by many historians when writing about the Mormon settlement of Arizona.[89] It is interesting, however, that Annise Robinson Skousen, as noted by daughter Effa Skousen Duke, wrote nothing about her second family. Presumably the death of her husband was the most traumatic event in her life and therefore of central importance in her memory. Also, she may have seen her second marriage as a levirate marriage, meaning raising children as posterity for her deceased husband.

As was mentioned in this sketch, Peter Niels Skousen, Annise Bybee Robinson, and Mary Malinda Rogers all traveled together to St. George and were married on the same day, December 13, 1883, thus entering into polygamy. Peter Skousen was twenty-seven years old, Annise Robinson was twenty-six, and Mary Rogers was nineteen. Besides Church sanction of polygamy, all three had been raised in polygamous families. Annise’s father, David Bowman Bybee, was married to three women and had large families by each. Mary Rogers was the daughter of Samuel Hollister Rogers and Anna Matilda Doolittle (583). Peter Skousen’s father was Jens/James Niels Skousen, who a short time later spent six months with William J. Flake in the Yuma Penitentiary (1884–85) for polygamy.[90]

Upon returning to Arizona, Skousen and his two wives lived in Springerville, where each gave birth to a child in 1884. With the prosecution and sentencing of Latter-day Saint men from Apache, Navajo, and Maricopa Counties in 1884 and 1885, and with the prison time they spent in Yuma and Detroit, Peter Skousen thought it prudent to move to Mexico. Thomas Romney wrote that “the temporary camps that furnished the pioneers of Colonia Diaz, sent a stream of colonists still further up the Casas Grandes River where other temporary settlements were located at intervals,” including Colonia Juárez on the Rio Piedras Verdes. Romney lists Peter N. Skousen as one of the first to arrive at this site, December 7, 1885.[91] By 1890, both Mary and Annise Skousen had separate houses in Colonia Juárez.[92] Although both Annise and Mary Skousen died and were buried in the U.S., Peter Skousen died in Colonia Dublán on October 2, 1940.

Augusta Maria Outzen Smith

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP[93]

Maiden Name: Augusta Maria Outzen

Birth: January 14, 1854; Randers, Randers, Denmark

Parents: Jens Christian Falk Outzen and Martha Maria Christensen Albeck

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith;[94] June 3, 1869

Children: Georganna Bathsheba (1870), Augusta Gerhardina (1872), Robert Christian (1874), Martha Amelia (1877), Asahel Henry (1880), Anna (1883), Rebecca (1886), Rachel (1889), Sophronia (1892), Natalia (1894), Millie (1897)

Death: April 26, 1932; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

It was on a cold wintry day in 1854, January 14, in Randers, Denmark, that Augusta Maria Outzen first saw the light of day. This more than ordinary baby girl was destined to play a most important part in shaping the lives of many of her posterity in the land of golden dreams beyond the sea. Her parents, Jens Christian Outzen and Martha Maria Christensen, were married in 1852, and it was into a very comfortable home, built by her father and grandfather, who both had earned their journeyman in building and cabinetmaking that Augusta was born.

The furniture for this home was all designed and built by their skillful hands. The grounds too, about the place, were well landscaped with beautiful flowers surrounded by a shrubbery hedge. A summerhouse, with its chairs, benches, and tables, was a favorite spot during the pleasant summer days, where the family spent many happy hours in the garden.

Augusta Maria Outzen Smith. Photo courtesy of DUP album, Snowflake-Taylor Family History Center.

Augusta started to school when she was seven years old, attending eleven months, with only one month for vacation. She was taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, and Bible reading, and she chose English for her foreign language study. When eleven years of age, she attended a private school where she studied dressmaking, glove-making, and all types of handwork, knitting, crochet, tatting, netting, embroidery work, weaving, and needlepoint.

As a young woman, she enjoyed going with her family to “Tivoli” and listening to her grandfather Outzen play his violin. He was a member of the fine orchestra which played for the king. Her parents were personally acquainted with some of the crowned heads of Denmark.

Before his marriage, Jens Christian Outzen served in the war between his native country and Germany that lasted from 1848 to 1850. He was a second lieutenant in rank, and for his bravery was awarded a gold medal signed by the king.

Augusta was the namesake of her aunt, Augusta Vori, who was a woman of great wealth and as she had no children, had named her namesake as her heir.[95] As a young woman, Augusta spent many happy days at the luxurious home of her aunt, who took her shopping, dressing her in fine apparel and took her to the largest theatre, in the city Viborg, which theatre she owned.[96] The inheritance money was never received by Augusta.

Just prior to her birth, Apostle Erastus Snow had brought the gospel to Denmark. Her parents had believed and accepted the new religion and were baptized as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the summer of 1866, Augusta was baptized, and after the Outzens joined the Church, they lost all of their many friends and associates, yet this sad situation held no qualms for her father; he liked nothing better than to mingle with and associate with the Mormon elders and made them welcome at his home and fireside.

One of these elders was a young man from Parowan, Utah, who had served on a mission in Scandinavia and was now returning to that land to be president of the Scandinavian Mission. Before leaving Salt Lake City, he had been instructed by President Brigham Young to find a girl in Denmark and marry her, since it was not advisable for a mission president to be single.

This was a big order since he already had two wives and a growing family and he knew the strict laws of Denmark concerning plural marriage, but having learned to obey council, he decided to conform to the request and chose the beautiful Augusta to be his wife. They were married June 3, 1869, in Copenhagen, Denmark by C. D. Fjeldsted.[97] They lived in the mission home for one year before sailing to America. During this year, Augusta continued her study of the English language under the expert tutoring of her husband.

When President Smith was released from his mission, he was assigned at the head of an emigration company of three hundred Saints. Everyone who joined the Church started preparations for emigrating to join the Saints in America. In 1870, they set sail for Liverpool, England, across the North Sea. The Outzens, with their ten children, were among the company. During the voyage an epidemic of measles broke out and many little children died, little Ida Outzen among them.[98] She was buried in Liverpool. This was a hard blow to the family, especially the mother and Augusta, who was very ill throughout the entire voyage.

At Liverpool they boarded the steamship, Minnesota.[99] The voyage lasted ten days. They landed at New York Harbor on August 1, 1870, and were the first company of emigrating Saints to cross the plains by train, reaching Salt Lake City August 10, 1870.[100]

During their stay in New York, a faith promoting incident occurred. The ship’s doctor had given President Smith a prescription for his wife to be filled when they landed in New York. He set out to find a drug store. The hour being late, there was only one store lighted and he could see a man moving up and down, but who gave no answer to his knock at the door. He walked the streets, trying to locate another store, but was unsuccessful. Passing this first place on his way back to the hotel, he noticed that the light was still on. He concluded to try again, and as he knocked an angry man pointed a gun in his face and an angry voice said, “Who in—are you? I have been trying to shoot you for half an hour and my gun will not go off.” President Smith told him his name and he said, “Last night just at this hour, a man who looked exactly like you robbed this store.” President Smith then showed him his passport proving that he had landed that evening in New York harbor.

Four of Jesse N. Smith's five wives (left to right): Augusta Outzen Smith, Emma West Smith, Emma Larson Smith, and Janet Johnson Smith. Smith's second wife, Margaret West Smith, a sister to Emma West, died before the family came to Arizona. Photo courtesy of Marion and Wanda Smith.

Augusta stayed in Salt Lake City until after the birth of her baby girl born August 16, 1870. Then she joined the Smith family in Parowan. During their sojourn in Parowan, three other children were born. Augusta was active in the Church organizations and taught the sisters handicrafts in Relief Society.

Then the call came to go to Arizona to colonize and help with the settlement of Snowflake, the town which had been purchased and established previously. Her first home in the new land was a two-room log house on the southeast corner of the Jesse N. Smith block in the southwest corner of the Snowflake town site. This humble home was a heaven on earth, yet she shared all the trials and hardships incident to pioneering a new territory with courage, love, and great faith. At this time, all of their water had to be hauled from Silver Creek. Later, wells were dug, the Minnerly well being central. The settlers carried water for house use until they could have their own wells.

The women and children were left alone a great deal as their husbands were working on the railroad to obtain means to sustain their families and build up the community. In 1893 a new brick home was built for this family.

Augusta’s health was very poor, she being almost an invalid for many years. She was a most devoted mother. Her children received her constant care; she was very tender of them, never neglecting one of them. She was the mother of eleven children, nine girls and two boys; none of them robust as babies, but as one of her neighbors said, “If Aunt Augusta can’t save a sick child with her constant care, no one else needs to try.” Her family being her paramount objective, she reared them all to maturity.

On June 5, 1906, her husband passed away, beloved of his posterity and the people of the Snowflake Stake, over which he had served as stake president since 1880, when he was called by the Church leaders to preside over the Eastern Arizona Stake.

After his passing, she engaged in many occupations to keep her children clothed, fed, and in school. Her early training as a dressmaker stood her in good state. She knew how to make over clothes into beautiful dresses and saved her family many a dollar. Her sewing was always exceptional. Keeping boarders was one of these occupations. She boarded students and teachers of the Snowflake Stake Academy.

She entertained with graciousness and hospitality. She was an excellent cook and taught her daughters the culinary arts along with that of fancy work and useful homemaking.

At a testimonial in her honor, many people arose and paid her high tribute. Her life was a beautiful example of service, love, and patience. She loved all of her husband’s children fully and completely and to his other wives she was a true sister of the highest order. Her husband said of her, “She has never given me one disparaging word.”[101]

At the age of seventy-eight years, on April 26, 1932, she closed her earthly career, mourned by her large posterity and many loyal friends.

On January 14, 1954, her children, grandchildren, friends, and relatives from far and near honored her 100th anniversary. This was held in Mesa, Arizona. This occasion was a beautiful tribute to her loving memory.

Ellis and Boone:

Jesse N. Smith and Augusta Outzen were married in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 3, 1869. She was fifteen years old and he was twenty years her senior. A daughter, Rebecca S. Rogers, described her as “mild and sweet in disposition, she was loved by all who knew her.”

Originally, Jesse N. thought that he and Augusta could travel to England and be sealed by an Apostle. He received word, however, that this would not be possible. Therefore, it was not until when they arrived in Utah that this ordinance was performed (August 15, 1870). Emma West Smith had traveled to Salt Lake City to meet them. The next day, Jesse wrote, “Had harnessed the horses and drawn the wagon up in front of the house to start for home when Augusta was taken in labor. Procured a nurse. Presidents B. Young and G. A. Smith laid hands on Augusta and at 20 minutes before 11 my eighth daughter and eleventh child was born.”[102] Jesse then arranged for Margrethe Larsen to assist, and Augusta was left in Salt Lake City to recover. Emma and Jesse left for Parowan. Later he wrote, “My daughter that was born at Bro. George A. Smith’s house was blest by him when eight days old and named Georgiana Bathsheba.”[103]

Catherine Delphina Fish Smith

Unidentified Son or Daughter

Maiden Name: Catherine Delphina “Della” Fish

Birth: June 29, 1864; Parowan, Iron Co., Utah

Parents: Joseph Fish[104] and Mary Campbell Steele

Marriage: Joseph West Smith;[105] October 29, 1886

Children: Mary (1888), Joseph Fish (1891), Albert Snow (1893), Lazelle Andrew (1895), Henry Aikens (1898), Ernan Hoffman (1901), Della S. (1904), Agnes (1907)

Death: June 17, 1934; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Della Fish was the third daughter of Joseph Fish and Mary Campbell Steele. She was born at Parowan, Iron County, Utah, on June 29, 1864. She was bright, eager to learn, and full of life—deeply religious and unselfish. Her sweetness of nature and her appreciation and love for everyone made her the wonderful woman of sterling character, whose memory we honor.

Della Fish married Joseph W. Smith in the St. George Temple October 29, 1886. She died June 17, 1934, in Snowflake, Arizona, just twelve days before her seventieth birthday.

In her earliest childhood, she longed for the day when she could learn to read. Her mother died when she was at the tender age of nine years, leaving six little children very lonely indeed. But her father married Eliza J. Lewis, and this kind and loving woman wrapped her arms and heart around those motherless children and tenderly cared for them as though they were her own. My! how we all loved and respected Aunt Eliza.

Della Fish Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

Our dear little mother’s thirst for knowledge was an asset during her years of schooling. When still seventeen years of age, she taught a private school for a man named Robert E. Robinson at his ranch. There were twelve children and some adults in her classes. Later she taught one year in Kanab, Utah, and after moving to Arizona, she taught at least fifteen years in Snowflake, Joseph City, and Pinedale.[106]

She was a sweet, shining light to all who knew her. I remember many who came not only for her poetry, but to cry on her shoulder and to lay their problems at her feet. They would always go away comforted.

Mother gave many willing years of service in the ward and stake as organist, and also in the YLMIA, Primary, and Relief Society, as secretary, counselor, and teacher.

She had a rare gift for poetry, and her townspeople called on her for fitting rhymes for birthdays, marriages, missionary departures, graduations, and all other social functions. No matter what she was doing, she would stop her work and write whatever was asked for, sometimes, even while they waited.

Later in life at a social function under the auspices of the Stake Relief Society, Mother was officially made “Stake Poet Laureate.”

As I turn back the pages of my life with Mother, I am amazed when I realize how gifted and resourceful she was. Her wit brought ready laughter into the home. Mother combined her homemaking and teaching very successfully. She was a WONDERFUL MOTHER, a neat seamstress, and a good cook. Her talents for music and writing also kept her busy in Church and community affairs. She even found time to knit long woolen stockings and mittens for her eight children.

Anxious to help the family in every way that she could, Mother sent away for books on beekeeping and studied them, becoming a successful beekeeper. We had all the honey both families could use the year round, and plenty to give away. Mother was always the happiest when she had something to give away. That reminds me of the time Lazelle went deer hunting in the Kaibab forest and came home with a deer. It was such a prize to add to the family larder. But it disappeared a piece at a time. When Lazelle teased her about it, she said, “Well, there were sick folks and poor folks who would like just a little meat.” Meat was not very plentiful in those days you know.

Father once wrote, in speaking of Mother: “Notwithstanding poor health later in life, she never lost the sweetness of character that made her everyone’s friend, and she was esteemed and loved by everyone who knew her.”

While Mother and Father lived in Mesa, Mother made notes occasionally of daily happenings. Here is one written in December 1928: “If I have ever done a praiseworthy deed in my life, it was when I selected Joseph W. for a husband, and I want my children to know that to me he is tenderness personified. . . . If my health does not improve, I fear I will not be here long, and I want you children to see that your father’s name will be kept up in history; always be tender and kind to him and remember his age. It certainly brings intense sadness to me when I think of leaving him alone.”[107] Another notation in March 1929: “Our Mesa home is nearing completion, a little bird tells me I will not get to live in it very long.” April 7, 1929, she writes, “We moved into our new Mesa home; it is not finished, but we were anxious to get into our own home.”

Relief Society workers (left to right): first row: Emma Larson Smith (669), Christabelle Hunt Flake (187); second row: Mary flake Turley (727), Mary Jane Robinson West (771), Clara Gleason Rogers (590); third row: Rozilpha Stratton Gardner (203), Della Fish Smith, Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith (676). Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

Mother’s health was poor during the years they lived in Mesa. Father worked regularly in the temple. Mother only when she was able. But she continued recording daily events of the visits of family and friends. How happy she was when anyone called. There was always a note of something very nice about every caller written in her record. Her last recording was in Snowflake, June 29, 1933. She writes: “I am 69 years old today. My dear friend Belle Flake and her sister May H. Larsen made a very friendly call. Jesse and Louie gave us a beautiful birthday cake and we were dinner guests at David and Marie’s—Clarissa was there too.”

Mother followed the royal road to happiness. She dedicated her life to the service of others. She strove for the simpler and deeper things of life. She had a great purpose and had no time for idle prattle. Mother overcame her weaknesses and temptations. She had so lived that her memories could bring only a happy, quiet content.

So, we are proud to do honor to one of the noble women of our time, our mother, Della Fish Smith.

Ellis and Boone:

Although another sketch has also been written by family members, Della Fish Smith wrote extensively of her early childhood (beginning in 1886).[108] Here is her description of the decision to become a plural wife: “Joseph W. Smith asked to see me home one evening. When we had been out somewhere on an errand and on the way home he asked me what accomplishments in my estimation it would take for a husband. It nearly took my breath away when he asked if he could be mine, however, I decided to think seriously on the subject and give him an answer later. I kept on thinking for three months. In the mean time I kept on going out with different young men to see if I should find any that would suit me better, not finding one I decided to say ‘yes’ after counseling with my parents. I had always thought that the man I married must be a thorough Latter-day Saint. Joseph said he had always tried to be one and if I thought him worthy we would be married. He had been married to Nellie Marsden in Parowan seven years before and had four children.”[109]

Local residents loved Della’s poetry which was published in many local venues. This is her description of Snowflake:

Snowflake’s Sunset

Had you but seen

The setting sun on Snowflake hills

And felt the grandeur it instills,

Like one great dream,

You’d know the Gods had done their best

To show their skill along the west.

The sky is blue, the clouds are white

To lend a charm of mellow light,

Then dashes of a golden red

Along the horizon are spread

In all the world there cannot be

Another sight so fair to see;

For Nature placed the colors grand

As recompense for wind and sand.[110]

Ellen Johanna Larson Smith

Autobiography[111]

Maiden Name: Ellen Johanna Larson

Birth: January 16, 1868; Santaquin, Utah Co., Utah

Parents: Mons Larson and Ellen Malmstrom[112]

Marriage: Silas Derryfield Smith; December 10, 1886

Children: Silas Ruel (1887), Ethel (1889), Seraphine (1891), Charity (1893), Mons Larson (1895), Alof Omni (1898), Josephine (1900), Mae (1905), Ellen (1910)[113]

Death: January 12, 1965; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

I, Ellen Johanna Larson Smith, now in my eighty-first year, have decided to write the story of my life for those who may be interested in knowing of their ancestors; how they lived and survived in these pioneer days.

My parents, Mons Larson and Ellen Malmstrom, were born in Sweden, and the patriarchs say they are of the pure blood of Ephraim. They could read and write, which was very uncommon in those days. My father was a cabinetmaker for the King of Sweden seven years. My mother’s father was a master blacksmith and supervised a string of shops. My parents came to America on a sailing ship named William Tapscott.[114] They crossed the plains pulling a handcart, in 1859.[115]

I was born January 16, 1868 in Santaquin, Utah County, Utah, the eighth and youngest child of my mother. I loved to make playhouses out under the trees, among the bushes, and on the shady side of the house. My play dishes were made of sand and clay mud patted into shape, then dried in the sun. My aunt gave me my first doll, with china head, arms, and legs. It was about eight inches tall, and I dearly loved it. The favorite place for my playhouse was in Mother’s summer bedroom, which was made by planting peach trees very close, then bending the tops over a frame to form the roof; it was very shady, but to keep the rain out a canvas was stretched over the bed.

My niece, Sarah Ellen Carter, was my nearest playmate. One day I had a dinner party. I served hop-yeast bread, butter, meat, peach preserves, homemade cheese, molasses, and milk.

When the fruit ripened, my services were quite necessary for I would climb to the topmost limbs to pick the fruit and help in carrying it into the house and prepare it for drying. Fruit jars were unheard of at that time. Dried, unpeeled peaches sold for eight cents a pound. When the sugar cane was ready to harvest, I would help in stripping the leaves off the stock before it was cut and hauled to the mill to be made into molasses. We had great fun at molasses candy pullings and corn husking bees. Harvesting the potatoes was not such a sweet job; the whole family went out to help pick up the potatoes. We loved to eat them when roasted in the coals made from a brush fire. Melons were plentiful, and we enjoyed them.

As soon as the harvesting was over, Mother had me help wash wool so she could make yarn to weave into cloth for the winter clothing and for knitting socks and stockings. The wild ground cherries we gathered and dried and then sold. School was held about three months in a year. Once I spelled above the largest boy in the class. He made fun of me, but I studied all the harder. In my tenth year, I attended a summer school taught by a Mrs. Stickney; she stressed the study of geography and took special interest in me and another Swedish girl named Catherine Peterson. She let us recite extra geography lessons at recess, which was a great boost to me. That summer I mixed my first batch of yeast and salt-rising bread. I also had my first lesson in making paper flowers and seeing candy made from white sugar; it looked and tasted just like store candy.

In the spring of 1878, the leaders of the Relief Society in Salt Lake City sent silkworm eggs to the various towns to experiment with. My mother took some to care for, and I had the job of gathering mulberry leaves to feed the worms, and that gave me the opportunity to learn how silk was produced.

I loved to watch my brothers milk the cows and learned how to milk by stripping after the boys had finished. I have often been thankful that I knew how to milk a cow.

Silas and Ellen Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

I must tell how I earned my first dress. Sarah Ellen’s father had a nice garden, but the sunflowers and weeds were about to choke it out, so he told us if we would pull them out he would buy us each a new dress. Oh how we did work until the weeds were all out and we were so happy to have a new calico dress for the Twenty-fourth of July. When I put on that new dress someone said, “You better look out, some little boy will want to kiss you.” I replied, “I’ll scratch his eyes out if they do.” Well, sure enough, a little boy tried it and got scratched.

At the Twenty-fourth of July celebration, a parade was an outstanding feature of the program. Weeks ahead we little girls were choosing who would be our partner. Three girls had chosen me, I did not want to offend them, so it was planned that the first one that I met on the morning of the celebration would be the one I would march with. The one I met was the least desirable of the three.

My father was a good farmer and always had a good garden and plenty of fruit. Mother did most of the grafting and budding on the trees. Some of them had several kinds of apples on the same tree. This was very interesting to me. Many years later I did the same thing to trees in my own orchard.

In my ninth year I was baptized and was told how wrong it was to tell lies or to steal.

The father of one of my playmates had about a dozen hives of bees. I was there one day when they were extracting the honey from the combs. She gave me a flat stick to eat some of the honey; I never tasted anything so good.

Brigham Young called a number of families to go and help colonize Arizona, and my father was among them. Mother was very busy all summer preparing for this move. My sister Caroline came from her home in Provo to help us get ready. She made me three new dresses. Father bought a bolt of heavy canvas from which they made a large tent to take with us.

The townspeople gave us a wonderful farewell party. At the feast on a large platter was a whole young roasted pig with an ear of corn in its mouth, tied with a yard of blue ribbon; they gave me the ribbon.

It was about the 5th of November that the three wagons were loaded ready for traveling. Two wagons trailed together were drawn by horses. The heaviest wagon was pulled by two yoke of oxen and a yoke of cows. The eight head of loose stock were taken care of by my brother James who was only twelve years old. In a few days, we overtook the Mortensens and Petersens who were also going to Arizona.[116] They had stock and horses and were glad to let Jim ride one of their horses to help in driving the cattle. I was delighted to find chewing gum on the pine trees in Kaibab Forest. House Rock made me think of the story about Moses smiting the rock and water gushing out. This water was clear and very good, and we filled all our barrels.

When we reached Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River, the wagons were pulled onto a flat boat and ferried across. All the loose stock had to swim to the opposite bank. Now we had to climb a narrow long dugway. Mother and I walked, each carrying a big rock to block the wagon wheels when the horses stopped to rest. Along the Little Colorado River, we had to guard against quicksand. We stopped at Brigham City. My brother Lehi had helped to build that fort. We passed Sunset. On Christmas Eve, we camped on the river bank near St. Joseph. I hung my stocking on a low cottonwood limb. Santa found it, and there was some candy and a can of lemonade—sugar with lemon extract ready to put into the drinking water.

The dry grass was plentiful for the animals. We went through Woodruff and on to Snowflake, reaching there December 28, 1878.

Father chose two city lots, and on them we pitched the tent and put up the new Monitor cook stove. My sister Emma made a batch of doughnuts for New Year’s Day, and we all went to the dance. It was held in one of the rooms that had been built by Mr. James Stinson, from whom Brother William J. Flake had bought the land.

On New Year’s Day, my brothers hauled three loads of good cedar firewood. The grass was knee high all over the hills and in the valley. They also brought in a nice fat antelope. They went to the mountains fifteen miles away for house logs, and while there they killed wild turkey. When Brother Flake killed a wild bull, he would send a piece of meat to every family in town.

On my birthday, January 16, 1879, Jesse N. Smith arrived with his wife Janet and children. They located just across the street from us and “great glory,” I had a playmate; their daughter Susan was just nine months younger than I, and there were four younger sisters. I could hardly wait to get Susie to come and play with my dishes and the fifteen-inch doll with earthen head, arms, and legs. This lovely doll I had bought in Utah at a place where we camped as we traveled to Arizona. (Note: This doll is in the D.U.P. Museum at Snowflake, Arizona—1963.)

Before the log house was ready to move into, Mother had the boys mix the dirt floor into mud, then plaster smoothly all over, then leave it to dry. The neighbors wondered how Sister Larson had such a nice hard floor.

When we were yet living in the tent, about February 1, 1879, Annie Hunt started a day school which I attended. When John A. West started a dancing school, Silas D. Smith invited me to be his partner. It was also the beginning of a lifelong romance. I received my finishing touches in education under the tutorship of Jesse N. Smith Jr., in 1883. Beautiful pictures of any sort always fascinated me. If only a few suggestions and brush and paint had been given me, I may have become an artist. In my later years, without any formal training, I have painted a few pictures. I complainingly said to my mother once that had we remained in Utah I could have had an education. She replied, “You will never lose anything by your parents having obeyed counsel.”

That first spring, as soon as the sheep were sheared, William J. Flake came by with a load of wool; said he, “Sister Larson, can’t you use a sack of this wool.” “Well, maybe it will be something to keep us busy,” she said. She paid him one dollar for the wool. We went to the creek where water was plentiful to wash the wool. When it was dry, I picked out all the burs and sticks before Mother could card it. My older sister Emma spun it into yarn. Mother had no trouble selling the extra yarn at one dollar a pound. Everybody had to knit their own stockings—it was 300 miles to the nearest store. I learned to spin and knit. We were busy that summer.

Wilford Woodruff, an Apostle of our Church, was in Snowflake for a while, and Mother knitted him a pair of socks and did some mending for him. She felt it a great honor for an Apostle to come into her home. The town gave him a birthday party, and Mother made a Swedish cake. It was so light and delicious, everyone was curious to know how it was made. This is the recipe:

2 pounds potato flour, 2 pounds sugar, 20 eggs. Separate the whites from yolks; beat whites stiff; beat yolks to a light yellow, then stir in the sugar, then the flour. Add a little grated lemon or orange peel. Fold in the whites. Pour into baking pan, bake in a slow oven.

As soon as the crops were planted, Father and my oldest brother returned to Utah. Lehi expected to get married, and Father went for his second wife, Olivia, and her two sons. We had a good harvest. We dried a lot of squash and corn for the winter, and fortunately Mother felt a frost coming, and she and her children stripped the cane and cut it the day before the cold could blight it, so we had much better molasses from this cane than the other townspeople.

There was a good crop of wheat, but the nearest grist mill was 100 miles away, and it was a hard thing to get the wheat to the mill and return with the flour.

Mother and Aunt Janet Smith hired a man to make a loom. They were both good at weaving, so now we could make bedspreads, cloth, carpets, and rugs. I learned the art of weaving. There was a demand for all we could make.

When the Atlantic and Pacific railroad was being built (later known as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad), Father and the Mortensens contracted to build a mile of grade, and Mother took me with her to help with the cooking.[117] The Little Colorado River ran near our camp. The menfolk went swimming often, and I asked my brothers about how to swim and how to sink. When they were at work I practiced, so that is how I learned to swim.

My sister Emma was five years older than I. She had made a vow to always keep the word of wisdom, that is to not use tea or coffee, and I liked to drain the pot after my father and mother drank their coffee. My sister said to me that if I kept doing that I would become as black as some of the Mexicans. I told her I could quit as well as she. I never took another drink—it is now over seventy years.

I loved to read the Faith Promoting Series and the Life of Lucy Smith, the Prophet’s Mother.[118] I promised myself that I would never read novels, for there were so many more important things to spend one’s time on.

In 1883, we moved from Snowflake to the Gila in Graham County. Here my father had more room for his young family. Before we left Snowflake, I had become engaged to Silas D. Smith. He arranged for me to come to Snowflake, and I left there September 27, 1886, on my wedding trip to the St. George Temple. After arriving in St. George, we waited two weeks for my recommend to arrive. It was suggested we have a civil marriage, but we both felt that as we had come so far to be married in the temple we should wait. On December 10, 1886, I became the wife of Silas Derryfield Smith. We returned to Snowflake and began our life together in the house my father had built.

Nine healthy children were born to us in that home. My ambition was that my children should be educated, not only in books but the practical things; that my sons be worthy to fill missions, be efficient workers in their occupations; that my influence for good might be felt by my descendants. The thing that counts and must be impressed is to get a testimony of the divinity of the gospel as taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Silas and I had agreed on the principle of plural marriage before we were married; it was no trial to me to share my husband and home with his second wife, Maria E. Bushman, whom he married on November 21, 1888, in the St. George Temple. We lived together under the same roof for many years. Uncontrollable circumstances arose that separated the families; Maria’s family moved to Utah.

Silas Smith had a hard time supporting two families. First, he worked at the A.C.M.I. in Holbrook, and around 1897 he moved to the store in Snowflake. Silas wrote, “In the fall of 1897 a stake conference was held in Snowflake. President Joseph F. Smith was the visiting authority. He told me then he wanted me to prepare to go on a mission for the church. I told him I would be glad to go, but my income would hardly keep my families and it was not possible for me to finance a mission. He promised me that the Lord would open up the way if I would prepare myself.”[119]

In November 1900, Silas Smith took his wife, Maria, her four children, and Ellen’s oldest son, Ruel, to Mexico. Here he hauled supplies from Naco, Arizona, to Cananea, Mexico, graded a railroad bed, and cut wood for the smelter; Maria and Silas also operated a boarding house at Cananea. By February 1902, Silas received a call to the Western States Mission. When he sold his teams and wagons in Mexico, he had enough money for a mission but left his two wives and eleven children in “the Lord’s care.”

Ellen Johanna Larson Smith. Photo courtesy of Snowflake-Taylor Family History Center.

Ellen detailed some of her enterprises. From one colony of bees I built up an apiary of fifty hives. I operated a little notion store, I did photography work, kept boarders and did janitor work. I tried to keep my children employed at home.

After Silas returned from his mission, the families lived in Snowflake for a year, and then Senator Fred Dubois from Idaho traveled to Arizona and pushed for further prosecution of LDS men living polygamy.[120]In 1905, Silas traveled to Utah to file a homestead claim on land near Duchesne, and Maria took her children to Provo to attend school. Nevertheless, in 1910, the last two of Silas’s nineteen children were born, and the separation of his two families became permanent: “His great dream of reuniting his two large families in one household was never again realized.”[121]In 1918, Ellen sold their property in Snowflake and joined Silas in Hunter, Utah. She wrote, “In 1921, I accepted a position as matron in the Wasatch Domestic [Science] School for delinquent and homeless girls.”[122]

By 1929, Silas was working in California, and all Ellen’s children were married or living away from home, so she moved to Monticello, Utah, where her son had homesteaded some land. Silas soon joined her; they grew fruits and vegetables.

My creative ability in growing plants and my love of nature and the soil were rewarded at the homestead on a dry land farm we called “Tanglewood” in San Juan County, Utah. For relaxation I wrote poetry. She wrote, “We grow here grains, cheese, vegetables and honey, but it seems impossible to raise any money!”[123]In 1937 Silas and Ellen moved to Mesa, Arizona.

Four of my children, through the years, have died by accident. My husband passed on in 1956. The last years of my life, I have been practically blind. My daughter, Ethel, has lived with me since her father’s death. My flower making and bead strands I cannot see to do.[124]

In church activities, I was the secretary of the first Primary organized in Snowflake. In 1884, I was assistant secretary in the Pima Sunday School; also second counselor in the YLMIA. In 1885, I was called to be assistant secretary in the St. Joseph Stake Primary. I was also a member of the Dramatic Company.

In Snowflake, I was president of the YLMIA for six years and later a counselor to Lydia Savage in the Stake. In Utah, I was president of the Hunter Ward Primary.

My husband and I spent six months in the California Mission in 1945−46. We were set-apart workers in the Arizona Temple for thirteen years. After moving to Mesa, I spent much time gathering the genealogy and family group sheets of my father’s family.

[Added by unknown person.] Ellen Johanna Larson Smith left this earthly life January 12, 1965, four days before her ninety-seventh birthday. Memories of her are stimulating and inspiring. One who of necessity was reared in frugality, with little education, became an inspiration to youth and a special friend to all who knew her.

Ellen Larson Smith's photography tent, Snowflake. Photo courtesy of Stinson Museum, Snowflake.

Ellis and Boone:

RFC submitted a very short sketch for Ellen Johanna Larson Smith to the FWP on September 11, 1937, stating that she was then living in Monticello, San Juan County, Utah. Biographical sketches of Ellen Smith have also been prepared for a Jesse N. Smith Family book and a book about Silas Derryfield Smith.[125] Nevertheless, this account is completely different from any of the other sketches because it is autobiographical. It seems likely that Clayton had access to a longer autobiography and shortened it to fit the PWA format, because the events in last pages of this sketch are lacking context. Therefore, whole paragraphs have been moved to better fit chronologically and additional information has been inserted in italics.

At the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, there is an audiocassette with Ellen Larson Smith retelling many of these stories giving some additional details.[126] For example, of the initial trip into Arizona, she said they had five hens and a rooster in a cage tied to the back of the wagon. Each night the chickens would be let out to eat the grain spilled by the horses, and they had fresh eggs nearly every day of their trip. She also said that she kept a record of the wax, honey, and honey vinegar sold from her apiary, and in ten years she had added $1000 to their family budget.

Joseph Flake also wrote about Ellen’s beekeeping and photography for Snowflake’s centennial book:

There was honey in Snowflake, Annie Rogers, Emma and Ellen Smith, and Martha S. Flake, all known by the affectionate title of “Aunt,” are names of some of the early bee keepers. Donning thick clothing, wire veil, gloves and with rag smoker these ladies opened the hives and lifted out the heavy honey-filled frames. Honey comb cappings were cut away with warm knives, the honey then [was] spun out in the whirling extractor. Our taste for sweets came in sucking the honey from the capping wax. . . .

Aunt Ellen Larson Smith became the early Snowflake picture taker. With her diaphragm camera on a tripod, herself under a black cloth, she worked the magic of fixing on photographic paper many Snowflake likenesses.[127]

Emma Ellen Larson Smith

Roberta Flake Clayton[128]

Maiden Name: Emma Ellen Larson[129]

Birth: April 6, 1863; West Jordan, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Parents: Mons Larson and Ellen Olsson Malmstrom[130]

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith;[131] October 28, 1881

Children: Hyrum (1882), Caroline (1884), Don Carlos (1886), Lorana (1888), Lehi Larson (1891), George Albert (1893), Aikens (1899), Myrtle (1901), Matthias Foss Cowley (1905)

Death: June 2, 1943; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Emma Larson was born April 6, 1863 in West Jordan, Utah. She was the fifth child of eight born to Ellen and Mons Larson. They joined the Church in Sweden and migrated to America. They crossed the plains with the Saints in the handcart company in 1859.[132]

Emma was brought up in a home in which the spirit of the gospel was the guiding influence. At an early age she was taught the art of homemaking and became a very good cook. She also became known as a very good dressmaker. She was taught early to spin yarn, knit socks, weave carpets, and make hats.

Emma Larson Smith. Photo courtesy of Snowflake-Taylor Family History Center.

She was fifteen when her parents were called to pioneer in Arizona. Leaving their home in Utah, Mons Larson moved his family to Snowflake.

The following extract is furnished by Emma’s daughter Lorana Smith Broadbent—“Considerable preparation was required for the desert journey. The outfit consisted of two wagons, trailed together, drawn with horses, then one heavier wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows. The oldest brother drove the horse team and the next brother, Alof, only eighteen years, drove the oxen with Emma, fifteen years, to manage the brakes for him which was quite a job on crude rough roads. The oxen teams had to go on ahead because they traveled slower and many times were out of sight of the others in the Indian inhabited desert, which was a test of their courage. After several weeks, they arrived in what is now Snowflake, Arizona, on December 25, and on account of a new storm the sun was not visible, and when the sun rose the next day Emma was turned in directions, and she always said the sun seemed to rise up in the south.”[133]

Jesse N. Smith with his three wives and large family were their nearest neighbors. Emma together with her brothers and sisters were soon accepted in the new community by the younger set. The Larson family being of a social nature soon became acquainted and took part in all the social and Church activities. Dancing was one of Emma’s favorite recreations. Emma and Ellen, her younger sister, soon learned to dance well and became favored partners for dancing with not only the younger boys and men but some of the older ones as well.

President Jesse N. Smith, having been advised by the General Authorities to take another wife, had only to look across the street to the home of Brother and Sister Larson to find the lady of his choice. He went to their house and asked if they had any objections to his talking matrimony to their daughter Emma. They assured him that Emma had her own mind and gave their blessing. The courtship was of necessity short. Emma accepted his proposal having already made up her mind that Jesse N. Smith was the kind of man she wanted. They were married in the St. George Temple, October 28, 1881.[134] Nine children were born to this union, six boys and three girls, all of whom grew to maturity. Aunt Em, as she became known in the large family of her husband, took up her many duties as the fifth wife and mother dedicating her time and talents to the well-being of her family. She divided her time and “know how” in caring for the sick and needy of the community. It was a miracle that she could spend so much of her time in the service of others, yet keep her own young family neatly clothed and well fed with tasty meals of her own cooking. Also, with the help of their father, she took the time to teach the children well in the ways of the gospel, in precept and by example.

Emma Larson Smith at the grave of her son, Lehi, in France, 1930. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

When her husband died June 5, 1906, Aunt Em had lived twenty-five years in married life and was left with a young family to raise. She courageously carried on with her own thrift and resourcefulness. And with the help of her children, she provided well for her family, as well as helping to care for the sick, which brought her very little of this world’s goods. However, she had the satisfaction of feeling and knowing that she had done her part in helping those in need. She was a firm believer in storing up treasure, “Where moth and rust did not corrupt or thieves break through and steal.”[135]

Three of her sons were soldiers of World War I. Her third son Lehi Larson Smith, was killed in the Argonne Forest of France in October 1918. Seven of her children filled full time missions. Three were college graduates.

When the Arizona Temple was dedicated on October 23−26, 1927, she was set apart as an ordinance worker, a position she faithfully filled, returning to Snowflake only during the season the temple was closed.

She went to France as guest of the U.S. Government along with other Gold Star Mothers from Arizona in 1930.

Aunt Em, having lived thirty-seven years a widow, died in Snowflake June 2, 1943 at the age of eighty. She was laid to rest beside those who had gone before her to the reward of the faithful.

Ellis and Boone:

During and after World War I, great care was taken to identify the dead, and, if the families requested, the body was returned home, but many of the 53,000 casualties were interred in France. Lehi Smith was buried at Meuse-Argonne. In 1930 when Emma Larson Smith participated in the Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage, she was one of 6,693 women to visit their loved ones’ graves. A guide gave each woman flowers or a wreath to leave at the grave and took a photograph so she could remember her visit. One woman wrote, “Now that I have seen my dear son’s resting place, and know that it will forever be kept beautiful, I am more contented.”[136]

May Hunt Larson (394) and Emma Larson Smith were sisters-in-law. When May’s daughter, Louise Comish, wrote about her mother, she included this letter from Emma Larson Smith, written after May’s death:

Emma Larson Smith's nursing class, about 1913. First row: all unidentified except Harriet Allen second from left; second row: Eliza Rogers, Mrs. Riggs, Mrs. Ditty, Emma Smith, Daphne Bushman; third row: Lenora Smith, Elise Owens DeWitt, Pearl Fish, Emma West, Lucy Shumway, Seraphine Smith; fourth row: Winifred Hansen, Rachel Smith, Amelia Riggs, ___ Hancock, Julia Riggs, Bertha Owens, Esther Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

Dear May: The years have come and gone now many times since you and I became acquainted. I met you and your sisters the day before Christmas in 1878, a very cordial meeting it was. I did not know then that you would one day be my sister and that you would marry my tall handsome brother Alof. And now for 62 years we have been sisters and those years for the most part were filled with the joys of raising our families and Pioneering.

We took the journey in a wagon, you and I, to the St. George Temple, with our bridegrooms-to-be, to be married together. You have been a wonderful Sister to me and I have tried to be as true to you. . . . In our journey towards the setting sun of life we have both been a widow. We have talked of how we hoped things would be at the end of our days. You asked one day that I would be there to help prepare you and dress you for the great occasion of “Crossing the Bar”, and I told you, Yes, of course I will, for I was greatly complimented that you would wish me to perform a task so important as that for you, I have thought of it many times, and now. . . . The time has come. . . . Other loving hands had to be there to do those last touches, to place those lovely snowy robes upon you. But I could not keep the promise, because we could not know the ills of this life were waiting in our pathway.

I had hoped you would come to my last birthday party, and today I cannot go to see you.

May the memory of the many fine things you have done remain with your children and family and friends.

I pray God will bless them all.[137]

May Hunt Larson died at her home in Snowflake on May 4, 1943; Emma Larson Smith died less than one month later—on June 2.

Emma Seraphine West Smith

Author Unknown[138]

Maiden Name: Emma Seraphine West

Birth: January 3, 1836; Benton Co., Tennessee

Parents: Samuel Walker West and Margaret Cooper

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith;[139] May 13, 1852

Children: Emma Seraphine (1853), Mary Josephine (1855), Hannah Daphne (1857), Eliza Snow (1859), Jesse Nathaniel Jr. (1861), Sarah Elizabeth (1866), Silas Derryfield (1867), John Walter (1871), Samuel Francis (1873)

Death: October 15, 1910; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

The Wests and Coopers are found among the builders and founders of many localities of the South; Emma Seraphine’s parents were Samuel Walker West and Margaret Cooper. She was born January 3, 1836, in Benton County, Tennessee.

Not long after Joseph Smith had organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wilford Woodruff came to Tennessee preaching the restored gospel, and the Wests accepted the truth.

The first child born to this family after their acceptance of the gospel was Emma Seraphine. Margaret thought her tiny daughter would be a natural born Latter-day Saint. Subsequent events proved that Emma was a righteous Israelite indeed.

The Wests moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, and Emma remembers how closely her father was associated with the Prophet Joseph Smith, giving him much financial support. She saw and mourned with all the Saints at the time of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith. They suffered through the trying scenes during the Mormon exodus from Illinois.

In the migration to Salt Lake City, Emma tells of the pleasure in the campfire dances where they learned the cotillions and steps of the square dance.[140] She and her brother John were beautiful dancers. This relaxing entertainment helped to ease the hardships of the journey. The Garden Grove Company the Wests traveled with, reached Salt Lake City in late September of 1851.[141] They camped on the banks of the Jordan River but were soon given a call to go to southern Utah, Parowan, Iron County, where they arrived in late October.

In this town lived the widow Mary Aikens Smith and her two sons, the younger son, Jesse, soon caught the interest of the sweet sixteen-year-old “Emmey,” as she was called, and this couple was married in Parowan May 13, 1852. Their life together was happy and full of love despite the hardships and privations in their pioneering. Nothing gave her so much satisfaction as to see honor and trust come to her husband.

For many years this village of Parowan was to be Emma’s home. Here all her nine children were born, and it was here her husband brought three of his four other wives.[142] Emma believed in practicing all the principles of the restored gospel and the Law of Sarah (or polygamy) as taught in the Bible and by the Prophet Joseph, she accepted. She could never conceive of anything base or degrading in the great man she loved, her loyalty and trust in her husband were supreme; each time he chose to bring a new wife into the family circle, he had the consent of each one. Jealousy and selfishness had to be overcome by loyalty and unflinching devotion to a righteous cause.

Twice Jesse Nathaniel Smith received mission calls to Denmark. This brought more work and sacrifice to Emma but it was not her nature to complain. One winter the children had no shoes to wear, bread and molasses was their lunch, breakfast was nothing more than a thickened porridge thinned with a pint of milk. For dinner a few potatoes were added to the porridge. This kind of ration was all that a family of three women, seven children, and an adopted big boy had to subsist upon. As though things were not bad enough, Old Line, the cow, fell and broke her neck. Amid tears, the stricken family tried to think that the porridge and potato soup were just as good without the milk.

That Christmas, the children hung up their stockings, but when they awoke, their stockings were empty. Emma wept over their disappointment, but composing herself, she found from somewhere just one apple which she divided among the little folks.

Everyday and far into the night, this mother worked to provide for her family; splints of pitchy wood were lighted and held, at night, by the older children while Emma did her spinning. Even sorrow and death had to be a part of that winter’s experience.

Emma’s sister Margaret, the second wife of Jesse N. Smith, died, leaving two children in Emma’s care. These children she loved and brought up as her very own. Then Uncle Silas, Emma’s brother-in-law, lost both of his wives. Arrangements were made and Emma and her mother-in-law, Mary A. Smith, moved to the uncle’s home where the two women cared for the children of four mothers until the return of Jesse N. from the mission field.

Emma Seraphine West Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

Now that the father was home, he prospered in his work so that his family could have sufficient food and clothing, and he brought his third wife Janet M. Johnson into the family circle. In 1868 he returned to his mission field leaving his family in better circumstances than before; their oldest daughter Seraphine was married in 1869. After he had finished his mission in 1870, he returned home to care for his family. Emma’s load was lightened, as they could afford more and better things. She was neat and tidy in her dress—she loved lace and dainty things—and was so happy when her loving husband stroked her wavy hair, telling her that she was prettier than ever before. Jesse brought with him from Denmark his fourth wife, Augusta Maria Outzen. She was unaccustomed to this new environment, and Emma had the opportunity of making her happy and comfortable as circumstances would permit.

Parowan was emerging from the rigors of pioneering when the Smith family was called to go to Arizona to help in the colonizing of that country. Emma remained in Parowan with Augusta until 1880; Jesse had located his wife Janet and children in Snowflake in January 1879. He was called to be president of the Eastern Arizona Stake. He sold all his property in Utah. The graves of two infant daughters, his wife Margaret, and his beloved mother were all that he left in Parowan; all of his married children followed him to Arizona.

They began at the grass roots, living in tents and wagon boxes, until some log cabins could be built. Emma’s health was well broken from the hardships endured while the long missions were being filled, but the work had to be done, and with a gracious spirit she did her part. Emma was a mother of great faith, and prayer was the comfort of her soul. She taught her children faith, hope, and charity; obedience was always taught and required of her children. The promise for disobedience was often administered with a switch, and the children discovered that that promise never failed, yet she was a mother who understood the full meaning of mercy, and her merciful tears did more than the oiled switch in establishing true repentance, so her children testify.

Faith promoting stories, learned in her childhood and told to her children, strengthened their courage and made a lasting impression upon them. One experience as a child in her Tennessee home: A spring of water some distance from the house furnished the water used in the home. It had to be carried in buckets to the house. At night Emma was afraid to go to the spring for water, and finally her mother said to her, “Emmey, if you will go with a prayer in your heart you will not have any fear and nothing will hurt you.” In doing this as her mother suggested, Emma declared her fears vanished, and courage and trust were felt ever after.

When her mother, Margaret Cooper West, heard of “The Celestial Marriage System” or polygamy that was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, she said it was a wicked and devilish thing, and if an angel declared it unto her she would not believe it. However, no angel appeared but a vision opened to her view, her mind expanded in understanding, and, in her words, she “saw the visions of greatness wherein great blessings came through obedience and sacrifice in that it was as much for the woman’s exaltation as for the man and that the plan of exaltation by obedience and sacrifice were the great redeeming and ennobling opportunities ever revealed from heaven to man,” and “Oh how the Devils raged.”

The magnificence and great exalting attainments connected with this manifestation converted Margaret to the principle of plural wives, and she now encouraged her children to practice it and also her husband.

In Snowflake, Emma’s home was across the street from the Swedish family of Larsons. There were two sons and two daughters, the oldest girl, Emma, became the fifth wife of Jesse N. Smith, October 28, 1881, and the next one, Ellen Johanna, married Emma Seraphine’s son Silas D. Smith, November 10, 1886.

This young vigorous woman took over the heavy work in Emma’s home, they were a mother-daughter combination. By the children in the families, they were designated as Aunt Emma or Aunt Emmey and Aunt Em. In fact, most everyone addressed them by those names. These two women always lived in the same house. After the husband’s death, the older Emma preferred living with the younger rather than live in any of the homes of her own children.

The older Emma, due to her age and affliction, required care and attention. Love and loyalty grew up between these two women of vastly different ages; the sacrifice of each grew to be a bond of affection and esteem.

Emma was faithful in attending to her church and performing any commission given to her. She was sustained as president of the Eastern Arizona Stake Relief Society July 1, 1883, her counselors being Lois B. Hunt and Frances [Willis] White. The stake was divided in 1887, and she was retained as stake Relief Society president of the Snowflake Stake with Emily J. Lewis and Sarah Driggs (153) as counselors. Through the years her counselors changed but she held this position until August 11, 1905. Her diligence in meeting appointments could not be excelled. It took many hours of tedious travel, with horse drawn buggy or wagon, to visit the scattered wards. The love she fostered for others, the faith, integrity, and goodness which were a part of her, she instilled into the lives of the women she labored with.

No one more honestly deserves the beautiful title “MOTHER” than did this frail little woman. From her teens until her death October 15, 1910, she brought glory and sanctity to the greatest gift that has been given to womankind, that of motherhood. Every child had an intimate place in her heart, many of them not her own. The beauty of a great soul was found in her.

Her life depicted events more stirring than fiction. The love she fostered for others was more lasting than costly paintings, all the grandeur of her nature found expression in deeds of human kindness, understanding, and sympathy. She made for herself a remembered place among the noblest of the earth.

Ellis and Boone:

Emma’s son Silas said that his mother “was a praying woman and taught her children to pray.” Then he told this story: “It was one of those times that my disobedience was the cause of a sound whipping. I trembled and hollered so loud that mother thought she had surely injured me. It was deception on my part from seeing a clown perform. We boys had been practicing trembling. She, thinking I was injured, said, ‘We must pray and ask our Heavenly Father to forgive you for being disobedient and me for whipping you so hard.’ My mother cried in humbleness and I in true repentance.”[143]

For the published journal of Jesse N. Smith, one of Emma’s grandsons, Robert J. Smith, wrote that his grandmother learned all the homemaking skills needed by a pioneer woman. He said, “She measured up in every way to young Jesse N. Smith’s ideal of a suitable companion for time and eternity. . . . Emma stood faithfully by her husband bearing him nine children, four sons and five daughters,” and, when possible, each child was given a father’s blessing when eight days old. “She also reared the two children of her sister Margaret who died while Jesse N. was on his first mission to Scandinavia. With meagre resources Emma struggled and sacrificed to support herself and children during the six years her husband was away on foreign missions.”[144]

These children became an important part of her life. Robert Smith said that “A few years before his death Jesse N. told his wife Emma that her youngest son, Samuel Francis, would stand in his place as stake president so it was no surprise to her when her son Samuel was sustained as the new stake president in February, 1907.”[145] In return, her children found her “a great source of strength.”[146]

Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith

Leah Smith Udall, FWP[147]

Maiden Name: Janet Mauretta Johnson

Birth: December 17, 1848; Murray, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Parents: Joel Hills Johnson and Janet Fife

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith;[148] October 9, 1866

Children: Susan Janet (1868), Ellen Mauretta (1871), Sariah Anna (1873), Agnes Maud (1874), Julia Johnson (1875), Priscilla (1877), Editha (1878), Lucy (1880), Margaret Fife (1882), Ruth (1884), Esther (1887), Elias (1889), Leah (1891)

Death: May 21, 1933; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

When the roll of honor is called in the Heavenly Courts, the women whose names will lead all the rest will be the ones who have crowned wife and motherhood with the jewels fashioned out of their own hopes, ambitions, gifts, and love.

Enough cannot be said in the praise and appreciation for those courageous pioneer mothers who, shoulder-to-shoulder with their husbands, blazed the trails and willingly faced privation and hardship, even death, to build up the waste places of our great country for the coming generations. The subject of this sketch was one of these pioneer women.

Her great-grandfather Ezekiel Johnson gave his life for his country at Bunker Hill; her grandfather, also Ezekiel, was a western pioneer turning the first soil where Chicago now stands; her father, Joel H. Johnson, was one of Utah’s most prominent colonizers and pioneers building up all different places. He was the author of over 1000 hymns, among them “High on a Mountain Top” and “All Hail the Glorious Day.”[149]

Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith had a natural heritage in courage, thrift, and industry. In a log cabin in the growing city of Salt Lake, she first saw the light of day December 17, 1848, six weeks after her parents had crossed the plains.[150] Her mother Janet Fife Johnson was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, and was a true convert to Mormonism.[151]

In 1850, her father went to southern Utah and started to build up the town of Parowan. Then later he moved twelve miles south where there was a spring to make a farm for himself, and there he built a large fort for the protection of his and the other settlers families, on account of Indian depredations, which was called Fort Johnson. He also established a herd for the protection of his [cattle] and the cattle of the settlers of Parowan and Cedar City.[152] Janet says in writing a sketch of her life:

It was here I spent my happy childhood days. The valley about six miles long is surrounded by hills. In one end on the brow of a hill, the fort was built overlooking the whole valley. It was a big meadow, and the cattle and sheep could be seen all day. I liked to go with my brothers when they went with the sheep down in the valley below the fort. I would gather wild flowers and pick berries and currants growing plentifully there. My sister Julia and I used to play at hide-and-seek in the big fort. It was two stories high with a big bastion in the corner with port holes to look out for Indians and if necessary, to shoot through. In the center of the fort was a well and a big court, on either side were the living rooms. There were two big gates which were locked at nights.

One of my earliest recollections is when my father hitched up his favorite ox team, Tom and Jerry, to the lumber wagon, and we would all go to Cedar City to church. It was so much fun for we children when they ran down into deep hollows, and how we would cling tight to the chains which were all we had for seats. I remember the basket of eggs and the big crock of butter, Mother would take to market. My first calico dress cost fifty cents a yard, and I thought it was a beauty, and when Mother made me some moccasins out of a buckskin she had bought of an Indian, how dressed up I felt when I marched with the children at a big celebration we had.

As Janet’s father always lived on the frontier, his children did well if they got as much as three or four months schooling a year, but she became very efficient in the arts of carding, spinning, and weaving, as well as the household duties common to the girls. She wove the cloth for all the family clothes and household linen, and when she was married, she wove all the cloth for her linen as well as her trousseau. Her wedding dress was spun from the wool from her father’s sheep herd and dyed in a soft shade of grey.

Janet developed into a beautiful woman. Her complexion was as fair as a lily; her cheeks as red as the rose; her heavy waving hair, which hung to her waist, was as glossy and black as a raven’s wing; and her eyes like Evangeline’s were as black as the berry which grew on the thorn by the wayside. They were large, expressive, happy, and dancing, or serious, earnest eyes, the expression bespeaking her mood. She had a joyous lively disposition, mixed with a religious fervor and a spiritual mindedness, and a beautiful refinement inherited from her parents and imbibed by careful training. She acquired thrift, industry, honesty, and modesty which combined to make the strength of character possessed by this noble, courageous, God-fearing pioneer mother.

Janet had many suitors for her hand in marriage when she became a charming young lady, but none she considered seriously until Jesse N. Smith came to call upon her. He had previously been told by his cousin, George A. Smith, to go to Cedar City and meet Miss Johnson; also others of their mutual friends told him that if he was looking for a wife, he would go a long way and not do better. So when Janet was eighteen years old, he came wooing her. When she saw him coming, she hurriedly changed her dress and came out blushing. He took her for a stroll down into the orchard, and under the spreading apple tree he told love’s old story, and asked for her hand in marriage. Her reply was, “If it is agreeable with your wife Emma.”

They were married October 9, 1866, and lived at Parowan, Utah. This young couple set their sails on the seas of matrimony under much the same conditions as the average pioneer young people of their time; struggling along with poverty, building up the waste places by establishing permanent homes and thriving communities. Her husband was called on a second mission to Denmark. Six weeks after his departure, Janet’s baby Susie was born. During her early married life, Janet tasted sorrow occasioned by the pangs of death, when her second baby, Ellen Mauretta, died at the age of eleven months, and later, little four-year-old Agnes Maud died of whooping cough.

During the summer of 1878 her husband was called with a company of others to explore northeastern Arizona to see what the facilities were in that section of the country for making new homes. Upon returning, it was decided that they would go to northeastern Arizona and build a new home. These were dark days for Janet, being called upon to leave her home, parents, friends, and everything made dear by lifelong associations, and facing she knew not what! Who shall say that it did not take courage and the pioneer spirit to say to her husband, “Yes, I will go with you.” They were six weeks making that long journey facing the storms and extremely cold-midwinter weather of this country, suffering great privations and hardship by traveling, for by this time Janet was mother of five little girls to shelter and keep from the cold. Traveling was a slow moving process by covered wagon and team. On January 16, 1879, they reached Snowflake, the place destined to be their home, her husband having been called by President John Taylor to be president of the Eastern Arizona Stake.

Their first home in Arizona was a wagon box, this being the only shelter until logs could be cut and hauled from the mountains twenty miles away from where their first house was constructed. There were two rooms and a shanty, and they had a shingled roof, being the first house in northern Arizona to have a shingled roof.

On account of his public duties, also his efforts to earn a livelihood working on the railroad to earn money to buy flour, sugar, cloth, etc., Jesse N. Smith was much away from home and could not render very much service around the house, so Janet was left almost entirely to herself with her children. She had practically nothing by way of furniture, having left most of their belongings behind, but instead of sitting down and repining or lamenting over her poverty and being left alone, she, as was her habit, became master of a bad situation. Knowing that this rude structure was the place where she and her family would live for she knew not how many years, she undertook to make it a home. Resourcefulness born of faith, courage, and growing necessity came to her rescue, when she, with the help of her eldest daughter, Susan, furnished her house with chairs, tables, and benches from split logs and slabs, etc. They prepared mortar and plastered over the chinks between the logs, inside and out to keep the cold winds from blowing in.

A natural born homemaker in every sense, she was creative, artistic, clean, and orderly. She never spared her strength for the comfort and well-being of her family, friends, and neighbors. In fact her neighbors were the nearest as well as the remotest people in town.

During the winter of 1880, Apostle Wilford Woodruff of Salt Lake City stayed at her home while sojourning in Arizona, and knowing of the drawbacks and poverty experienced by the pioneer and also knowing that she was left almost entirely to her own resourcefulness and good management, marveling at the beauty and good taste in her home, he said, “Sister Smith, you could make a palace out of a hovel.”

Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

She would give of her substance when she was actually in need. She never had too small an amount to divide with someone else.

For many years, the country had no doctor or trained nurse, so on account of her natural gift for nursing and caring for the sick, Sister Smith was set apart by Apostle John Henry Smith to be a nurse and midwife, and for thirty odd years she was a ministering angel to the sick and afflicted.[153] Being a mother and rearing a family of her own, she has gone many times to calls when she was nearing confinement herself. Night was never too dark nor day too cold, staying away from home as much as three days at a time.[154]

A cook of rare skill, the contents of her larder were often so meager that it might have been likened to Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard; but somehow she always seemed to find enough to make such good wholesome things as it seemed out of nothing (adding more water to the soup, etc.).

She was a helpful, dutiful wife, a loving, devoted mother. Notwithstanding her many duties, she always had time to teach and train her children, instilling into them habits of industry and helpfulness. They were given early in life daily small tasks to perform, which were increased as the children grew, and each learned through her watchful care the homely duties necessary for the right bringing up of children, for although as a loving self-sacrificing mother she never spoiled or pampered her children. She was ever diligent in instilling into them the same rare qualities prominent in herself and husband. She was also careful about moral training, teaching them by example and precept to be honest and upright and loyal citizens.

As well as being so active in civic work, she was a very active member of her church and held a number of positions of trust. She was a woman of great and abiding faith in God and in the efficacy of prayer. In her work as a nurse many persons and little ones have been healed through the power of her prayers.

Janet was the mother of thirteen children, twelve daughters and one son. All of which grew to maturity except for the two who died in infancy.

Janet cared for her aged mother during the last fifteen years of her life, six years of which “Little Grandma” was helpless, but never did a mother receive more kind and tender care. Janet held the distinction of having more sons-in-law than any woman in the country.

For twenty-five years this wonderful pioneer lady was a widow, her honored and respected husband having died on June 5, 1906, and since that time she was bereft of several daughters as they were married and left.

Aunt Janet was a woman possessed of great force of character. She never started something unless she finished it, and her resourcefulness, determination, ambition, industry, and skill made her a very forceful character.

She was a splendid gardener, providing her table with vegetables and always plenty to spare to her more unfortunate neighbors. Her beds of rare and beautiful flowers were known and praised all over the countryside. It was a puzzle that friends could not solve why there were always so many “spare ribs” in Aunt Janet’s home raised pigs. She clothed her family from their hats and hoods to their shoes and stockings. She was the milliner for Snowflake and surrounding towns for years. She would take the straw from the threshing floor; through the process of sorting the good clean long straws, those of about the same size were gathered; then the joints were broken off and the straws were dampened in a wet towel so they wouldn’t split.[155] They then were braided. When there was enough braided, it was sewn into a hat which was dampened and placed upon a hat block where it was shaped and pressed, then it was hung in a barrel over the blaze and fumes of burning sulphur to bleach it, then it was lined and trimmed. These were really beautiful as she could make different kinds of fancy braid and was very artistic and tasteful in shaping and trimming them. With her awl, hammer, and last, she always lengthened the lives of the family’s shoes by keeping them in repair, and she would also mend shoes for the neighbors.

In 1887 her husband bought the place belonging to Joseph Fish. This was a five-room house, two log and three rooms of frame. They lived in this house till 1911 when Aunt Janet built a modern five-room bungalow in which she lived very comfortably.

During the last thirty-five years of her life, Aunt Janet was afflicted with rheumatism and greatly suffered, but she maintained the independence of her former years by doing her own work with the help of some of her grandchildren. When she became too lame to walk, she spent her time reading and piecing quilts for her grandchildren. Then the time came when the sight of those beautiful, dark eyes became dimmed so she could no longer read or sew, the time went rather slowly for her, but she could still tell stories of the pioneer days and sing to the amusement of the little folks.

Being the third wife of Jesse N. Smith, she was a true advocate of the principle of polygamy, and taught her children to love each member of the large family. She had been a woman with outstanding faith in God and her religion, inculcating it into the hearts of her children through her teachings and example. Through all her suffering, her joys and trials, her strenuous work and hardships, she always turned to the One in whom she had absolute trust and confidence. She delighted in reading her patriarchal blessing wherein she was promised her posterity would be as numerous as the sands of the seashore. She died May 21, 1933. As of 1965 her posterity numbers over 1000.

Ellis and Boone:

RFC submitted a sketch to the FWP on May 14, 1937, for Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith which was written by Leah Smith Udall. That sketch and this one follow the same subjects almost paragraph by paragraph (and often use the same phrases and sentences), but the FWP sketch was expanded and completely rewritten for PWA. It seems impossible to know whether RFC or someone else did the rewriting (including rewriting the direct quotes from Janet Smith). It may be that Leah Udall rewrote this sketch because it contains words that RFC seldom used.[156]

Nevertheless, with the rewriting, it becomes clear that when Janet married Jesse N. Smith, she was entering into polygamy. The original FWP sketch omitted this detail and read: “So when she was eighteen he came wooing her. She was barefooted but hastily dressed her feet when she saw him coming. He took her for a stroll down the path to her father’s orchard and under the spreading apple tree told her the old, old story. They were married Oct. 9, 1866, and lived at Parowan, Utah.” By all accounts this proved to be a happy marriage for both, and it was Janet, with her five little daughters, that accompanied Jesse N. Smith on his first move into Arizona.

When Leah Smith Udall wrote the FWP sketch for her mother, she concluded it with this poem, expressing love and loyalty to her mother:

If I could give you just one gift,

I would try to make your dreams come true,

I would see that my life was so spent

that I would be a monument

Commemorating you.

Mary Ann Mitchell Smith

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP[157]

Maiden Name: Mary Ann “Lannie” Mitchell

Birth: February 10, 1863; Parowan, Iron Co., Utah

Parents: William Cooke Mitchell[158] and Mary Ann Holmes

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith Jr.; October 14, 1880

Children: Jesse Nathaniel III (1882), Elias Mitchell (1884), Mary (1886), William Cooke (1889), Emma (1892), Moroni West (1894), Erastus Snow (1896), Silas Aikens (1898), Samuel Cooper (1901), Joseph Holmes (1904), Sarah (1907)

Death: March 14, 1949; Virden, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico

Burial: Parowan, Iron Co., Utah

William Cooke Mitchell and Mary Ann Holmes were married October 24, 1856. It was in this home that Mary Ann Mitchell (Lannie) was born February 10, 1863, the third of seven children. The joys and sorrows of this home, made lasting impressions on the life of “Little Annie,” for so she was called to distinguish her from her mother. Many were the object lessons that she received to bear fruits in later years. She was verily born a pioneer.

The one thing she did not realize was the hardship of pioneer privations because before she was old enough to suffer these things, her father was reasonably well fixed. The year she turned four, he traded his place in the fort for a log house located on one of the lots just laid off outside the fort. Soon thereafter he built a brick house, one of the first in Parowan.

Mary Ann coined for herself a new name early in childhood. She was called “Little Annie” but when she tried to say her name there were too many syllables, and she could only articulate “Lannie.” The childish effort was so cute that the family quickly adopted the contraction, and it remained with her through life: all her life she was known as “Lannie.”

Her second and third years were spent in the home of her grandfather Bosnell who lived at Nephi, Utah.[159] The family moved there to look after the father who was laid up with rheumatism. . . . She still has vivid memories of the courage her father had in taking the “cupping” treatment for his rheumatism without anesthetic. An instrument called scarfire was placed on his hip or thigh and held firm while the knives slashed the flesh. Then an alcohol cup was filled and emptied; the remaining fumes were set afire and the cup pressed tightly over the perforated flesh. When the flames went out, a vacuum was created which drew the stagnant blood from the wound.[160]

A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, firm's advertisement for cupping instruments, including a scarificator, top center, c. 1891. Photo courtesy of Ellis Collection.

At the age of seven, she started school and was more fortunate than many children of her day because she was able to attend the winter terms of school regularly. She enjoyed her school very much and was an apt student.

When she was nine years old the tragedy of a lifetime came into their home. Her mother became an invalid. Lannie became the little mother of the family. Of course help was provided, but the girl felt that she must mother her brothers and sisters, especially the little two-year-old sister. She became so used to caring for the children that even after her mother died and her father’s other wife came into the family she still felt responsible for the family. She always felt the tenderness of a daughter for her stepmother who showed so much consideration for her in her grief and later her effort to help with the children and work.

Lannie’s home life was marked by sentimental idealism. She cherished the tenderest memory of her mother. As death came, mother called daughter to her bedside and talked of her life and its failures. She made suggestions to the girl concerning marriage relations that would come to her sometime, advising her to devote her life to the comfort and well-being of her husband. The deep impression of this interview guided her throughout her life, causing her to consider the feelings of her husband sometimes at her own expense. But even deeper was her devotion to her father. During all those years of his wife’s sickness, he had only the tenderest care for Lannie. Attributes she remembers in him were tenderness for his children; his beautiful voice and ability to play the violin; order in his personal effects; care of property, tools, etc.; having fine horses and plenty to make his family comfortable. He played the violin in the dance orchestra, and she was permitted to go with him as a child even though she could only tend babies for women who cared to dance. It was sufficient to be there and see him play.

Her courtship was a triangle love affair. One young man loved her, and she was attached [attracted] to him while another young man had more serious intentions toward her which she was not sure [she] reciprocated. Finally after much anxiety on her part, advice from her elders, and attention from both suitors, she consented to become the bride of Jesse Nathaniel Smith Jr. He had been to college a year and had some other accomplishments which won her. Thus at the early age of seventeen, her beautiful childhood life came abruptly to an end: her husband was only nineteen. She quit her last term of school early to make her trousseau with the help of her stepmother, Hulda Dalton Mitchell, who was an expert dressmaker.

They were married October 14, 1880 in the St. George Temple. Her father and Aunt Hulda accompanied the young folks. That was the last thrill she had from hearing her father’s beautiful bass voice. In the temple service he participated in the singing.[161] The sacredness of the occasion, coupled with the tenderness she felt for him whom she was soon to leave, so affected her that she remembered the occasion as almost heavenly.

Then she became the pioneer. Three weeks after their marriage, this young couple loaded what belongings they had and the remaining effects of his father’s into a couple of wagons and followed his family to Arizona where [his father] had been called to preside over the Eastern Stake of Zion. This was a sad parting for the thought of leaving all she held dear to go to an unsettled country was a test of her courage. It was now that she drew upon that heritage that was hers. She would be true to her husband and would willingly cast her lot wherever he chose even on the frontier of civilization. But how many borders of civilization she was to help build up she little knew!

Their route led them around through Bear Flat, Panguitch, Kanab, and over the Buckskin Mountain to Lee’s Ferry. Jesse’s thirteen-year-old brother, Silas, and a boy, Johnny Lister, drove the second wagon. For three weeks, these youngsters traveled alone over the five hundred mile wasteland to their new home. At Lee’s Ferry, they crossed the mighty Colorado. It was a thrill to the young wife, but she could not stand to let her husband cross without her.

They arrived at Snowflake, Arizona, just as winter set in. A wagon box was a poor house compared with a comfortable brick home, but Lannie made no complaint to living in one the first year of their married life. They had their meals with Jesse’s brother Joseph W. and wife, Nellie Marsden, who welcomed them into their log house. Jesse and Lannie had no time to build as they spent the winter teaching school.

As cold weather came on next winter, a fireplace was started in one end of the front room of their new log house. James C. Owens of Woodruff laid it up of adobes that had been frozen but which appeared to have been dried out. He reached the ceiling when he noticed some of them softening, and he thought that a fire in the fireplace would dry them out. Jesse went out to get wood and Lannie crawled under the trellises and whatnot to start the fire. As she blew the flickering fire, Mr. Owens called from above, “Look out!” She dodged back just in time to escape being caught by the avalanches of mud that was to have been the fireplace. Then surged up in her the disappointment that she could not control, and she burst into tears. It was a queer sight that met Jesse as he returned with the wood. There stood Mr. Owens trying to console his sobbing wife who insisted that she was not hurt, she was just heartbroken at the thought of not having a chimney to the fireplace so they could keep warm. Mr. Owens said he would build one of rock, which Jesse hastened to haul, and the house was completed—and Lannie was comforted.

Then came motherhood. Jesse Nathaniel III, her firstborn, came to bless their home, September 27, 1882. He was a healthy, robust baby, but when eight months old, he became sick with stomach trouble and bowel complaint. He never overcame the effects of this sickness but grew slowly and was always weakly. The second son, Elias Mitchell, came sixteen months after, was healthy and strong, and was soon larger than little Jesse.

That spring Lannie’s sister, Sarah, came on a visit. She stayed all summer and was a real help and comfort to her. Sarah was courted by John Williams whom she consented to marry. As Lannie had not been home since her marriage, it was decided she should make the trip back to Parowan with Sarah to help her get ready for marriage. What joy those six weeks in the home of her childhood were to Lannie. After making preparations for Sarah, Aunt Hulda again fitted Lannie out with clothing for herself and babies, and the three returned to Snowflake. Thus another parting took place which was to last this time for twenty-six years.

Jesse and Lannie went with a company of others to Mexico to escape religious persecution because of polygamy. Jesse had married his second wife Nancy Ann Freeman and because polygamy was not allowed in the United States now, they went to Mexico where there was no law against it.[162] Religious persecution caused his father to advise the young couple to join a company going to Old Mexico as he was a public officer, teaching school, which made him a target for ill will. They had been scarcely four and a half years in their first pioneer settlement. They left February 10, 1885, Lannie’s birthday, going by way of St. Johns, Nutrioso, and Luna Valley. The company camped near La Asunción, but many of them pushed on to a site on the Piedras Verdes River above Casas Grandes. This was another winter in wagon boxes and tents, and the sources of income were very scarce. Many contracted malaria fever, among them Lannie. She was sick with the disease till within three weeks of her third child’s birth. Little Mary was born puny and had difficulty gaining vitality.

Lannie’s fourth “home” was a tent on the Tinaja Wash out from Juárez, the town on the river.[163] While in Juárez, she had begun what turned out to be her occupation for years, making butter. She was up as early as 3 a.m. to have the butter churned and molded before the heat of the day. Then her husband got the job of caring for the Church herd of cattle on the Tinaja, with Lyman Wilson. Each family had a tent until they built a two-room house, each woman using one room of the house and her own tent. She loved the beauties of nature that she saw there. But this home was only to be a temporary one, as the water of the wash dried up and they had to move the stock.

Home number five was a little valley in the mountains called Corrales where her husband took the herd. A group of settlers went there but moved on to Cave Valley leaving the one family alone. Jesse asked for consideration [discussion of their situation], and Erastus Snow called a group to move to Corrales. Some Mexicans had been converted and had joined the colonies so each family was asked to look after one. Lannie drew a half-grown boy. It was here that she learned so efficiently the art of making cheese and butter. The herd was supposed to be dry, but when some of the cows had calves, she was given permission to make cheese, which she did in a tub. She also made butter using tin pans to “set” the milk in. After giving up the herd, this family joined another, Franklin Spencer’s, and bought a cheese vat with which they made cheese for all the neighborhood. Wearying of the drudgery, the Spencers sold out and Lannie had the burden of making the cheese alone, besides helping to milk the cows. It was under these conditions that her fourth child was born in a one-room lumber house. This was a boy, William Cooke, named for Lannie’s father.

Home number six was in the town of Pacheco near the ranch. It was another one-room house. Jesse and Lannie were asked to come there and teach the school. . . . Lannie took her four babies to school; the two older ones attended classes and the two younger ones entertained themselves with paper and pencil or napped on the bench near their mother. That winter, 1891, Jesse N. was made bishop of the Pacheco Ward. . . .

During the half dozen years Lannie lived at Colonia Pacheco, she gave birth to three children and buried two. Emma, the fifth child, seemed to come to relieve her sister, for three months later, Mary took diphtheria and died after six weeks of suffering.[164] Moroni West was the next child born. Just prior to the birth of Erastus Snow, her husband had been sick and the overwork had weakened the mother. The baby’s life ebbed out.[165] The mother’s strength gradually rallied until she could again assume the responsibilities in the home.

Before the end of this year, the family moved down out of the mountains into the more prosperous valley colonies. They thought there would be better educational facilities and that another type of work would bring a better living. Jesse bought land, and Lannie moved out on the farm, living in a small adobe house. Here her eighth child was born, Silas Aikens, July 2, 1898. That winter her husband was called to the Gila Valley for a short-term Home Mission. During his absence, Mexican neighbors took advantage of the women and children and robbed them of much of the crop that was stacked away from the house.

And now Lannie was to have a home. They built a two-room brick house in town and began building for the future. But the demands for the large family and payments on the farm required more income, so Jesse took a freighting contract, hauling lumber from the saw mill up near Pacheco down off the mountain and then to the rail head. So Lannie was called upon to give up her home. Her oldest sons were able to drive teams, her husband needed her company, and she could save much expense by cooking for the men. She spent the summer of 1899 in a lumber house at the foot of the mountains where the wind would blow a gale most of the time it seemed. Still there was no rest for the family; having finished the contract, the family and freight teams were moved to Naco, just across the line from Bisbee, Arizona. Here living in a tent, Lannie continued to cook for the hands for a while but had to give it up. Here her ninth child was born in July 1901. And then the family started back home to Dublán. But they were destined to another delay. For three months, they stayed at Colonia Morelos while the older boys hauled ore from the mines nearby to Douglas, Arizona. And in the dead of winter, they arrived home. The brick house had been used for storing wheat and was a veritable mousetrap. By laborious effort, it was cleaned up and was Lannie’s haven for the next twelve years.

She fixed up her home . . . and at last the pioneer had the joy of living in comparative comfort. But during these years death stalked again into the home, and two more little ones came to bless it. Elias, in vigorous young manhood, just passed his twentieth birthday, was taken with diphtheria.[166] Then Joseph Holmes came to give comfort and solace to the sad hearts. Two years and a half later, the three youngest boys took the measles, and Lannie, who was weakened by serious bowel complaint, took full care of them. The family was in Salt Lake City on business. Cooper caught cold, took pneumonia and his life was despaired of. At this time, poor Lannie went to bed prematurely with her last baby. She lapsed into unconsciousness, and many thought she was dead, but her oldest son, giving instructions for temporary relief, hastened to Casas Grandes and secured the services of Dr. Gay. By morning, Lannie was still alive and a baby girl was born. Tiny and frail, she lived about eight months and was given the tenderest care and love, but her little spirit could not stay.[167]

Then came better times. Each of the children went to high school at the Church Academy at Colonia Juárez, except Emma. William Cooke was called on a mission to the interior of Mexico and served his church from July 4, 1909, to September 3, 1911. . . .

Mary Ann "Lannie" Mitchell Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith Memorial Home, Snowflake.

In October 1910, her brothers sent for her to come home as her father was growing feeble and asked continuously for “Lannie.” They sent her the money for railroad fare, and she took her baby boy and went. What a homecoming after twenty-six years! While she was away, her husband bought her an organ.

Then came the Mexican Revolution and all the anxiety it caused Lannie and her family. But the saddest of all was the sickness of her husband. When he was freighting at the foot of the mountain, a flying board had hit him on the back of the neck, and he had been a sufferer ever since. In the spring of 1912, he became bedfast. During those dark days of Mexican troubles, he was unable to be of service to his family or his community. He became weaker and weaker until unconsciousness took him from [the] anxiety [he had] for his family. At last death claimed him on July 13, 1912.

Within two weeks after his burial, orders came to leave Mexico, and the Mormons had to flee without even getting to take their possessions.[168] The rebel army had confiscated the firearms of the “Mormons,” and it was feared that they would proceed to plunder and kill the people. Threats were definitely made against certain individuals.

. . . The women and children and a few men were ordered to pack what they could take in a trunk or two and roll up their bedding in readiness to leave. With terrible loneliness, this poor widow gathered what she could and bade farewell to the rest. With all her children except William and Jesse, she was bundled into a crowded train and left the scenes of pioneer hardship in Mexico. Her son Moroni went to look after her. The refugees were given temporary shelter in the car barns and a lumber yard in El Paso. Moroni says:

We were at the store (station) in good time with our trunk and bedroll. The train was delayed. More delay. All the weary night we sat by the trunk and watched. Tired mothers with nursing babes, drowsy children separated from anxious parents, elderly people sagging in younger arms for support, young couples in lingering handclasp, timid folk shrinking from an unknown fear, and strong, manly souls unafraid.

At last the dawn and new hope and the train to carry us out to El Paso which was synonymous with big, safe United States. Most of the women and girls found accommodation in the chair cars, but what men there were along, and the boys rode on top of trunks and bed rolls in stuffy box cars.

It was too much for Lannie with the burden of her grief and her ill-health, the confusion, the hard ground, and the flies—she who had given her life to dire hardship. She had some cash from her father’s estate, so she decided to go to her husband’s people until things could be settled and she could return home. After an interminable trip on the train with waits in between, she, with her five children, arrived back to her first pioneer home, Snowflake. Her husband’s people made her welcome. Silas D. let her live in a couple of lumber rooms at the back of his house, and everyone helped in one way or another to make life bearable.

Conditions in Mexico became worse, and a couple of weeks later, Jesse and William came out with the men of the colonies on horseback. Their property was listed with the United States in case of future adjudication. Seeing that return was impractical, Lannie and her children bought a couple of city lots on which to build. She lived in Snowflake two years. She ran her sister-in-law’s notion store one year, then rented a part of Phoebe Webb’s house to live in. The boys did what they could to earn a living. Then her brothers sent her money again to come home.

With the same children who came out of Mexico with her, she went [to Utah], arriving in June 1914, to her own family and childhood home. Still with the spirit of the pioneer, she bought a section of an old wash that ran near her brothers’ homes and built a home that stands as a monument to the thrift and industry of this widow and her children.

Now her life was devoted to bringing up her boys and educating them. But frail little Silas was taken away. He had resolved to work his way through the Cedar Branch of the Agricultural College, and bravely and heroically he was doing it, until relatives called attention to the serious appearance of his condition and his mother had him come home. It was found that he was suffering in the last stages of diabetes, and he died three days later.[169] This was a blow that nearly broke the poor mother’s heart, but he had wasted no time in complaining, and she could not see that he was any sicker than he had been most of his life.

Then as if Lannie had not had enough suffering, the World War came and took her three eligible sons. It was a sad life for the lonely mother. But her prayers for their safety were answered, and they came back unharmed. Her daughter was married now. Two of her boys went to college in Logan; the youngest went to live and attend high school in Snowflake where William was teaching school. So their home life was broken up. She spent that year with her daughter but the next year she reunited with her sons in Logan. When two of the boys received their degrees, obtained positions and married, and her youngest son was called on a mission to the Central States, she went back to Arizona and kept house for her oldest son, happy in the thought that someone needed her. When Holmes had completed his mission, he wrote and asked his mother to meet him in Chicago. She stood the trip well and enjoyed the city. Again she was with this son to help him through college. In 1933 he married, and the mother decided to come back to Snowflake where William built a nice little apartment for her in connection with his comfortable home.[170] There she lived the remainder of her days surrounded by friends and loved ones, many of whom had known her since she came to Snowflake as a bride. She died in Virden, New Mexico, March 14, 1949.

Ellis and Boone:

The family’s short sojourn in Snowflake after leaving Mexico in 1912 is documented with son Moroni’s enlistment in the Arizona National Guard unit in Snowflake.[171] Because he was born in Mexico, he was not liable for the draft during World War I, but the Church was generally supportive of the federal government’s involvement in the European war and encouraged enlistment.[172]

Both of Jesse N. Smith Jr.’s wives, after forty years of widowhood, died in Virden, New Mexico. Virden was established by refugees from Mexico, and Lannie’s daughter, Emma, was living at Virden with her husband, Archibald D. Payne. Presumably Lannie was with her daughter at the time of her death. The family took her body to Parowan, Utah, for burial.

Nancy Ann Freeman Smith

Henry Lunt Smith[173]

Maiden Name: Nancy Ann Freeman

Birth: December 26, 1863; Washington, Washington Co., Utah

Parents: John Woodruff Freeman and Sarah Adeline Collins

Marriage: Jesse Nathaniel Smith Jr.; September 11, 1884

Children: Albert Collins (1885), John Woodruff (1888), Francis Claire (1890), Henry Lunt (1892), Edith (1894), Alvin Nathaniel (1895), Hyrum Heaton (1898)

Death: October 29, 1941; Virden, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico

Burial: Virden, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico

My mother, Nancy Ann Freeman, was born December 26, 1863 at Washington, Washington County, Utah. She is the daughter of John Woodruff Freeman and Sarah Adeline Collins Freeman.

They were from sturdy pioneer stock and answered the call from the First Presidency to go to the southern part of Utah to help colonize the territory later known as Washington and St. George. They, with others, arrived at their destination about May 5, 1857, having been called at the April conference held just previously. John Woodruff Freeman, her father, was called and ordained a bishop of the Washington Ward on November 28, 1869, and served until 1877 when he was called to go and help settle northern Arizona in Snowflake.

Nancy Ann Freeman Smith. Photo courtesy of Norman Gardner.

They had a great deal of difficulty, and endured many hardships, in making the trip to Arizona. They crossed the mighty Colorado at Lee’s Ferry. They had to swim their cattle across and lost quite a number which were unable to reach the opposite bank. Then, as they made that hazardous trip from the river to their destination, they experienced dry camps and had to be continuously on the lookout for Indians, and many other trials and hardships which, had they all been recorded, would make a very interesting book.

Mother was the second child and oldest daughter of the family, and consequently had to take a great deal of responsibility in helping her mother with the other children, as well as in many cases taking a hand in helping her father.

Her move to Snowflake at about fourteen years of age made her second experience in pioneering. Even though she was born in Washington, their lives smacked of real pioneer experiences, as they had to combat the Indians, as well as the elements of nature such as endeavoring to keep the dam in the Virgin River, from which they watered their crops.

The Freemans fit right into the scheme of pioneering in Arizona and were among the prominent families of the community. Mother entered school, and her teacher was none other than Jesse Nathaniel Smith Jr., the man who was eventually to become her husband. She had sparkling black eyes and always wore her hair and clothes attractively. Being an excellent seamstress, she always made her own clothes and drew the admiration of many of the young men of the community on account of her extraordinary ability. Her outstanding ability as a seamstress also proved to be of great value to her in later life.

On August 3, 1886, her mother passed away in childbirth, and she had to take care of and mother her youngest brother.[174]

She was wooed by her teacher and suitor, and on September 11, 1884, she was married for time and eternity to Jesse Nathaniel Smith Jr. in the St. George Temple. She thus became the second wife, he having previously married Mary Ann Mitchell of a pioneer family in Parowan, Utah.[175]

In the year 1885, another pioneering experience came to her. On account of the severe persecutions heaped upon those who had been called to participate in the principle of plural marriage, Jesse N. with his two families, along with several others, were called to pioneer in a foreign country, Old Mexico, to the south.

On their way, while camped at or near the Corralitos in Old Mexico, she gave birth to her first child who lived only three or four days and was buried “somewhere out in the prairie” near Corralitos. This was a severe trial and sorrow to her, because they would not be able to find again the exact spot where this tiny infant was buried.

Mother had many trials and heartbreaking experiences in her life. On arriving in Mexico, they went up into the Sierra Madre mountains, to help establish colonies up there, and they settled in the little town called Colonia Pacheco. In Mexico, they had many hardships, moving into a strange land, among a strange people, with a new language. Father was made bishop of the Pacheco Ward, where he served until they moved down into one of the lower colonies known as Colonia Dublán, 1896.

Nancy Ann Freeman Smith with her children (left to right), first row: Alvin Nathaniel; second row: Nancy, Edith, Hyrum Heaton, John Woodruff; third row: Henry Lunt, Francis Claire. Photo courtesy of Norman Gardner.

While living in Pacheco, Mother had four children born to her, then, after moving to Colonia Dublán, two more were born, making her children seven in all. She reared six children to maturity, and they were very fine and upstanding. She was a wonderful mother and did an outstanding job in teaching and rearing her family of five boys and one girl.

Times were hard, and it took some time to get established. This is where Mother’s ingenuity and ability came into play. She took in sewing to help support herself and her children. Later she got a job as a seamstress in the Jorgensen Tailor Shop and worked there for many years and did excellent work.

In the church house there was a bench known as the Smith bench, for it was there you would find Mother and her six children every Sunday.

Father was buried on July 14, 1912, and just two weeks later, on July 28, all the Mormons were driven out of Mexico.[176] Thus she was forced to leave her home again, this time returning to the United States. She was a widow now, but her children were older and able to take care of her in this situation. Of course she had to leave everything she had, as the women and children and elderly people were hastily loaded into box cars, cattle cars, and what have you, and were shipped to El Paso, Texas. The government in Mexico had become very unstable on account of so many internal revolutions.

Her son, Francis Claire, was married and living in El Paso at this time, and her oldest son, John, was living in Benson, Arizona. As soon as we could all get together, Mother as usual, drew all her children around her, and we established ourselves in El Paso until such time as we could do better, as we didn’t care to go to our folks and become a burden on them, even though we knew we would have been welcome.

After three years’ time, we purchased some land on the upper Gila River in New Mexico and assisted in establishing a new community there known as Virden.

In 1914 while in El Paso, Mother’s family began to be taken from her. In July 1914 John, the eldest son, was mysteriously shot and killed in El Paso, which was a terrible shock to her.[177] On December 25, 1918, her next to the youngest son, Alvin, died of the flu in the Eastern States Mission, having been out just a year. On August 22, 1920, her youngest son, Hyrum, died as a result of an operation. In April 1937 her only daughter Edith died of a heart attack, leaving six little children. In December of the same year, her son Claire died as a result of a stroke. That left only one son, Henry L., and she feared constantly lest something would happen to him and she would be left all alone, but on October 29, 1941, after a short illness, she passed peacefully away in her own little home in Virden, New Mexico.

Few mothers have had more courage, more faith, more ability, more endurance, and more love of her family and friends than did NANCY ANN FREEMAN SMITH. At the time of her passing, her posterity was seven children, twenty grandchildren, and now she has a numerous posterity.

Ellis and Boone:

Nancy Freeman Smith’s surviving son, Henry Lunt Smith, came with his mother out of Mexico in 1912 and married Beatrice Richins on August 16, 1912, at El Paso. Their first child, a boy, died while they were still living at El Paso. They lived in Virden, New Mexico, for many years where he held various positions in the Church saying that whatever position he held was the best job he ever had.[178] He became second counselor to Arizona Temple President Arwell Lee Pierce in 1953 and relocated to Mesa. He served until 1960 and wrote, “Those were the happiest seven years of my life as we had many wonderful experiences, and I am sure we were successful in bringing joy and happiness to hundreds of honest souls whose lives we had the privilege of touching.”[179] Henry Lunt Smith, author of this sketch, died September 20, 1978, at Mesa.

Sarah Ellen Marsden Smith

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP[180]

Maiden Name: Sarah Ellen “Nellie” Marsden

Birth: December 16, 1860; Provo, Utah Co., Utah

Parents: William Marsden and Sariah Scoville[181]

Marriage: Joseph West Smith;[182] November 5, 1879

Children: Joseph West (1881), Nellie (1882), Margaret (1884), Leonora (1886), Edith (1888), Jesse Marsden (1891), Alice (1894), Roxie (1896), Sariah (1898), Marie (1901), Lawrence Nelson (1904), Clarissa (1906)

Death: August 11, 1924;[183] Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Few women in the early days of Snowflake had keener vision, more ability for systematic, efficient planning and home management than did “Aunt Nellie.” Thus she was lovingly known in later life by her friends, associates, and the women whom she presided over in the Snowflake Stake Relief Society for over twelve years and those of the Snowflake Ward where she served as counselor to the local president for fifteen years out of the sixty-three years of her life.

Through her vision, she prevented accidents, sickness, and anti-social problems; she [averted] waste of time, energy, and money; she prevented fault-finding and many other destructive wrongs. With the same foresight she brought forth friends, physical comforts, financial remuneration, mental and spiritual uplift, and progressive projects for her family and community. Just so with her systematic planning and home management, she showed exceptional ability in leadership. She could see ahead the solution of the smallest details of homemaking and project work before it was presented to others. In so doing it kept order where chaos might have been; smooth running home life instead of contention. She lubricated her leadership with love.

Her life was so clearly associated with her church and organization work that it is impossible to tell her story without bringing in her religion.

Nellie M. Smith was born December 16, 1860, at Provo, Utah where her family had settled after the journey across the plains in 1855. Her father, William Marsden, was an emigrant from England in 1840 landing in New York, later living for a time in Nauvoo, Illinois.[184]

William was a cotton-spinner by trade. For this reason, he was called by Latter-day Saint leader, Brigham Young, to move to Parowan, Utah, and establish a cotton factory. This he did. The machinery was constructed from iron material left by Johnston’s army at Camp Floyd.

Thus Parowan became Nellie’s childhood home town. Her mother Sariah Scovil, died when Nellie was only seven years old, but at the kind hands of a stepmother, Aunt Alice, who was soon brought into the family, she was taught thrift, besides the arts of homemaking. Her training included sewing, knitting, cooking, housekeeping, and immaculately clean butter making, and home remedies for common ailments.

"Nellie Smith." Photo courtesy of Roma Lee Hiatt.

Nellie’s stepmother was all that could be asked for in a mother. A story is told of Nellie when she first learned to knit. Aunt Alice said, “Nellie, hold up your stocking and let me look at it.” Nellie held the stocking up. It was long enough to start the heel, but she hadn’t narrowed the leg to fit the ankle. Aunt Alice exclaimed, “That’s a pretty stocking, no shape to it.” “Well,” said Nellie, “it’s a poor leg that can’t shape its own stocking.” However, that excuse would not do for Aunt Alice. Nellie had to unravel the stocking and do it over. Such good training in knitting was valuable to her in [adult] life; she not only knit stockings and mittens for her own family and grandchildren, but for the “buddies” during the World War.[185] She was appointed by the governor as Red Cross executive for Navajo County, and a part of their program was to knit and sew for the soldier boys. The Relief Societies in Navajo County made 186 knitted articles, and it is doubtful if any one woman did more of that knitting than Nellie.

So it was with Nellie’s education, the practical training was emphasized more than the scholastic, and though she attended school three months each winter, at a cost of eight dollars per term, yet the use of the multiplication table and figures were learned in practical use in her father’s store. The computations learned there taught her to be accurate and quick in figures all during her life.

Nellie was so good-natured, cheerful, and dependable in the store that her services were in constant demand; people liked to trade with her, and the family leaned heavily on her abilities.

Nellie married Joseph W. Smith, November 5, 1879, in St. George Utah just six days before leaving for Snowflake, Arizona, where she was to make her future home. Then followed her first experiences in the hardships of pioneer life. Having grown up in a home of plenty for those days, she was brought to realize what it meant to leave father, mother, relatives, and home comforts and all for love and religion. She and her husband, now traveling by team, had their few belongings, all their earthly possessions, in a wagon box.

The second morning out, she called “blue morning” as snow had fallen during the night. It was cold. The horses got stuck in trying to cross a small creek. They had to get help to be pulled out. It wasn’t such a bright outlook, with a six-weeks journey ahead; however, the long ride was finally ended. It led over the Buckskin Mountain, Johnson’s Ferry, and the dreaded Lee’s Backbone. There was a little store at the ferry where Nellie bought a milk strainer and a small clock, two much needed articles.

The trip, though long and wearisome, finally came to an end, nor did it discourage her on slow travel, for during her life she made three round trips by team and wagon to visit her folks in Parowan before the railroad came to speed up travel. She made many trips back there by rail in later years, after they became more prosperous. The long days of these journeys were spent in knitting or crocheting, so that no time was lost.

Life in Arizona was too much of a sacrifice for some of those who were called here.[186] The weaklings returned to Utah; only the stalwarts remained. Joseph W. and Nellie M. were among those who stayed. They, like many others of those early settlers, began clearing the brush from the desert lands preparatory to building a home. They began to lay the foundation for permanent living. Possessed of a heritage bequeathed by a long line of sturdy ancestors, they could not be daunted by hardship, sacrifice, or privation, but set to work at once to accumulate means to own a farm, a city lot, and build a home. It was not long before Joseph W., with the help of kindly neighbors who would exchange work, had a new log house ready for them to move into.

There is always considerable joy in moving into a new house, whether the building be crude and humble or a palace so long as it fills the needs of a home. So it was that Nellie had her first thrill of a new home. The move came about the time of Joseph’s twenty-first birthday, so to commemorate the day, Nellie called in help of the neighbors to prepare a big supper. A long table was constructed and all sat down to a “scrumptious” meal. When it was over, while the women washed the dishes, the men fixed seats from lumber and placed them all around the room. All gathered back in, and the party continued. Each one gave a part. The impromptu program consisted of singing, recitations, harmonica music, and fiddle playing.

One of the outstanding events of the evening was the rooster game between the two most dignified men present—Jesse N. and Lot Smith. In telling of it Nellie often said, “We laughed until the tears ran down our cheeks, and if anyone overate at the supper, the hearty laugh afterward, relieved his or her indigestion.” A friend in speaking of it said, “It was one of the funniest times we ever had in the early days of Snowflake. I can laugh yet to think how sure Lot Smith was of slapping Jesse N.’s ears in the rooster game but the latter dodged his head up between Lot’s knees so quickly he could never catch him.” This occasion was a good example of Nellie’s urge and ability to entertain. Throughout her life, she dearly loved to prepare big dinners. She brought in the young people and remembered birthdays, never forgetting her husband’s.

At these celebrations, she had the children learn parts and render them. Her hospitality reached outside the family. Because her home was always in order she entertained a good share of the dignitaries who came to town. Among the long list are numbered the president of her church, the governor of the state, bankers, bank inspectors, and many prominent women of the National Women’s Relief Society General Board.

Nellie had three new homes built for her. The second one was a frame one which was remodeled a number of times while she still kept house in it. It was almost built over her head. The third house was a modern cement brick building, her ideal home, but she often remarked that she was not any more thrilled than when she moved into her little, one-roomed log house.

The most tremendous task Nellie accomplished was the raising of her large family. She gave birth to twelve children, three boys and nine girls, ten of whom were raised to maturity. The first of these children, a boy, died twelve days after birth; a little girl, aged four, died from diphtheria, and the oldest daughter died at the birth of her first child.[187] This was a shock and real sorrow to Nellie as she made close companions of her girls. It was her tactful way of gaining their confidence.

When Nellie’s twelfth child was born, she did not immediately recover as she normally should. She became so ill her life was despaired of. The midwife and practical nurses available did everything their limited knowledge could to save her. For the first time in all her childbirths, the Santa Fe Railroad doctor from far away Winslow was called to her assistance. Always in time of sickness and distress, the family supplicated our Heavenly Father’s help, in whom they put full faith and confidence.

The older children remember how, in tears, they were huddled together in prayer in the little back bedroom as they pleaded for their mother’s life. The Priesthood was called to administer to Nellie, and the Relief Society sisters went day after day fasting and in prayer circles held in the little upper prayer room of the Relief Society building. They did not cease to pray until it was made known to one of the sisters, who said: “She will live!” which she did for eighteen years longer.

Only those who have raised a large family know what a constant job it is, especially on meager resources, which she endured for many years. She was the family doctor and nurse, handling all sorts of contagious diseases. She was seamstress making all the family clothing, which included an enormous number of buttonholes required in those days to fasten on the clothing.

Nor was it beneath her dignity to fatten hogs for winter use; make the family laundry soap and bluing; grind wheat on a coffee mill for the flour; feed mail horses in readiness to go on with the US mail her husband contracted to carry; scrub floors, clean house, not only for herself but in public buildings or for a sick neighbor, or a poor old widower, unable to do for himself; draw water from a deep well for home use; act as laborer and business manager, including bread maker for a family of thirteen while her husband served a two-year mission in England.[188] She learned how to fight household pests such as lice, flies, and bed bugs. The latter varmints were plentiful in early days. The logs placed in the new houses were full of them; however, in time, with the liberal use of kerosene and the placing of green bean leaves around the bedposts each night, to be gathered and burned in the morning, finally exterminated the bed bugs.[189]

Sarah Ellen Marsden Smith. Photo courtesy of Carma Smith Heywood.

All these humble tasks did not cast gloom on her sunny disposition. She lived the proverb: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine,” and “Man is that he might have joy.”[190] She loved good, wholesome recreation and enjoyed a good time and hearty laugh with neighbors and friends.

She read good books, enjoyed good music, and sang while she worked. It was singing, she said, that helped her make the biggest adjustment in life, for when a polygamist wife was added to the family and the three parents were forever being hounded by US Marshals, she did not weaken.[191] However hard that adjustment was, she conquered her own feelings. She said in later years whenever trivial annoyances came, she retained her peace of mind by singing hard and long, then she could go on making the sacrifices necessary to develop herself and train her family in the fear of the Lord.

On Christmas, the children were not forgotten in Nellie’s home. At one time when the family was large and the resources few, she worked for weeks before Saint Nick was to arrive getting ready. When the night came, she played Santa Claus filling every stocking in the two families. There were rag dolls and homemade animals made from colored cloth—rabbits, mice, cats, and dogs stuffed with bits of old linen. There were cookies in attractive shapes, such as boys and girls, with molasses candy and parched corn for goodies. It was a wonderful Christmas without one cent being expended for it. Only labor and a light heart were necessary for a Merry Christmas.

One of the pleasing activities of Nellie’s later life was lace making. She crocheted yards of it for trimmings of all household linens and underthings. Her fingers were never idle. She had no leisure hours. Hers was a busy life.

She was a firm believer in the observance of the Lord’s Day. She conscientiously prepared the home, the food, the clothing, and the family on Saturday for the Sabbath—thus keeping the commandment, “And on this day thou shalt do none other thing only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart, . . . that thy joy may be full.”[192]

Living up to slogans was a hobby with Nellie. Here are some she developed, or old ones she adopted:

“Pay your dues first, then you will always have money to pay them.”

“Women should sing more while they work; it will help drive trouble away.”

“Time is the great healer; it cures all wounds.”

“Poverty is no excuse for being dirty or slovenly.”

“Waste not, want not.”

“Be punctual.”

“I’d rather have a backache and have something, than to lie around and have nothing,”

There was nothing mean or deceitful about Nellie. She was frank, wholesome, charitable, and had a firm faith in her religion. She made the best of her circumstances and environment. She did not whimper nor complain when she saw her husband’s life earnings swept away when depression forced the closing of the bank of which he was president.

She was a true woman in every respect and lived the abundant life. When her health began to fail, she resigned her position as stake president of Relief Society. She had endeared herself to all the women of the stake, and they united in sending her flowers and tokens of love. At a union meeting, all the ward organizations through the supervision of the stake officers, did her a great honor. They sent her a beautiful bouquet of white carnations, accompanying it with a shower of cards—one from every woman in all the wards in the stake. On these cards were printed in gold letter the following, showing thirteen years of service in the stake Relief Society.

1911 Nellie M. Smith 1924

Our President

Gentle, Sympathetic

Yet firm and just;

Unselfish in service

Worthy of Trust;

Devoted wife, loving mother

A friend true blue.

A few hours before her death, August 11, 1924, while she was in great distress and pain, she offered a vocal prayer to her Maker. Her special request was that He would accept of her life and forgive her shortcomings, ending with a petition for her relatives and family, especially her boys. And so the life’s mission of a noble woman was ended with a prayer on her lips. She had no enmity in her heart. She loved all mankind and was at peace with her Eternal Father.

Ellis and Boone:

The sketch Nellie’s granddaughter Lenore B. Carpenter wrote helps in understanding Joseph W. Smith’s mission and the comment in this sketch about Nellie baking bread for “a family of thirteen” while her husband was gone. Carpenter wrote, “Her ability to manage her finances and time well was tested to the extreme as her husband fulfilled a two-year mission to Ireland from August 1898 to August 1900. During this time it was arranged that Della, Joseph’s second wife, would teach school while Nellie would tend their five babies left at home, do all the mountains of washing, and prepare the noon meal for the two families—fifteen in all. The two women pulled together like a team. To keep a missionary in the field and keep that many fed and clothed taxed all their ingenuity.”[193]

Two years after Joseph W. Smith returned from his mission, diphtheria came to Snowflake and to the home of Nellie Smith. Her daughter Leonora Rogers said, “I well remember when our family, all seated in the wagon on spring seats went to the cemetery to bury Sariah. She, in her little coffin, was in the back of the wagon. A little graveside funeral was held for the comfort of the family. Dear mother was so sad and tearful it made us all cry. But her grief was somewhat comforted when after the services were over, Uncle Smith D. Rogers (a very spiritual man) came to mother and said: ‘Nellie, I want you to be comforted, for little Sariah is taken care of. You know while the dedicatory prayer of the grave was being offered, I saw in a vision her two grandmothers come and take her by her hand and lead her away.’ Mother believed Uncle Smith D., and it did comfort her.”[194]

Ten years later, on March 21, 1913, twenty men enlisted in Company F of Arizona’s National Guard. This company, sponsored by Nellie’s son, Jesse M., in part as a money-making opportunity for the community, participated in the 1913 summer encampment at Prescott by combining with Mesa’s Company D under the command of Captain Joseph E. Noble.[195] One year later, when Company F wanted to make a good showing at the summer encampment at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona, additional men enlisted. In early August 1914, the local newspaper reported that “Holbrook people were pleasantly surprised Monday when Company ‘F,’ First Infantry, National Guard of Arizona, under command of Captain Jesse M. Smith, arrived here from Snowflake en route to Fort Huachuca, Arizona where the annual encampment of the national guard will be held. The boys arrived early in the morning and spent the day in Holbrook, pitched their tents in the ball park for the night, and left on the early morning train Tuesday.”[196]

Enthusiasm for the National Guard in Snowflake began to wane in 1915 with at least nine men, including Jesse M. Smith, being called to serve missions. With enrollment below the required level, Snowflake’s Company F was changed to the National Guard Reserves in March 1915. Nevertheless, when Guard members were called to defend the US/Mexican border in 1916, at least fourteen Snowflake men served briefly. Finally, World War I closed the book on National Guard service in Snowflake; prior service in the National Guard, while noted during draft registration, neither conferred military deferment nor mandated recruitment. A total of seventy-four men from the Snowflake Stake served in the armed forces; six men gave their lives.[197] May Hunt Larson summarized the year of 1917 in her journal saying, “with war everywhere and our sons being drafted all the time, but it has been a good productive year, and our bins and cellars are crowded with the necessities of life, so none in our midst will suffer for food.”[198] This short-lived leadership opportunity gave Jesse M. Smith experience that would prove useful later in life, both in the business community and in the church where he served as Snowflake Stake president and later president of the Arizona Temple from 1963 to 1970.[199]

Polly May Hunsaker Stapley

Thyrle H. Stapley

Maiden Name: Polly May Hunsaker

Birth: December 24, 1874; Honeyville, Box Elder Co., Utah

Parents: Alexander Beckstead Hunsaker and Melissa Caroline Johnson

Marriage: Orley Seymour Stapley;[200] August 22, 1894

Children: Orley Glenn (1895), Delbert Leon (1896), Lorel Aaron (1898), Lynn Erwin “Dutch” (1901), Zelda Larue (1904), Thyrle H. (1906), Zola May (1908), Cleo Melissa (1910), Wayne Curtis (1913)

Death: March 4, 1935; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Polly May Hunsaker Stapley was born in Honeyville, Utah, December 24, 1874. Her father was Alexander Hunsaker and her mother was Melissa Caroline Johnson. She moved with her parents to Snowflake [in 1884] where her father worked with the Indians for two years and then they continued on south to Mesa, Arizona.[201]

Orley S. and Polly May Hunsaker Stapley; Hartwell, photographer; c. 1894. Photo courtesy of Collection of the Children of Glenn Orth Stapley.

I remember one story that my mother used to tell, and that was about the time when they were living in the northeastern part of the state and her mother spied some Indians approaching their home. She immediately hid all the children. When the Indians came to the door she invited them in, placed all of her food and belongings on the floor; and the Indians helped themselves. After looking around the house, apparently for guns and ammunition, they left and went on to the next farm house where they killed everyone that was there.[202] At the time this happened, her father was a missionary assigned to the Indians.

The Hunsakers reared this lovely girl worthy to be the wife of the stalwart Orley Stapley, and to be the mother of nine splendid children, one to become an apostle.[203] She was reserved, quiet, meticulous, and orderly, creating a home which afforded the progressive atmosphere for her family.

Polly May Hunsaker Stapley. Photo courtesy of Collection of the Children of Glenn Orth Stapley.

They lived in a modest two-room brick house, which was enlarged as their family increased. One room after another room was added to the original structure until there was a large home capable of accommodating the eleven members of the family.

Noble wife, understanding mother, kindly grandmother…… [sic]

As a soft summer breeze, fondly caressing, her sterling character lingers with us after she has gone. She passed away March 4, 1935.

Ellis and Boone:

Polly Stapley’s son Thryle wrote this very short sketch for his mother, but daughter-in-law Estelle Vance Stapley added a few more personal details—details that might only occur to a woman. She wrote, “Polly milked many cows night and morning in her youth, as well as making shirts by hand for her brothers. She also made her wedding dress by hand. Father Stapley, in asking for her hand in marriage, was given his answer two weeks later by Grandfather Hunsaker. When they decided to marry, which was August 22, 1894, they walked hand in hand to all their friends and relatives, inviting them to the wedding and reception.”[204]

Orley and Polly Stapley family; seated, left to right: Delbert L., Orley (father), Wayne, Polly (mother), Orley Glenn; standing: LaRue, Cleo, Lorel, Thyrle, Erwin "Dutch," Zola; c. 1914. Photo courtesy of Collection of the Children of Glenn Orth Stapley.

The Stapley family is best known in Arizona for their farm supply stores. Orley S. Stapley moved to Arizona with his parents when he was ten years old (about 1881); he opened his first store when he was twenty-three. It opened in Mesa on March 4, 1895, selling hardware and farm and industrial equipment. Stapley became the distributor for International Harvester Company in 1917, and he gradually enlarged his inventory to include small and large appliances, hand and power tools, housewares, paints, and sporting goods. Sixty-seven years later, the company had nine stores serving farmers and ranchers in Maricopa and Pinal Counties.

O. S. Stapley was always an enthusiastic booster for Arizona. As the newspaper noted in 1962, “Many of the items used on Arizona farms and ranches, and items used in the homes, were first sold in the state by Stapley’s. Every invention was tested, no matter how strange it might seem in its early awkward stages. When it was found to do the work it was intended to do, the item was placed on Stapley’s shelves. It was placed there to help Stapley’s serve the people of Arizona.”[205]

Polly May Hunsaker Stapley raised six sons who all eventually worked in the company business.[206] However, Estelle Stapley summed up her mother-in-law’s life with these comments: “Polly’s activity was mostly as a Visiting Teacher in Relief Society. With Father Stapley in the Stake Presidency, she stayed home with her children.”

Julia Christina Hobson Stewart

Ethel H. Stewart Russell

Maiden Name: Julia Christina Hobson

Birth: August 19, 1855; Farmington, Davis Co., Utah

Parents: Jesse Hobson and Catherine Dougherty

Marriage: Joseph Alvin Stewart;[207] January 8, 1877

Children: Joseph Alvin (1877), Millie Camera (1880), Mary Louise (1881), Julia H. (1884), Jesse H. (1885), Catherine H. (1887), Leroy H. (1889), Alma Oscar (1891), Lydia H. (1892), Ethel Hobson (1894), Grant H. (1897)

Death: June 7, 1951; Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

Burial: Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona

My mother Julia Christina Hobson Stewart was born August 19, 1855, in Farmington, Davis County, Utah. She was the daughter of Jesse Hobson and Catherine Dougherty Hobson, pioneers of 1852 to Davis County.[208]

In 1855 Grandfather Hobson was serving as representative from Davis County in the first Territorial Legislature which met in Fillmore, Millard County, when Grandmother became ill and died December 14, 1855. My mother Julia was just five months old, and there were seven brothers and sisters besides Randolph Sylvester, an older brother, who had died in Illinois, before they moved West.

Fortunately they had an elder sister Lydia Ann, who was like a mother to them. At the time of Grandmother’s death, the snow was deep, and Grandfather was unable to come home. When he was able to travel, he got as far as Salt Lake City when he was stricken with typhoid fever, and Aunt Lydia came to Salt Lake City to care for him. Aunt Miriam took care of those at home.

Grandfather had fully recovered by the April conference, when he was called by President Brigham Young to go to England on a mission. He said, this was the hardest thing he had ever been called to do, to go so far away and leave his motherless family, but it proved to be the greatest blessing that ever came into his life.

At the time of Grandmother’s death, Aunt Lydia was keeping company with Horace Russell of Fillmore, whom she married, and they took care of the three younger children, while the four older children worked for the neighbors for their room and board, while attending school. After renting his farm, Grandfather left for England April 21, 1856. Upon arrival in the mission field, he was made president of the Shipham District. He had very good success during his mission and felt that he was greatly blessed by the Lord.

Due to the arrival of Johnston’s Army in Utah February 19, 1857, the missionaries were all called home. Grandfather returned on the ship Empire, accompanied by sixty-four emigrant Saints, to Utah.[209]

How happy he was to be with his family again. After his return he married Nancy Henderson April 10, 1859, who died in 1863, and he was married to Sarah Dowell, a widow in 1865, she having two small daughters about the age of Mother. In Mother’s history, she wrote how she loved her stepmother, and how happy all the family members were to be together again.

Julia Christina Hobson Stewart. Photo courtesy of Ancestry.

On January 8, 1877, Mother was married to Joseph Alvin Stewart by Bishop Preston of Logan, Utah. Their first home was a split-log house in Lewiston, Utah where their first three children were born: Joseph Alvin Jr., Millie Camera, and Mary Louise. In her diary she writes: “In the spring of 1882 after Jo completed his railroad grade contract, we decided to move to a warmer climate. In 1878 my brother, Jesse Hobson had gone to Mesa, Arizona, to live and was very pleased with the country. We decided to go by train to Arizona, and my brother Jesse met us at Maricopa, which then was the end of the line. He brought us up to Mesa, where we made our home in the Alma district.”[210]

Julia Christina Hobson Stewart, age eighty-nine, 1944. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

They were fortunate to be able to buy a forty-acre tract that had been filed on, cleared of the brush, then relinquished. They were also happy to have their dear old friends from Cache Valley who had preceded them the year before (these were the Standage, Rogers, and Pew families) as close neighbors.

Father gave five acres of his land, fronting on Alma Street (then called String Town Road) to the district for a school. The remaining acreage was planted to fruit trees, a vineyard, and ten acres of alfalfa.

The fruit was picked, dried, then marketed in the mining towns throughout the territory. The local Indians were used to help in caring for the fruit. One of the Indian women helped Mother with her laundry for many years. Mother always gave the Indians milk and fruit for their lunch which was eaten under the trees on our lawn, then they took a nap under the lovely old umbrella trees in our front yard.

In 1883 a smallpox epidemic nearly wiped the new colony out. Four of Grandfather Stewart’s family [died], including his wife and a daughter of his second family, also a widowed daughter and her small son, members of his first wife’s family.[211] My mother and father took the two older children of Father’s widowed sister; George and Edna Taylor were their names.[212]

Father was chosen manager of the Zenos Cooperative Store, which was the oldest pioneer store of Mesa, for many years. When it was time for Father to come home from work, Mother would call, “Come girls, I need you.” We would run and set the table, so we could get supper over in a hurry, as Father read us stories from the Old Columbia Historical Books, after the evening meal.

Mother was in the presidency of the Primary, she also worked in the Relief Society. She was a good homemaker, was very particular, patient, and good-natured.

She lived to a good old age, and her mind was keen to the end. She received her second hearing, also her second eyesight during her old age. I cared for her during her last ten years of life, and she enjoyed my boys. They liked to get jokes on her, but they never, ever got the best of her. She would say, “Now, sonny don’t you try to fool your old grandma.” She passed away June 7, 1951, which was a little short of being ninety-six years of age. Her life is a treasured memory to all members of her family.

Ellis and Boone:

In 1969, W. Earl Merrill wrote that there were forty-four deaths from smallpox in Mesa during the 1883 outbreak and then estimated that this was fifteen percent of the residents.[213] These figures have been used extensively but cannot be used today with certainty. With the access to various databases, it seems possible to accurately account for the smallpox deaths in Mesa in 1883. From our preliminary research, we believe that it was a total of forty-four cases and not forty-four deaths.[214] Regardless, this smallpox epidemic was an important event in the early history of Mormons in the Salt River Valley and hit the Alvin F. Stewart and Charles C. Dana families especially hard.[215]

Early in 1883, Phoenix began seeing some smallpox cases, and Prescott put a quarantine in place, meaning people from Phoenix were refused entrance into the town of Prescott.[216] As Frances Quebbeman wrote, “There being no overall regulations concerning smallpox quarantine, each town handled the problem in its own way, sometimes vindictively, out of the great fear and lack of understanding of how the disease spread. Towns quarantined against towns—Phoenix against Tempe and Mesa, and Florence against Phoenix and Mesa.”[217] The Maricopa Board of Supervisors met to consider the problem, ordered Sheriff L. H. Orme to take charge of quarantining people, and appointed Drs. W. G. Cook and R. L. Rosson to treat the indigent cases.[218] Schools were closed, and a pesthouse was constructed five miles “out of town.”[219] By May, the newspaper reported no new cases for several days, but this was not the end of smallpox deaths in Phoenix.[220]

Julia Stewart with relatives in Logan, Utah; seated, left to right, Mary Johanna Lewis and Jesse D. Hobson (brother), Julia Hobson Stewart, Alphonse (brother-in-law) and Laura Rose Brossard, William Beecraft; standing Alvin Stewart (son), Nellie Brossard Fowler (niece), Laura C. and Edgar Brossard (nephew); 1917. Alphonse Brossard was first married to Mary Catherine Hobson who died in 1899. Edgar Brossard served on the U.S. Tariff Commission from 1923 to 1959 and was New England Mission President from 1959 to 1961. Photo courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University.

In August 1883, John Van Cott Macdonald, the twelve-year-old son of A. F. Macdonald, was thought to have prickly heat, but it eventually proved to be smallpox.[221] Both A. F. Macdonald and his wife Agnes contracted smallpox, and a pesthouse was established.[222] Elijah Pomeroy and Collins R. Hakes took care of the sick, and the women in town brought food.[223]

By October 10, the Deseret News reported that there were sixteen cases of smallpox in Mesa and at the end of the month published further details including the number of deaths. This article began: “Since the announcement in this paper of the breaking out of smallpox in Mesa City, Arizona, numbers of people in Utah have been exercised over the welfare of their friends and relatives residing in that region. Authentic information having reached this office respecting the number of cases, names of those who fell victims to the scourge, and further particulars regarding the career of the epidemic in that locality, the facts derived from correspondents residing at Mesa, are here appended for the benefit of our readers.”[224]

Information in the Deseret News article came from S. F. Kimball and Charles I. Robson. They reported that “twenty-nine persons contracted the disease from the one original case in the settlement, and thirteen others took it from them, thus making a total of forty-two cases in all, including those who simply had the varioloid,” and “out of this number, eight persons died.”[225] They list the following deaths (in order of death but without death date):

John Van Cott Macdonald, son of A. F. Macdonald, died August 1883.

Estrella Camera “Stella” Stewart, daughter of Alvin Franklin Stewart and Eliza Barnett, age fifteen, died September 7, 1883.

Bernard Dana, eleven-year-old son of Charles C. Dana, died September 9, 1883.

Charles C. Thomas, infant grandson of Charles C. Dana, died September 20, 1883.

William Hill of Toquerville, Utah, died September 22, 1883.

Eliza Barnett Stewart, second wife of Alvin F. Stewart, died September 19, 1883.

Eliza Thomas, wife of Edward Thomas and daughter of Charles C. Dana, died September 25, 1883.

August “Gus” Dana, infant son of Charles C. Dana, born 1882, died September 25, 1883.

In addition to these eight deaths in Mesa, three others related to the smallpox epidemic were noted:

John Hill, son of William Hill, had recovered from smallpox, but caught a “bad cold” and died in a few days; he died October 4, 1883.

Caroline Matilda Stewart Taylor, daughter of Alvin F. Stewart and widow(?) of George W. Taylor, died September 2, 1883 in Phoenix.

Keith S. Taylor, four-year-old son of Caroline and George Taylor, born October 1879, died in Phoenix, death date unknown.[226]

Kimball and Robson reported that “Mesa was under strict quarantine regulations from the first of September to the 12th of October, which from a financial standpoint was rather severe upon the community, most of the men being freighters, but through their watchcare, vigilance and unceasing efforts, depending upon divine aid more than on human skill, they succeeded in checking the ravages of the destroyer.” They noted that “no outside help was employed,” but the “county physician made frequent visits.” Also, all public meetings were cancelled from the epidemic’s appearance until after October 16.

Besides quarantine, vaccination was used to stop smallpox epidemics. In mid-September, B. F. Johnson of Tempe wrote to the Deseret News:

I would recommend that all who leave Utah for this southern Country see to it that themselves and families are reliably vaccinated, for they know not where they may meet and be exposed to smallpox. It has been in Phoenix all summer, about eight miles west of this place, and is now in Mesa, the same distance east of us, and I am told by a physician sent there by the county board of health, that there are 30 cases yet. We find it extremely difficult to procure vaccine matter that will take effect. Our little town is closely quarantined, and we trust that through the blessing of the Lord and our vigilance it will not be inflicted upon us. One case came here but did not spread.[227]

Vaccinations and revaccinations were given to those in the army, physicians went among the Indian tribes in 1883 giving vaccinations, and Dr. Henry E. Crepin vaccinated all the Mexican children he could find in Tucson.[228]

Finally, if the forty-four deaths from smallpox is indeed a correct number, perhaps the explanation comes from this note in the Arizona Weekly Citizen at Tucson. “Mr. Charles I. Robson, of Mesa City, came to town yesterday [presumably Phoenix] to inform the Sheriff that there has been five deaths within the last few days among the Maricopa Indians on the reservation, near Jonesville, from the small-pox. Mr. Henry C. Rodgers, of Jonesville, has assumed the quarantine of the reservation until such time as the county authorities assume the responsibility.”[229] Proselytizing among the Maricopa Indians living in the Salt River Valley began as soon as there were Mormon settlers at Lehi, and many of the LDS pioneers continued to help these people both temporally and spiritually.[230]

Mary Jane Kirby Stock

Roberta Flake Clayton, FWP

Maiden Name: Mary Jane Kirby

Birth: October 25, 1850; St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Island, England

Parents: Francis Kirby Jr. and Mary LeCornu

Marriage: Edward Stock;[231] May 19, 1866

Children: Joseph Edward (1867), James Heber (1868), Francis Moroni (1870), Mary Maude (1872), Ida Isabell (1875), John Alma (1878), twins Nina and Vina (1878), Maybelle (1884), Pearl (1887), Earl Asa (1890)

Death: November 18, 1931;[232] Show Low, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Adair Cemetery, Show Low, Navajo Co., Arizona

Very few of Arizona’s pioneer women passed through such severe trials of hardship and poverty as did this noble woman.

Born on the Isle of Jersey, off the coast of France, October 25, 1850, she immigrated to America with her family when she was [six] years of age.[233] After a long, hard voyage as a steerage passenger she was to have a still longer one, if not by miles, by actual heart-throbs.[234]

Her parents had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their native land and had sacrificed all they had to come to the United States to join their fellow worshipers. They remained in [Boston] a short time, then came to the Missouri River where they got a couple of handcarts in which they put all of their earthly possessions, and she and her brother, Frank [Francis], pulled them across the plains to Utah.[235]

To those who were older, to the sick, to mothers with babes, this trek of hundreds of miles was a trying experience, but to this boy and girl [Mary and her brother], accustomed to the rain and fog of “ould England,” it was a joyous adventure. True, there were bruised feet and tired limbs, meager rations, and other disagreeable things, but with a good night’s rest on the bosom of Mother Earth with a star-covered coverlet above, morning found the vexations of the day before forgotten in the anticipation of the joys that awaited them in the glorious West.

It is well for some that dreams come early else there would be no dreams for them. Mary’s carefree days were of short duration, because at the age of fifteen she became the wife of Edward Stock, and as nature would permit, the mother of eleven children. The family was so poor that she went out in the fields, after the grain was cut and hauled, and gleaned wheat which she sold to get cloth to make clothes for her unborn babes.

In the year 1879, they moved to Arizona settling at what is now Linden. Broken in health, it was thought the change might do her good. Her husband only remained there a short time, returning to his family in Utah. This left Mary entirely on her own resources, with a large family of small children to provide for.[236]

Mary Kirby Stock with unidentified children. Photo courtesy of FamilySearch.

They lived in a sod house with a floor of the same material, with a fireplace to give light and warmth in winter and a place to cook in the summer, away from all her family and former associates, located on a dry farm that had to be cleared and fenced, near the reservation of the most treacherous Indian tribe in the West. This was quite an experience for this English woman.

She often told how she spent almost one entire night parching corn for her two eldest sons, only little fellows themselves, to take with them as their only food while they were out in the cedars cutting posts and building fences around their field. If the winter before had plenty of snow and the rains came at the right time, good crops of corn, beans, and squash could be raised, but if not, as frequently happened, then the food supply was very low.

As soon as the boys were old enough, they herded sheep for $10.00 a month. In the bleak, cold winter, with frozen feet and ears, they stayed with the herds, many times nestling up to the warm, wooly bodies of the sheep to keep from freezing to death, yet how willingly and uncomplainingly they did this work that their mother might buy flour occasionally, and the necessities, salt, soda, and sometimes sugar.

One Christmas feast consisted of a big, whole-wheat pie baked in a milk pan, no shortening, but with a filling of pumpkin, the latter donated as a present from a neighbor. This was a rare treat.

After many years of struggle, the family moved to Show Low. Poverty had done much for them. It had created a bond of unity, self-sacrifice, and willing service, and as the sons grew older they did what they could to make life easier for the mother who had done so much for them.

While she never neglected her own, she found time for anyone who needed her care. Either a natural aptitude or necessity, or a combination of both, made of her an excellent nurse, and in her home was a supply of herbs, roots, and barks, the medicinal qualities of which she well knew and used for the healing of her family and her neighbors. Whenever she knew of an afflicted one, she would call to relieve their suffering and cheer them up.

The following is a tribute to her from one of her friends: “Through hardship and trial, toil and privation she passed cheerfully, hopefully, resolutely; and in it all she was dominated by love and tenderness for the common folk, for she walked life’s way with them and saw in them the good.”

She had only been ill three days, when on November 18, 1931, she passed peacefully away. She had buried four of her children.

We close this sketch of a life spent in service to others with a poem she herself wrote on the death of her daughter Ida.[237]

Loving Remembrance to Ida Stock

By Her Mother

The blessings of her quiet life

Fell ’round us like the dew.

Good thoughts where e’er her footsteps pressed

Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds

Were in her very look.

We read her face as one who reads

A true and holy book

And half is dreamed. She needed not

The changing of her sphere

To give to Heaven a shining one.

She lived an angel here.

Ellis and Boone:

Mary’s husband, Edward Stock, was also from England. He came to the US in 1854 with his wife, Sarah Lumbers, and a small son, Frederick; Sarah died in New Orleans in childbirth. Edward then married Keziah Peck, and they had at least one child that died young. But by about 1865, Edward and Keziah were both in their forties and had no children. They decided to live polygamy, and Edward married Mary Kirby, age 15. The 1870 census lists Edward age 47, Keziah age 49, Mary age 19, Joseph age 3, and James age 1.[238]

The statement in the sketch, “broken in health, it was thought a change might do her good,” apparently refers to Keziah’s death about 1875 and the deaths of three of Mary’s children (Ida and twins) just before they decided to move to Arizona.[239] Also, Edward’s decision to immediately return to Utah was apparently to visit his oldest son, Frederick, who was married, trying to convince him to relocate to Arizona. Later Frederick spent some time in Graham County. Edward was back living with Mary in Linden by about 1883. He served as branch president in Juniper (Linden) from 1888−89; he was described as “a fine man who lived through hardships and still kept a happy countenance. He loved to help with entertainments and played the violin.”[240] But the fact that Edward was nearly thirty years older than Mary and that he died in 1906 explains why she was almost always responsible for the support of her family.[241]

Martha Jane Layne Stratton

Artemesia Stratton Willis, FWP

Maiden Name: Martha Jane Layne

Birth: July 26, 1827; Barren Co., Kentucky

Parents: David Layne and Lucinda Bybee

Marriage: Anthony Johnson Stratton;[242] April 3, 1845

Children: Emaline (1846), Martha Jane (1848), Gabrilla (1850), Mary (1852), Rozilpha (1854), Anthony Wayne (1856), Lucinda (1858), Calvin Layne (1860), William Ellis (1862), James Marion (1864), Artemesia (1866)[243]

Death: March 26, 1906; Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Burial: Snowflake, Navajo Co., Arizona

Mother was born July 26, 1827, in Kentucky, the daughter of David Layne and Lucinda Bybee. She was the oldest of the family. In her youth she worked diligently and faithfully to do all she could to help the family. She did not have much schooling. Of her younger girlhood, I do not know a great deal for she never said much about it.

Mother married Anthony Johnson Stratton April 3, 1845, in Hancock County, Illinois. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and cheerfully linked their fate with the Saints suffering the trials, persecutions, and hardships that they went through for their religious belief. They were true pioneers. Crossing the plains in 1848, they had an outfit which consisted of one wagon and one ox and one cow. The cow was milked and the milk strained in a jar, and then the shake of the wagon made a little butter.[244] They first settled in Provo, Utah.

The President of the Church, Brigham Young, called Father to take his team and wagon and go back and meet some of the immigrants and help them. He made two trips.[245] Mother was very anxious and willing for him to go. When Father left to go on one of these trips, there was only one pan of flour in the house, and they did not know where they could get any more. Mother made “pancakes,” and as she used the last of the flour, it would go no further.[246] When the children were eating she went outdoors and around the corner and cried with hunger and prayed. When she came back in the house, there was a pan of flour on the table. She made herself some pancakes. Mother, when she related the incident, thought that was the best meal she ever ate. Her home was never without flour any more. She would say, however, that the pig never got fat on her garbage.[247]

Martha Jane Lynne Stratton with her husband, Anthony, and daughter Rozilpha. Photo courtesy of Marion Hansen collection.

The call came again from President Brigham Young for Father to take his family and move on down south to help to strengthen and protect the smaller settlements. The Lord says that “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”[248] Father and Mother willingly did both and moved south to Virgin City. The Indians were still bad. At one time they stole a white child and took it by the heels and knocked its head against a rock and killed it.[249] Just a few days after this happened and while Mother was alone with her children, some Indians came to her home. Seeing that Mother was alone and very frightened, they picked up the baby and acted as if they were going to take it and treat it the way they did the other, but a prayer from the heart saved the baby. The Indians put it down and went away laughing at her fright.

While living in Virgin, Mother picked cotton, made rolls, and spun them into thread and yarn, wove cloth to make clothes for the children, and knit the children’s stockings. I do not think that Mother ever bought a pair of stockings for any of her children while she lived in this place. While the St. George Temple was being built, Father would take his ox team and wagon and go to St. George and work during the winter months on the temple. Mother stayed at home and cared for the children, rejoicing that they were helping to build a house to the Lord.

Then the call came again from President Brigham Young for Father and Mother to take their family and move to Arizona. They cheerfully took their ox team, which at this time was two yoke on one wagon, and left their home and their married children—four girls. One married girl and her husband went with them. We left November 13, 1878, to travel 300 miles over desert, uninhabited except by Indians. We arrived at a small settlement Brigham City on the first day of the year 1879. It was very cold. All were tired and worn out. Father joined the “United Order,” and we ate at the “Big Table.” Hardships were again their lot. Father and Mother lived here for eighteen months and then moved to Snowflake where they lived the rest of their lives, and there again was real pioneering.

Mother’s health began to fail. The hard work, the hardships, trials, and sacrifice weakened her strength, but she was never known to complain. She held various positions in the Church, doing her duty the best she could. She was very kind and generous to those less fortunate than she, dividing what she had in her storehouse. Her greatest devotion was to her husband and family and home, never caring for public life. She taught by her example, honesty, truthfulness, and love for God. She was loved by all who knew her.

She lived to be seventy-nine years of age and died at the home of her son, William Ellis Stratton, March 26, 1906, and was laid to rest in the Snowflake Cemetery by the side of her husband. She was the mother of eleven children, seven girls and four boys.

Ellis and Boone:

When Anthony and Martha Stratton and their married daughters moved to Arizona, they greatly strengthened the Mormon settlements along the Little Colorado River drainage. Rancher and historian Will C. Barnes lived in close proximity to these Mormons for many years. With the description in this sketch of the 1848 Stratton outfit consisting of “one wagon [pulled by] one ox and one cow,” It would be interesting to know if Martha Layne Stratton was the woman Barnes was quoting when he wrote:

Their cattle especially were unusually well-bred. They were nearly all milk stock, and one dear old Mormon mother told me many years ago that most of the cattle her husband and her father brought with them to Utah were milk cows only so long as the lacteal fluid held out. When “Old Boss” went dry she was decorated with a huge oxen yoke and became, so the lady explained, “a mere draught animal.” A dual-purpose animal, if you please.

She continued:

The mere fact that she had been a milk cow did not keep us from working her when the necessity arose. It was a long, hard road we were traveling, and we needed every available animal to pull those heavy wagons through the sandy washes or over the steep mountains. When she again became “fresh” she was relieved of her yoke and trudged along with the rest of the loose cattle being milked twice a day.

We had lots of babies and very young children for whom the milk was a vital necessity. Those dry milk cows, however, could pull a load as well as any ox that ever wore a yoke.[250]

Barnes estimated that 75 percent of the cattle Mormon colonists brought into Arizona were cherry-red Devons, “famous for their milking qualities; the rest were shorthorns, or Durhams.” This was in direct contrast to the longhorn cattle usually seen in the Southwest. Barnes concluded his discussion of Mormon cattle in Arizona with this comment: “An old-time cowboy working for me once made the remark that ‘first-class cows and horses must have been a part of the Mormon religion, judging by the way the believers in that faith managed to always have them, no matter where they located.’ And looking back over some fifty years’ experience, it is a fact.”[251]

Pioneer Reunions: Snowflake, 1908. Early settlers of this area are shown here in front of the chapel. Front row seated (left to right): William J. Flake; John Hunt; Emma West Smith, 673; Paul Smith; Louisa Jones Oakley, 499; Mary Ann Cheshire Ramsay, 569; Susan Hamilton Youngblood, 830. Second row standing: Janet Johnson Smith, 676; Margaret Camp Baird, 43; Frances Reeves Willis, 800; Mary Jane Robinson West, 771; Happylona Sanford Hunt, 294; May Hunt Larson, 394; Sarah Kartchner Miller, 458; Ninian Miller; Elizabeth Gale Kartchner. Back row standing: Alof Larson, George Willis, James M. Flake, Joseph Hancock. Photo courtesy of Stinson Museum, Snowflake.

Notes

[1] An alternate listing of her children includes twins, Hyrum Smith and Moses Martin Sanders, born in 1845, with both dying at birth (in Nauvoo), and her last child, Moses Martin Sanders Jr. born in 1853, in Salt Lake City. Peace, History of Gisela, 11–12.

[2] Although PWA had this date as 1848, see comments from Ellis and Boone for crossing the plains information.

[3] See Hannah Elmina Allred Sanders, 623.

[4] Ibid.; the route for this trip into Arizona was through Pierce’s Ferry.

[5] MPOT.

[6] MPOT; http://historylds.org/overlandtravels/trailExcerptMulti?lang=eng&pioneerld=38538sourceld=5145.

[7] For more information about this family, see John Franklin Jr.’s grandmother, Amanda Armstrong Faucett Sanders, 621.

[8] “The Life of John Lester Sanders,” in Clayton, PMA, 435−36.

[9] Isaac Allred brought his family across the plains with the Easton Kelsey Company of 1851; his youngest son, Samuel, was born while crossing the plains. Isaac was captain of the second fifty. They left June 10 but turned back because of Indians and started again June 28; the company arrived in Utah on September 22, 1851. Louisa Wing Aldrich and her three teenage/adult children traveled to Utah the next year, with the Thomas C. D. Howell company. “Isaac Allred,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:3; MPOT.

[10] Two of Isaac Allred’s sons, Reddick N. and James R. Allred, participated in the Mormon Battalion. Reddick, not finding his family in Utah, traveled east to reunite with them in Winter Quarters. “Reddick Newton Allred,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:167–68; “James Riley Allred,” ibid., 3:583; Ricketts, Mormon Battalion, 180.

[11] Watson, Life Under the Horseshoe, 9–12, 26–28.

[12] Ibid., 7.

[13] See Turner and Ellis, Latter-day Saints in Mesa, 99.

[14] Black haw is a shrub of the honeysuckle family which grows in the eastern U.S. and has blue-black fruits. It is also known as sheepberry.

[15] D. E. Schnebly encouraged his older brother, Theodore Carlton Schnebly, better known as T. C., to move to Arizona; the town of Sedona is named after T. C.’s wife, Sedona Miller Schnebly. Heidinger, Chief Yellowhorse Lives On!, 177−81. D. E. Schnebly probably also encouraged his younger brother, William, to become a merchant in Phoenix. AzDC, W. F. Schnebly; 1920 census records, William F. Schnebly, Phoenix, Maricopa Co., and Dorsey Schnebly, St. Johns, Apache Co, Arizona.

[16] Although Clayton wrote in 1938 that Schnebly Hill was named after Dorsey Schnebly, Lisa Schnebly Heidinger wrote that it was named after her great-grandfather, T. C. Schnebly. With both brothers living in the area, there may be some truth in both statements. See Heidinger, Chief Yellowhorse Lives On!, 35−39.

[17] The AzDC lists this date as September 7, 1926, and this is the date on the tombstone; findagrave.com #44995944.

[18] Heidinger, Chief Yellowhorse Lives On!, 95.

[19] 1880 census, S. E. Johnson, Saint Johns, Apache Co., Arizona; birth place of Phoebe Earston Johnson, Ancestral File.

[20] In the Rocky Mountain West, all types of conveyances were used in the snow. Sometimes wheels were replaced with runners in the winter, and sometimes the vehicles had both runners and wheels so the driver could use whichever was most appropriate for the snow conditions. Four different types of horse-drawn conveyances are illustrated in Ellis and Ellis, Steamboat Springs, 18–19.

[21] Abraham O. Woodruff (1872–1904) served as an apostle from 1897 until his death. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1650; “Abraham Owen Woodruff,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:172–74, 3:796–97

[22] Although spelled Scandlon in PWA, Scanlon’s Ferry was below the Grand Canyon, between Pearce’s Ferry and Stone’s or Bonelli’s Ferry. See migration map, 22.

[23] A search was made for the exact reference to this newspaper article, but copies of The Dixie Falcon were not located.

[24] Today, this would probably be called tonsillitis.

[25] Godfrey and Martineau-McCarty, Uncommon Common Pioneer, xxix.

[26] Ibid., 490–91.

[27] This is likely Christina Hunter, who died June 29, 1866, at McKeesport, Allegheny Co., Pennsylvania; familysearch.org (Ancestral File) lists another sister, Janet, who died March 23, 1866, but reports the location as Scotland.

[28] The Hunter family traveled to Utah with the William S. Seeley Company of 1868. Both James and Mary Hunter show on the list of individuals traveling with this company, but none of their children are listed. MPOT.

[29] Tanner and Richards, Colonization on the Little Colorado, 169.

[30] John L. Westover and Electa Westover Turley, “Maggie Shelley,” in Tenney and Ellsworth, Diamond Jubilee Gems, 45.

[31] “Wright Paynter Shill,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:526. For a copy of this sketch (with additional family history information), see “Harriet Stronach Painter (1848−1931)” in Oyler, Alice Ann Shill and her English Ancestors, 137−46.

[32] Her name was spelled as Harriet in PWA, but other records use Harriett; here we use the spelling on the AzDC.

[33] Although Harriet always used the maiden name of Paynter and was sealed in the temple to William Paynter, she was born two years before William Paynter and Elizabeth Fawkes were married. The indexers of the 1851 census interpret a hard-to-read surname for her as Samber, but family members read it as Fawkes; by the 1861 census, she is listed as Harriett Painter. The origin of the middle name Stronach is not known at this time.

[34] Harriet Fawkes Townley (1833–65) was a younger sister of Elizabeth Fawkes and therefore daughter of John and Susannah Fawkes.

[35] Miles Park Romney (1843–1904) was born in Nauvoo; he was a polygamist who lived in St. George, St. Johns, and finally settled in Mexico. Romney was eighteen when he married Hannah Hill in 1862, and three weeks later he left for a three-year mission to England. Hansen, Letters of Catharine Cottam Romney, 12–16, 111–16, 243–44, 286–87; “Miles Park Romney,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:594.

[36] Harriet Fawkes married William Townley on June 8, 1850. By the time the couple came to Utah, they had a six-year-old daughter, Amelia. There are discrepancies with Harriet Townley’s death date, variously reported as 1864 or 1865. However, MPOT states that she was with the William S. S. Willes Company of 1865, and the “New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957” at Ancestry shows them crossing the ocean on the Belle Wood in 1865. There were 636 Mormon passengers, organized into nine wards, on this voyage. Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 26–27.

[37] Harriett Paynter traveled on the ship, Arkwright, which left Liverpool on May 30, 1866, and arrived at Castle Garden, New York, on July 6. See diary of Justin Chancy Wixom as quoted by Oyler, Alice Ann Shill and her English Ancestors, 139−142. There were 450 Mormons aboard this ship; the voyage lasted thirty-seven days during which time there were four births and five deaths. Ibid., 17.

[38] Harriet Paynter crossed the plains in the Daniel Thompson Company and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 10, 1866. MPOT; Oyler, Alice Ann Shill and her English Ancestors, 142.

[39] This was a second marriage for Charles Goulding Shill; he was forty-six years old and Harriet was eighteen. Charles’s first wife was Harriet Webb (1803−82). Ibid., 117.

[40] White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of my Own,” 193.

[41] Ibid.

[42] It appears that Shill wrote this sketch about 1948. RFC did not include the reference to being a bishop in PWA. Wright P. Shill, “M O T H E R, Harriet Stronach Paynter Shill,” W. Earl Merrill Collection, folder 1, box 16, Mesa Room, Mesa Public Library.

[43] “Charles Shumway,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:718.

[44] For Wilson Glen Shumway’s wife, see Maria Janette Averett Shumway, 644.

[45] Information about Shumway’s mother and grandmother can be found in Lucetta Buttars Gibson, “The Stories of Three Great Grandmothers: Louisa Minnerly Shumway, Catherine Taylor Minnerly, Charity Sharpnet Taylor,” M270 S884, CHL.

[46] Louisa was part of the Jedediah M. Grant/Willard Snow Company of 1847. MPOT.

[47] The Walker War (1853–54), named after the prestigious Northern Ute Chief Wakera, erupted as Mormon settlement of Utah, Juab, and Sanpete Counties encroached on traditional Ute lands and as Brigham Young tried to eliminate the Utes’ lucrative slave trade with Spaniards, Mexicans, Americans, and other western Native Americans. The Walker and Tintic (1856) Wars were precursors to the much longer Black Hawk War (1865–72). Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War, 1, 60–69.

[48] Black canker is a highly contagious, acute form of diphtheria; often a false membrane forms in the throat causing suffocation and/or the bacteria produce a toxin which causes inflammation of the heart or other organs. MPOT; http://history.lds.org/overlandtravels/trailExcerptMulti?lang=eng&companyId=340&sourceId=6361.

[49] This sketch was one of the first that Clayton submitted to the FWP. Information from the FWP sketch that was omitted in PWA has been reinserted, but dates and given names of children are almost totally lacking.

[50] Shumway’s second given name has also been spelled as Anna Nettie, Antionette, and Annettie.

[51] “Lorenzo Hill Hatch,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:323–25; Hatch, Willing Hands: A Biography of Lorenzo Hill Hatch. For the sketch of another daughter, see Achsah May Hatch Decker, XXX.

[52] “James Jardine Shumway,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:620.

[53] Alice Hanson was Lorenzo Hatch’s fourth wife (his first wife died at Winter Quarters). In 1876, Hatch was called to settle among the Zuni in New Mexico and left St. George with his third wife, Catherine, and family on July 25. In the fall of 1877, he returned to Idaho for Alice and family. Hatch’s second wife, Sylvia Eastman, never came to Arizona. Hatch, Willing Hands, 124–35; see Achsah May Hatch Decker, 138, for a daughter of Catherine Karren Hatch.

[54] This is probably the family of Susanna Hammond Deans, 135. The Liston reference is to Commodore Perry Liston (1821–79). Joseph Fish recorded him as on the trail December 1878; because Liston’s family did not come with him to Arizona, he was traveling much faster than Fish. Liston died shortly after arriving in Woodruff and was the first burial on Amos Hill. Krenkel, Life and Times of Joseph Fish, 184.

[55] Although PWA said “across the little Colorado on ice,” the statement about wagons and furniture being ferried across on the “big boat” makes this a reference to the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. There was never enough water in the Little Colorado River for ferries. Generally, the Colorado River freezing over is associated with the Anthony W. Ivins account of the river at Lee’s Ferry on January 16−22, 1878, (McClintock) or February 15−18, 1878 (Reilly). McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 95−6; Reilly, Lee’s Ferry, 74−5.

[56] In January 1878, Lorenzo Hatch’s calling was changed; he was made second counselor to Stake President Lot Smith, and Hatch was asked to live at Woodruff. After he settled Alice and her family in Woodruff, he went to San Lorenzo and moved Catherine and her family to Arizona as well. Hatch, Willing Hands, 136.

[57] The two daughters were Alice, died January 24, 1889, and Nettie, died July 26, 1902.

[58] Joseph Lorin Shumway.

[59] Joseph Lorin Shumway and Lorenzo Dow Shumway; see “Taylor Veterans Memorial—Honor Roll” in Palmer, History of Taylor and Shumway, 269.

[60] Tenney, Taylor’s Centennial Stories, 201–202.

[61] The death certificate lists her name (and is indexed) as Jennette Maria Shumway. AzDC.

[62] For Wilson Glenn Shumway’s mother, see Louisa Minnerly Shumway, 639.

[63] Wilson A. Shumway wrote about his grandfather coming into Arizona, and Jenson included it as part of Shumway’s biography. “Wilson A. Shumway,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:221.

[64] In August 1866, James Andrus led an eighty-man expedition from St. George through much of southern Utah to better understand Indian trails. Andrus saw only a few Indians and lost but one man in an ambush—Elijah Averett Jr.—on August 26, 1866. Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War, 312−13.

[65] Laudanum is a solution of opium in alcohol.

[66] Navajo Bridge, spanning the Colorado River south of Lee’s Ferry, with a deck 467 feet above the water, was dedicated on June 14, 1929, and made Lee’s Ferry obsolete. Reilly, Lee’s Ferry, 322–39.

[67] Axminster rugs have been made in England for 250 years; they were patterned after and inspired by Turkish carpets. Presumably the rug(s) in the Shumway home were made to look like the English Axminster rugs.

[68] Shirley W. Thomas, “Woman’s Exponent,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1571–72; Clark, Cazier, and Hafen, The Relief Society Magazine, xi–xii. Information about Today’s Magazine as not located.

[69] Zuckerman, History of Popular Women’s Magazines, 19–20.

[70] Ibid., 81, 109–14, 144. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the leading women’s magazines were called “The Big Six” and included Delineator, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s Home Companion, Good Housekeeping, and Pictorial Review.

[71] Adeline Grover Daley, 129.

[72] For the history of Latter-day Saint settlement of this area in California, see Cowan and Homer, California Saints, 167–84; Lyman, San Bernardino.

[73] San Bernardino is not halfway between Salt Lake City and the West Coast, and it is not on the coast of California. It was an early settlement in California, east of Los Angeles.

[74] Jared Smith noted this seemingly impossible task in the title of his book, Making Water Flow Uphill.

[75] This was originally written as Zion’s Co-operating Mercantile and Manufacturing Institution in PWA. Maude B. Sirrine Noble, “Life History of Warren LeRoy Sirrine,” manuscript, in possession of Ellis. For a photograph of the store, see Merrill, One Hundred Echoes from Mesa’s Past, 257.

[76] Merrill, One Hundred Steps Down Mesa’s Past, 95.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid., 115.

[79] Kenneth Bates Noble, “Life History of George Warren Sirrine,” copy in possession of Ellis.

[80] Merrill, One Hundred Steps Down Mesa’s Past, 96. See Mary Ellen Merrill Jones, 333.

[81] “Nathan Robinson,” in Clayton, PMA, 403−5.

[82] PWA lists this as the Apache Trail, which is east of Mesa. Because she is instead talking about an area in extreme southern Utah near the Arizona border, she likely means the Old Spanish Trail (Armijo route). Skutumpah Creek joins Johnson Wash, which empties into Kanab Creek. Kanab Creek flows almost directly south across the Arizona Strip and joins the Colorado River between miles 143 and 144 below Lee’s Ferry. This is where Major John Wesley Powell ended his second expedition in 1872. Belknap, Powell Centennial Grand Canyon River Guide.

[83] This should probably be buying liquor (which the federal government tried to make unavailable), selling blankets, and either selling items made from beads or buying more beads.

[84] Cannaro is unidentified at this writing. If this location is in Kane County, this might mean Kanab, but the county might be wrong and this may be Kannara or Kannaraville in Washington County.

[85] This paragraph and the next to last paragraph about going to Canada were reinserted from the original sketch (copy obtained from Emma H. Adams’s research, in possession of Ellis).

[86] John Henry Standifird (1831–1924) was the first bishop of the Taylor Ward, from 1880 to 1885. Erickson, Story of Faith, 201.

[87] See Mary Jane Robinson West, 771.

[88] Eleven children lived to adulthood.

[89] Krenkel, Life and Times of Joseph Fish, 231–32; McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, 172; Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 210.

[90] Boone and Flake, “The Prison Diary of William Jordan Flake,” 145–70.

[91] Romney, Mormon Colonies in Mexico, 85.

[92] Hatch, Colonia Juarez, 273.

[93] RFC submitted a FWP sketch for Smith; this sketch is considerably expanded, and it is unclear if the FWP sketch was used as a basis. Nevertheless, one paragraph was inserted from the FWP sketch. Another sketch has also been written by family members; see Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 25−30.

[94] George H. Crosby Jr., “As My Memory Recalls: Jesse N. Smith,” in Clayton, PMA, 447−48; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” ibid., 449−50; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:316–23.

[95] Augusta Vori is unidentified using FamilySearch.

[96] Although this is listed as “Volborg” in PWA, it is listed as “Viborg” in the FWP sketch. Clayton, “Augusta Maria Outzen Smith,” FWP, ASLAPR.

[97] Christian Daniel Fjeldsted (1829–1905) was born in Denmark and lived in Logan, Cache Co., Utah. “Christian Daniel Fjeldsted,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:203–4, 3:746.

[98] Jesse N. Smith does not record the outbreak of measles; the voyage across the North Sea was only three days long (July 15–18). Ida Outzen got sick on the tugboat and died on the train (July 18, 1870). Journal of Jesse N. Smith, 211.

[99] Sonne wrote, “Eleven Mormon companies—a total of 3907 Saints—sailed to America aboard the British steamship Minnesota. The smallest company consisted of 60 and the largest of 602 persons. The voyages—the first of which began on 30 June 1868 and the last on 8 July 1874—originated at Liverpool and ended in New York and were generally uneventful. The average passage time was 12.5 days.” Sonne Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 145.

[100] Augusta Outzen Smith does not appear in the MPOT database because that source only includes emigrants from 1847 to 1868. The completion of the transcontinental railroad through Utah in 1869 revolutionized LDS emigration travel, but Mormons had always used the railroad where possible. Arrington and Bitton, Mormon Experience, 135.

[101] Journal of Jesse N. Smith, 197.

[102] Ibid., 214.

[103] Ibid., 216.

[104] “Joseph Fish,” in Clayton, PMA, 135−42; “Joseph Fish,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:215–17.

[105] Edith S. Bushman, “Joseph West Smith,” in Clayton, PMA, 451−60; “Joseph West Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:220–21. For a sketch of Joseph W. Smith’s first wife, see Sarah Ellen Marsden Smith, 690.

[106] For information about the time Della taught school while her husband served a mission, see comments by Ellis and Boone for Sarah Ellen Marsden Smith, 694.

[107] The ellipsis is probably what was meant with two quotations and only one date.

[108] Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 122−25.

[109] Della F. Smith Reminiscences and Diary, MS 5197, CHL, 40. Additional entries were made from 1928−1933.

[110] Snowflake Herald, March 25, 1921.

[111] Additions by Ellis and Boone are in italics.

[112] Ellen Malmstrom Larson, 384. For a sketch of one of Ellen Larson Smith’s sisters, see Emma Ellen Larson Smith, 669.

[113] For a photograph of most of Ellen Larson Smith’s family, see “Ellen Malmstrom Larson’s Snowflake Family,” 388.

[114] PWA just called this ship Tapscott. This was the first time that the large, full-rigged William Tapscott transported Latter-day Saints across the Atlantic Ocean. The ship left Liverpool on April 11, 1859 with 725 Mormon emigrants aboard. The emigrants were organized into five English and Swiss wards which occupied one side of the ship and five Scandinavian wards on the other. Nineteen weddings were performed during the 33-day passage. Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 198−99.

[115] The Larson family consisted of Mons (age 35), Elna (age 33), Betsy (age 5), Caroline (age 4), and Lehi (age 2). They were part of the eighth handcart company with 60 handcarts, 8 wagons, 235 people, and George Rowley as captain. MPOT.

[116] Niels Mortensen (1823−1905) and his wife Mette (1822–1905) were traveling together with their son-in-law, Niels Petersen (1841−1902), wife Mary (1854–1936), and son James. 1880 census, Nils Peterson and Nils Mortensen, Walker, Apache (Navajo) Co., Arizona.

[117] PWA erroneously called the Atlantic and Pacific railroad the Southern Pacific railroad.

[118] The Faith-Promoting Series were seventeen books published from 1879 to 1915 by the Juvenile Instructor Office as an alternative to popular novels. Some of the titles include My First Mission by George Q. Cannon, Leaves from my Journal by Wilford Woodruff, Jacob Hamblin: a Narrative of his Personal Experiences, A String of Pearls, and President Heber C. Kimball’s Journal. The writings of Lucy Mack Smith are today titled, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith. At first this book was titled “The History of Mother Smith, by Herself.” Proctor and Proctor provide a history of her book, from dictated manuscript to the publication of each of the several editions. Proctor and Proctor, Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, xviii–xxxiii.

[119] Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 50.

[120] “Polygamy Prosecutions,” Washington Post, June 21, 1905; “More Mormons Arrested,” Bisbee Daily Review, August 25, 1905.

[121] Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 67.

[122] Granddaughter, Ida Hendrickson called this the Sarah Daft Home. Although Ellen may have also worked there, that facility was always an assisted living facility for elderly women. The Wasatch Domestic Science School was located at 21st South and State Street and was home to delinquent and homeless girls. Salt Lake Telegraph, June 16, 1923, http://ujdn.lib.utah.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/tgm10/id/10705/show/20903/rec/1.

[123] Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 80.

[124] Ida Hendrickson described these as “necklaces from tiny beads strung on horsehair in intricate designs.” She described some of Ellen’s flowers as “winter bouquets from dyed sheep’s wool, chicken feathers, horsehair, rabbit tails and porcupine quills.” Ellen also taught herself to paint, and in 1970 two of her oils were hanging in the Jesse N. Smith Memorial Home in Snowflake. Ibid., 81.

[125] Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 84−87; Ida S. Hendrickson, “Ellen Johanna Larson Smith,” in Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 77−82.

[126] See Ellen J. Smith Autobiography, AV 2110, CHL.

[127] Levine, Life and Times of Snowflake, 27.

[128] RFC submitted a sketch for Emma Larson Smith to the FWP on September 18, 1937. This sketch is entirely different, although many of the same topics are covered. The FWP sketch tells much about the Larson trip from Sweden to Utah, but this topic is covered in Ellen Malmstrom Larson, 384. The FWP sketch also has more information about Emma’s initial trip into Arizona, and one paragraph was inserted. Another sketch has also been written by family members; Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 31−36.

[129] For an additional photograph of Emma Larson Smith, see Catherine Delphina Fish Smith, 662.

[130] Ellen Malmstrom Larson, 384. For a sketch of one of Emma’s sisters, see Ellen Larson Smith, 669.

[131] George H. Crosby Jr., “As My Memory Recalls: Jesse N. Smith,” in Clayton, PMA, 447−48; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” ibid., 449−50; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:316–23.

[132] The Larson family consisted of Mons (age 35), Elna (age 33), Betsy (age 5), Caroline (age 4), and Lehi (age 2). They were part of the eighth handcart company, with George Rowley as captain of 60 handcarts, 8 wagons, and 235 people. MPOT.

[133] This paragraph was reinserted from the FWP sketch. Clayton, “Emma Larson Smith,” FWP, ASLAPR.

[134] Traveling with them to St. George was Emma’s brother, Alof, and May Hunt who were married the same day. See May Louisa Hunt Larson, 394.

[135] Matthew 6:19–21.

[136] Ellis, Snowflake, 58; Potter, “World War I Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage,” Part II.

[137] Louise Larson Comish, “A Sketch of May Louise Hunt Larson,” in Clayton, Pioneer Women of Navajo County (partial manuscript of PWA at the Mesa FHL), 2:103−10.

[138] Another sketch, written by family members, also includes information about each of her children and their spouses. Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 11−15. Emma West Smith also appears on page 708, “Snowflake Pioneers in 1908.”

[139] George H. Crosby Jr., “As My Memory Recalls: Jesse N. Smith,” in Clayton, PMA, 447−48; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” ibid., 449−50; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:316–23.

[140] Larry Shumway in Appendix 3 of Frontier Fiddler describes pioneer dances with their Arizona variations, although he does not list cotillions. Generally, a cotillion is defined as a quadrille which Shumway describes as a version of the square dance with a “graceful running step, not the clogging step so closely associated with the square dancing of today.” Another possibility, however, is the varsovienne which was sometimes danced in a circle and often called by the nickname, “Put Your Little Foot.” Shumway, Frontier Fiddler, 262–63.

[141] Samuel and Margaret West, with their six children, traveled to Utah in the Harry Walton–Garden Grove company of 1851. They left Garden Grove, Iowa, on May 17 and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 24−25. This small company consisted of about twenty-one families and a few other individuals in sixty wagons. Harry Walton was not a Mormon but had come back from California for his family and had previously traveled over the trail. MPOT.

[142] Jesse N. Smith married (2) Margaret Fletcher West, January 27, 1856, (3) Janet Mauretta Johnson, October 9, 1866, 676, (4) Augusta Maria Outzen, June 3, 1869, 657, and (5) Emma Larson, October 28, 1881, 669, after the move to Arizona.

[143] Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 12.

[144] Journal of Jesse N. Smith, 18.

[145] Ibid., 19.

[146] Smith, Randall, and Frost, Silas Derryfield Smith, 21.

[147] For more information, see Julia Smith Ballard, 49. Another sketch for Janet Mauretta Johnson Smith was written by family members; see Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 20−24. That book also has sketches for each of her children and their spouses. A photograph of Janet Johnson Smith is included with the sketch for Emma West Smith (673) and also “Pioneers in 1908,” 708.

[148] George H. Crosby Jr., “As My Memory Recalls: Jesse N. Smith,” in Clayton, PMA, 447−48; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” ibid., 449−50; “Jesse Nathaniel Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:316–23.

[149] Johnson, “High on the Mountain Top,” Hymns (1985), no. 5; Johnson, “All Hail the Glorious Day,” Hymns (1948), no. 223. Joel H. Johnson wrote of his life: “After being baptized in 1831 I never lived but a short time in any one place on account of mob violence. And since I have been in Utah I have made eleven new places. Was never called on a mission without responding to the call and never asked to speak in public on the principles of religion when I excused myself.” He died September 24, 1883, at Johnson, Kane County, Utah. Cornwall, Stories of our Mormon Hymns, 69−71.

[150] The Joel Hills Johnson family crossed the plains with the Willard Richards company, which left Nebraska on July 3 and arrived in Utah on October 19, 1848. MPOT.

[151] Janet Fife crossed the ocean with her parents and four siblings, traveling on the Hanover and arriving at New Orleans on May 2, 1842. James Fife, his wife Margaret, and their six children came to Utah with the William Snow–Joseph Young company of 1850, but Janet came two years earlier with her husband. “New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1813–1963,” ancestry.com; Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 91–92; MPOT.

[152] This sentence likely means that Johnson suggested all the cattle be kept together in one herd or that a herdsman stay with the cattle. Peterson, in writing about the final major raid in the Black Hawk War, which took place near Parowan, said that “had the raid been successful it would have been the largest single raid of the war.” The raid began on July 21, 1867, with three groups of Indians rounding up the settlers’ stock. Peterson said, “One of the guards hired to watch Parowan Valley herds (and hence presumably well informed as to their numbers) noted in his journal that the Indians actually ‘gathered about 700 head of stock.’” However, Mormon guards, both with the herds and at the mouths of canyons, were able to recapture the cattle and foil all three attempts. According to Peterson, “The Mormon victory at Paragonah and the vigilance policy that produced it stopped Black Hawk cold.” Peterson, Utah’s Black Hawk War, 341−42, italics added.

[153] John Henry Smith (1848–1911) was the son of Apostle George A. Smith and the father of President George Albert Smith. He was called as an apostle on October 27, 1880, and served until his death. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 3:1362, 4:1646–47.

[154] As a midwife, her picture hangs on the wall of the Doctors’ Room in the DUP Museum at Salt Lake City.

[155] RFC also described braiding straw for hats in an essay, “Pioneer Industries,” written for the FWP. Words added to this sentence (to correct a line evidently omitted) come from that description. Roberta Flake Clayton Papers, MS CM MSS 28, Folder 16, Luhrs Special Collections, Arizona State University.

[156] Another possibility is that daughter Margaret S. Jensen rewrote this sketch. She wrote a shorter sketch for her mother which was included when Jesse N. Smith’s journal was published. That sketch ended: “Her posterity as enumerated July 2, 1953; 13 children, 107 grandchildren, 310 great-grandchildren, 194 great-great-grandchildren; total 624.” Journal of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 181.

[157] The original sketch RFC wrote for the FWP was much longer, titled “Lannie Mitchell Smith” and submitted March 20, 1937. Additional information included the Mitchell family’s conversion, life in Utah, and family activities in Mexico. Some of this has been reinserted with ellipses to indicate where information was omitted. No information from PWA was deleted. For a short sketch of Mary Ann Mitchell Smith, see Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 69−72.

[158] “William Cook Mitchell,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:458–59.

[159] Although PWA has this name as Bosnell and it is listed as Bosnell in the 1850 census, the family today is known as Boswell; this is James Warner Boswell. His wife was listed in the 1880 census as Eliza [Abby Holmes] Boswell, age 55, widowed, Fountain Green, Sanpete Co., Utah.

[160] This is a typical description of wet cupping, except the instrument with knives was called a scarifier or scarificator. This treatment might have been used for rheumatism; it was generally used “to relieve local congestion and inflammation.” Robert A. Gunn, Everybody’s Doctor, 688.

[161] Until 1969, endowment sessions included a Protestant hymn.

[162] Jesse N. Smith Jr. married Nancy Ann Freeman on September 11, 1884, see 687.

[163] Her first home was in Parowan, her second was the wagon box in Snowflake, and the third was the log cabin, also in Snowflake.

[164] Mary Smith was born September 15, 1886, and died June 22, 1892.

[165] Erastus Snow Smith was born August 31, 1896, and died September 10, 1896.

[166] Elias Mitchell Smith died February 2, 1904.

[167] Sarah Smith was born January 29, 1907, and died September 17, 1907.

[168] Woods, Finding Refuge in El Paso. It should be noted that the references in appendix 1 to Jesse Smith are for Mary Ann’s son, Jesse N. Smith III.

[169] Silas Aikens Smith died February 24, 1916. Type I diabetes is the complete failure to produce insulin, so death is fairly quick after onset.

[170] William Cooke Smith lived for some years in the Gila Valley and wrote a thesis about the establishment of Mormon schools in Arizona (including LDS academies) for a MA degree from Brigham Young University. Smith, “Mormons as a Factor in the Development of the Public School System of Arizona.”

[171] For more information about their activities see comments from Ellis and Boone for Sarah Ellen Marsden Smith, 690.

[172] Ellis, “‘Men of Taylor! We Need Your Help,’” 249−72. In Graham County, Stake President Andrew Kimball allowed portions of a letter to his son, Spencer W. Kimball, to be published in the local newspaper. The letter advised Spencer to volunteer and support the government. “The Patriotic Duty of Every Arizonan is to Volunteer in the State Regiment,” Graham Guardian, July 6, 1917, p. 4; Kimball and Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, 82–83.

[173] A different sketch for Nancy can be found in Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 73−75.

[174] Great-grandson, Norman Gardner, suggests that Henry Lunt Smith may have simply relied on memory when he wrote this sketch. Corrections for dates are from Gardner and the Snowflake Cemetery record. On August 4, 1886, Jesse N. Smith wrote, “Preached the funeral discourse for Sister Freeman, wife of John W. Freeman [Lannie’s mother].” Journal of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 328.

[175] See Mary Ann Mitchell Smith, 681.

[176] See Woods, Finding Refuge in El Paso. Note that in appendix 1, the references to Jesse Smith are for Jesse N. Smith III.

[177] John Woodruff Smith died July 25, 1914, in El Paso, Texas.

[178] 1930 and 1940 censuses, Henry L. Smith, Virden, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico.

[179] Peterson, Ninth Temple, 257−58.

[180] The only information added to the FWP sketch when it was transferred to PWA was about Nellie Smith’s 1911−24 Relief Society service. Lenore B. Carpenter wrote another sketch for family members: Carpenter, “Nellie Marsden Smith,” in Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 119−22.

[181] This surname is spelled at least three different ways: Scovil, Scoville, and Scoval.

[182] Edith S. Bushman, “Joseph West Smith,” PMA, 451–60; “Joseph West Smith,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:220–21. For a sketch of Joseph W. Smith’s second wife, see Catherine Delphina Fish Smith, 660.

[183] AzDC is filed under Nellie Marsden Smith.

[184] William Marsden traveled to Utah with the John Hindley Company of 1855. MPOT.

[185] The change in this sentence is a best guess as to the original meaning. The PWA sentence read, “Such good training in knitting was valuable to her in after life she not only knit stockings and mittens . . .”

[186] PWA originally read “too much of a sacrifice for all of those who were called.”

[187] Joseph West Smith Jr. was born February 10, 1881, and lived just ten days. Sariah Smith was born May 3, 1898 and died October 5, 1902. Nellie Smith married Andrew Locy Rogers Jr.; she gave birth to her first baby, Clyde Marsden Rogers, on September 19, 1910. She died September 30, 1910. AzDC; FamilySearch lists this death date as October 1.

[188] See comments by Ellis and Boone for more information about this mission.

[189] Kerosene may seem like a reasonable remedy for bed bugs, but green bean leaves do not. Nevertheless, with the recent resurgence of bed bugs, scientists at the University of California-Irvine and University of Kentucky wrote in 2013 that “in Eastern Europe, bed bugs were entrapped by leaves from bean plants, which were then destroyed; this purely physical entrapment was related to microscopic hooked hairs (trichomes) on the leaf surfaces.” The scientists then microfabricated polymers trying to replicate the surface of the leaves. They found that the “synthetic surfaces snag the bed bugs temporarily but do not hinder their locomotion as effectively as real leaves.” Apparently, pioneer remedies really do work. Szyndler and others, “Entrapment of Bed Bugs by Leaf Trichomes Inspires Microfabrication of Biomimetic Surfaces,” 1–9.

[190] Proverbs 17:22 and 2 Nephi 2:25 (paraphrased).

[191] On October 29, 1886, Joseph West Smith married Catherine Delphina (Della) Fish, 660.

[192] Doctrine and Covenants 59:13.

[193] The family at this time included eight of Nellie’s children, five of Della’s children, and the two mothers. Lenore B. Carpenter, “Nellie Marsden Smith,” in Smith and Williams, Family of Jesse Nathaniel Smith, 121.

[194] Leonora S. Rogers, “Diphtheria,” in Levine, Life and Times of Snowflake, 59.

[195] Ellis, “‘Men of Taylor! We Need Your Help,’” 249−72.

[196] Holbrook News, August 7, 1914.

[197] These included Lehi Smith and Charles Flake who were former Snowflake Guardsmen; Alvin Fish and Warren Savage of Woodruff; Roy Lewis and Warren Q. Tenney of Taylor.

[198] May Hunt Larson journal, December 31, 1917. See Ellis, “‘Men of Taylor! We Need Your Help,’” 249−72.

[199] Peterson, Ninth Temple, 264−66.

[200] “Orley Seymour Stapley,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:521–22.

[201] Alexander and Melissa Hunsaker were still in Plymouth, Box Elder Co., Utah, in 1880. The Hunsaker family also lived a short while in the Gila Valley before settling in Mesa.

[202] Although Mormons had widespread fear of Native Americans (as seen in the various accounts in this volume), there were actually very few Anglo deaths in northeastern Arizona. The only Mormon killed in the Snowflake area was Nathan Robinson, who died June 1, 1882. See Annise Adelia Bybee Robinson Skousen, 653 and “Nathan Robinson,” in Clayton, PMA, 403−5.

[203] Delbert L. Stapley served in the Quorum of Twelve Apostles from September 30, 1950 to August 19, 1978. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1648.

[204] Estelle Vance Stapley, “History of Polly May Hunsaker Stapley,” copy in possession of Ellis.

[205] “Stapley’s Salutes Arizona’s 50th Anniversary,” 84–85.

[206] “Orley Glenn Stapley,” in American Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:178–79.

[207] “Joseph Alvin Stewart,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:526.

[208] Jesse Hobson and family came to Utah with the Benjamin Gardner Company of 1852. MPOT.

[209] The clipper ship Empire, built for speed, left Liverpool on February 19, 1858, with Jesse Hobson presiding over the Mormons on board. Passage took twenty-eight days, and Conway B. Sonne includes Lovett Bunting’s brief description of the trip. Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 70. Hobson crossed the plains with the John W. Berry company of 1858. MPOT.

[210] The Southern Pacific was built across Arizona from west to east: the rails were to Yuma in 1877 and Casa Grande in 1879. Because Arizona was settled so late and the Southern Pacific Railroad was complete to New Mexico by 1881, many Mormon pioneers came by train. Maricopa Station (in Pinal County) should not be confused with present day Maricopa or Maricopa Wells; eventually Maricopa Station was named Heaton and became a railroad siding. Myrick, Railroads of Arizona, 2:479; Granger, Arizona Place Names, 299; Ellis, “‘Arizona Has Been Good to Me,’” 1−32.

[211] See comments from Ellis and Boone.

[212] George Taylor, born May 4, 1877, died March 3, 1948 and is buried in Double Butte Cemetery, Tempe, Arizona; Edna Taylor was born in September of 1881, and in 1900 was still living with Joe and Julia Stewart in Maricopa County.

[213] Merrill, One Hundred Yesterdays, 82.

[214] The number forty-four seems to have been derived from the forty-two cases in Mesa mentioned by Kimball and Robson plus the two deaths (the Taylors) in Phoenix. After looking at information on families known to be living in Mesa in 1883, we cannot find other deaths during this period (excepting the deaths of Lorenzo Didsberry Brizzee, son of H. W. Brizzee on October 3, 1883; Willie Hopkins, presumably son of R. E. Hopkins, on October 3, 1883; and Maud Alice Sirrine Hibbert on October 14, 1883, all of which Kimball and Robson state were not from smallpox), let alone thirty-two deaths. “Smallpox in Arizona,” Deseret News, October 31, 1883; FamilySearch.

[215] For other information about smallpox epidemics, see comments by Ellis and Boone in sketches for Rhoda Condra McClelland Perkins, 523, and Lorana Page Rogers, 604.

[216] “Smallpox in Arizona,” Deseret News, October 31, 1883; Arizona Weekly Citizen, September 29, 1883.

[217] Quebbeman, Medicine in Territorial Arizona, 164.

[218] Weekly Phoenix Herald, April 5, 1883. William Griswold Cook (1858–1884) graduated from Northwestern University in 1881, came to Maricopa County in 1882, and died of typhoid in 1884. Roland L. Rosson was an Army physician who was in and out of Phoenix for nearly twenty years; he died in Los Angeles in 1898. Quebbeman, Medicine in Territorial Arizona, 116–7, 335, 367.

[219] Weekly Phoenix Herald, March 29, 1883 and April 5, 1883.

[220] Weekly Phoenix Herald, May 3, 1883.

[221] Margaret Lovina Brundage Millett said that smallpox was brought to Mesa by Aaron MacDonald, who was driving the mail, but Warren L. Sirrine implied that John Van Cott MacDonald was the first case. Sirrine said that the illness was initially diagnosed by Dr. Longmore as prickly heat, but then mentioned Dr. Mahoney as the county physician supervising the quarantine. Longmore may be Henry C. Longmore who was City Assessor in 1883. Oscar Livingston Mahoney came to Maricopa County in June 1883 and by 1887 was in charge of the Maricopa County Hospital. Margaret Lovina Brundage Millett, 461; Merrill, One Hundred Yesterdays, 210; Quebbemann, Medicine in Territorial Arizona, 357.

[222] “Small-pox at Mesa,” Deseret News, September 26, 1883. The Deseret News also reported that the mother, two brothers, and a brother-in-law of Talma Pomeroy were sick; this is probably Kimball and Gertrude Pomeroy (who recovered) as reported in Sarah Matilda Colborn Pomeroy, 550. Deseret News, September 19, 1883.

[223] Quebbeman reports that in 1887 patients in the Tombstone pesthouse ran out of food, sent a message to the mayor through a passer-by, and soon received provisions even though it was in the middle of the night. Quebbeman, Medicine in Territorial Arizona, 164.

[224] “From Salt River,” Deseret News, October 10, 1883; “Smallpox in Arizona,” Deseret News, October 31, 1883.

[225] Varioloid means a mild case of smallpox in people who have either been vaccinated or have had the disease before.

[226] 1880 census, George Taylor, Richmond, Cache, Utah. This is the brother, and Caroline Matilda the mother, of the two children that Joseph and Julia Stewart raised, George and Edna Taylor.

[227] “Smallpox in Arizona,” Deseret News, October 3, 1883.

[228] Quebbeman, Medicine in Territorial Arizona, 162.

[229] Arizona Weekly Citizen, December 15, 1883.

[230] Jones, 40 Years Among the Indians, 242–54.

[231] This surname is sometimes spelled Stocks; generally today it is spelled Stock. Her maiden name is sometimes spelled Kerby.

[232] AzDC is indexed as Mary K. Stacks.

[233] PWA had “12 years of age,” but this has been corrected to six. The Kirby family crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the George Washington, which left Liverpool on March 28, 1857, and arrived at Boston on April 20. This ship carried 817 Saints, and included Francis Kirby (34), Mary (33), Francis (7, but listed in BYU’s Mormon Migration database as 9), Mary (6), Alma (4), Harriet (2), and Joseph (infant). The captain wrote, “I am free to acknowledge that on no previous voyage have my passengers conducted themselves so orderly and peaceably as those in your charge; cleanliness, morality, sobriety, reciprocation of favors and general good behavior were pre-eminently conspicuous in their conduct and character.” “Massachusetts, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820–1963,” ancestry.com; Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners, 86.

[234] Steerage was the cheapest way of traveling with berth in the lowest deck of the ship.

[235] The Kerby family came with the tenth handcart company in 1860 under the supervision of Oscar O. Stoddard. Francis Kerby “hoped to go to Utah in 1859, but disappointedly did not.” The family consisted of Francis (age 38), Mary LeCornu (36), Mary (9), Alma (6), Harriet (5), Joseph (3), and Eliza (1). Francis (Frank) is not listed at MPOT but did come to Utah with the family. MPOT.

[236] See comments from Ellis and Boone for an explanation of the Stock family dynamics.

[237] The poem for Ida Isabell Stock (1875−79) was inserted from the FWP sketch.

[238] 1870 census, Edward Stock, Spanish Fork, Utah Co., Utah.

[239] The 1880 census lists Edward (age 56), Mary (35), Joseph (12), James (10), Moroni (9), Maude (7), and John Alma (3). 1880 census, Edward Stock, Benjamin, Utah Co., Utah.

[240] Flammer, Stories of a Mormon Pioneering Community, 36.

[241] Edward died April 18, 1906, and is buried in the Adair Cemetery. The household in 1900 consisted of Edward (age 77), Mary (47), Joseph E. (28), May Belle (13), Pearl (11), and Asa Earl (9). 1900 census, Edward Stock, Pinedale, Navajo Co., Arizona.

[242] Irene Stratton Flake, “Anthony Johnson Stratton,” in Clayton, PMA, 484.

[243] For information about three of Martha’s daughters, see Rozilpha Stratton Gardner, 203, Gabriella Stratton Willis, 803, and Artemesia Stratton Willis, 793.

[244] The Stratton family is listed as coming to Utah in 1848, company unknown. The database notes that Esshom’s Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (p. 1193) lists the Stratton family as arriving in 1849, but Anthony Stratton is on a list of people given lots in Salt Lake City in 1848. MPOT.

[245] Anthony J. Stratton is known to have been a down-and-back teamster in the William S. Warren Company of 1864. MPOT. See Hartley, “Down and Back Wagon Trains,” 26−31; Hartley, “Brigham Young’s Overland Trails Revolution,” 1−30.

[246] PWA had “would go a little farther,” but “go no further” is one possibility for what was meant.

[247] This refers to pioneer women who were so thrifty that the dishwater, which might have a few scraps of food, was often given to the pigs.

[248] See 1 Samuel 15:22.

[249] This was probably not a white child, but it was the incident that Arrington and Bitton report in their discussion of the Ute and Mexican slave trade which Latter-day Saints in Utah found repulsive. When Mormon pioneers in the winter of 1848–49 refused to buy two little girls offered for sale, “the enraged chief took one of the girls by the heels and dashed her brains out on the hard ground, ‘after which he threw the body toward us, telling us we had no hearts, or we would have bought it and saved its life’ [quote from Daniel W. Jones]. Charles Decker . . . moved quickly to prevent the same thing from happening to the other girl and purchased her with his rifle and pony.” Arrington and Bitton, Mormon Experience, 150.

[250] Barnes, “Mormons and Their Cattle,” 5.

[251] Ibid., 6.