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George Conrad Naegle

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George Conrad Naegle

1860-1935

George Conrad Naegle was the son of John Conrad Naegle, of sturdy German ancestry.  His father was born in Albersweiler, Pfalz, Bavaria, September 14, 1825.

The Naegles had lived in this beautiful little village, nestled among foothills on a tributary of the Rhine River since about 1653 when Leonard Negelin, a direct ancestor, was among the first to have settled there with his family after the town was swept clean by a civil war. The Naegles played their part in the history of the town after that time.  Legend affirms that in feudal days there was a castle on every strategic hilltop occupied by lords of the manor or the monks who ruled with them.  Today those same hillsides are terraced to the top since wine making is the foundation of this town’s economic and commercial life and every available foot of ground must be planted to grape vines. George Conrad’s mother, Rosanna Zimmerman (number three of John Conrad’s wives), was born May 1, 1841 in Franklin County Pennsylvania, of the first generation of German immigrants of this line to come to America.

George Conrad Naegle was born October 1, 1860 in Lehi, Utah. He spent his early years there with a garden and orchard to be looked after and animals to be cared for. No doubt he was often at Warren Spring Ranch (now Saratoga) where his father had most of his cattle and horses. As a large family of which she was a member was very strict and religious observance, he had strict training in the principles of the Gospel, but little, if any, formal education. Father, busy with projects for developing the fast-growing empire of Utah, apparently did not since the need for it. One wonders why Grandfather Zimmerman, educated in the universities in Germany in German, French, Latin and English, himself a teacher of renown in the early days, did not leave his cobbler’s bench in all classes for the young of Lehi.

John Conrad’s was a strictly patriarchal home and George Conrad, the oldest son, was his right hand lieutenant.  He made all decisions for all the family, did all the planning, controlled all activities.

Shortly after 1875, George’s parents moved to Beaver, Utah. Their father Naegle found faster for his growing herds of cattle and bands of horses, and an excellent garden spots produce food for the rapidly increasing family. At the stay at Beaver was short-lived. Friends were securing rangeland in the Buckskin Mountains and John Conrad was able to secure land in this region, so he moved Rosanna and family to Toquerville and his stock to Kaibab Forest near the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

George Conrad was baptized by his father at Lehi, ordained a Deacon in the early 1870’s in Toquerville, made in Elder in 1880, and became a Ward teacher an officer in the first YMMIA organized there. He married Sara Higbee, daughter of pioneer John S. Higbee of Toquerville in the St. George Temple, 18 February, 1880. This he responsibility made him definitely aware of his lack of education. George determined to correct an embarrassing situation. John Conrad readily agreed and purchased a home in Provo where his children might attend Brigham Young Academy. George, now highly motivated, but the preparatory studies in record time and, at the close of the term in 1882, left with credits in bookkeeping, German and other courses, some taken under Karl G. Maeser.

In a cave for he was called to fill a mission in Germany, and on 7 April was ordained a 70 by Francis M. Lyman. He first labored in Switzerland and later in the part of Germany where his father’s people had lived for generations, Albersweiler and Liensweiler. He searched genealogical records together information on the Naegle family line. Later work done by a bonded archivist at Speyer Staatarchiv verify George Conrad’s work for accuracy to the last detail. Scraps of letters to his father at this date have interest:

“In November, 1885, I was called on a special mission to Turkey to aid Elder Jacob Spari and opening a mission in Constantinople. We started for the Orient but in Genoa, Italy, were interrupted by a letter which called us back owing to cholera, which at that time was raging Greece.”

From a later letter:

We distributed two tracts and “Articles of Faith,”     conversely them all [his relatives in Albersweiler]     from the principles of the Gospel, but it remains for   the future to see if any will embrace it. I borne       testimony to many and hope the seed sown will find     some good ground and bring forth fruit. I have five     companions, noble and praiseworthy young men viz:     Elder F. M. Lyman, Jr. of Provo and Elder A. W. Musser of Salt Lake City. The former is president of the   South German Conference in the latter and myself his co-laborers; but we do not enjoy each other’s company very much as we are… in the Missionary field, I desire to be an instrument in His hands and bringing souls to salvation. We have some pretty warm times, especially in the Kingdom of Bavaria from where Elders Smoot and Jennings were banished last June. I was sent there last July from Switzerland and spent two months with the police at my heels, was summoned before the chief of police twice and each time threatened with banishment, but I got over the border into Wurttemberg and escaped being banished. That was in September last and in October Elder F. M. Lyman, Jr. was banished from the kingdom…

After his return the summer of 1886, George Conrad moved his family to Kanab, Kane County, Utah, where he was ordained a High Priest by Thomas Chamberlain and set apart to act as first counselor to Bishop Lawrence C. Mariger. Other positions held by him in Kanab were President of the Ward and Stake YMMIA, Home Missionary, and Clerk of the Stake Board of Education.

In about 1890, having married his second wife, he decided to join his father in a move to Mexico where he had already purchase a tract of land in the Sierra Madre Mountains near Colonia Juarez. After a three month’s trip they arrived in Colonia Pacheco and establish their large herd of cattle on the range nearby. It was there, in June, 1892, that his brother Hyrum was killed by a large brown bear west of Pacheco.

Soon after the said event, typhoid struck family. Sabra had gone to Utah to receive medical aid. His second wife, Anna Foutz, baby girl, and his only son (child of Sabra) were carried away by the scourge. His Mexico family wiped out, the bereaved man left Mexico to join Sabra in Utah.

Church Authorities, realizing that he needed a complete change, called him to preside over the Swiss-German Mission. Accompanied by Sabra, he arrived in Bern, Switzerland, February 16, 1894, and in April took charge of the Mission. He held this position for three years in which time the number of missionaries laboring there increased from 40 to 82. Four of them were his brothers: Heber, Joseph, Casper, and Enoch.

Sabra kept the “Missionary Home” and endeared herself to all who came there. Here they adopted a baby girl, Margie Pope. During this period, George traveled through the entire European mission and Scandinavia with Anthon H. Lund and later again with Rulon S. Wells.

George Conrad was released from his mission, in January 1897, he returned to Colonia Pacheco, Mexico. A year later he moved to Colonia Oaxaca, Sonora, where his father assisted in settling the colony and also Morelos. From Oaxaca he was called on a mission in the interest of the MIA to St. Joseph Stake, Arizona, that he returned home to succeed Franklin Scott as Bishop of the Oaxaca Ward in the Juarez Stake.

In 1889, he married, as a second plural wife, Maggie Romney, daughter of Miles P. Romney and Hannah Hill. Their son, George, was born June 27, 1900. The daughter, Sabra, was born May 25, 1902. With their babies, Maggie went home to Colonia Dublan for a visit. While there, little George died of typhoid fever. A grief stricken father brought his sorrowing wife and baby home. She did not rally but grew weaker day by day. It was realized that she, too, had typhoid fever, of which she died. George Conrad thus found himself 42 years of age with two adopted daughters and an invalid wife, but no son to bear his name.

In 1903, he married the Philindra Keeler and Jennie Jameson.  Philindra’s first born, Joseph Abner, died in September of 1905 of spinal meningitis, but Jennie’s boy, Owen, survived. The family lived through the Oaxaca flood of 1905 which swept away their houses and most of their cattle. This is been George’s means of support all his life. In the fall of 1906, the family moved to Colonia Dublan where they were in 1912 when the Mormons left the colonies, as part of the Exodus, with little cash on hand. Families coming out on the train, where George was in charge of the company, were limited to a bedroll and suitcase her family. With no more than this, a start in a new country had to be made from the ground up.

George Conrad Naegle was killed in an automobile accident in Salt Lake City, July 29, 1935, and was buried in the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery. He left 15 children, five sons and ten daughters, and ever increasing group of grandchildren.

Philinda Keeler Naegle, wife

Stalwarts South of the Border by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 499

William Carroll McClellan

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William Carroll McClellan

1828-1916

William Carroll McClellan, son of James and Cynthia Stewart McClellan was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, May 12, 1828.  He was the eldest of 12 children, six boys and six girls, all of whom grew to adulthood and married, raising families of their own.  Some of them, including Williams, lived to a ripe old age.

William remembered little of the place of his birth as his parents moved to Shelby County, Illinois in the spring of 1833, when he was five years old.  There they squatted on a quarter section of land but made no effort to prove it.  In 1834, his father bought property from a man named Silver that was already improved with a cabin, smokehouse, and corn crib.  This small claim lay in the bend of the Oker or Kaskaskia River, but it was fenced and the land was “broke.”  The nearest neighbor was three-fourths of a mile away, but the next nearest was two-and one-half miles distant.  Here he spent the following six or seven years of boyhood on the farm, growing corn in the summer, feeding hogs and cattle in the winter, with little chance for education except what his mother could impart of reading and spelling.

His father’s economy and industry soon surrounded the family with the comforts of life.  Hogs and cattle sold well and fattened on the range for most of the year. Chicago and St. Louis furnished good markets for all he had to sell.

Under these prosperous conditions the early Mormon Elders found them and taught them the Resorted Gospel.  His parents were baptized in 1840.  His father, anxious to meet the man through whom the Gospel had been restored, made a trip to Nauvoo, Illinois.  He was so pleased with Prophet Joseph and Nauvoo that he bought property in the fast growing city, and returned home determined to sell out and move to Nauvoo.  This was not an easy thing to do.  Their farm was one of the best and largest in the country, containing 600 acres of cultivated lands.  He finally sold it for part cash and the rest stock.

He sent William to Nauvoo early in the spring of 1841 to look after the land he had bought.  The party tried hard to reach Nauvoo in time for conference on April 6, but arrived the day after.  William was baptized May 12, 1841, when he was 13 years of age.  All summer he chored around their Nauvoo property and returned in the fall to help his father move the family onto it.

Trouble then beset them.  First to happen after arrival was rheumatism, afflicting both his father and other so terribly that they were confined to their beds for three months.  Responsibility for keeping work going both inside and out fell on William, barely 14 years of age.  The great herd of stock they had driven from Shelby needed the card of a man, and a strong one, certainly more than a mere lad was able to give.  During on of the fierce storm that came with winter, the 60 head struck out of their old home, but the river, full of ice, stopped them.  They milled around near the banks until a party took charge and cared for them until spring. Expenses for keeping them cost his father half the heard.  Fortunately, tithing on them had already been paid.  Shares in the Nauvoo House had also been paid, but loss of his stock, with no way of caring for what he had, taxed his resources.  With sickness in the family, bedrock was soon reached.  The slide from plenty to poverty seemed but a short step.  Making a bare living now rested entirely on William’s young shoulders.

All winter he worked for wages.  In fact that was his lot for as long as they lived in Nauvoo.  He worked in the brickyard, did team work, and did much boating and rafting.  The last two years in Nauvoo were spent mostly on the river where, because he could do a man’s work on the water, he was counted on during all hours of the day, and often did emergency work at night.

Near the last of February, 1846, he was asked by J.D. Hunter to meet him and others at night near the upper stone house.  He, Hunter, Charles Hall, Allan Tally, and others with whom he was acquainted, went quietly to Shirt’s lime boat on the bank of the river.  Aboard, they pushed into the stream and floated a mile down the river, pulled ashore and put a wagon and team on board.  William was told to land at a light he could see on the Iowa side.  This was done with few words spoken.  Only two men aboard knew who was being ferried, Hunter and the stranger himself.  William was curious but asked no questions.  This was the beginning of the Exodus.

William stayed several days longer ferrying other parties across.  Then he went home to help get his folks ready to leave with a company.  First he took his father’s team and wagon, loaded with goods, intending to be gone a month.  But instead of being sent back at the end of that time, according to contract, he was sent into Missouri to work for provisions for the camp and was there until May, almost two months.  Letters came from his father concerning his lengthened stay, but they were burned.  Brigham Young, getting word of the inferred absence, wrote William personally, asking him to go to him at once at Garden Grove. He loaded his wagon with cornmeal and bacon, returned to camp and was soon on his way to Nauvoo, accompanied by three or four boys, who had no teams but wanted to return to their folks.

When they reached Nauvoo, he found his folks getting ready to move from the city.  The hostile mobs were making life unendurable.  His party was made of his father, mother, and family, Aunt Matilda Parks, T. C. D. Howell, his grandfather Hugh McClellan, Grandmother Rigby, Gabbit and others.  They crossed the river at Nashville, as there they gained better teams for ferriage.  The weather was hot; they made good time an reached the camp on Mosquito Creek on July 14.  William drove his grandfather’s team on the journey. 

There was recruiting in the camp enlisting men for service in the Mexican War. William’s father gave him the alternative of enlisting and being part of the 500 Mormons they had asked for or taking care of the four families, as well as the families of his Uncle Howell.  William A. Park and James R. Scott were enlisting so William decided to join.  He marked off with the 5th Company to camp on Sarapee’s Point. He received his outfit and supplies at Leavenworth and marched on to Santa Fe.  From here a party of invalids and laundresses left the detachment and were sent to Pueblo, Colorado.  Somewhere on the Rio Grande on November 10, another invalid detachment was sent back to Pueblo.  William was sent with this party to care for the sick.  It was a long, hard trip.  It was terribly cold and four men died; all of them suffered untold hardships, wallowing through the snow, half-clad and half-starved, reaching Pueblo late in December.  Here he stayed until the end of May, faring well with supplies from Bent’s Fort, jutting and getting fresh meat every day.  When he left, they traveled north, striking the old pioneer trail at Fort Laramie, going up the North Platte.  They followed the trail to Salt Lake, arriving July 27, 1847, just three days after Brigham Young and his advance company.  There William was mustered out of the army. 

On August 29, William, in company with 60 men, 30 of them Battalion men, started east for the Missouri River.  They had about six days’ rations per soldier to last them on a journey of 1,000 miles and mostly ox teams to haul them.  The first 500 miles there was no game to be found to stretch out their scanty rations.  The last half of the journey, buffalo furnished fresh meat for the famished men and even a straight meat diet was better than the starvation days, as they had plenty of salt.  They reached camp where William’s parents were the latter part of October, having been absent 14 months.  Both his grandparents had died, but all others were well.  For a year he worked single-handed, jobbing around Missouri. 

On July 19, 1849, he married Almeda Day.  She was his companion until death in 1916, and bore him 12 children in 55 years.  She was a daughter of Hugh and Rhoda Ann Nichols Day and was born in Leeds, Upper Canada, November 28, 1831.  When she was just a child of four, her parents crossed the St. Lawrence River on ice to New York state where the family probably joined the Church.  They sailed by boat through the Great Lakes to Illinois.  She buried her mother in Nauvoo.  There she met William C. McClellan. 

He built a little log cabin and gathered around him enough to make himself and his wife’s family comfortable for the winter.  He intended to stay in Missouri to take over his father’s farm when he moved west in the spring, but the gold rush to California had begun and his father and father-in-law urged him to go.  He had a baby coming, not much to move with, and was hard to convince; but he began making preparations anyway.  He joined his father in putting up a shop for fitting out wagons and other repair work.  But before they were ready to work, the gold hunters were on them, wanting supplies of food and shop work done.  The next June, 1850, he loaded all he had into a wagon and started west with his father, father-in-law, a month-old baby, and reached Salt Lake City early in October.  They passed through a siege of cholera, which cause the death of his brother, and attacked him as well.  He settled in Payson, Utah and lived there for 17 years, going through the hazards of land shortage.  His pioneering in Utah, the first of three such ventures in the United States, bade his pioneering in Mexico an old story. 

In April, 1857, he was ordained President for the 46th Quorum of Seventy.  Then the Utah War came and volunteers were called to guard the pass in the mountains, to fortify and block canyon entrances to keep Johnston’s Army from entering and carrying out threats to exterminate a “seditious and disloyal people.”  William volunteered and all through 1858 did duty in Echo Canyon.  He was called to raise 50 men to help.  Because part of the Payson men he needed were already out, he had to go to Spanish Fork for men to fill his company.  Captain Kite, Major A. K. Thurber of Springville were part of the 500 men who did spectacular work in Echo Canyon under the direction of Lot Smith.  They were instrumental in forcing General Sidney Johnson into winter quarters at Fort Bridger.

In 1863, William’s mother died on April 12, an extreme loss to her family and the community.  She was but 52 years old, so her death was a shock.  William was then called, in company with others, to meet and help incoming immigrants at Florence, Nebraska.  John R. Murdock was captain of this company.  His father, his brother Sam, and himself had a private team, probably owned by Jesse Knight, hauling goods for the company.  They left Florence on the Missouri about the 4th of July on their return home.  The company consisted of about a hundred wagons and four hundred immigrants. 

William was set to caring for women and children who had to walk.  His job was to keep them ahead of the wagons, instead of straggling behind.  William was also camp physician, and kept his medical supplies in his coat pocket.

The Salem Dam near Payson had been washed out four times, taking valuable land with it.  In the settlers’ discouragement they turned to him to replace the dam that meant life to their farms.  The structure he put in the river is still there, having done service for nearly three-quarters of a century.

In the summer of 1865, Indian trouble began.  At first they just acted ugly, but by 1866 they had become mean and hostile and it was necessary to organize for guard duty, keeping men and women in the fields night and day to prevent Indians from even getting near the settlement.  Finally an organized army was necessary for the Walker War was in earnest and William, guarding the settlement, was elected May 8, 1866, Colonel of the 1st Regiment, 2nd Brigade, of Goshen, Santaquin, Salem, and Benjamin.  This was full time work for seven months for the years 1866 and 1867.  There was a little breathing spell during the winter when the Indians could not cross the mountains for the snow.  A treaty of peace was concluded in the fall of 1867 and he resumed his work on Payson where he was a member of the town council, serving several terms. 

William was the prime instigator in extending the borders of Payson and building a canal from the Spanish Fork River.  He kept the work moving, combating the discouragement of those who felt it was too big an undertaking for such a small group of impoverished people.  When the work was finally done, “I am prouder of it,” he said in his journal, “than of any job I was ever connect with.” He was also a prime mover in building the meetinghouse, creating the funds as they went along, and in the process a feeling of unity and brotherhood was made that had not existed before. He also built a Relief Society store.

On May 14, 1873, William entered the practice of polygamy by marriage to Elsie Jane Richardson.  The next year, 1874, he was induced to go in with a few others and made a dairy farm in Grass Valley, Utah County, Utah, a fertile but cold section of the country in the high valleys of the Wasatch Mountains.  Together they farmed a quarter section of farmland and two or three quarters of meadow and pasture land with posts and pole fences.  They built houses and outbuildings and put up quite a lot of hay and made excellent cheese.  William brought in supplies for this mountain valley project.

Early in the spring of 1877, all Payson and Grass Valley plans were interrupted by a call to go with others to settle in Sunset, Arizona, and help establish the United Order.  The call could not have come when prospects for better living were brighter.  He had grown children, some of whom were married yet he began preparations to accept the call.

Fitting wagons to carry foodstuffs, seed and implements, and getting teams and livestock to take along was a matter of ease.  But sales were finally completed satisfactorily, and he pulled out with four wagons, six teams of oxen, a span of horses, and a light wagon, all filled with flour, merchandise and household goods.  A neighbor drove part of his outfit to help him to the first campsite.  William left behind a forest of waving hands from neighbors, all of whom wished him good luck in his new venture.

Not far from Payson, he found his neighbor awaiting him with a broken axle.  But before he had time to investigate, he heard other wagons following with the Payson band in the lead wagon, ready to burst into a lively tune.  Then he knew what was the matter with the “broken axle.”  He also knew, again, what warmth the love and respect of good neighbors can mean and what an uplift their interest in his welfare was.

The United Order was Utopian form of living, where there are no rich and no poor, where everyone shares alike.  By living the Order, the Saints hoped to become like the people of the City of Enoch, so righteous that they “were taken up and were no more, for God had taken them.” Moses, 7:69).  Failing to reach that degree of perfection, they could emulated the Nephites and Lamanites who lived in peace for 200 years after Christ visited this continent, all sharing in common.

Even though the Order, tried by Christ’s Apostles in Jerusalem after His ascension into Heaven, broke up because of weaknesses among its members, and the same failure had come to attempts to establish this Order in modern times, William retaining his hopes that this time it would succeed.  He put all his belongings into the Order when he arrived at Sunset, retaining for his family only what the Order stipulated.  He hoped only for some of the exaltation that blessings from living the Order righteously could bring.  But, after living it for three years and finding that finite men, including himself, were not yet sufficiently perfected, the Order could not be made a success.  He left when the Order dissolved with little more than that which the family wore.  Worse still he was a disillusioned, discouraged man.  For a few years he lived first in one locality then another on the Arizona frontier with little hope of betting his situation until he finally joined a group settling the little town of Pleasanton, New Mexico, a fertile valley near Silver City.

Here a successful and bright future seemed near.  But, too soon, fear was added to the remembered disillusionment and discouragement.  First, there was fear of Indians.  Geronimo and his renegades were on the rampage operating in the area, making fortification necessary for the protection of lives.  Second, there was fear of U.S. Marshals who were invading remote frontiers, bent on arresting every man having more than one wife.

Not relishing the idea of a jail sentence and fine, he acted promptly when, via the grapevine, he heard a “place” had been prepared in Mexico.  He left at once.  With his 16 year old son, Edward, an interpreter and others also seeking the “place,” he left, taking a roundabout way in order to avoid possible encounters with Indians.

They reached La Ascension on February 22, 1885 and with Bate William, who could speak Spanish, they went through the ordeal of customs inspection, a new and bewildering experience.  But more bewildering was that no one was there to lead them to the “place,” or to tell them what to do in the meantime.  They made camp on little Lake Federico where they shot ducks and fought mosquitoes for two weeks when Alexander F. Macdonald and his party, returning from a scouting trip through northern Chihuahua, finally arrived.  He had nothing to tell but to wait until pending land purchases were completed. 

William followed instructions, making camp for himself and others who soon followed and tried to cur his impatience.  He made one trip to Deming for supplies and looked the country over in search of farm land.  Still restless, he finally hitched up his team and returned to Pleasanton, New Mexico, got the farm work going there and with some seed potatoes returned to his camp in Mexico.  There he rented a piece of land from a Mexican and planted his potatoes, but, on account of the drought, not one came up.  He then made another trip to Pleasanton, but stayed only a few days, returning to Mexico about May 1.  By this time he was disgusted, discouraged and desperate enough to return to Pleasanton, get his family into Utah, face the music, or wait until the storm blew over.  Maybe in the country where he had known the greatest peace and prosperity, some of those happy days would return.  He left his grove camp below La Ascension May 19 with this intention but decided, sanely, to spend one more Sunday with the Saints in Camp Diaz.  There, in the meeting, something happened that changed his whole outlook.  A testimony came, a convincing feeling that his mission lay in the land of Mexico., that whatever hardships awaited them, he was part of a people of destiny, and that his place and part in it was to do his best toward fulfilling that mission.

He went to Pleasanton and moved a part of his family not to Utah, but to Mexico.  He joined the people at Camp Turley near San Jose and was in camp when the letter was read from Church Authorities appointing George W. Sevey Presiding Elder.  William raised his had to sustain him and prepared to move with them to land purchased on the Piedras Verdes River.  He was among the number that first settled in Old Town.  By the spring of 1886, he had all his family together there.  He was by now a financial wreck, his experience in Pleasanton having taken what was left after the United Order failure.  But he and his boys dug in, and through sickness, poverty and other ills incident to settling in a foreign land, gradually raised themselves from scratch to a comfortable situation.

He identified himself with the people of Colonia Juarez, did his part toward making it a thriving settlement and set an example of frugality and thrift by getting respectable homes for both his families. He built the first rock house in Old Town, helped survey the East Canal, and made ditches to carry weather from it to town lots.  He worked for good roads and took part in all the labors and doings of the people.

The years of pioneering in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and finally Mexico, had taken their toll.  As years piled up, his step slowed, his eyes grew dimmer.   He then took time to write the story of his life for his posterity, the closing paragraph of which reads:

    I will leave a large Posterity, and my wish is that none of them will ever do worse than I have done, but as much better as possible.  It would be a great satisfaction if I could know they would all grow up to be honest, virtuous, upright, and useful members of Society, as these ideas have been my hobby through life. Possibly I rode them too hard, at times for my own good, but yet I think of the poet that said, “A wit’s a feather, a chief’s a     rod, but an honest man is the work of God!”

William endured the privations of the Exodus and moved out of the country with other Church members, leaving two commodious and comfortable brick homes, orchards and town property.  But William took it as he did other losses as “all in a day’s work.”  He died April 19, 1916, in Colonia Juarez.  Almeda and Elsie lived on in Utah for several years, both dying in the homes of their children.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 437

Miles A. Romney

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Miles A. Romney

1869-1939

Miles Archibald Romney was an early pioneer of Colonia Juarez.  He explored the unknown forests and the fertile meadows of the colonies and mountains and the land beyond, where the pioneers did their hunting of wild game.

The son of Miles Park and Hannah Hood Hill, Miles was born in St. George, Utah, on November 6, 1869.  He received his infant blessings from his father, who also baprized and confirmed him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  His father ordained him a Deacon and years later conferred upon him the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordained him an Elder.  Later he became a High Priest.  He was faithful in attending to his spiritual duties.

Miles A. Romney’s grandfather, Miles Romney, was born in Dalton-in-Furness, England in 1806.  A carpenter who specialized in circular stair building, he emigrated to America.  He and his wife, Elizabeth Gaskell, were attracted by a street meeting conducted by Orson Hyde, one of the first Mormon missionaries to England, and in 1839 were baptized.  With other converts from Preston and Manchester, they sailed February 7, 1841, from Liverpool from New Orleans on the Sheffield.  They traveled by boat up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Miles worked on the Nauvoo Temple.  Their third son, born August 8, 1843, and named Miles Park Romney, was the father of Miles A. Romney.

Miles Park followed his father, Miles, as a carpenter and builder, as a missionary to England and as a colonizer in St. George, Utah. There, he assisted in building the tabernacle.   Miles A. Romney was faced with responsibilities to help his mother. She was a most courageous woman at that time, always willing and ready to make every sacrifice for the comfort and well-being of her family. This taught her son many lessons and sacrifice and leadership.

Soon after the return of his father, Miles P. was called by the First Presidency of the Church to leave his home in St. George to assist in building of St. John’s, Apache County, Arizona. Miles A., with his sister many, was to go with Catherine (third wife of Miles P.) and family to help establish a home.   The rest would join them later.  While in St. Johns, Miles A. assisted his father in building homes, fencing farm land, and preparing land for planting.  At times he also worked in his father’s printing office editing a paper known as The Orion Era.

Miles P. purchased a tract of 160 acres lying in the mountains west of St. Johns under a law that required the owner to maintain residence on the land over a period of years.  People were hired to remain on the property to fulfill the law.  During one winter Miles A., 13, and Thomas, seven, accompanied by Dick Moffett, were sent to guard the property.  Dick disliked the job and returned to St. Johns, leaving Miles A. and Thomas alone.  Land grabbers, thinking they would find no one on the property at that time of the year, entered the cabin to take over.  To their surprise, Miles A. and Thomas were there guarding the property.  After fixing their own breakfast, they left as unceremoniously as they had come.

Miles A. Romney was only 14 when his father was hounded by U.S. Marshals because of plural marriage.  His father left Snowflake, Arizona.  The next morning Miles A. saddled a horse, while his mother sewed all the money she had into his clothing and sent him to Snowflake with a letter to his father, telling him to keep out of the way.  Miles A. rode all day and part of the night.  He finally located his father who sent instructions back to meet him in Mexico.  Miles A. returned to St. Johns, little realizing the part he would have to take in the absence of his father.   One instruction given Miles A. by his father was to meet him in the Gila Valley with a team and wagon in two weeks.

Miles P. took part of his family by trail to California and thence southeastward through Arizona.  Miles A. and Will met their father in the Gila Valley at San Simon station.  They then all went by team and wagon to Mexico.

In 1886 Miles P. Romney sent his sons Miles A. and Will, with team and wagon, to St. Johns to bring Hannah and children to Mexico.  Miles A. accepted the responsibility and took the family from Arizona to Mexico over rough roads and through Indian country much of the way.  The family had expected to travel with the Skousen family, but when the time came to leave, Hannah and family left alone.  When they arrived at Nutrioso, New Mexico, a short distance from St. Johns, they were advised by friends not to make the trip as Geronimo, the Apache chief, and his band were on the warpath and they would be in great danger.  Hannah turned to her 16 year old son, Miles A., and said, “We will put our trust in our Heavenly Father.”  They left feeling certain He would protect them.

The night they left Nutrioso they were caught in a heavy snowstorm.  Miles A. helped wrap the children in quilts to keep them from the cold, while he and his mother walked along behind the wagon to keep warm.  Apache Hill, down which they must go, was so steep Miles A. and Gaskell had to fasten trees they had cut down to the back of the wagon to keep it from running over the horses.  Several times during the journey Miles A. and his brother removed shoes from the feet of the dead horses and nailed them to the hooves of their own horses whose feet had become tender.

It was a happy ending when they were met by their father and taken to an adobe shelter with a dirt floor and mud roof.  Miles A. did what he could to help his father lighten the burden of caring for a large family.  Many times he and his brothers helped herd cows for the neighbors for a cent and a half per day, per cow.  This gave the boys a feeling of independence and also contributed in a small way towards supporting the family.  Miles A. Romney spent many happy and memorable days as a youth in Colonia Juarez.

Miles Archibald, the oldest son of Hannah, was the only son of Miles P. Romney to live the principle of plural marriage.  His first wife was Frances Turley.  He later married three sisters: Lily, Elizabeth and Emily Burrell.  Miles loved and welcomed each child and gave all an equal opportunity.  While raising a large family they had their trials, but they likewise had their joys.  Many times deep shadows enveloped them because of hardships, but he never seemed discouraged and always carried on with an air that all was well.  He was a man with a tender heart but stern discipline.  Every member of his family recognized his work to be the law by which they must live.  In chastising or correcting his children, he would speak in a positive manner, but never with physical punishment.  I remember one rule he insisted on:  that no son or daughter under 18 years of age should leave home to spend the evening elsewhere without first getting permission.  The fixed hour for coming home was ten o’clock, except in the case of a dance, theatrical or other entertainment that would extend beyond that hour.  It was his idea that house parties should end by ten o’clock.  Should one disobey this standing law, a single glance from Father indicated it had better not happen again.  It would be difficult to say that these rigid methods would be effective in our society today, but they worked when the Saints were isolated from the rest of the world, especially when the Church encouraged such standards.

Soon after his first marriage he filled a two-year mission to the British Isles.  In other Church matters he was also prominent.  He was Stake President of the MIA from 1928 to 1937.  He was also Ward MIA President and for a number of years was a member of the Juarez Stake High Council.  Miles A. was known for powerful talks to the young people, explaining the problems of life and the results of sinful acts.  He was a man of wisdom and understanding.

He enjoyed the role of dance manager which he held for many years in the colonies.  He seemed to comprehend fully the psychology of youth.  He encouraged people to conduct themselves with pride and to have respect for their leaders. 

Miles A. Romney was a pioneer in public speaking and personality development.  He became famous by showing others how to become successful.  He mottos were:   “Believe that you will succeed and you will;” and, “Learn to love, respect and enjoy other people.”

He enjoyed working with people and was successful as a drama director, which he did for many years in the Juarez Ward.  Hours were spent adapting plays, selecting actors, directing rehearsals and supervising scenery, lighting and costuming.  He had a great imagination and vision of play production.  He could hold any audience and portray different emotions from deep love scenes to profound tragedy.  Miles conducted and took the lead at times in such plays as: As You Like it, Cousins, Smiling Through, Charley’s Aunt, Abies’s Irish Rose, Down Black Canyon, Lady of Lyons, The Charcoal Burner and The Silver King.  Many times I blackned my father’s hair with soot mixed with lard to portray certain parts, especially that of a young lover.

The Romney family was one of the first of the Mormon families to pioneer in Mexico.  The boys had many thrilling experiences, and Miles A. had the ability to tell them well.  Convalescing from a badly bruised foot, caused by a large steel beam getting out of control while working on the old wagon bridge that spans the Piedras Verdes River in Colonia Juarez, he had the urge to write several true life stories.  Two of his stories appeared in the early issues of the The Improvement Era:  “A Providential Escape,” and “Providential.”  These were later included in the book Pioneer Stories compiled by Preston Nibley.

Miles A. Romney was a contractor and builder, occupations in which he was very successful.  He worked on the Academy and many of the beautiful homes in Colonia Juarez.  He was a natural-born trader and buyer.  As a result he acquired much of the farming and orchard land adjacent to Colonia Juarez, from which he realized large returns.  Many carloads of apples would be shipped from his orchards to the interior of Mexico.  Miles A. Romney and Joseph T. Bentley kept the electric light company in operation in Colonia Juarez for the benefit of its citizens.  As watermaster for years, he stressed honesty and obedience to the water schedule and always respected the rights of others.

He dedicated the best years of his life to building the community of Colonia Juarez and met death in his early 70’s, as a result of acute heart disease, while in his sleep on November 29, 1939.

Celia R. Geertsen, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 590

Sarah Ann Lunt

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Sarah Ann Lunt

1858-1921

Sarah Ann Lunt, my mother and the daughter of Edward and Harriet Wood Lunt, was born in Manti, Utah August 11, 1858.  Her family later moved to Nephi, where she grew up.  She early learned to spin, card and weave clothes for the needs of the family which consisted of four brothers, two sisters, and her parents.

The two older brothers were stockmen and Mother spent much time cooking for them on their ranches.  She was unusual in that she knew no fear of man or beast.  At one time while on the ranch an angry steer attempted to gore her and she felled him with a stone.  Her formal schooling amounted to very little.  She often said, “If my school days were all summed up, they would not exceed three weeks.”  Yet, she learned to read and did all her own letter writing.

Henry Lunt, my father, often called on my grandfather at Nephi on his way to and from Salt Lake City to conference.  One morning in the spring of 1877, returning from conference, he in Nephi for a visit.  In the meantime, his team turned short and broke out the wagon tongue.  Getting it repaired delayed his journey for hours, making it possible for my mother and father to get acquainted. The next time Father passed that way, he took Mother with him and they were married January 16, 1878, in the St. George Temple.

Sarah Ann Lunt immediately took control of the hotel in Cedar City.  Aunt Mary Ann and Aunt Ellen, my father’s other wives, had previously taken care of the work but were not at an age of delicate health and could no longer carry on.  They also had the telegraph office to look after and Aunt Ellen was kept busy with that.  She was one of Utah’s first telegraph operators. The hotel and stage line were the main source of support for the entire family which consisted of Father, who was almost blind, Aunt Mary Ann, Aunt Ellen, Mother and some 20 children.

Things went well until the raids on polygamy began.  Father took Aunt Ellen and went to England as a missionary for two years to avoid the law.  After coming home, things were no better.  So, Apostle Erastus Snow said to Mother, “Sarah Ann Lunt, it is our job to take your husband and go to Old Mexico.” Where you can acquire land as a place of refuge.  We have talked to President Porfirio Diaz and he is willing to allow us to live our religion.  We can build up and beautify the country.  Diaz says his people are in need of being taught a better way of living and doing things.  Other people are there and two settlements are already established, Colonia Diaz and Colonia Juarez.”

In response, Mother said, “Brother Snow, do you know what you are asking of me? This hotel is the only means of support for the entire family. Brother Lunt is blind and I am the only one in the family who is able to run it.  We have no means and my oldest son is only eight years old.”  He said, “Sister Lunt, I feel it is the will of god that you should go, and the Lord will open the way if you will but obey.”  Mother prayed and fasted and thought the thing over until Apostle Snow came again.  Mother was strong willed and did not act until she knew it was right.

We left Cedar City later in the evening of November 26, 1887.  There were no farewells. Only the most trusted friends knew we had gone.  Our party consisted of Father, Mother, Edgerton, Broughton, Parley and Edward.  We took the southern route by way of “Dixie.”  We went through Toquerville on to Virgin City and up a canyon called North Creek, where a family by the name of Sanders lived.  It was great grape country.  I will never forget the pickled grapes put down in barrels.  I have never seen any since like them.

We found lodging in a two-room log house which had been used by campers as an old junk house.  One of mother’s first discoveries there was that all we children were lousy.  I well remember the days of scrubbing and cleaning until the pests were exterminated.  Then came the measles.  The remedy was sheep berry tea. It did all that any highly advertised patent medicine could do.  It cured the measles.  While there, we boys learned how to make slat quail traps.  Father bought us a sack of wheat for bait and we climbed the sunny hillsides and found bare spots where the snow had melted off, made a trail of wheat leading to the trap, then waited for the catch.  How happy we were one morning to find we had caught 13 quail in one trap.  How well I remember the quail pie that night.

When the weather permitted, we moved on.  We arrived in February, 1888 at Moccasin Springs, Arizona where we stayed at a stock ranch operated by Christopher Heaton.  My brother, Heaton, was born there.  When he was three weeks old we journeyed on, going by way of Kanab over the Buckskin Mountains to House Rock.  My half-brother Oscar joined us at Pipe Springs and brought the white topped buggy.  We loaded the bedding and provisions and needed camp equipment in the buggy where Mother and the children rode.  The heavier goods were loaded on the big wagon.  On acquiring the new fresh team and hitching them to the buggy, Mother thought it safer to ride on the heavy wagon.  But even then, when going down a steep rocky hill, Mother was thrown from the wagon with the baby.  In trying to protect the baby in the fall, Mother hurt her ankle quite badly.  Father had her sit on a stone and he administered to her.  She recovered sufficiently to continue the journey although she remained lame for months.

Mother had a natural horror of crossing the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. Just a short time before we crossed, a man was drowned while attempting to cross.  We had to cross at the upper ferry and it necessitated going over Lee’s Backbone, a very dangerous steep mountain.  I will never forget as we started down the ridge with steep canyons on both the north and the south sides, Oscar fell from the wagon, lodging on the tugs of the team on his back.  The brake came off and the horses were unable to control the wagon.  No matter which way it went it meant certain destruction.  Luckily, Oscar regained control and all was well.  On the river, men had to hold the wagon from tipping into the water.

From the Colorado to the Little Colorado is a barren waste with but little water.  Most of what water was obtained had lodged in the holes in the rocks and had been there for months.  Sheep had also watered at these holes and the liquid was very yellow and brackish.  It always had to be boiled and some substitute flavoring added to be used at all.  On reaching the Little Colorado we had a new experience.  The horses were nearly famished with thirst and, seeing the water, plunged into it and sank deep in quicksand.  After a great deal of exertion we finally got them out. We then traveled up the river to Winslow, Holbrook, and Joseph City, Arizona.  We then went on to Snowflake and Pinedale where we stayed that summer and rented six acres of land.

Brothers Freeman and Flake let us milk a few of their range cows.  Mother did the milking while the boys herded the cows and calves.  The Apache Indians were not under thorough control and often broke off the reservation.  We remained in Pinedale or Fish’s Ranch the winter of 1888 and I went to school at Pinedale a mile away.  Joseph Smith of Snowflake was the teacher.  He lived at the Fish Ranch also.  Many a morning I held to one fork of his swallow tailed coat to keep from being lost in the snow as we trudged on our way to school.  The summer of 1889, Aunt Annie came with her family and joined us at Pinedale with one more wagon and a team.  She then took the buggy back to Cedar City.  In September the rest of us took up the journey again to Mexico. 

Near Show Low, a man by the name of Jeff Adams and his wife fell in with us.  After traveling with us for several days, they pulled on alone and left us.  The next morning, our best horse could not be found and we spent the entire day looking for him, but all in vain.  That made it necessary to use one of the saddle ponies as a work horse and one boy had to walk and drive cows.  In time we reached Pima on the Gila River when we camped near Franklin Scott.  He had arrived some months before and had raised a small crop.  He was also on his way to Mexico.  Here we found our first sweet potatoes, and were they good!  They grew so prolific that George went to help a man dig them on shares and found one so large that he sat on one end and put the other end in the fire to cook.

While on the Gila, Christopher Heaton, Warriner Porter and John Walser joined us with two to four families each.  From then until we reached Colonia Diaz, sometime in December, 1889, our camp looked like the children of Israel in the wilderness.   We would build a big fire at night.  Then we children would play while the older folks would sing hymns, relate past experiences, speak of their future hopes, etc.  Then we would all be called to order and Brother Walser would lead in a hymn.  We would all kneel in our large circle and some of the men would pour out their souls to God for blessings of the day and ask Him to bless and watch over us and our animals as we slept.  All the Porter and Heaton families came down with sore eyes and that spoiled our good play at night.  I can see them still in memory bathing and trying to get their matted eyes open of a morning.

We finally reached Deming, New Mexico, a railroad town before crossing in Mexico.  There we stocked up on a few things we needed, as far as our meager means allowed.  Until then, we had not had a stove to cook on since we left Cedar City, nor a bestead outside of what we had made.  The only furniture we had was one red and one green chair which had been made in Utah with rawhide for the seats.  At Deming, father bought two cast iron cook stoves, one for each of his wives.  They were still in using them when we left Mexico.  He also bought two rockers, and I think a half dozen chairs.  This was the sum total of the furniture we owned.  We did have plenty of good homemade quilts and plenty of empty ticks which we filled with corn husks after we raised corn. We also had three feather beds and several pillows.  Until the first corn crop was harvested in Pacheco, we used pine needles or pulled wild grass to fill the bed ticks.

Upon arriving in Colonia Diaz, we had to leave the only team of horses we had.  They were old and nothing but mares could go on from there duty free.   We also had to leave one of the cows which became too weak to travel.  From Juarez to Pacheco was the end of the journey, as the notorious San Diego Canyon had to be scaled.  We managed to acquire the assistance of lumber haulers who went up empty to get lumber.  We arrived on what was the town site of Pacheco just as the sun was setting in the west.  It had been previously surveyed and laid off into city lots, each lot containing one and one-fourth acres with wide streets and a small alley running through the blocks both ways to avoid corrals being built on the main street. 

There were two small houses built of logs on the town site when we arrived, one owned by George Haws and the other by Alexander F. Macdonald, the latter being the surveyor.  The town was built on a small mesa of about 200 acres, falling away to the south.  A high mountain of 1800 feet to the west and a box canyon 100 feet deep on the east bracketed the town.  The canyon was cut our of solid volcanic rock by the Piedras Verdas River which drained the beautiful yellow pine timber, and provided a living for most occupants of the town by affording lumber for telephone posts, railroad ties, mining timbers, and juniper fence posts.  The lowlands afforded small fertile farms and grazing lands.  The town proved to be a very rocky piece of ground, after the abundant grass was gone, which served as a beautiful garment when we first arrived.

We arrived in Pacheco on January 21, 1890.  The next day was a busy one.  We cut logs, made cribs about two feet high, then put up a ridgepole over which we stretched our wagon covers and gathered pine needles upon which we spread our quilts for beds, making as many as four children beds in each shelter.  Late in the evening of the first day, one of John C. Naegle’s sons arrived at our camp with a load of lumber he had brought from a sawmill in Cave Valley and gave it to us.  We used it to make a spacious kitchen and dining room by lashing a pole between two pine trees and leaning one end of the boards against the poles and letting the other end rest on the ground.  This we called “the shanty.”  George went to take some of the horses “off to the park” as we called it, a small valley at the foot of Garcia Knoll, and came home with a deer tied on behind him.  He was only 15 and what a hero he was.

Yet other colonists soon arrived:  the Scotts, Farnsworth’s, Rowley’s, Cooley’s, Blacks, Heaton’s, Porter’s, Carroll’s and many others.  A log school and church house quickly erected.  A ditch from Water Canyon was to be dug so we could plant orchards and gardens and have water for culinary purposes.  In the meantime, all of our water was either carried or hauled in barrels from streams a mile away.

1891 was a year of severe drought everywhere and food became very scarce.  Also it was an early fall and corn did not mature.  George went to work on the railroad.  Oscar worked at the sawmill and Edgerton went to work for Franklin Spencer.  Father, Tom and I hoed corn at home.  The only good team of mares we had that had reached Mexico had to be sold to make ends meet.  Our suckling colts were killed by mountain lions before the first season was over.  We hoed constantly.  Father (who was nearly blind) had to be nearby so we could tell him which was corn and which was weeds.

Father always took one day off each week for letter writing.  He couldn’t read what he wrote after writing it but by having very heavy lines drown on the paper he could follow them. Parley herded the cows to be sure they would find the best pastures and come safely home each night so that we could obtain the scanty supply of milk they gave.  One day while herding cows he was bitten by a black rattler on his little toe.  His leg swelled up so tight we were afraid it would burst.  We did all we knew for it to no avail until the Lord heard our feeble cry and answered our prayers.

During this time, most who entered the colonies were very destitute.  In Pacheco we were the only ones who had corn.  The year of 1892 was a desperate one, and flour was not to be bought.  The cattle were dying of starvation, but we saved our corn again and had it made into meal.  I well remember how people came to borrow the corn or meal not knowing how or when they would be able to return it. I was too young to sense the gravity of the situation but can year yet the conversations that took place whenever our last sack was being dipped into.  People would come to Father and say, “Brother Lunt, have you any more meal you could lend me, my family hasn’t a dust of breadstuff in the house.” His reply would be, “Ah dear brother, you will have to see Sarah.”  I have heard Mother bear her testimony many times to the fact that she divided down to the last mixing and trusted in the Lord that somehow the way would open so she could feed her own.  Just as the last dust was divided, here came Albert Farnsworth in from working on the “Manana (tomorrow) Railroad” with two four-horse wagons of flour.  By night, Mother would have 1,000 pounds of flour in her house that had been returned for cornmeal.

In 1895 I went to work for Pleasant Williams for $.50 per day and worked until I had earned $60 for which he gave me a horse.  My brother Edgerton also worked for Joshua Stevens at the same price and got another for $50.  They were both two years old.  We waited a year. Got them up and gentled them and it made us our first real team.  The same year, Mother and I and the four youngest children, Heaton, Alma, Owen and Clarence, moved onto the Williams Ranch and rented six acres of land and 15 cows to milk.  Edward was in Chihuahua City working for Lucian Mecham and his wife who were running a hotel there.  Parley, Father and Tom looked after the farm in Pacheco.  In order to do our plowing on the Williams Ranch we borrowed a mule from James Mortensen when he could spare it.  Otherwise, Mother and I used the hoe method. We succeeded, however, in raising several tons of potatoes, a few beans and enough corn to fatten two or three big white hogs, a lot of squash and a good garden.  We moved back to Pacheco for the winter and school.  In those days we would have about three months of school, beginning the first of the year.

In 1897 we bought the Spencer farm at Corrales for $1,000.  We also bought a small cheese factory from George C. Naegle and milked some of his cows on shares and some of Helaman Pratt’s.  Mother’s cheese became famous right away and found a ready sale.  Each year a box of the fruits and vegetables and products of the Mormon colonies was sent to President Porfirio Diaz as a token of our good will to him and our appreciation for letting us live in his nation unmolested.  Included in each box was one of Mother’s cheeses.

Laura Ann Hardy Mecham was the first Relief Society President Pacheco had.  After she moved away, Mother took her place and served as long as we lived there.  During the early days of Pacheco, many of the men died due to exposure and overwork and lack of sufficient food.  Examples are William Haws, John McConkie, and John Rowley.  These men left large families and people had a hard time of it.  Many was the day that a few of the sisters would get together and go over to spend the day with “Aunt Sarah Ann Lunt,” and when the truth was known it was to get a little food as well as have a visit.  As I remember, she always had more than anyone else in town to cook.  She always had a garden as we had a stream of water at all times of our won.  She was a friend to the poor native people of the area as well and they loved her because she never let them go away hungry.    

In 1899 our home in Corrales burned down.  Since Father and Aunt Ellen were getting along in years, Mother wanted to build a brick house large enough to take care of him them, her own family, and also some spare rooms for passersby, as it seemed there were always lots of travelers in the country looking for accommodations.  Mother sent to Helaman Pratt for advice, but he rather discouraged the ideas, thinking it too big a job for her and her boys with the means she had.  It didn’t daunt her.  We went to work and hired a man who knew how to make brick, put up a brick kiln, worked on the sawmill for our lumber and hired a boy whose father was on a mission to Denmark to lay the brick.  We also hired a carpenter and builder.  They all did fine work.

The house was a two-story affair, consisting of nine large rooms.  We had it finished and paid for in 18 months.  Sadly, this was not soon enough for Father to move into because he died on January 22, 1902.  Aunt Ellen was then brought over and she died there.  Aunt Annie also made her home with us for several years until she decided to live with her daughter Ellen in Pacheco.

The big house being finished and the Noroestre Railroad having been completed as far south as Terrazas, it became possible for Mother to entertain guests.  The railroad advertised their road as leading into the Sierra Madre Mountains and as opening up one of the best hunting grounds in America for both small and large game.  This brought many people from all over the United States and Europe to hunt.  And as Corrales and the Lunt house were on the route where they outfitted and quit the wagon road, my brother George took up the hob as a guide to trappers and hunters and became the most famous guide of his day in Mexico, having trapped as many as seven bear in one week. 

Our ranch, being the jumping off place into the unknown wilderness and the only place where people could get hotel accommodations, brought many people of high rank to our home.  Including among them were: Theodore Roosevelt, Dr. Smith, who accompanied him on his African hunt.  German barons, and English dukes and lord.  At one time, William Green, the great Cananea Copper Company owner, brought man of the nation’s great men to the area, including some 27 senators.  They all stayed overnight at the Lunt house.  Although Mother had no education, she felt as free and at home conversing with these people as she did with her own family.

Mother placed great store by her dreams.  She always had a forewarning in a dream before someone died in the community and when she was informed of some sudden death, she would often say, “That is what I saw; it was not quite clear to me, but now it is.”  She was a friend to the sick and always had a little medicine and food for the needy.  As material for burial clothing was hard to get, especially for members who had been through the temple, I have known her to give her own temple clothing for them to bury someone with.

At the time of the Exodus I was in the Mexican town of Toluca on a mission.  The women and children of the colonies went first on a train to El Paso and later the men followed on horseback by way of Hachita, New Mexico.  Rey L. Pratt was President of the Mexican Mission at the time.  Most of the 22 missionaries in the Mexico City area were from the colonies and many of them had families depending on them.  President Pratt, hearing of the colonists all being in El Paso, immediately went there to see what could be done. Mother met him and gave him $50 to give to me, saying, “I want him to say as long as he is needed.  We will get along all right.”  Although President Pratt declined to accept the money, he mind was made up and he accepted.

In the summer of 1913, she thought it her duty to go back to Mexico and put Clarence and Owen in the Juarez Stake Academy.  She was made matron of the Ivins home which had become par to fht eschool and where many outside students lived.  The Ivins lots were used as agricultural experiment farms.  In 1919,  she again returned to Colonia Pacheco, taking Alma and Clarence with her.  To go back to the devastated home in Corrales where she had spent so many struggling but happy years was a trial that few women could endure.  Her once beautiful home was a pile of rubble with only parts of the walls standing.  Fences were gone that once enclosed fertile areas.  There was no stock on the range to be looked after or bring in profit, no bawling of calves.  All was silent except for the chatter of natives that gathered to greet her.  A few homes of her friends had escaped the forest fires that swept the town.  But the once beautiful two-story church with its spires to which she had contributed so much was a skeleton with a leaky roof and glassless windows. 

Undaunted, she moved into the adobe home of her son Heaton, which had not been destroyed.  President Ivins visited them in 1920 and made her youngest son, Clarence Bishop with Harlo Johnson First and William Jarvis Second Counselors.  She re-fenced the fields, obtained more cows, and resumed making cheese.  She was happy again.  To once more be back where her husband and Aunt Ellen were buried was very important to her.  She had given her first child to Aunt Ellen who was unable to have any of her own. 

The Revolution continued.  Firs one man would gain control of the government and then another, and each would print his own money.  As the different leaders lost out, their money became valueless.  The silver dollar always retained its value, but very few silver dollars could be found.  Mother had 45 silver dollars laid away in a baking powder can, hidden in her flour bin, to pay her burial expenses.

During the late summer of 1921 her health failed and she suffered a long sick spell.  She again had a dream.  In November, for of her sons went to visit her:  Broughton, Parley, Edward, and Heaton.  We wanted to bring her out to Duncan, Arizona where we resided and could get the aid of a doctor.  She declined, saying, “I want to stay right here.  If it is the Lord’s will that I should live, He can make me well here, and if my time to die has come, I want to die and be buried here.”  She told us she had dreamed of traveling and entering a deep canyon and as she traveled the walls became higher and steeper, until she reached a point where it looked as though she could go no farther.  Just as she was about to give up going any father, it suddenly opened up into a beautiful valley.  She said, “I don’t know whether it means I am going to get well or pass to the other side.”  She felt sure there would be a sudden change for the better.  Our visit did her good. 

After coming home for three weeks we received a telegram from President John T. Whetten telling us that Mother was worse.  So Edward, Chloe, Heaton’s wife, and myself went back to her bedside, knowing that we would bury her before we returned.  We arrived at her bedside on Christmas Eve and watched over her until 6:00 pm on the 27th when she died with father’s name on her lips, gazing heavenward.   

Being a carpenter, I took some of the boards my mother used to cure her cheese on and made her casket.  Chloe and Lavetta lined it with white bleaching and the Johnson girls trimmed it with lace inside and out.  On the 29th she was buried on the left side of her husband, Henry Lunt.  Aunt Ellen, his first wife, had been buried on his right side.  We dedicated the spot and poured out our souls in gratitude to God that he had given us such noble, God-fearing parents. 

Broughton Lunt

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 413

David Alma Stevens

David Alma Stevens

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David Alma Stevens

1849-1947

David Alma Stevens, son of Walter Stevens and Abigail Elizabeth Holman, was born February 10, 1859, in Holden, Millard County, Utah, formerly known as Buttermilk Fort.  He was the first male child born in the Fort.  As the son of a frontier family he learned the hardships of pioneering early in life.

In 1879, at the age of 20 he and his brother, Joshua, with a large company of settlers, were called to go to Bluff, San Juan County, Utah.  These settlers were told to take all of their belongings as they were to remain there and colonize that part of the country.  David, being young and unmarried, was given the task of scouting, herding the cattle and other odd jobs.  This party was what has come to be known as the “Hole-in-the-Rock” expedition. 

The task assigned the pioneers proved to be more difficult than anticipated.  They spent the whole winter making the trip to the Colorado River and on to Bluff.  Once at their destination, they discovered that it was much too small to support the entire company assigned to the mission, so those who arrived late were obliged to find other places to settle in that area.

David and Joshua and some of the other settlers liked the country on the La Plata River in New Mexico, which was then being settled.  They obtained land from one of the squatters and started on the new project.  Corn and wheat were planted and, the land being very fertile, it produced a heavy crop.  After the crop was harvested they went back to Holden with the good news.  A few of the men were interested in returning with them, including Alma’s father, Walter, and two sons-in-law, Charles Bigler and John Allen.  In the fall of 1881, David met Agnes S. Johnson and after a short courtship married her on November 10, 1881.    Their honeymoon was a trip to New Mexico in a covered wagon.  They stopped in Fruitland where Walter and Abigail made their permanent home.  Thus, Fruitland, New Mexico, became the headquarters of the Stevens settlers.

David was an able and fearless man, but Agnes was cautions and fearful.  She had not been raised among a lawless element as had David and therefore was rather fearful of such a wild life.   She was the daughter of Benjamin F. Johnson who was closely associated with the leaders of the Church.  He was called to settle in Santaquin as the Bishop of the Ward there.  She had also worked in Salt Lake City and was acquainted with rural life.  She did not know how to face the hardships that people had to face in the early days of New Mexico.  As long as David was home she was at ease but conditions required him to be away much of the time, with the result that she lived in constant fear.

One of the most dramatic events of the New Mexico range wars involved Mormon settlers in the region, and the Stevens family in particular.  It is best described by an observer of the episode, who reported “the La Plata affair” in the Deseret News for December 22, 1886:

In August 1883, Walter Stevens and his eldest son, W.J. Stevens, formerly of Holden, Utah, bought out the claim of one Golden, on the La Plata, each holding half, until the spring of 1886, the son then buying his father out.  Prior to the purchase by the son, the father had rented his portion to Hanson Walker, formerly of Pleasant Grove, Utah.  In the purchase, young Stevens was to attend to the agreement the father made with Walker for the current year.

In August 1886, Chas. E. Bigler made Stevens an offer for the farm, which he accepted in October, 1886; but, instead of doing this, he left early Monday morning.  At noon Bigler arrived with a load of furniture.  To his surprise, he found that Walker had gone, and one Dennis Hilton had taken possession having laid some poles belonging to the ranch in a square in front of the house with a notice thereon, also one on the door of the dwelling, and another on the granary, stating that he (Dennis Hilton) had located the ranch this day, (Nov. 8, 1886) etc.  Dennis, having left the place in charge of his brother Sherman Hilton, came to this place (Farmington), to procure help, guns and ammunition to assist him carrying out the break he had made.  This party thought that, as J. W. Stevens was 85 miles away, running a thresher, and his brother Alma was some 50 miles away, they would have only Bigler to contend against; but to their surprise, the Stevens brothers were only five miles from the farm, and hearing what had taken place hurried on.  They arrived at Alma’s place, which joins Bigler’s on the south, about 7:00 p.m., took supper, and then went over to Bigler’s some 80 rods distance.  In front of the house was a campfire, and bit it stood Bigler and Hilton.  W. J. Stevens said, “Good evening, Boss,” to Dennis Hilton, “You’ve made quite a raise.”   

“Yes,” said Dennis.

“How do you expect to make a break like this stick?” inquired Stevens.

“I’ll show you how I’ll make this stick,” said Dennis.

“I want none of your slang,” said Stevens.  “I came to see what reason you could offer for jumping this farm.”

“I’ll show you my reason, by G-d,” replied Dennis.

“I want you to understand I’ll not take any of your slang,” said Stevens.

“Well,” said Hilton, “You’re holding land under false pretenses.”

Stevens then proved this to be false by three witnesses present, and that he had sold the place to Bigler.  Hilton continued to abuse, and to sue rough language, which was more than Stevens could bear; so he pushed Hilton over and held him down for the space of five minutes, urging him all the while to produce some reason for the step he had taken, which he finally did, then Stevens let him up.

Prior to this, Sherman Hilton and others went to supper a distance of three quarters of a mile, and soon Lon Hilton and Nels Duluche returned from supper.  Shortly after two other ruffians came from above, John Duluche and Sam Bowen, Lon Hilton rode back to Sherman’s place; and in the meanwhile S. Duluche and Dennis Hilton retired from the fire in the same direction.  Presently the four, Sherman, Dennis, Lon Hilton and John Duluche hove in sight from the way of the stacks, and marked up to the fire with guns and pistols in hand.  Here they were joined by S. Bowen.  Dennis pointing at J. W. Stevens with his rife said, “That’s the man who choked me.”

Sherman said, “Who?”

Dennis, pointing as before, said, “That one.”

Sherman said, “You D—d son of a gun,” to J. W. Stevens, at the same time firing at him. This being the signal for the Hilton party, the firing became general and lasted about a minute; there being about 30 shots fired at close range.

There were five of the Hilton party who did the shooting, while only two Stevens (brothers) shot on the other side.

Sherman Hilton was mortally wounded and died the following Thursday.

John Duluche was killed on the spot.  Alma Stevens received three flesh wounds, one ball passing through the left wrist, between the radius and the ulna, one passing through the fleshy part of his forearm and coming out just below the elbow joint, the third lodging in his right thigh just below the groin.  W.J. Stevens, being in the heaviest of the fight, received only powder burns in his face and wrist; he was the last man to leave the battleground.  The next morning the Hilton party withdrew from the place.

These Hiltons went before the justice of another precinct, and procured warrants for the arrest of the Stevens boys charging them with murder; also four others who had no part in the fight.  There not being enough evidence brought to convict, or bind them over, they were discharged on the grounds of justification.

Last December Sherman Hilton succeeded in jumping the ranch of John Allen, joining David Alma Stevens.  He afterwards succeeded in getting his mother-in-law to jump a claim joining Allen’s which had previously taken up by Chas. E. Bigler, who had a house upon it.  Sherman Hilton, during last summer, drew his gun two different times on Chas. E. Bigler, without provocation.

The sympathy among all honorable men of this section runs high in favor of the Stevens brothers.

David Alma Stevens was so seriously injured he nearly died.  With careful nursing, however, he began to recuperate.   When it was reasonably safe for him to travel, he was advised to go to Bluff, Utah, with his family to a ranch up in the mountains where he could recuperate in the cool fresh air.  It would also be safer for him inasmuch as it appeared the Hiltons were determined to hunt him down and kill him.  During the summer while he was working on the ranch he received a call from the First Presidency to go to Mexico and help colonize that part of the world.

David Alma’s father-in-law, Benjamin F. Johnson, had previously moved his family to the Salt River Valley of Arizona and David Alma asked permission to stay in Mesa for a year to work as he was very short of funds.  Such a delay would also allow Agnes, yet shaken from the La Plata fracas, to visit with her folks before going into another country which to her seemed clear out of this world.  The request was granted.  While he was engaged in that endeavor he took work plowing a section of land for a Mr. Zullik and did very well.  While working on an old thresher the team engine blew up and nearly lost both eyes in the explosion which left them both badly burned.  He nearly lost his life, also, and carried scars from that explosion to his grave.  A cousin, Frank Openshaw, lost both eyes in the same explosion.

Finally, they made the move to Mexico in 1890, locating their home in Colonia Dublan.  David Alma and Joshua were in charge of taking care of the colonists’ tithing cattle.  As feed began to run out in the lower valleys it became advisable to look for better grazing grounds in the mountains where some of the colonists were settling.  David Alma and Joshua decided that Hop Valley would be as good a place as any to take the cattle and the Stevens family went there to live for a season.  While there they learned that the Indians had raided and killed the Thompsons who were living on the Pratt ranch not far away.

At this particular time David Alma Stevens was away purchasing supplies in Dublan.  The following day when he returned Agnes met him in the yard before he had even gotten off the wagon and told him.  He immediately unloaded the cargo he had bought, loaded a few items onto the wagon and left with his family, travelling all that night for safety.  

They moved to Colonia Juarez.  David Alma spent much time away from home hauling freight from Gallegos to the store, and lumber from the sawmills in the mountains.  Other jobs that required time away were railroad construction in the northwestern part of Chihuahua and supervising teams working at other jobs such as hauling ties to the men laying the track. 

In 1896 he married Mary Elmira Boice and shortly after that contracted with a Mr. G. W. Webb to do some work on the railroad.  Mary went with him to do the cooking for the gang.  While they were gone that summer Agnes and the children raised potatoes, milked the range cattle and made butter which was sold and the money used to purchase a baby buggy for baby Irven.

About 1900 a lot of work developed in Sonora out of Naco and Cananea where the William C. Green Company was promoting mining projects.  David Alma took his outfit to Sonora and worked there for years.  He then returned to the colonies, purchased some land and tried to make a living for his family by farming and doing odd jobs such as hauling lumber and freight.  He purchased about a hundred head of cattle from Ernest L. Taylor.

It seemed, however, with all those efforts he was not making enough to take care of his obligations.  Therefore, in the early summer of 1905, he decided to try railroading again and took a job on the Kansas City, Mexico and Oriente Railroad with G. W. Webb who was the main contractor.  This job took him up into the mountains 77 kilometers south of Minaca.  Because of the rain weather he lost a great deal of time.  Much of his work consisted of hauling supplies from the main comercio some 30 kilometers distant.   In the mud and washed-out roads, only small loads could be hauled at a time.  The poor horses suffered from dew poisoning with every scratch or flesh wound.

In December, David Alma Stevens quit that job and moved to another located on the Yaqui River in Sonora with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.  All went well through the winter but when summer came the weather was so hot he could work only part of the day, from 4:00 am to 10:00 am and from 3:00 pm until dark.  The job lasted until October.

He then returned to Casas Grandes.  He went right to work on the place as soon as the family was settled and planted a good crop of wheat on the land.  The method of harvesting in Mexico at the time was to cut with a sickle and then thresh by means of treading with horses.  That method seeming too slow, Stevens purchased a header and thresher and hired Fenley Merrill from Dublan to operate it.  The first day that the new equipment was put into operation was a spectacular event for the Mexican farmers in the area.  They gathered around the field to watch.  One prominent Mexican farmer in the crowd, Don Pablo Federico, exclaimed, “This maquina is not of this world!” The Stevenses did very well with their header and thresher by doing jobs for farmers in all parts of the area at harvest time.  After they purchased another header and thresher and continued to do well.

David Alma’s tow older sons, Earl and David, had married by 1914.  With the younger boys wanting to go to school, Alma sold out to Earl in 1918 and moved to Chandler, Arizona, where he purchased a farm for raising long-staple cotton.  Soon after he started and had a good crop, the market for cotton dropped to four cents a pound.  Alma then moved Mary with her two small children to Los Angeles, California.  He put the children in school and sought work with his teams wherever he could find it in the Los Angeles area.  There was much construction work to be done in the area but soon mechanized machinery and heavy equipment took over the work previously done by horsepower.

David found himself out of work.  After helping his son, who had a cotton gin in Porvenir, for about two years, he made his last move back to Holden, Millard County, Utah.  There he married his cousin, Laura Stevens, on June 18, 1930.  Laura was the youngest daughter of David Riley Stevens, brother of his father, Walter Stevens.  Laura inherited the family home when her father died so that Alma in his old age had a nice home to live in.  He planted two acres of berries and fruit trees, built a chicken coop, and tended a nice flock of chickens.

He passed away in Holden on June 14, 1947, at the age of 88.  He was buried at the place of his birth. 

David Stevens, son

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 633

More on David Alma Stevens and the “La Plata affair”

 

http://www.morningtalks.com/gunfight-new-mexico-1886

Moses Thatcher

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Moses Thatcher

1842-1909

Moses Thatcher, sixth son of eight sons of Hezekiah Thatcher and Alley Kitchen, was born on February 2, 1842, in Sangamon County, Illinois.

The frightening turmoil of the Saints’ exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, the misery, sickness hunger and death that hung like a cloud over the camps of wandering Mormons, the blistering sun, and unquenched thirst that accompanied his barefoot trek across the plains, and witnessing the death of his childhood chum as he lay crushed under a rolling log…all these deeply impressed young Moses.  But overriding the challenges and trials of his early life was his abiding faith in a benevolent God, a faith inculcated in him early in his tender years by his faithful, trusting mother.

Not forgotten were his memories of early encounters with Indians, one in which he was forced to exchange some cherished corn cakes for less palatable cricket pies.   

With other members of his father’s family, Moses was taken to California in the spring of 1849, where they settled in the area of Sacramento, a village of rude huts and unprotected tents, where people kept their silver dollars sewn in gunny sacks under their beds. 

He attended his first school when he was eleven.  Large for his age, he was humiliated to realize that boys much smaller and younger than he were far ahead of him in class, and so he exerted extra effort to excel.  When not in school, he earned money by digging moss and dirt from the crevices of large rocks along the river.  In a milk pan he washed the moss and dirt and retrieved gold dust which netted him several dollars a day.

His chief delight, however, was found in frequent night religious meetings which he and his parents attended.  He listed with pride as his father explained the Gospel to non-believers and as his mother confounded religious leaders with her simple, direct, unwavering faith.

When at 15 Moses accepted the call to serve as missionary companion to elder Henry G. Boyle, it was with the understanding that he would be just that, a companion. He would not be required to proselyte.  However, within a short time, he was amazed that he was blessed to be able to defend eloquently and knowledgeably the Gospel, not only to friends but to complete strangers.

Lettie Farr became his bride in April 1861, and they settled in Cache Valley, building the first frame house in Logan, Utah.  There Moses joined the “Minute Men” peacekeeping force.

He was called on a mission to Salt Lake City to learn telegraphy in 1865, and in April 1866 was called on a proselyting mission to England.  Upon his release in August 1868, he returned to Logan where he entered into a mercantile business with his father, a business that was later incorporated into ZCMI. He became influential in business and politics in Utah and was a member of the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1872 and a delegate to present the proposed constitution to Congress.  Moses was called as the first President of the Cache Valley Stake on May 21, 1877, and on April 9, 1879, at the age of 37, was called as an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because an influential Greek-Mexican, Dr. Plotino Rhodakanaty, residing in Mexico City, had become interested in the Gospel and had written to President John Taylor requesting additional information about the Church, Moses Thatcher was sent to Mexico City to meet with him personally. He was accompanied by Meliton Gonzalez Trejo, the Spanish translator of the Book of Mormon, and by James Z. Stewart.  Soon after they arrived in Mexico City, in November 1879, they taught and baptized Dr. Rhodakanaty and a native Mexican, Silviano Arteaga.  Within a few days they had baptized six additional men, had formed a Branch of the Church, had invoked the Lord’s blessings on Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican Constitution and governing bodies of the country of Mexico and its inhabitants that they might hear and receive the Gospel message, and Moses Thatcher additionally dedicated the land to missionary work. 

During this introductory visit to Mexico, Apostle Thatcher became acquainted with many prominent educational and political leaders in Mexico and he absorbed all the knowledge he could on the history and customs of this fascinating and powerful country. In his contacts with government officials, he laid the groundwork for the legal acquisition of lands in northern Mexico by the Mormon Colonists. 

In 1882 he and Erastus Snow were called to explore northern Mexico with a view to acquiring land there for possible colonization.  When in 1885 the first Mormon settlers moved into northern Chihuahua, alarmed American residents of Chihuahua prevailed upon the governor to issue an order for expulsion of the Mormons.  Apostles Thatcher and Brigham Young Jr. were able to have the order rescinded in Mexico City, where the matter had been referred.

Moses Thatcher was called to assist Elder Erastus Snow, who had been given charge of the Mormon colonies, in the adjustment of the Saints’ property titles and in the purchase of additional lands for their use.  Because of the time he had spent in Mexico City subsequent to his first, time which included a mission in that area, he had come to know intimately many of the political leaders there, and his service to the colonists was invaluable.  Also, he was able to obtain needed machinery for the Saints and arrange for its importation to Mexico.

At the request of Elder Snow, Moses Thatcher dedicated the townsite of Colonia Juarez on January 1, 1887.  In the years that followed, until his death in 1909, Thatcher maintained a lively interest in the colonies, visiting them often and contributing to their growth and development.

Jeanne J. Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch,

page 696

Avelina Mills Saville

Avelina Mills Saville

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Avelina Mills Saville

1859-1920

Avelina Mills Saville was born October 18,1859, in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She married John Harrie Saville in Salt Lake City, Utah.  They had four children, three daughters and one son.  Only her one daughter, Caroline, and the son, Willard, lived to maturity.

“Aunt Dean” Saville, as she was lovingly called, was called and set apart as a nurse and doctor to go to Colonia Juarez, Mexico, by Apostle George Teasdale in the Salt Lake Temple in 1896.  She had studied and practiced medicine for three years with Doctors Seymour B. Young, Wright and Mattie Hughes Cannon and passed successfully the Utah State Medical Board Examination.  She was well prepared with knowledge and experience and a large stock of the best drugs and equipment to fulfill this mission.  But she always felt that the success and power to heal the sick, during the 17 years of ministrations to the native people surrounding the colony and that of the LDS who lived there, was due more to her complete dependence upon, and her faith in, the promise of Apostle Teasdale when he set her apart:  that if she relied and put her trust in the Lord and called upon Him for aid, she should at all times know just what to do in the very hour of her need.  This was literally fulfilled, as of all the 800 women she delivered, not one died under her care.

A typical case was when she was called to go up a 60 mile rugged mountain trail burro back, leaving during the night, with a small boy as her guide over the wild and strange mountainous country, to remove from a Mexican woman the afterbirth that she had retained for 10 days.  She corrected the woman and had to do it kneeling down with the patient lying on a sheepskin on a dirt floor.  The woman lived.  The only remuneration “Aunt Dean” received was the first body louse she had ever had.  Her efforts were untiring.  She went when she was more physically ill than the patient.  She not only cared for women and children but removed many cataracts from eyes of the Mexican people, a malady to which they are very susceptible.

She displayed great skill in removing a bullet from the palm of a stranger who came once to her during the night. The bullet had remained in his hand for three days and had caused it to swell to three times its natural size.  He had traveled day and night, having been directed to come to Colonia Juarez to have his hand treated.  He took from a back pocket a pistol and asked her to keep it while his hand was being dressed.  She placed him under the influence of ether, yet it took three strong men to hold him down while she removed the bullet.  While under the ether, he talked and told her he had shot and killed a man and had received the bullet in his hand and was fleeing for his life to the United States, as he was an American.  He was forced to stop in this colony to have his had treated.    After he recovered from the ether and was ready to leave, he asked for his pistol and said it was a good thing he did not have it in his pocket while he was out of his head or he would have shot someone.  She told him to go to a doctor as soon as he reached Deming, New Mexico, and have his hand examined and dressed.  He wrote her a not and told her that the doctor had told him whoever removed the bullet had done a fine piece of surgery and did not need his care.  The most outstanding memory people have of her was her gentle, soothing touch and the cheerful assurance that all would be well.

Even after she could no longer attend patients, many said, “If only Aunt Dean would sit by me and hold my hand I could endure any kind of pain.”  She never spared herself, and at the time, in 1912, when colonists were called out to El Paso, she left all she had and went with the rest.  There were many sick and some births among these refugees who were placed by the El Paso Commercial Club in a big lumber shed which was divided into small sections for each family.  Huge supplies of food were sent each day.  She spent almost her entire time among the sick for three weeks.  Although she had one of the best rooms and a private bath in the city’s leading hotel, she was seldom there.  This great strain and lack of proper rest and care and the sorrow of leaving all she had possessed broke her health and she had to give up her glorious work and submit to being cared for by others for over five years.  Eventually, she had the great desire of her heart granted, to return to her former home and the few people who returned to the colonies.  Here she was lovingly cared for by her own daughter, and cousin, Maggie Ivins Bentley, as well as other devoted friends, until the end of her eventful, useful life.

She was truly a great a pioneer in this frontier country as was her pioneer mother, Emily Hill Woodmansee, the poetess, who came from England as a mere slip of a girl and pushed a handcart across the plains to Utah in 1856.  Her passing was peaceful and many of the children attending her funeral were brought into the world by her hands, many of them with children of their own.  They were all dressed in white and filled one side of the meetinghouse.  Bishop John J. Walser said of her, “Now she is free from all physical handicaps, there is no limit to the heights she can go for the good of others, that her great soul will take her.

While the Mexican people were usually thought of as a being barbarous and uncivilized, yet the noble colony “Doctor Woman” who cared for the sick in the mountain colonies was often called to go on horseback to the ranches to attend one of their women in confinement.  She was usually accompanied by only one of them to show the way.  Several expressed themselves as never being afraid and they were always treated with the greatest courtesy.  These women preferred our sisters to wait upon them, believing their children would be more fair than if they were waited upon by a native doctor.

Avelina Mills Saville died in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, on March 7, 1920 and was buried there the same day. 

Caroline Telford, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border page 600 

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

 

More information filling in some of the banks in Avelina’s life story can be found at: http://29deadpeople.com/wp/?page_id=109

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_H._Woodmansee

Guy C. Wilson

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Guy C. Wilson

1964-1942

The paternal ancestors of Guy C. Wilson are to be traced back in English and Scottish history.  The first to come to North American colonies arrived in Boston around 1640.  Guy C. Wilson’s grandfather, for whom he was named, was born in Chittendon County, Vermont, in 1801.  It was this forbearer who, with his father and brothers, joined the Mormon Church and linked their lives with its dramatic early days.

Guy’s grandfather and namesake, with his wife Elizabeth and their family, left Nauvoo with others of the Saints in 1846.  The rigors of the western journey proved too severe and Guy died on 17 September of that same year.  Elizabeth and her 18-year old son Lycurgus, took charge of family affairs and pressed on to the Salt Lake Valley.  There, three years later, when Lycurgus was 21, he married 14-year old Lois Ann Stevens.  This occurred on November 29, 1849.  The couple was called to help settle Sanpete Valley where they assisted in establishing what is now Fairview, Utah.  And it was in Fairview, as the fourth of their eight children, that young Guy Carlton, bearing the name of his grandfather, was born April 19, 1864.

Guy Carlton Wilson’s eldest brother, Lycurgus Arnold, would, like Guy, later become with other members of his large polygamous family, residents of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.  Two of Guy’s sisters, Ellen Adelia and Mary Mehitable, became the polygamous wives of Philip Harrison Hurst, another Mexican colonist.  Yet another sister married Andrew Peterson of Colonia Juarez. An both of Guy’s parents would later move to the colonies where they died and were buried.

In his youth, Guy received a strict Mormon upbringing.  Unless given permission to do otherwise, he was expected to be home by dark, to report to his parents on every evening’s activity away from home, and to be faithful in his religious duties. Early on, he became attached to the habit of personal prayer, fully convinced that his prayers were always heard and answered.  On one occasion as a boy, however, while searching for a lost cow, he thought he would employ the Lord in his errand.  He knelt down and fervently pleaded that he might locate the animal after crossing the next little hill.  Arising from his prayer, he was certain he would walk straight over the hill and see the cow immediately.  Instead, it was nowhere in sight.  Had God failed him? No.  The boy’s mind reasoned out an explanation that served him well the rest of his life.  “Had the Lord answered that prayer,” he said, “I would have kept Him busy all my life placing things or changing situations to suit my convenience, instead of learning the basic lesson that “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” 

He displayed a zeal for learning and was always an avid reader.  His studious manner earned him an unusual respect from his boyhood peers.  The story is told that at one time he was with a group of friends, sitting around the stove in a Fairview store, listening to a group of laborers that had recently returned from observing mining operations at Bingham.  The men told how they saw water lifted from one side of the canyon to a higher level at the other side by means of a long, specially constructed pipe.  Young Guy protested that this was impossible because, without a pump, water could not be made to rise above its source.  A heated argument followed, with men scoffing at the “know-it-all” kids.”  The other boys insisted, however, that if Guy said it was impossible, so it was.  It finally reached the point that both sides were willing to wager money on their opinions.  One of the boys had recently been orphaned and had inherited a team of matching grays.  He boldly stated, “If you say so, Guy, I’ll bet my team.” That ended the argument and those contending Guy Wilson was wrong, walked away.

Guy’s mother acted for years as both postmistress and telegraph operator in Fairview.  As a boy, Guy learned morse code and often helped his mother with the transmission and receipt of messages.  Inasmuch as these were the years when law enforcement authorities and Mormon polygamists were often engaged in a game of cat and mouse, young Guy, because of the central location and use of the telegraph of both sides, was often witness to the dramatic events of those days.  Sometimes Church leaders or their emissaries would arrive in person, unannounced.  One such occasion was long remembered by Guy.  Porter Rockwell arrived in the middle of a winter’s night.  After sending his telegraph message, he gladly accepted a plate of supper from the Wilson family.  As he sat eating before the open fire, Guy’s curiosity got the better of him, and asked: “Brother Rockwell, how many men have you killed in your life?”  Without a moment’s hesitation, Rockwell replied: ”Well, son, I reckon I never killed a single man that didn’t need killing.”

Recognizing their son’s zeal and special aptitude for learning, his parents fitted up a room with chairs and a blackboard in which Guy regularly met with friends with whom he studied and tutored.  An older brother and sister had already gone on to normal school and were teaching the elementary grades in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  In 1883, at the age of 19, Guy followed them and, in 1884, was himself employed as an elementary school teacher in the same community.  Ever hungry for additional education, in the autumn of 185, at the age of 21, he left Pleasant Grove and enrolled in the Brigham Young Academy.

The year that marked his first experience as a formal school instructor was important for another reason.  In September, 1884, he and Elvira Elizabeth Hartsborg were married in Salt Lake City by Daniel H. Wells.  They saw that first year in Pleasant Grove through together and lived in Provo, Utah, while Guy attended the Brigham Young Academy in 1885.  The next year Guy was called to serve in the Southern States Mission, with Elizabeth remaining in Fairview. Most of the time was spent in Kentucky and West Virginia.  In later years he told him he told his children many tales of the primitive conditions he observed while living in the hill country of those two states.

After being released and returning to Fairview in 1888, Guy and Elizabeth moved to Salt Lake City where he attended normal school in the old Social Hall.  In the fall of 1889, he accepted the position of principal of the district and returned to Fairview.  For the next two years he oversaw Fairview’s schools and served as Counselor to Bishop James C. Peterson.  Then, feeling the need for yet more schooling, he and Elizabeth moved to Provo where he could take additional course work in a variety of subjects.  While there he distinguished himself as an outstanding player on the school’s baseball team.  He also participated on the debating team and took part in dramatics.  He was selected to be “Class Orator” for the Class of 1893.

Guy returned to Fairview as principal of the school district and as a Counselor in the Bishopric.  His schooling and maturity, however, acted to point his interests in new and other directions.  He began reading law and involving himself in local political affairs.  Before long he was elected to the city council, then to the office of Justice of the Peace and, finally as prosecuting attorney.  After adding to these achievements by being elected county commissioner, he resigned his post as school principal and successfully obtained the state Democratic Party’s nomination for the office of State Auditor.  This was in 1895.

By this time Guy and Elizabeth had been married 11 years.  They had prospered.  They had an attractive home, a good team and buggy, and were respected citizens in their community.  Since there was no bank in Fairview at the time, Guy kept his earnings in a box in his bedroom dresser.  He was astonished at how rapidly his savings accumulated.  His and Elizabeth’s needs were modest.  Life seemed abundant in all regards, except for one:  Guy “ached” for children, especially a son.

Then occurred an important coincidence of events.  Anthony W. Ivins was set apart in 1895 to preside over the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico.  Ivins, as a young man, had been one of those who accompanied Daniel W. Jones in his exploring and proselytizing journey into Mexico in the 1870’s.  Like Guy, he had married and gone on a mission in the 1880’s.  He then returned to St. George, and like Guy, had prospered and become active in politics.  By the mid-1890’s he was being considered as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the state’s first race for governorship. 

After visiting the colonies and surveying their needs, Ivins returned to Salt Lake City to confer with Church Authorities at the time of the April general conference in 1896.  Among the most important of his recommendations to Church leaders was the imperative need for an improved school system in the colonies.  Altogether too little had been done in this regard during the 10 years since the colonies had been established.  Specifically, he asked that the Church subsidize a school system that would accommodate the colonists who were there and the hundreds of others who arrived from north of the border each year.  Secondly, he wanted the best young educator that could be found anywhere in the Church to be called on a mission to preside over that system and bring it to a level of excellence that the toiling Saints in Mexico deserved.  The authorities agreed to both requests.  While the Church readily concurred to underwrite an important school system in Mexico, there was uncertainty as to who should be chosen to oversee it.  President Ivins was told to consult Karl G. Maeser, the director the Brigham Young Academy in Provo.  After describing the kind of person required, Dr. Maeser immediately told Ivins, “Guy C. Wilson is your man.”  The result was an invitation to Guy to meet with President George Q. Cannon in his Salt Lake City office.

After being told what it was the authorities wished him to do, and given him time to consider it, Guy decided to accept and so informed President Cannon of his willingness.  However, Guy had previously made preparations to spend the 1896-1897 academic year studying law at the University of Michigan and thus would be unable to go to the colonies until the autumn of 1897.  President Cannon and Ivins both found this to be an acceptable delay.  As it turned out, Guy did not go to Michigan but spent the year studying at Brigham Young University in Provo.  When the agreed upon time arrived, he was given a formal missionary call, complete with the laying on of hands and papers, dated August 31, 1897, signed by the First Presidency of the Church, appointing Guy as head of the school system in the Mormon colonies in Mexico.    Before leaving President Cannon’s office Guy was also told that his calling involved more than presiding over schools.  He was expected to seek out and marry a suitable mate or mates in addition to his present wife.  President Ivins, was informed, had been given authority to solemnize polygamous or “celestial marriages.”  President Cannon assured Guy that the Lord did not want him to be forever childless.  We cannot be entirely sure how Elizabeth responded to this second part of Guy’s calling.  But she chose to stay in Utah when he left for Mexico in the autumn of 1897.  Ant it has been said that she seemed “crushed and rebellious.”

Upon arriving in Colonia Juarez, Guy was introduced to the colonists and their leaders by Karl G. Maeser who made it a point to be present at the time.  Guy, who was almost universally referred to thereafter as “Brother Wilson” or “Professor Wilson” took quarters in the home of Hanna S. Taylor.  Student were invited to visit with him in the Taylor home and, before long, it became one of the favorite locations for young people in Colonia Juarez to meet and socialize.

Making friends with the students and listening to their problems was but a part of the responsibilities Professor Wilson had undertaken. Nevertheless, it was an important part of illustrated one of his best known strength: his capacity for relating to and communicating with others.  It was not just that he was warm and magnetic in his personality.  He also had the ability to quickly elucidate an issue and then, with uncanny skill, bring contentious personalities to a common understanding.  Whether in the classroom or in church or civic gatherings, his remarkable gift for clear exposition and precipitating consensus marked him throughout his life.

A school building being constructed in Colonia Juarez and an addition was already being built when Professor Wilson assumed his responsibilities in the autumn of 1897.  He immediately set about reorganizing tutorial “reader system” used by his predecessor Dennison E. Harris, into a ladder of eight separate grades.  He added an additional teacher and saw 15 students graduate from the eighth grade in the spring of 1898.  More importantly, after making a tour of the colonies and examining their schooling efforts, he concluded that a program for teacher training must be implemented so that local talent could be used to enrich the educational experience of young people in every colony.  The result was the creation of a normal training center in the Juarez school.  In addition to this, each year he added a new grade level of instruction so that, by 1901, six students were graduated and certified to teach in the elementary schools of the Stake.   

In the summer of 1898 he went north to Salt Lake City where he reported to the First Presidency on his progress in turning the colony schools into an integrated system of graded, quality instruction.  Church leaders expressed their approval.  Then President Cannon asked how he was coming in connection with the rest of what he had been urged to do.  Professor Wilson’s reply was, “I’m waiting for her grow up.”  “Good,” said President Cannon, “Then, make it two.”

After his visit to Salt Lake City, Professor Wilson took his wife Elzabeth and spent the next three months attending summer school at the University of Chicago.  When finished he left Elizabeth in Fairview again and returned to the colonies.  He brought with him, as anew members of the faculty, Miss Ella Larson who had specialized in teaching training and dramatics and was a graduate of the Cook County Schools in Chicago and Miss Pearl Thurber, whose training was in music and elementary school and education.  This same school year also saw the completion of new, larger school buildings.  There were now five large, well equipped classrooms, a principal’s office and a library, topped with an attractive belfry. 

Everyone was astonished to see how quickly the new building was filled with a growing student body.  The faculty rapidly expanded to ten teachers.  A movement was soon afoot to erect yet another larger structure.  At a crowded town meeting called to discuss the problem, President Ivins donated five acres of his land for the project and pledges were made by other citizens totaling $12,000.  When matching Church and Stake funds were made available, a beginning on the academy building was possible.  Ground was broken on December 12, 1903, and the new structure opened its doors for use in September 1905.  By 1908, four-year diplomas were being given in high school and normal school, and three-year certificates in domestic science and domestic art.  Students came from all the colonies, many of them living during the school year with families in Colonia Juarez.  As the school grew, three other buildings were added to the school’s physical plant.  With the Academy providing high school education for students from all the colonies, some of whom were trained to return and oversee elementary instruction in their own communicates, the Juarez Stake Academy had become the mother institution for the entire system.

One of the things that is most surprising in the work of the school during these early years was the breadth of its curriculum.  Courses were taught in physics, mathematics, music, bookkeeping, English literature, history, elocution, woodwork, agriculture, Spanish and, for prospective teachers, education philosophy and child psychology.  There were athletic programs that fielded lively teams for both boys and girls.  Student performance of dramas, musicals and operas provided enjoyment for the entire community.  A tasteful but entertaining school paper was published.  In 1903, largely to the work of Charles E. McClellan, a museum was begun.  A brass band, complete with uniforms, a string orchestra, and special choirs were trained.  In all of this one sees the broad educational outlook of Guy C. Wilson.  The quality of work in the schools along with the rising level of culture in the Mormon communities, owed an immense debt to his initiative and vision.      

During these years, Elizabeth sometimes spent Christmas vacations or other brief periods with her husband in the colonies.  Professor Wilson, always anxious to obtain more schooling, had taken her with him while attending summer school at Columbia University in New York City in 1899.  But there seemed to be no indication that tshe was willing to permanently move to Mexico and make a home there.  This reluctance, combined with the childlessness of the marriage and the urgings of President George Q. Cannon, led Professor Wilson to enter “the principle.” We have noted his response to President Cannon in 1898 that he was waiting for a prospective bride “to grow up.”  This suggests he may already have been thinking about young Agnes Melissa Stevens.

The family of David Alma Stevens had arrived in the colonies from New Mexico in 1890.  Before moving to Mexico, David had been among the pioneers of the Hole-in-the Rock expedition of 1879 and 1880.  Later he was involved in the La Plata shootings that were part of the New Mexico range wars.  Though seriously wounded, David had survived and eventually relocated in Colonia Dublan with his wife, Agnes Sariah, and their four children.  The oldest of these was Agnes Melissa who had been born in Fruitland, New Mexico, on September 2, 1883.  Melissa was 14 years old and in the 7th grade when Guy C. Wilson first arrived in 1897.  She was among his students for the next five years and was asked in 1901, even before completing her normal training and receiving her diploma, to teach the 3rd grade in Colonia Juarez.  In the spring of 1902, being 18 years of age, and after a discreet courtship, Melissa was married to Guy C. Wilson as his second living wife.  The ceremony was performed in Professor Wilson’s upstairs office in the old Academy building by President Anthony W. Ivins. 

It will re recalled that President Cannon had at one time suggested to Professor Wilson, regarding the taking of additional wives, that he “make it two.”  The year following his marriage to Melissa Stevens, on 13 May 1903, President Ivins sealed his own daughter, Anna Lowrie Ivins, to Professor Wilson.  A year older than Melissa, Anna had come to the colonies with her rather when he was appointed President of the Stake in 1895.  She had also been one of Professor Wilson’s students.  She and Melissa had been especially close friends during the years previous to their marriages.  In the years they spent as sister wives to Guy C. Wilson their love for each other only deepened.  If Elizabeth withdrew somewhat in her relationship with her husband, the harmony and affection that existed between Melissa and Anna, including among the happiest examples of Mormon polygamy had produced.

The years that followed were in many ways the most rewarding of Guy C. Wilson’s life. Children began to arrive eventually numbering 14 between the two families.  Along with the warmth of his domestic circumstances, his days were brightened by the presence in the colonies of his mother and father, two sisters and a brother, as well as the parents of his young wives.  His talents were being used not only in connection with the administration of the school system, but as a Counselor to his father-in-law, Anthony W. Ivins, in the Stake Presidency.  Finally, he was seeing the results of his labor at the Academy.  Not only had the enrollment grown, but the quality of programs being offered was on a par with the best available at those grade levels anywhere in the United States.  By 1912, for Guy C. Wilson, prospects for the future never seemed better.

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 swept over the colonies.  Although no Mormons lost their lives at the hands of soldiers, there was considerable annoyance with pilfering.  With the demand that colonists give up their guns, Church Authorities feared there would be no way to adequately defend themselves and that injuries would certainly follow.  The result was the well-known Exodus of late July 1912.  Both Melissa and Anna, with their children, were sent by train to El Paso for safety.  Eventually Melissa and her children went to a ranch belonging to her rather, David Alma Stevens, just south of the border in Zaragosa, near the Rio Grande River.  Anna was sent to live with her parents in Salt Lake City.  With both families taken care of, Professor Wilson was given a year’s sabbatical leave by the Church and decided to spend it in post-graduate study with John Dewey, Edward Thorndike and others at Columbia University.  His service at the Juarez Stake Academy was at an end and a new phase of life had begun.  

Upon return from New York City in 1913, Professor Wilson established and oversaw the first seminary program in the Mormon Church.  This was done at Granite High School in Salt Lake City.  This was pioneering of a different kind again, and the fruits of his planting are known to every LDS family in North America today.  In 1915 he became President of the LDS University.  This was a four-year high school and business college.  During his 10 years in that position, buildings were added and in 1920, the curriculum was enlarged to embrace two years of college work.  Also, with B. Cecil Gates, he founded the McCune School of Music.  

In 1926 he was succeeded by Feramorz Y. Fox and accepted an appointment as head of all the Church’s schools and seminaries.  He continued at this until 1930 when he became Dean of the Divison of Religious Education at Brigham Young University.  In addition to writing Church educational manuals, and sitting on numerous boards and committees, Professor Wilson was able to give considerable time to the classroom —- always his greatest professional love.  If there was a particular objective that characterized his work, it was the desire to harmonize secular and scientific knowledge with the teachings of the Church.  He was in adapting theology to the problems of everyday life and his passion for clear and correct exposition was exceeded only by a personal interest in the lives of his students.

By the late 1930’s his health began to decline.  He was able to continue teaching through the autumn quarter of 1941 when, at the closing meeting of one of his classes, he was reported to say:”I have taught my last class.”  This must have been a most difficult moment.  Although he had traveled a long road, he made enormous contributions to the educational systems of the Church in both Mexico and the United States, had trained in classrooms in the finest universities of the land, and had raised two wonderful families with two happy, supporting companions, he was first and last a teacher. It was there that he had used his first to enrich the lives of so many others.

When he died on January 27, 1942 it was entirely appropriate that his funeral was one of the first functions held in the new Joseph F. Smith Memorial building, constructed to house the Division of Religion over which he had presided.  It was also appropriate that at his request, the song sung by a BYU quartet was, “The Teacher’s Work is Done.”

Elizabeth spent her declining years in Salt Lake City, surviving until September 27, 1951.  Melissa moved to Provo in 1926 until after Guy’s death.  She then relocated in California, living at the home of her son, Guy C. Wilson, Jr. She was with her daughter Elizabeth, in La Jolla, California, when she died on March 21, 1965.  Anna continued to make her home in Salt Lake City and passed away on October 30, 1967.  Their children have distinguished themselves in business, education, and other professions.  More than his children, however, there are thousands whose heritage includes the magic of time in a schoolroom with Professor Guy C. Wilson.  The high level of cultural activity and taste, as well as the unusual amount of achievement associated with those who trace their roots to the pre-Exodus period of the Mexican colonies, must be at least partly credited to the influence of this remarkable man.       

B. Carmon Hardy

Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 781

George Ayers Black

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George Ayers Black

1861-1908

George Ayers Black known as “George A.” the second son and third child of William Valentine Black and Jane Johnston Black, was born in Lisburn, Entrum County, Ireland, in the year 1832.  He moved to Manchester, England with his parents.  There the entire family was baptized into Mormonism and emigrated to the United States.

Landing first in New Orleans, they traveled up the river to St. Louis, Missouri, and from there to Nauvoo, Illinois where they joined their daughter, Mary, who had come over before them.

When the Saints left Nauvoo the Blacks had a wagon but no team, so they pushed the wagon by hand down to the Mississippi dock and ferried it across the river to join the camp of refugees. The family went on to Council Bluffs in the spring, and in 1850 traveled to the Salt Lake Valley with the Pace Company.

After they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, President Young called William V. Black and family to help settle Manti.  When in 1853 the Walker War commenced, William V. served for two years as a cavalry soldier. 

He first married Almira Ayers, daughter of Caleb and Lucinda Catherine Haggerty Ayers, and in 1857 he married Victoria Ayers, sister of Almira.

George Ayers, Victoria’s first son was born March 3, 1861, in Spring City, Sanpete County, Utah.  While George Ayers Black was still a baby his parents were called by the Church authorities to help settle Utah’s Dixie.  They spent some years in Rockville, then in Kanosh, Millard County, and finally settled in Deseret. 

George A. was not a large man, about five feet nine inches in height, but he enjoyed good health and was blessed with great endurance, enabling him to do a great amount of work.  He had a jovial, happy disposition, loved to sing songs, made friends easily and enjoyed their companionship. 

He left for a Church mission to the Southern States in 1883.  His work was in Tennessee and Kentucky.  While there, he visited the Exposition at Louisville.

George A. was released from his mission November 17, 1885.  He arrived at Oasis depot where he was met by his fiancée Emily Partridge, her brother John and sister Clara, who had traveled all day from Fillmore to meet him.  He and Emily were married in the St. George Temple on December 31, 1885 and lived in Fillmore for a while where he attended school.  The couple did a lot of studying together.

In the spring they moved to Deseret where George A. was employed in his father’s store.  Their first child arrived October 2, 1886, and they named him George Edward.  Their second son, William Shirley, was born January 30, 1889.

In 1891 the family moved to Hinckley a few miles distant and took up a homestead.  Although Hinckley was a sand-swept, dry, alkaline land, George A. sank artesian wells, broke up the soil, built buildings, planted poplar trees for wind breaks, and made his holdings into a very good ranch with cattle, horses, and large stacks of hay.  For their fruit supply they planted currant and gooseberry bushes, which were about the only fruit producing plants that would grow there.

He was made a Counselor to Bishop William Pratt.  His friendly nature, ambition, and public spirit soon made him a leader in the community.  He was helpful in building Hinckley’s church, later known as the “mud temple.”

The third son, David Clisbee, was born July 17, 1892.  Geneva was born September 10, 1895, Carnal Buxton on September 4, 1897, and Victor F. October 14, 1899.  About a month after Victor’s birth Emily, the mother, died, having contracted blood poisoning.  George A. was left with six children under the age of thirteen.  Julia Stout, who lived on the farm adjoining, took baby Victor until he was old enough to return to the family. 

George A. struggled on with some help from relatives and “hired girls” until he fortunately met and fell in love with Artemisia Cox, a sister of Julia Stout.  They were married November 30, 1900 in the St. George Temple.  A daughter, Golda was born October 21, 1901. 

George A. left Salt Lake City on November 22, 1902 for Canada to work as a missionary encouraging enrollment and attendance at the Mutual Improvement Association and selling Era subscriptions.  When a telegram brought word from home that Victor had died, George A. was released from the mission and returned home.

On May 12, 1903, the family moved to Deep Creek, Tooele County, Utah.  There George A. engaged in farming, sawmill work, thrashing grain, helping James A. Faust with the Church farm and befriending and helping the Indians on the nearby reservation.  He soon became a member of the school board which was planning a much-needed building for school and church services.  With the help of his boys and other members, kilns were built and brick and lime produced and the building was soon finished.

Another son, June Whitmore, arrived December 3, 1903.  Many Indian friends wanted George to name the baby Ibapah, the Indian name for Tooele County.

As the years passed George Ayers Black realized that the environment of Deep Creek on the Nevada border was not a suitable one in which to raise his large family.  He decided to move to a more settled community.  Letters had come from the David Stout family praising that part of Mexico where the Stouts were living.  George A. decided to take his wife to Mexico to visit here sisters and to see the country.  With their four small children they made the trip to Guadalupe, Chihuahua.  They liked what they found there and before returning home bought a terreno joining the Stouts’ land.  November 30, 1906 the family moved to Guadalupe to make their home.  It was necessary at first to live in a Mexican adobe house, but he started immediately to assembly material for a new house.  Crops and gardens were planted; trees were set out to beautify the new home.  Soon George was made Presiding Elder of this Branch of the Dublan Ward and he gave Guadalupe dynamic leadership.  Immediately, wishful thinking about a new meeting house was changed into action, and every able-bodied person in the branch was performing his part in the great task of building a house of worship.  Again George A. Built kilns and produced the brick and lime needed for the new chapel.  Within a year it was ready except for the needed furniture, including an organ. 

The Brown family purchased a grain header, a molasses mill, and other farm machinery.  The sons and Emerald Stout operated the header, cutting wheat up and down the valley on both sides of the river.  The Haws and Hatch thrashing machine crew followed, finding George A. a very fine man to work with.  A seventh son, Alma Cox, was born January 15, 1907.    

It became a custom in Guadalupe to celebrate Mexican holidays such as the Cinco de Mayo.  In 1908, the program was especially fine.  Both American and Mexican flags were displayed.  Many Mexican neighbors were invited and attended the gathering in the new church building, and a very friendly feeling prevailed throughout the day.  Quite ironically, however, before the month had passed, George A. was killed—May 30, 1908—by a gun shot from an angry Mexican intended for someone else.  In the early evening George A. had learned about a dispute over water rights that was taking place in the field and went to find out what the trouble was.  As he was approaching the scene a bullet from the Mexican’s gun struck him in the jugular vein, killing him instantly.  His funeral was held in the Dublan Ward Church were large crowds came to pay respects to a man they had known only a short time but for whom they already had great respect and friendship.  The burial was in the Dublan cemetery.

On October 19, 1908, a baby girl, Georgia Ayers, was born to the stricken home.  Artemisia carried on bravely, although her health was poor.  She sent Don, a son, on a Church mission to Mexico City.  After another tragedy in the community, she moved in with the Stouts for better protection.  The older boys worked hard to help support the family— Edward worked for the Juarez power plant: Shirl ran the farm; Don and Geneva attended the Academy.  Shirl married Verna Johnson of Colonia Diaz just before the Exodus.  Edward and Shirl left Mexico overland with a group of men from the colonies, taking the horses.  Other members of the family went by train to El Paso.  Artemisia went from El Paso to Hinckley, Utah, where she lived and raised her small children.  The older children stayed with relatives until they were grown. 

Geneva Black Stout, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 38

From the history of Shirl Black regarding the death of his father:

     My father was killed 30 May 1908. It was our turn to      take the water, so my brother Edd went up the ditch        to take the water, but some Mexicans were there and        chased him away with knives. He came home and got the      shot gun and asked me to go with him with a shovel.        When we got to the head gate the Mexicans were there,      but they left when they saw us come with the gun. We      took the water. Then Father, who was getting worried,      came there with a boy who could talk Spanish. He got      there just as the Mexicans came back with a gun. They      called out to a Mexican who was with us to get out of      the way. The Jameson boy, who understood them, said,      “Look out’ They are going to shoot.” Edd and I            dropped down behind the ditch bank. The boy and            Mexican who was with us ran down the ditch. We            thought Father went with them, but he just stooped        over and their shot struck him in the neck, coming        out back of his shoulders. They started to follow          those who ran and shot twice more at us. Their shots      went over us. We moved to another place and hid until      they were gone. Then we got up and found Father was        dead.

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Alexander Jameson, Jr.

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Alexander Jameson, Jr.

1859-1943

Alexander Jameson, Jr. was the son of Alexander Jameson and Pirene Brown Ewell.  His grandfather, Charles Jameson, was wounded at Hans Mill.  Charles was also a member of the Mormon Battalion.   

His wife died of cholera while crossing the plains and was buried in Nebraska.  Alex, Jr.’s father drove the ox team and brought his sisters and younger brother to the Salt Lake Valley.

Alexander Jameson, Jr. was born May 18, 1859 in Provo, Utah.  In 1866 the family moved to Goshen, Utah.  During the early settlement of Goshen, Alexander, Jr. remembers his father beating the bass drum every morning at daylight as a signal for grown male members of the Ward to gather at the log schoolhouse where the roll was called and the night guards were relived and day guards appointed to take their places.  As the Indians grew more peaceful, Goshen was moved to its present site where Alexander, Jr. grew to manhood.

He was baptized a member of the LDS Church by Bishop William Price in 1867.  He grew up without being ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood as he was always away from home working, his father being an invalid.  In 1881 he was ordained an Elder by James H. Jenkins.  In 1884 he was ordained a Seventy by Rodger Openshaw.  His name was sent to the First Seven Presidents of Seventy as worthy to be called on a mission.  A little later his brother-in-law met with an accident from which he died.  The brethren asked that Alexander, Jr. not be called as his sister was left with six children and needed him to finish a house that was under construction at the time of her husband’s death. 

Alexander Jameson, Jr. married Millicent Ferris Hatfield on December 29, 1881 in the Salt Lake Endowment House.  Eleven children were born to them.

Because his father was an invalid he had the care of his parents until his father died on October 24, 1884, at which time his mother went to live with his younger sister, Martha J. Christensen.

He bought a city lot in Goshen, Utah and build a home, where they lived until 1889.  He had little opportunity to attend school until he was 30 years of age.  He moved his young family to Provo in 1889.  His wife, Millicent, cooked for students while he attended Brigham Young University.

Dr. Karl G. Maeser called him to go to Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah to organize a church school known as the Emery Stake Academy. 

He was called to serve as a Counselor in the Bishopric of Castle Dale Ward.  On February 4, 1895, he was ordained a Patriarch at 36 years of age.  He was released from the Bishopric a year later.  They lived in a log house until 1895, when they moved into a new brick house, built in front of the log house.  It was a lovely two-story building with eight rooms. One of the rooms upstairs was his office.  He gave many Patriarchal Blessings there.  He also served as Stake Sunday School Superintendent in the Emery Stake.  He taught school until 1900 in Castle Dale, then he moved to Colonia Morelos, Sonora, Mexico.  Here he married a second wife, Mary Amelia Larsen, May 24, 1901.  Five children were born to this union. 

In 1901 the Morelos Ward was organized and Alexander, Jr. was sustained as First Counselor to Bishop Orson P. Brown.  He was in charge of the tithing.

He built a cooler of screen wire tacked to a wooden frame.  On top of the frame was a pan of water.  Burlap covered the frame and the door and enough of the burlap was allowed to reach into the pan of water to soak the burlap to keep it wet.  This is the way they kept food that members had contributed as tithing, such as home-made cheese, butter, vegetables, and eggs.  Grains and hay were kept at the tithing office yard.

Following is a quote from Clara Porter’s life story:

One night while a Priesthood Meeting was being held in the chapel, a volley of shots rang out.  It sounded like cannons, north of town. We always feared a rebel invasion and were always on the alert.  I was at a Primary song practice at the home of my friend Josie Snarr.  Mother was the Primary President and was with us.  She decided to go home and get the tithing records and money and take them to the chapel.  She wrapped the records and money in the blankets with the baby and ran to see what was keeping the men.  They had been singing the closing song loudly, they hadn’t heard the shots.  The men soon organized a posse to investigate.  They learned that two enemy outlaw groups and not the Mexican rebels that were feared.

Another occasion which gave us a shock was when a thief from the United States went into a mining camp, killed the leader, and robbed the miners.  H needed food and fresh horses, so he came to our colony, tied his horse up in the hills at the edge of town and walked to the store for supplies.  He paid for his supplies with money he took from a large roll in a burlap bag.  Our deputy had been informed of the holdup, so he asked the thief some questions.  He ran out of the door and tried to get his horse.  The deputy shot him in the leg.  As he fell he tried to hide the money under his head.  The Mormon men carried him to the tithing office (no jail).  The deputy dressed his wounds and cared for him until the Mexican officials came for him.

In August, 1907, Alexander moved his families to Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico, where he rented rooms in Bailey Lake’s new house.

The farmers took turns using the irrigation water.  One evening his son, Arthur Jameson, was irrigating near Brother Black’s farm when he saw a Mexican trying to force Brother Black to give him the stream of water.  Art went over to interpret as Brother Black didn’t understand Spanish very well.  The Mexican became angry and pulled out his gun.  Young Jameson tried to get Brother Black to leave, but he didn’t think the Mexican was serious about shooting.  As art ran to get help he heard a shot.  Sister Black heard the shots also.  They notified the authorities.  When they arrived they found Brother Black dead. 

The few years prior to 1912 were happy ones.  Alexander built and purchased homes for his families, farmed his land and began to get his roots down.  Then the trouble began.  The Revolution left Mexico without a stable government, and danger seemed to beset the Saints at every turn.  Alexander took his turn standing guard, but things became worse and eventually the women and children were placed in box cars and sent to El Paso, Texas.  Jameson remained with the other brethren for a few days longer, in hopes things would clear up and his families could return.

While tending the water in his field, a band of Mexicans surrounded the home of first family.  He returned to the house and found them helping themselves outside and in.  As he approached the front door, two guns were thrust in his face.  He recognized both guns as his own.  One was out of order, and there was no ammunition for the other one.  He took a barrel in each hand, thrust the Mexicans to each side and walked into the house.  The Mexicans exclaimed “Bravo, bravo!”

They were putting on his clothes, even his good white shirts, and helping themselves in general.  He was angry and felt like going to the corner of the room and pulling out the organ, in back of which he had hidden a six-shooter all loaded.  For a moment he wanted to shoot the invaders but controlled his feelings.  After the Mexicans had taken what they wanted, they left.

A short time later he was forced to flee with the other brethren into the mountains and back to the United States.  The first few miles they fled under fire and never had a chance to rest until they reached El Paso.   Having no desire to return to Mexico, he moved his families back to Castle Dale, Utah, where they lived for three years. 

In May, 1916, he moved his families to LaSal, San Juan County, Utah, where new land was being homesteaded.  He brought the improvements of Don Loveridge on 160 acres of land and started dry farming.  The land was rich and in the first few years the crops were good.  He worked in the nearby Big Indian Mine and paid for his land.  He helped build the church house and served a number of years as Bishop of the LaSal Ward.  He served a number of years on the San Juan School Board and was instrumental in getting a schoolhouse constructed.  Theretofore they had held school in the church house.  He continued to give Patriarchal Blessings.

Some dry years came along and many of the people in LaSal left to make their homes elsewhere.  He took the job of watchman at the Big Indian Mill for copper after it ceased operating.  Millicent went to visit some of their children who were living in a number of the western states.  Amelia moved to Moab, Utah so the boys could attend high school.  Here she contracted pneumonia and died on November 6, 1924.  Millicent went to Moab and helped the boys finish that year of school.  Annetta went to live with her Uncle Parley and Aunt Mary Larsen.

After the death of their oldest daughter, Millicent Dorothy Naegle, the Jameson’s moved to Eureka, Utah, to be near their son, Joseph, who was teaching school there, and his family.  Later they moved to Provo, Utah.  Here he was active in the Manavu Ward and gave many Patriarchal Blessings.

On fast day of October, 1943, he gave his last blessing in Manavu Ward.  After October General Conference, 1943, he went with Oscar to LaSal, Utah for a visit.  Here he became ill and was taken to the hospital in Moab, Utah where he died November 2, 1943 at the age of 84 years.

His funeral in Provo, Utah, was well-attended and many wonderful things were said that his service.  President Junius Romney, and old friend and Stake President in Mexico, was one of the speakers.  His life was rich with service to his fellowmen.  He was a scholar, an educator, miner, stockman, a good follower, and a fine leader, and above all a good husband and father.  He was buried at Goshen, Utah. 

Iva Naegle Balmer, granddaughter

 Stalwarts South of the Border by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 325

The word Manavu is derived from the Hebrew meaning “beautiful view”; it can be compared with Nauvoo, Illinois, which stands for “beautiful location.”

The Manavu Ward was created April 11, 1920, when the Provo 5th Ward was divided and all that part lying north of 4th North St. and east of 1st East St., extending north to the city limits and east to the mountains, was organized into the Manavu Ward.

Manavu Ward Link to family search.org