Charles Whipple
1863-1919
Charles Whipple, son of Edson Whipple and Harriet Yeager, was born on September 9, 1863 in Provo, Utah, on the Bench, now called Orem. Edson Whipple was acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith and with Brigham Young and helped build the Nauvoo Temple. He crossed the plains in the first company, driving Heber C. Kimball’s team and wagon and after the Saints landed in the Salt Lake Valley, he managed Kimball’s farm for him.
Edson was the husband of five wives and it is said that he had hoped to establish a colony of his sons and daughters on the shores of Utah Lake, west of Spanish Fork. He was a cattleman and farmer and an influential man in the early days of Provo. He was friendly to everyone and said he would not have an enemy.
Edson was called with his families to help settle Arizona. They settled around Show Low in the northern part of the state. Hans Hansen had also been called with his family to settle there. That is where Charles met Annie Catherine Hansen, daughter of Hans Hansen and Mary Andersen. Although Charles was eight years older than Annie, they were married in Snowflake when she was just past 15 by President Jesse N. Smith and went by team and wagon back to the St. George Temple. There they received their endowments and were sealed on November 3, 1885.
In the spring of 1887 they went up to Park City where Charles got a job cutting ties. After two years they were both back in Show Low. Charles worked one season in Fort Apache with his father-in-law, Hans Hansen, doing mason work. While they were in Provo, his own father, Edson Whipple, on account of polygamy, had moved with his two wives, Harriet and Amelia, to Mexico. He had quite a few cattle and being an old man of 84, he needed Charles to help him.
They loaded their belongings in a wagon with a bed and stove in it. After a long tiresome journey, they arrived in Colonia Juarez in the fall of 1889. When they reached the top of the hill looking into Colonia Juarez they said it looked like a little paradise. They moved out on the Whipple ranch eight miles from town where they milked cows and Annie made butter and cheese to sell. They also served many free meals to people going and coming who liked to drop in. Charles liked to have company and he liked Annie to cook up a good meal for his friends. He was very free-hearted and liked to entertain. In later years as his family grew he liked to invite young people in from the neighborhood. They would gather around the organ and sing, or just sing without the organ, maybe with a guitar or two. He liked singing and music. He always sang when he got out of bed in the morning. If others were not awake they soon would be. He was a religious man, too. His children remember how he would get them up early in the morning and gather around the fireplace and read from the Bible or Book of Mormon.
While they were on this ranch, Annie was alone much of the time and she had many frightening experiences. The following is one she and Charles had, quoted from her own biography.
It was during the summer of 1892, while we were living on the Palo Quemado ranch about 8 miles from Colonia Juarez, up toward the mouth of the canyon, tho we had been warned to move into tow. But our cows were there and we were making butter and cheese –our only source of income. Apache Indians had been on raids in the mountains of Mexico stealing crops, cattle and horses.
Two weeks after the warning we were awakened by a horse tramping around the house. My husband got up to see about it, and found it to be a horse with a saddle on it, so he tied it to the wagon wheel. After daylight he went out and examined it and found it to have a United States government saddle with rawhide shoes and rawhide lariat. We knew it to be stolen by the Indians. We thought it had just strayed away. The fact was, it had escaped from some Apaches camped a short distance from the wash. We were sure they had planned a daylight raid, but losing the horse had prevented it. The next morning, while Charles and Sam Hawkins, a hired boy, were out gathering calves which were allowed to graze at night while the cows were corralled, I stepped out just before sunup to see if I could see them. I saw an Indian lassoing our riding mare which we had hobbled and left to graze. Their horses were staked nearby in the tall grass which waved like a grain field. He got on another horse, lassoed it and led it for a little way then got down, removed the hobbles, and started toward the mountains.
After he had taken the hobbles off, my husband discovered him and ran toward the house. The boy came running in breathless to tell us he had seen a bunch of Indians down in the wash. Charles wanted to follow him to recover the horse, but I begged him not to go.
After the Indians had gone we sent Sam to town to tell the people and to get help. Mexican soldiers were sent from San Diego, about 8 miles away to search for the Indians. Since my husband accompanied them I was left with a ten-year-old girl who was helping me and my two-year-old Jennie. The soldiers lost the trail of the Indians and returned the same night. We were left alone, Charles having his gun beside the bed in case of attack.
The next night we heard a horseman coming and thought perhaps it was Indians. But before he got there he started to whistle to relieve our fears. He brought word that the whole Thompson family had been killed the morning after they (the Indians) had been scared away from our place.
The next morning, while Charles with his gun on his shoulder was out hunting calves he saw about six horsemen coming over the ridge from the mountains. He thought they might be Indians and ran to the wash to head them off. When he turned to climb down into the wash he saw they were white men. Soon the Helaman Pratt family from the mouth of the canyon, about 8 miles away, came and stayed all night with us. The next morning we all moved into town.
For awhile Charles and his family lived in town where they bought a lot and planted an orchard. Later they traded this for a bigger place about three miles up the Piedras Verdes River. This place also had a young orchard planted on it. There was no house on the place, so Charles bought brick and hauled lumber from the canyon. He hired a man to help him build the structure. This four-room brick house was their first real home in Mexico. While the house was being built the family lived in a shanty, the roof of which consisted of boards, and it had a dirt floor. When it rained they had to roll up the bedding and set pans around to catch the water. While living in the shanty Charles’s father, Edson Whipple, died at the age of 89.
When the family moved into their little, new home, they had neighbors all around. Bishop George W. Sevey and the Alfred Bakers lived on one side. The James Dartons, and Vance Shaffers and the Brigham H. Pierces lived on the other, downriver, side. All of them lived close by. Not long after moving, Annie was looking for another visit from the stork. They were quite worried because during September it rained, rained, rained, and the river rose higher and higher. The town was on the other side of the river and no bridge across it. Charles came in one evening and said that if the stork held off for another day he would be able to cross the river in a boat to get to the midwife. But the stork couldn’t wait, and on October 4, 1895, Charles Hansen, the first son was born, with just a neighbor woman in attendance.
It was soon after this that Aunt Mary Louise Walser came into the family. She was the daughter of John Jacob Walser and Mary Louisa Frischknect. It was not exactly easy for any of the three of them, but Charles was a fair-minded man, and he always called his family tighter to talk things over and to straighten out difficulties.
One autumn Charles Whipple went to Sonora with a load of apples to sell and was brought home sick. The doctor pronounced it appendicitis and recommended an operation. But in that day operations were not common and the results were unsure, so he put it off for awhile. Finally he decided to go to Salt Lake City to have it done. His wife Mary accompanied him on this trip and also received her endowments. The children remember how before he left he gathered them around him and told them that if there was any quarreling while he was gone he might not get well. Of course, they didn’t quarrel! The operation was successful and he recovered his health.
After the return Annie continued to live on the ranch, and Charles bought a place in town and moved Mary there. Pearl and Jennie stayed in town with Mary and went to school, but they usually walked home on Friday evenings. The boys, Charley and Ted, either walked to school or rode a horse.
During the summer of 1900, Grandma Whipple came to the ranch to make her home with Charles and Annie. She remained only about a year and then went to Thatcher, Arizona to visit a daughter. There she died in 1901. Soon after this Charles began to ship fruit to El Paso and to different parts of Mexico. He was just getting started when a call came from “Box B.” Quoting from Annie’s history:
In the spring of 1905, Charley came in with a letter from “Box B.” We all knew what that meant… a call to a mission. He opened it and read it and asked “What shall I do?” I wouldn’t think of having him turn it down. He wondered what we would do without him with our big families. I said “We will get along alright.” [By this time Annie had six children and Mary had four.]
He wrote to headquarters and asked for a few months to get ready. They told him he could wait till his fruit crop was harvested and he could straighten out his affairs. Then, to top it off, I was in a delicate condition and as expecting another visit from the stork about the middle of January, so he asked to stay till I was over with it, and that was granted. On January 4, 1906, Augustus was born.
Charles Whipple left for his mission while Annie was still in bed with baby Gus, only eight days old. Sometimes Charles Hansen and Jennie took loads of fruit to sell at Casas Grandes, about 12 miles away. The boys plowed about an acre and planted corn and a garden. For the first year after Charles left, things went rather smoothly. The family kept well and got on very well financially. In the fall, Annie and Sister Sevey went to El Paso to do some shopping. They stopped overnight in Dublan where Annie’s daughter was exposed to the measles. Ten days after returning from El Paso, she came down with the disease. I (author) was the only one that had them before. Annie as well as the other children were all exposed from Cleah. Even though Annie didn’t feel very well, she took care of them all. She herself was soon afflicted with the disease. They could not get a doctor or a nurse but Mary brought three children and helped care for Annie and the others. Annie was very, very sick before they could get the measles to break out. The, about the time she got well, Mary’s three children became sick. In the fall when the boys started school, they got whooping cough. In the spring Baby Gus took pneumonia and was very sick. Jennie remembers sitting all night with him in her arms. Annie still was not very well.
From Annie’s history, we receive an account of another exciting incident:
In the fall of the same year (Charles was still in the Central States Mission), I was getting ready to go to town to do some shopping… Young Charley was driving and I sat in the spring seat besied him and held the baby in my arms. Edson, Cleah, and Clyde sat in the back on a quilt watching the butter and eggs. We had gone about two-thirds of the way to town when the horses started to run away. Charley put on the brake and tried to hold them, but he could not stop them. I was afraid the baby would be thrown off my lap so I handed him back to Cleah. I took hold of the lines and thought maybe I could stop them, but I could not. Then I discovered the cause of the runaway. One of the horses had slipped his bridle off onto his neck and we could not guide them. About the time I felt myself slipping, but I didn’t know when I hit the ground.
When I came to, I heard Charley crying, “I’m killed, I’m killed.” He was lying about 5 feet from me, and I could see the other children strung along the road. But when I tried to get up everything went black before me. When Charley saw that I could not get up he came to me. He picked up one of the buckets we had brought eggs in and brought water from the river and wet my head. As soon as I tried to move everything went black again. By this time Cleah, Edson, and Clyde came to me. Edson and Clyde had cuts on their heads but Cleah didn’t have any cuts, just bruises. None of them had any broken bones. We couldn’t see the baby anyplace, and the wagon was turned bottom side up and the horses had stopped. I was afraid the baby was under the wagon, but we finally found him under the overturned seat. He must have been stunned, but when they picked him up he was all right. I was thankful we were all alive. Edson rode one of the horses to town and Brig Pierce and Ernest Turley put a cot in a wagon and came for me.
Annie was taken to Apostle Taylor’s home where his wives Roxey and Rhoda cared for her. In fact they took in the whole family. After about three weeks, when Annie was a little better, she insisted on going home so they could pick the fruit and take care of things. The children stayed out of school until the fruit was harvested and the corn gathered. They rented a house and moved into town, where they stayed until Charles returned.
Charles Whipple began shipping fruit again, mostly apples and pears, in carloads all over Mexico. He built a house in town, which the family lived in only about a year when they had to leave because of the Revolution.
Annie was ill with typhoid fever at that time. Charles returned one night about eleven o’clock from the town meeting where it had been decided that the whole town would leave for El Paso in the morning. He told the family to pack their clothes, bedding and a few things. This was in July and baby Catherine was about one year old. They expected to be back in about three or four weeks at the most. Annie was not told until they were ready to go because of her illness. Third class coaches were waiting on the track. A bed was made for Annie on one of the benches. After arriving in El Paso, they were taken to a newly finished, but unfurnished, apartment building along with a number of families. Annie continued to be sick. When the doctor was sent to see her, he told her she had typhoid fever and would have to go to the hospital. She told him she had no money, but he said she would be cared for anyway.
Charles Whipple was one of the men chosen to remain in Colonia Juarez to see about rounding up his cattle and horses, and closing the houses or leaving them in charge of Mexican neighbors. The family was very glad to see Charles when he came bringing the team and wagon. Since the United States was furnishing transportation for many families who could find homes with relatives, Annie and her family went to Holbrook on the Santa Fe Railroad. There, two of Charles’ brothers, Ned and Willard, met them and took them to Show Low. Annie’s brother, Hans, took them from therer to Lakeside, Arizona. Later, Charles brought Mary and her family to Lakeside as well. We all lived on the ranch near the little town of Shumway, Arizona where Jennie taught a country school.
In mean time, Mary’s father and his families had returned to Mexico and was urging all to return. Charles finally consented and Mary and her family went back to live in the old home. She was sure Annie and her children would follow later, but before they could bet arrangements made, Mary suddenly died. Annie had rented a place in Snowflake, serving meals and renting rooms to help make a living. About a year after Mary’s death, Charles Whipple was killed. He had taken a load of wood to Holbrook and was to haul freight back, a distance of about 25 miles. Something frightened the horses. He was thrown to the hard ground, suffered a fractured skull and in ten days died on April 13, 1919. He was taken to Snowflake for burial. Annie was left to care for her own younger children, with no home except the evacuated one in Mexico. She accepted the responsibility of the seven motherless and now fatherless children and with the help of the Walser’s was able to care for them until they were grown. She not only survived her 43 years of widowhood, but creditably maintained herself in her home in Mexico for a time, then managed to build a duplex in Mesa, Arizona, renting one part to enable herself to subsist. There she died on October 25, 1962. She had ably earned for herself a place among the stalwarts of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.
Jennie W. Brown and Pearl W. Cooley, daughters
Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 764