Tag Archives: Colonia Juarez

Cabe Adams, Noted Old Cowboy and Texan

LaRue Lunt, son of Clarence and LaVetta Lunt, wrote:

Cabe Adams, a fugitive from the United States law, lived near the Villa Ranch and was a frequent visitor to our home in Corrales, Mexico. He had a “crush” on mother and told her if she would let him kiss her he would give her his herd of cattle. Mom was afraid of him and often had premonitions prior to his coming to our place and would make sure that Dad was going to be nearby during that time.

Ora Lunt Bluth, daughter of Clarence and Marza Lunt, wrote:

Cabe Adams was from Texas and probably a fugitive who came to Mexico to escape the law in the United States. He settled in the mountains above “Devil’s Hole” in the vicinity of the Villa ranch. Over the years he had accumulated a large herd of cattle. When I was a young girl, I remember frequent visits we had from him as he’d come to our ranch in Corrales, Mexico. I suppose he got lonely living way off in the mountains by himself and therefore liked to come visit our family.

My dad and Uncle Alma were good to him and would invite him into our home to visit and eat. They even had a can of coffee on hand for such visitors and would fix it for him to drink. It was interesting for me to sit nearby and watch him drink his cups of hot coffee, especially to see him drop in cubes of sugar to sweeten it. He had a white mustache that curled up at the ends and was stained brown around the edges near his mouth due to his pipe smoking habit. My mother was a young, beautiful woman and Cabe apparently fell in love with her. She was afraid of him and kept as many of us kids as possible around her whenever he came to visit. He once told her that if she would sit on his lap and kiss him he’d give her all his cattle. She sometimes had premonitions that Cabe Adams would be coming and made sure that dad was not away from the ranch at the time.

Cabe Adams died on his ranch in February of 1932. The following month, a couple of men came from Austin, Texas and had my father take them to see Cabe’s grave. They claimed they had been told to take possession of his belongings.

Florencio “Lencho” Estrada was now taking care of the Cabe Adams ranch and cattle. He had been raised and spent his early life in southern Mexico. At one time he’d killed a man so found it necessary to flee from southern Mexico in order to save his own life by escaping from the law or those who would seek to kill him. He came to the isolated ranch area in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico where he lived and settled over near the Villa Ranch. He became a good friend of Dad and Uncle Alma’s and they enjoyed their visits and association together. Florencio worked as a cowboy for Cabe Adams for many years and accumulated a good sized herd of cattle himself. They were among the cattle on the Cabe Adams Ranch.

After hearing that Cabe Adams had died, Roy Adams Claimed to be a relative, therefore he and others came to the mountains, went to Cabe Adams’ ranch and rounded up all his cattle to drive them to their ranches near Dublan. At the time they came, Florencio was away from the ranch. Upon his return, he was very upset when he learned that all the cattle had been rounded up and taken, including those that belonged to him. He said they had no right to any of the cattle ad had taken them under false pretense. He quickly mounted his horse and with his pistol or gun, set out to overtake them. He quickly headed in the direction they had cone and caught up with them just before they got to “Strawberry” and told them he had come for his cattle. They were persuaded to let him take the cattle that belonged to him. Florencio rounded them up and drove them back to the ranch.

The following information is taken from the journal of Clarence Lunt.

Saturday, March 19, 1932

Alma went down on the Gavilan River yesterday with Delbert Palmer and Omer Cluff and camped out overnight. I was prepared to go down to Juarez for High Council. As I was coming from the barn to the house, after doing the morning milking, a Ford coupe drove up and stopped in front of the house and a couple of young men alighted and came over and met me introducing themselves as Misters’ Haley. One of them proved to be J. Evitts Haley, author of The History of the XIT Ranch and the same gentleman who came down here about 2 years ago and got Mr. Cabe Adams to go out to Austin Texas as a witness in a legal trial that had been launched against the publishers of XIT History. Mr. Haley said that he had heard of Adams death over in the “Devil’s Hole” and he claimed Adams had told him to take possession of his belongings. Haley had come down to investigate the status of the case. Mr. Haley said that Adams had recommended me as a guide in case he ever wanted to make a trip over to the Hole. He wanted to know if I could furnish an outfit and animals to take him and his brother over there. I informed him that I could. As we happened to have four head of saddle horses here on the place it didn’t take long to make the necessary preparations to leave. We left here about 10:00 a.m. stopping at “the bathtub” in Diablo for lunch where we found Alma’s camp. He didn’t show up until about 3:00 p.m. We arrived at the Villa Ranch shortly after dark where we were warmly welcomed at Andres’ cozy little log cabin where we spent the night. Andres served us with both supper and breakfast.

Sunday, March 20, 1932

We arose early shortly after daybreak and helped Andres prepare breakfast, or at least John Haley helped with breakfast, while Evitts and I took a few pounds of flour, which we had, over across the creek and arranged with Mrs. Villa to make us up a lot of gordas to take along with us so we wouldn’t have to bother about making bread in camp. After we had eaten breakfast, I went out after the horses, which I had some difficult in finding, thus causing us to be rather late in getting off. While we were saddling and packing up, Seferino, Andres’ brother, came over and chatted with us taking liberal sips of “Sotol” every two or three minutes until the contents of the pint bottles had mostly disappeared and Seferino was showing very plain symptoms of intoxication by the time we were ready to leave. We invited Andres to accompany us, which he did. Just before we arrived at Los Chales John shot a small deer which we sighted a few hundred yards from the trail. We finally reached Los Tareces about 3:00 p.m. where we found Mr. Adams’ grave, silent and lonely, on the mound of an ancient ruin. We all dismounted and stood in silence with bared heads as a token of respect to a noted old cowboy, frontiersman and Texan. We then turned off into a small stream to our right following down some 200 yards and made camp. The Haley’s and I walked on down a few hundred yards to the cabin of Florencio Estrada who has charge of Cabe Adams cattle and greeted him while Andres unsaddled the horses and started to prepare dinner. Just as we were finishing eating our dinner an old timer rode into camp on a bay mare who introduced himself as Van Lee, Adams’ old pal. He said he had heard of Adams’ death and had come over from Crettos Ranch to see what the status of the affair was. We invited him to camp with us, which he did. After chatting with Van Lee for a while, Evitts and I went down and spent the remainder of the day conversing with Florencio, listening to his account of the death and burial of Cabe Adams. As darkness came on, we returned to our camp where we found a fine hot supper of fried venison, fried potatoes and gordas de harina. After supper we sat round the fire and listened with great interest to the stores of Van Lee of his many experiences.

Devil’s Hole, Monday, March 21, 1932

The wind went down during the night and the same came up clear and warm and all was still bright. After breakfast we went down to Florencio’s and had him guide us to the spot where Mr. Adams was found dead. The said spot was about 600 years north of Florencio’s house, on a trail that leads to Adams’ cabin about 2 miles away. It appears that Mr. Adams must have sat down in the trail to rest and while thus occupied, had been struck with heart failure or something of the sort, as he was lying on his back with his rifle across his breast and his pipe lying on the ground by his right cheek. His hat was still on his head. His body was discovered by Florencio the morning of the 13^th of February, while out hunting for horses. The body lay there for 3 days as it was necessary for an officer to come from Wathenero to inspect the corpse before a burial could take place. We found the spot marked by a long pile of stones about the length of the man. A few pictures were taken when we all went eastward a few hundred yards to where the grave was located and we piled more stones on it after which we a few more pictures were taken. A while after dinner, we saddled and packed our animas and took leave for our return home. We left the trail at the top of the divide and bore northward across the ridges and mesas. We took this detour as the Haley boys wished to do a little hunting on the way back. We made camp in a beautiful little valley near the head of Whigley Canyon. A full moon arose in the east, shortly after dark, making a glorious scene as it shone through the pines, throwing great blotches of mellow light between the shadows of the pine trees. Our campfire flickered in a small grove by the edge of the clear, rippling brook. We were all hungry and the mingled fumes of sizzling bacon and bubbling coffee pot intensified our appetites and when John and Andres yelled “come and get it,” we were not long at making the fried potatoes and bacon, gordas, etc. disappear like magic. After supper was over we prepared our beds and then sat around the fire for some two hours talking of the one thing and another while the little brook chatted and sparkled merrily in the moonlight and the tinkle of the horse bell became fainter and fainter as the animals fed along up the canyon.

Home, Tuesday, March 22, 1932

After a successful morning hunt we proceeded on down the trail. We reached Villa Ranch a little after 1:00 p.m. where we unpacked, grained our animals and prepared and ate our dinner after we resumed our journey, reaching home at sundown finding all well.

Villa Ranch photo

Taken from Pacheco Histories and Stories

Compiled by Sylvia Lunt Heywood

Anthony W. Ivins

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Anthony W. Ivins

(1852 – 1934)

Born September 16, 1832 in Toms River New Jersey, Anthony Woodward Ivins was the only son of Israel and Anna Lowrie Ivins. He and his parents were among the early pioneers to go to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving in 1853 when Anthony was but a year old.

When he was seven, his parents were called to help settle Dixie, as St. George and surrounding towns were then called. He had a half-brother, Will, and two half-sisters Edith and Maggie. In St. George Tony had what schooling could be gained, went rabbit hunting with a boyhood friend, followed his father about as he surveyed lands in and around St. George, and had a happy well-adjusted youth. It was there that he grew to manhood.

During these growing-up days he was at home on the range. His father acquired a large tract of forest land extending into the White Mountains in Arizona and soon had it stocked with a good breed of cattle. Tony did a lot of traveling to keep the hard within bounds. He spent as long as nine months away from home, never sleeping during this time in a bed other than what he carried on a pack animal. He had no food except what was cooked over a campfire. He took as good care of his gun as of his horse, and with his gun always handy could drop a deer in split-second timing at a maximum distance. He kept fishing tackle hand too and could easily angle enough trout for supper. The venison he broiled and trout he fried and the camp biscuits he made earned him an enviable reputation as a cook. His cattle-care travels took him into Apache land when they were on the warpath and constant vigilance was necessary to save both himself and his cattle. He was glad when they sold that eastern area and he could continue his cowboying closer to home.

He made his cowboy days serve him in becoming acquainted with what kind of game could be found where and when best to hunt it, how to read the weather and interpret wildlife behavior. He could read the stars, locate himself by night, and knew which peak in what mountains to use to orient himself. It taught him resourcefulness too. When his trousers wore thin and no others were available, he spread his canvas bedcover on the ground, ripped up his old worn-out pants, put them on it for a patter, and with his pocketknife cut out a pair of pants which when sewed together served the purpose, even if it was hard to tell whether he was going or coming.

Always in his bedroll, carefully wrapped but accessible, was his Book of Mormon from which in his leisure he methodically became acquainted with the forefathers of the friendly Piutes with whom he often visited. He analyzed the greatness of Book of Mormon prophets, sought to emulate such characters as Nephi, Alma, Mosiah, Benjamin and Moroni, and to use them as patters for a lofty adult life. Also, he carried books of history, tales of adventure and vicariously journeyed with explorers and mariners. Later in his life, when receiving an honorary LL.D. degree from Utah State College, he referred to this as his means of becoming acquainted with all parts of the world.

When at home he was active in both church and civic functions. He helped with programs, including drama in which he played leading roles. One story told in later years was of taking the play East Lynn to nearby Nevada mining towns, and portraying the part of the betrayed husband whose wife had digressed in a moment of temptation. His stern refusal to be swayed by her penitent plea for forgiveness moved one veteran miner in the audience to exclaim, “Oh, Tony, forgive her!”

When barely 23 years of age, Ivins was chosen to be one of the party under the leadership of Daniel W. Jones to carry the book of Mormon into Mexico and explore the country for sites suitable for Mormon colonization. Meliton G. Trejo, during the years 1874 to 1875, had translated nearly 100 pages of selected passages from the Book of Mormon into Spanish. With this and other tracts, the Jones expedition started south from Kanab, Utah in the autumn of 1875. They crossed the border at El Paso and penetrated as far south as Chihuahua City. The party then traveled west to the Sierra Madre Mountains, then worked their way north to the border area again. Among other locations, they passed through the Casas Grandes Valley where Mormon colonies would later be established.

After returning to Utah in mid-1876 and reporting their findings to Brigham Young, Ivins married his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Ashby Snow, a daughter of Apostle Erastus Snow who had long presided as an ecclesiastical leader in the St. George area. The couple eventually became the parents of eight children. Every indication is that theirs was a lifelong, happy relationship. Shortly after the marriage, Ivins was called on another exploring-missionary venture to the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. On this occasion, his companion was Erastus Beaman Snow. Well known for his mastery of the Spanish language, it is sometimes forgotten that Ivins also acquired partial fluency in Navajo and Piute. This particular mission was completed in less than a year.

In 1882, at the April conference of the Church, Ivins was again called as a missionary. This time was called again to go to Mexico City. The Mexican Mission had been opened by Apostle Moses Thatcher in 1879. Thatcher returned to the United States in 1881, leaving August H.F. Wilcken in charge. Ivins, now learning his 30^th year, arrived and immediately undertook the challenging task of converting and baptizing all he could. During 1883 and 1884, he oversaw the mission himself. The challenges were enormous. The people seemed so lethargic and indifferent. Not only the Catholic Church but Protestant groups in and around Mexico City opposed their work. Sometimes Elders, in their zeal, fell athwart the law and Ivins had to secure their release. More difficult than anything was the loneliness he felt for home and family. During the spring of 1883, he wrote his wife of how much he wished he could be back “upon the barren top of Sugar Loaf with the July sun beating down upon me, contemplating dry, dusty St. George.”

Ivins returned from his mission in Mexico in April, 1884. Almost immediately he found himself caught up in a variety of activities while improving his growing properties. His involvement in the cattle business was especially remunerative, particularly in connection with his management of the Mojave Land and Cattle Company and the Kaibab Cattle Company with their ranches in southern Utah and northern Arizona. He also purchased a valuable strip of land along the Santa Clara River. In 1888 he was also favored as a political leader. At one time or another he held the offices of constable, city attorney, assessor and tax collector, prosecuting attorney, mayor, and representative to the state legislature. Ivins obtained the first grant given by the government to the Shebit (Shivwits) Indians and acted as Indian agent to them for two years. In 1895 he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in Salt Lake City and was considered a leading candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the state’s first governor. It would be difficult to paint a more promising future than that facing Anthony W. Ivins in the mid-1890’s.

Then, in late August, 1895, he was notified that the First Presidency of the Church was calling him to succeed Apostle George Teasdale as President of the Mexican Mission. More than sacrifice in things political and economic would be involved. Ivins had friends and family in the St. George area that reached back 30 years. His aged parents lived there. All of this would have to be set aside. Beyond this, he had spent time in Mexico before and had not acquired a large affection for the land and its institutions. A considerable adjustment in his plans for the future would be required. It tells us much about the man’s commitments that he accepted the call and, with hardly a murmur, made arrangements to relocate in Mexico for an indefinite period of time.

On Sunday December 8, 1895, the Juarez Stake of Zion was organized and Ivins was introduced to the settlers as their new Stake President. He chose Henry Eyring and Helaman Pratt as his First and Second Counselors, respectively. Ivins then set out, with Apostle Francis M. Lyman and Edward Stevenson of the First Seven Presidents of Seventies, to visit the colonies and take measure of his new responsibilities. He also purchased the home that had been built by his father-in-law Erastus Snow, in Colonia Juarez and had it enlarged to meet the needs of his own family. This involved the addition of a red brick to the adobe used in the original structure and the construction of a bedroom, dining room and office in the back. When a frame kitchen and brick cellar were added to that, the house ran into the hill. On the bank of the east canal, behind the and above the house, he built a cistern and brought water through pipes into the house, the first one in the town to enjoy that luxury.

As Stake President, Ivins automatically inherited the job of vice-president and general manager of the Mexican Colonization and Agriculture Company, the firm that had been incorporated by the Church to oversee the purchase of lands and location of colonists in Mexico. This meant that he was almost constantly dealing with legal problems. His buckboard was seen frequently on the road from colony to colony and to Casas Grandes, the district municipality 10 miles distant. He was able to clear land titles and helped when land payments were in default. In the process of all this he became not only an acquaintance but a friend of leading men in the Republic. The expert skill he had acquired with the language as a missionary proved very useful. He spent time in the offices of President Porfirio Diaz, Chihuahua Governor Miguel Ahumada and Sonora Governor Luis Torres. In all cases, formal business attitudes relaxed into warm friendliness. He also became a friend of the Polish soldier of fortune, Emilio Kosterlitzky. Kosterlitzky was not only in charge of the feared Rurales of northern Mexico, a troop of rough frontier police, but exercised considerable influence in connection with land sales, especially in Sonora.

Difficulty arose early in 1898 concerning payments for the lands on which Colonia Oaxaca was located. President Ivins met with Kosterlintzky from whom the lands had been purchased. At the outset, no agreement could be reached. Ivins was able to assure Kosterlintzky, however, that the Mormons could be trusted to fulfill their contracts. After a trip to Salt Lake City where church’s financial backing was obtained, he returned to Sonora and consummated the arrangement, stating the colonists’ lands while impressing Kosterlintzky with his own honor. Kosterlintzky held such regard for Ivins and the colonists that he once offered to kill anyone the Mormons found troublesome.

President Ivins took the lead in getting the new Sonoran colony of Morelos established. He personally spearheaded exploration of the site which was located northwest and down the Bavispe River from Colonia Oaxaca. It was he who negotiated the terms of the land purchase from Colin Cameron, the Arizona resident who owned the site. I oversaw the survey of the area and directed where water should be taken from the river for the purpose of your getting land. He not only helps with laying out the town but took charge of recording the deeds and completing all legal arrangements in Hermosillo.

It is not generally known that President Ivins often advance his own funds to individuals in need, particularly when land or property were threatened by default. On one occasion he helped the entire community in this way. This had to do with the so-called Garcia lands on which Colonia Chuhuichupa was located. Ivins advanced what was needed to cover payments that had fallen behind and then went to Mexico City and paid off all remaining indebtedness. The role of the Stake President, as developed under President Ivins, went far beyond purely ecclesiastical functions.

Within the colonies, there was virtually no secular government apart from that provided by the colonists themselves. There were no city councils, mayors, courts or policeman. Provisions for the services provided by such offices felt entirely to the Church. Thus, regulations relating to irrigation, garbage, stray animals, police and fire protection, education and entertainment all were matters directed by the priesthood in the various Wards.

This meant that Ivins was ultimately brought into deliberations concerning these things throughout the Stake. Redivisions of lands, financial disputes between brethren, domestic quarrels, relationships between Mormons and Mexican authorities constituted more of his agenda than anything else. Water concessions were divided with the San Diego lands, 6 miles below Colonia Juarez, it was President Ivins who suggested a dynamo be installed to produce electricity from the natural fall of the water. The Mormon communities became the first in their part of the country to enjoyable electricity and telephone service.

The Ivins family not lived on the western side of the Piedras Verdes River long before they realize the great inconvenience of having the town divided when the river was a flood stage finally, when the town had been separated by raging river for three days and the swinging bridge been torn from its moorings, Ivins invited Samuel E. McClellan to put his skills as a builder to work and do something about it. President Ivins promised that men and means would be supplied to whatever extent McClellan required. Work on the wagon bridge then commenced and the pillars built under McClellan’s direction are still doing service today for the steel and concrete bridge that connects the highway running through Colonia Juarez.

At the first meeting held after his arrival to consider educational matters, Ivins proposed in the largest but centralized program for Colonia Juarez as the education center for the entire Stake. In April, 1896, he asked the First Presidency of the Church for financial support for the plan and for an educator who could synchronize and oversee the schools of the colonies. The First Presidency pledged their assistance. And, through Dr. Karl G. Maeser, President of Brigham Young Academy, Ivins was placed in contact with Guy C. Wilson, then a student at the Academy in Provo. Arrangements were made for Wilson to assume his responsibilities in Colonia Juarez in September, 1897. When by 1904, the influx of students overwhelm the school space available in Colonia Juarez, President Ivins donated five acres of his own land in the town on which to construct a larger Academy building. By the autumn 1905, the academy, then a four-year accredited high school, opened its doors in a new double story building surrounded by spacious a campus. This was a large step forward for the entire Stake. Five of President Ivins’s own children graduated from this institution.

Ivins also provided an example of what can be done with one’s own home and surroundings. During the first 10 years of the colonies’ existence, too many of the houses had remained in an unimproved condition. Even fences were often primitive and near collapse. Ivins feel the shard with imported fruit and ornamental trees. Choice shrubs, fronted by a heart-shaped lawn surrounded by hybrid tea roses and dahlias, inspired everyone in Stake to imitate his efforts. Inside his home, he covered the floors and carpets, and in every room and wallpapered every wall. His own office was furnished in natural cedar. A veranda was supported by massive pillars and banisters. The inside of the house was trimmed with fancy, intricate woodwork. His blooded horses, Jersey cows and imported chickens were housed in attractive barns and outbuildings.

Another aspect of Ivins work in Mexico had to do with the performance of plural marriages. After President Woodruff’s 1890 Manifesto, Church authorities felt it best that such polygamist contracts as occurred should, when possible, be performed outside United States. The Mexican colonies had been used as locations for such ceremonies even before President Ivins arrived in 1895. With authority given him by the First Presidency, he was sometimes called upon the seal couples in such relationships. Although he himself never took a plural wife, he may have occasionally felt uncomfortable with his role in such things, faithfully executed his charge in these matters. It must be pointed out that he was most circumspect in requiring that any couple requesting this privilege present him with appropriate papers indicating that they had received prior approval from authorities in Salt Lake City. It should also be remembered that the monogamous marriages he performed far outnumbered the polygamist sealings he performed. And with President Joseph F. Smith directed that no plural marriages were to take place anywhere in the world after 1904, Ivins strictly adhered to the new policy.

For those a new President Ivins, perhaps nothing so characterized him as his love of nature. The sensitivities he acquired as a cowboy never left him. One of the ways he found to share his feelings with his family was to take them on an outing for two weeks each year. Usually, they went to North Valley, a picturesque fishing center a few miles north of Colonia Chuhuichupa. When he had his killer deer or massive fish, he put his gun and tackle away, no matter how many good shots presented themselves or how well the fish were biting. Killing for the sake of killing was to him unsportsmanlike and his family was taught his creed. The conference was usually held in Chuhuichupa Ward at the time of these vacations in the colonists of the region enjoyed close contact with the Stake President and his family on these occasions.

Ivins love for the outdoors also found expression in his many talks before Church audiences. Initially, and in later years, he wrote articles, chiefly in Church magazines, incorporated his outdoor experiences. One series was entitled “Traveling our Forgotten Trails.” These pieces included accounts of the route followed by the Mormon Battalion, experiences of the U.S. Army in Mexico during the trouble with Poncho Villa, and other essays having their setting in Mexico. The subject of one of the articles was especially popular with audiences as a theme in Ivins’s many sermons. This was a story of a mother mockingbird known to the Ivins family during their time in Colonia Juarez. The birds sang beautifully for them every summer. But during a sudden hailstorm, she allowed the life to be beaten out of her body rather than expose the brood she covered to the murderous hailstones. The lessons of fidelity and love that were drawn from this experience were seldom lost on those who heard it.

Another article dealt with the sequel to the tragic Thompson massacre, an event to touch the hearts of everyone in the colonies. A band of Apaches attacked a family of Mormons and Pratt ranch in the mountains in 1892. The mother and one of her sons were killed, the renegade escaping with their loot. Eight years later members of the band were cited and shot near Colonia Pacheco. President Ivins was in Pacheco at the time and examine the bodies of the dead Indians. From the workmanship on their moccasins and quivers, as well as a birthmark on the face of one of the Indians, he was convinced that it was none other than the “Apache Kid,” the notorious leader of the band believed to be responsible for the Thompson massacre. The article was titled “Retribution.” The article was titled “Retribution” because, in Ivins’s words, “He killed Mormons and by Mormons was killed.”

They are sowing turn-of-the-century saw the colonists grow both in numbers and prosperity. The same year saw the Mormon colonies acquire a reputation throughout the Church is one of the most faithful bodies of the Saints to be found anywhere. The level of their tithes and offerings were among the highest in the Church. There was much for which Ivins could feel pride. After spending so much time there, he must have also felt a growing attachment to Mexican society. Certainly, the bonds that developed between himself and the Mormons residing in Mexico were strong affectionate. Yet, he and Elizabeth both longed for returned to life in the United States. It was doubtful, however, that he anticipated what it was that would bring about the return.

In 1907, while attending the general conference of the Church in Salt Lake City, he sat busily taking notes, as was his habit, in one of the many small notebooks he kept. As the names of the general authorities were presented for approval by the membership of the Church, he proceeded to write their names as they were called. Then, suddenly, he realized he had written his own name as one of those submitted as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. It was proposed that he take the place of Elder George Teasdale who had died. It will be recalled that it was Apostle Teasdale that he succeeded as the presiding officer over the Saints in Mexico in 1895. Ivins was ordained to the new position before returning to the colonies. He had served for 12 years as President of the Juarez Stake.

After making preparations to leave the colonies, including assistance with the selection of Junius Romney as his successor, Ivins and his family relocated to Salt Lake City where they resided for the rest of their lives. Despite his responsibilities in connection with the Apostleship, special ties with the colonies continued. One of his daughters had become the plural wife of Guy C. Wilson and was yet living there. There were also investments in properties and mines that he had made while in Mexico. Leaders in Salt Lake City looked to Ivins for advice concerning the colonies and, for the balance of his life, he made frequent visits to them.

With the coming of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 he gave especially close attention to affairs in the colonies. When roving bands of soldiers began to abuse the Mormons, he told the Saints: “I have seen this coming for years, and no one can say how long it will last. But my advice is to stay perfectly neutral… You may be despoiled and robbed, but if you stay close to the Lord, take part with neither side, I promise that if you will lose your lives.” Although there were some trying times and close encounters in the period before the 1912 Exodus, no colonists died at the hand of a soldier.

When the evacuation of the colonists actually took place, Ivins was in Ciudad Juarez to meet the first trainload of women, children, and aged men, and stayed until the last evacuees arrived. He helped negotiate with the City of El Paso for food for the homeless and with Fort Bliss for use of tents as a more adequate shelter than the lumber sheds in which they were temporarily house. When it looked unfavorable for a return to their homes in Mexico, he was partly responsible for obtaining free rail passage in the United States for all who cared to relocate elsewhere. He continued to visit and encourage those who did return to the colonies. And, he was instrumental in affecting the reorganization of the Stake, placing Joseph C. Bentley in charge and setting apart new Bishops in Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan.

As a General Authority, he worked in a variety of capacities including President of Utah Savings and Trust Company, President of the Board of Trustees for Utah State Agricultural College, and was a member of the National Boy Scout Committee. He was also chosen as an official spokesman for the Church on issues of the day when such matters called for a Church response. In March, 1921, Ivins became second counselor to President Heber J. Grant. The two were first cousins and had long maintained a close friendship. Now they work together almost daily. In 1925 Ivins was named First Counselor. Through it all, he continued to find time for his broad range of interests, from archaeology and Indians to hunting, fishing and history. He seemed to have been universally admired by all who knew him.

President Ivins died suddenly on September 23, 1934. He had celebrated his 82^nd birthday but a week earlier. As Ann Hinckley and Mary Fitzgerald of the Utah State Historical Society have mentioned, in addition to his funeral in the tabernacle, the Piute Indian tribe honored him with a special memorial of their own. Perhaps no better summary of life can be found than an Indian beadwork message sent to him in 1932: “Tony Ivins, he no cheat.”

His beloved companion was united with him in death 18 months later on March 22, 1936.

Carmon Hardy and Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border page 310

Alexander Finlay Macdonald

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Alexander Finlay Macdonald

(1825 – 1903)

Alexander Finlay Macdonald was born September 15, 1825 in Kintail, on an ocean inlet in Scotland. His father, Duncan Macdonald, a tenant farmer, eked out a scant existence on land that was soured by sea spray and soaked by constant British mists. His mother, Margaret MacRae, cooked their oatmeal porridge and potatoes over an open peat fire in their cottage and kept the sooted walls clean with whitewash.

“Sandy,” as Alexander was called, was taught to read and write English by the village dominie and read the Bible to his parents on Sunday, thereby teaching English to them in a home where only Gaelic had been spoken. Sometime in his youth he had a year of studies at the University of Glasgow. At the age of 17, he went to pork at Perth as a ship’s carpenter. In this capacity he sailed with ships on many voyages. On these trips was David Ireland, a companion worker, through whom he met the Graham family of which Elizabeth (Betsy) was the fifth of ten girls and who later became his wife.

ON his way to his home in Kintail after a seven months’ sea voyage, he passed through Perth, and was handed a pamphlet which he put in his pocket without reading. Later in Kintail he handed the pamphlet to his father as he entered the door and hastened to greet his mother. A moment later he was surprised by a whack across his shoulders. “Take that and that for bringing Mormon literature into the home,” roared his father who continued beating Sandy with his walking cane until he was driven from home. Back in Perth he took passage on a ship leaving for a three years’ voyage that took him to many parts of the world, including America. But he kept alert to find out all he could about the Mormons. On his last trip to America he heard of Joseph Smith’s death and the breaking up of Nauvoo.

He was 21 when he arrived back to Scotland, and legally a man on his own. By this time he was determined to find out all he could about the Mormons. Upon arriving at Perth he discussed religion with Betsy Graham, his sweetheart, and finding that she was also dissatisfied with her religion, they both joined the Mormon Church in 1847. They were the first two persons baptized into the Church in the city of Perth. Alexander advanced rapidly in his knowledge of the Gospel and was soon called o be a missionary in the Highlands of Scotland, working in Inverness. He was called to be head of the London Conference, headquartered in Liverpool.

He and Betsy were married May 20, 1851. When they emigrated to America in 1854, they took his reconciled father, now a widower, Betsy’s mother and sister and sailed on the steamship John Wood landing in New Orleans in Ma of that same year. After traveling up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and being delayed twice because of cholera, they were ready to join with a company of Saints and outfit themselves to cross the plains. He had to break a couple of steers to pull the ox cart, which was entirely new work for Sandy. Before leaving they knelt as a family to thank their God for protection on the high seas, for miraculous preservation of their lives in the midst of sickness and death, and that they were finally on their way to “Zion.”

When they arrived in Salt Lake City they were met by a welcoming committee consisting on the main of the people they had entertained in the conference in Liverpool. Alexander Finlay Macdonald, Jr., was born February 12, 1855, in Salt Lake City, the first of 11 sons (no daughters) to be born to this union. For the next 25 years, Salt Lake City Provo, Springville and St. George, Utah, were Macdonald homes. While in Springville, they studied the principle of plural marriage, and in spite of growing negative reactions, he married Sarah Johnson, who died in 1860, bearing him no children. While living in Springville, he was also married to Agnes Aird and Elizabeth Atkinson in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on October 22, 1864, and in 1870, to Fannie Van Cott. In Springville, he built a large home for his families, was arrested for polygamy by federal officers and spent six months in jail. He served as mayor of Springville, was Counselor to Bishop Aaron Johnson, and was one of the Seven Presidents of the 51st Quorum of Seventy. When he finished his jail term, he was called to Provo to take charge of the tithing and help finish the meeting house.

In the early 1870s he was called to St, George to help with carpenter work on the temple, and to manage the Erastus Snow mansion, a sort of boarding hose for the out-of-town temple builders. During the erection of the temple, some 80 men were accommodated daily at the Snow mansion. Sandy invested in in farm land nearby Middleton, and his sons and father built homes there.

When the St. George Temple was finished he was called on a mission to Scotland. He took two of his older sons, Alex Jr., and Aaron, with him, leaving the responsibility of the farm to his wives and younger sons. On his return from his mission, he was in charge of 170 emigrating Saints sailing aboard the steamship Wyoming. This tired company arrived in Salt Lake City June 11, 1879. In the fall of the year another call came from Church Authorities to preside over the Saints in the fast growing frontier of Arizona. In February, 1880, the Maricopa Stake was organized with Alexander F. Macdonald the first President.

By 1883, Mesa had increased in population until it warranted being made into a city, and when it was incorporated as the city of Mesa, and ecclesiastical affairs in hand, than U.S. Marshals arrived with indictments for the arrest of every man having more wives than one. To avoid arrest and a fine, the leaders of the Church sent him to Mexico to find suitable colonization lands there as a haven for plural families.

He made three trips in to northern Sonora, the third of these in November and December of 1884, with a group headed by Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant. There were 24 persons in this party, one other Stake President besides himself, and representatives from all of the frontier towns in Arizona. They went as far south as the mouth of the Yaqui River, made friends with the Yaquis, and were invited to settle on some of their lands. Because the Yaquis were at that time at war with the government of Mexico, the Mormons were accused by the press of collaborating with the Yaquis against Mexico. Colonization there at that time had to be abandoned. Copies of the Book of Mormon, however, were later sent to the Yaquis through missionaries and some Yaquis were baptized. At a conference in St. David, Arizona, later, because of if the illness of Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., Alexander Macdonald was appointed to take his place. There he met with Apostle Moses Thatcher who notified the Saints of the failure to find suitable lands in Sonora, and that explorations would continue in Chihuahua with Alexander F. Macdonald in charge. He promised that a place would be prepared for them.

In compliance with this call and with the assurance he would find the needed land as Apostle Thatcher had predicted, he left St. David January 1, 1885, to begin explorations in northern Chihuahua. With him went Christopher Layton, President of the St. Joseph stake, and John Campbell, as interpreter. W. Derby Johnson, Jr., took them by team to the nearest depot on the Southern Pacific Railroad, where they entrained for El Paso, Texas. The next day was spent with landowners and speculators in Ciudad Juarez looking at maps and locating desirable places. They left at night on the Mexican Central Railway and went as far as San Jose station, what is now probably called Gallegos. There they sought help from Dr. Samaniego, a lawyer of reviewed and practicing physician, from whom they gained valuable help. Not only did he advise them on land purchase procedures in Mexico, but told them where good land purchases might be found and gave them an insight into Mexican an Indian nature. They drove away the next morning in Samaniego’s carriage. In it they traveled through the Santa Maria Valley, the Corralitos holdings, and decided on purchasing Señor Garcia’s claim in the Janos area. This was but six miles from La Asencion, the official port of entry and near the international boundary, a location Church leaders had specified. When they reached La Ascension again after their four weeks’ journey, they were surprised to find a camp already set up and William C. McClellan impatiently waiting to be directed to “the place.”

They hastened on to St. David to report the result of the exploration, then Macdonald returned to the site March 1, with Apostle Moses Thatcher. The latter, after looking over the location, advised immediate purchase. Taking locksmith with him, Macdonald went to Ciudad Juarez to complete the negotiations with Señor Garcia. After three weeks of negotiating the deal could not be consummated. Undismayed, McDonald said Lot Smith back with the disappointing news and he himself went on to investigate other prospects. On the heels of this discouragement came an order for leaving the country within 15 days. Macdonald guessed the reason for leaving this: immigrants flocking into the country and making camps along the Casas Grandes River without declaring their intentions, was too much like the stampede that settled Texas earlier in the century include result again in loss of territory to Mexico. Fast, skillful thought and action by Macdonald and George Teasdale, President of the Mexico Mission, were required. Personal interviews in both Chihuahua City and Mexico City brought results, but not until the last day of the time granted for departure.

Patients and negotiating skills were finally rewarded with the purchase of 200,000 acres of land in the valleys near Casas Grandes and in the mountains to the northwest. “Colonia Diaz” for Porfirio Diaz, “Colonia Juarez” for Benito Juarez, and “Colonia Pacheco” honoring their benefactor, the Governor of Chihuahua, were established and titles to the lands secured.

McDonald shows three lots on the main street of Colonia Juarez and after liquidating his property in Mesa, Arizona built comfortable homes on two of them for his wives Agnes and Fannie. He sold the third lot to John C. Harper with the proviso that he build a hotel on it.

He was appointed First Counselor to George Teasdale and served as President of the Mexican Agricultural and Colonization Company. When the Mission was organized into a Stake, with Anthony W. Ivins as President, Macdonald was released from leadership in ordained a Patriarch. In 1894 he sold one home in Colonia Juarez and moved Agnes into a comfortable log cabin in Colonia Garcia. He was now 71 and continued actively giving blessings as he traveled from colony to colony, sealing for time and eternity couples who are unable to make the long journey to a Mormon Temple.

In February, 1898, while he was away, a trusted Mexican worker murdered, then robbed Agnes who operated the post office and a little store. His wife Lizzie came from Arizona to take Agnes’s his place. McDonald continued to travel in his buckboard drawn by sturdy mules over rough mountain roads doing his part in the colonies until his death on March 21, 1903. He was survived by three wives, Betsy, Lizzie, and Fannie, and 13 of his 26 children. A numerous posterity it carries on the Alexander F. McDonald heritage.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border page 445

Franklin Demarcus Haymore

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Franklin Demarcus Haymore

Franklin Demarcus Haymore’s grandfather, Daniel Haymore, Sr., emigrated from Virginia to Stony Creek, North Carolina and later to Mt. Airy, North Carolina. He married Mary Schockly on 16 February, 1799. They had the following children: Britain, Blumming, Jermaine, William, Polly, Tibithy and Daniel, Jr.

Daniel Sr. and Daniel, Jr. were blacksmiths by trade they also did cabinetry and carpentry work. They had 160 acre farm on which they operated a tannery end mill. Daniel, Jr. Married Martha Hall on April 30, 1840. They had the following children: Darius Benton, Mary Catherine, Lucay, Elizabeth, Franklin Demarcus, the Messier Francis, and Mildred Ellender.

During the rebellion between the States, Daniel Jr. and his son Darius made wagons for the government. They not only did the iron and blacksmith work, but the one carpentry work as well, so that the entire job on the wagons they completed themselves. They had a higher demand and paid him a bushel and a peck of corn a week.

They do not have slaves, but hired negro boy who was raised with Franklin Demarcus. Many years later when Franklin returned to North Carolina he met the Negro and they were very happy to see each other again.

Franklin DeMarcus only had an eighth grade education. However he was at the head of his class and was especially good in spelling and used the “old blue spelling book.” He played the accordion and violin for dances, although his mother objected to this form of recreation.

Franklin met Adeline Taylor whose father had a farm and sawmill on Stony Creek three or four miles from the Haymore farm. He often said she was a prettiest girl in North Carolina, and would have followed her to the ends of the earth if need be to win her.

Henry G. Boyle, a Mormon missionary preaching the Gospel in the South, gave Franklin copy of the Voice of Warning which helped to convert him to the LDS Church. His parents did not join the Church, but all the rest of the Taylor family did. A company of 39 Saints under the direction of Elder Boyle were planning to migrate to Utah. The Haymore’s were very much upset that their son should want to join this new religion and plan to move away from them. He was 19 years of age and they would not give there can sent to such act. However he did marry Adeline Lucinda Taylor on March 2, 1869.

His love for Adeline helped make the decision to go West. His parents offered him the farm and only possessed if he would stay. But his mind was made up and he left with the group from Mt. Airy, North Carolina on June 12, 1869. They went to Norfolk, Virginia and by boat to New York. Then they took an immigrant train to Ogden, Utah where they arrived on July 21, 1869. The coach cars had crude benches along both sides of the car and down the center.

Franklin, Adeline, and the Taylors were baptized in Payson, Utah during February by breaking the ice. The young couple moved into a home they shared with the family name Daniels. Franklin Edgar was born to them on February 19, 1870. The second son, Daniel Benjamin, died.

Franklin D. bought blacksmith tools and made a bellows, and with his trade earned his living. He bought land in Payson on West Mountain with Freeman Tanner as a partner. After buying a city lot from Jim W. Memmott, Franklin went into the mountains in the winter with snow up to his armpits and cut logs to build a home. Billy Griggs was given a span of forces for framing up the house on the lot. The townspeople thought young Haymore must have money to put up such a nice home, but it was only by hard work and careful planning that he was able to complete it. He had only about $20 cash when he started to build. The home still stands in Payson and is in very good condition.

Franklin continue to do blacksmith work, earned enough to buy a new wagon and cows which he later turned in as trade on an 80 acre farm. It was a hard winter and the cows were turned back to him for their feed. His farm was at Spring Creek, 3 miles west of Payson. In the spring he planted alfalfa and harvested hay.

Martha and was born February 5, 1874.

On his 80 acre farm there was an old shack and Franklin went in to investigate and found a miners giant powder cap. He probed it with a nail and it exploded, taking off the end of his thumb and forefinger on the right hand.

Just before Darius Wilburn was born March 6, 1876, Franklin was called on a mission to help settle Arizona, but after the Church found out his wife Adeline was expecting a baby they allowed him to remain in Payson. Franklin was called on a mission to the southern states just after Arthur Samuel was born on February 1, 1878.

While Franklin was away, Adeline wove carpets on a loom Franklin had made for her and sold them to neighbors. She also had a nice garden and sold vegetables. Her boys also sold vegetables for their pocket money. She made butter and sold it, being a very thrifty woman, and an excellent manager.

She made her boys’ shirts out of black sateen which buttoned down the back, as was the style, and when they went swimming their friends had to button them up. She had just finished making Arthur and Darius new shirts when they decided to visit relatives in Salem, North Carolina. The shirts were made to button down the front instead of the back, which created very much interest at the time and has been the style ever since.

Franklin returned from his mission after about two years.

Polygamy was preached and practiced by the Church. Franklin Demarcus married Elizabeth Lant on 22 March, 1888 in the Logan Temple. Because of this practice Franklin was called on another mission to Chattanooga Tennessee. While he was away, David F. was born on April 6, 1889, the first son of Elizabeth Lant, at Payson, Utah. Because of his plural marriages, Franklin was indicted by the government authorities. Franklin remained on his mission. Adeline would send letters addressed to President Spry and insight would be a letter for Franklin D. which would be forwarded to him.

The authorities were watching the Haymore family so that when the boys went to mail the letters in the post office, which was located in the Douglas Mercantile Company, they saw the letter addressed to President Spry and went after him, thinking that they had the right man on the polygamy charge. He couldn’t convince them otherwise and they brought him back to Utah only to find out it was Haymore they were after. One of his missionary companions, Elder Shelton, called on Adeline and her family and sang a song: “I’ll remember your love in my prayers. I’ll kneel by your bedside and pray.”

Wilford Woodruff, as President of the Church, wired Franklin D. that the authorities were after him and for him to flee to Mexico or Canada. Mexico was the nearest so he went there, arriving at Colonia Diaz. He met Ammon Tenny (sic) who was looking for a good blacksmith and they went to the sawmill at San Pedro. He worked hard for $35 a month in pesos.

Franklin D. worked at the sawmill with John Loving for a year or two. He rented a farm at San Pedro. Darius came down and stayed a year in about 1890. His father had been away so long and had grown a beard and Darius didn’t know him. Darius had grown so much his father didn’t know him either. He took Darius to one side and after questioning him about his mother decided he had the right boy, that he was his own son.

Darius decided to go back to Utah and Arthur came to be with his father. The boys met on the way at Diaz at Ammon Tenny’s (sic) home in 1891. Lizzie decided to join her husband and brought David F. with her. Arthur helped make a comfortable home. On June 15, 1891 Mildred was born. Adeline made a short trip to the San Pedro Ranch. Later Franklin went back to Payson to give himself up. Veda Adeline was born January 6, 1894.

Franklin D. pleaded not guilty so he could remain in Payson for the summer and wait for the court session in the fall, then plead guilty. In the meantime he worked on the farm.

In the fall Arthur drove his father to Provo with clothes enough to last him six months or a year while he served in the state penitentiary. In the meantime the attorney had two of the charges withdrawn and when the judge pronounced sentence it was for one day and court expenses, which amounted to $42.50. He was turned over to the deputy who said he would not take him to Salt Lake City for just one day. He did not have the money with him so the sheriff was going to Payson the next day and would collect it then. Imagine the joy and surprise of his family when he returned and did not have to be separated from them.

Franklin returned to Payson and sold out there, putting the money into property in Mexico. When he returned to Mexico, Darius, Jan, Ed and Lil came with him. A year later John and Martha Haymore Douglas joined him.

Franklin D. and Patrick C. Haynie decided to form a mercantile company, each furnishing one thousand dollars. John Douglas was the first clerk. Later, Millard clerked in the store, then went to Colonia Juarez to school and John Andrum took over. Several years later Millard opened a store in Colonia Dublan. Ade opened one at San Miguelito after the flood in Colonia Oaxaca damaged about half of the merchandise in the store.

Franklin D. married Pearl Melissa Wilson and to them were born two girls: Emma Julia on July 18, 1899; and, Centenna on October 6, 1901. More land was purchased and several stores opened. Some of the boys rode the range and others helped in the stores.

On November 19, 1907 Pearl passed away. The two girls were small so Franklin D. married May Ellen Wilson Cluff. Records show that Pearl had six girls, but only two lived, Emma and Centenna. Mary or Mazie had four children: Demarcus, born August 6, 1910; Franklin R. on July 24, 1912; David W. on August 29, 1914; and Ellen on January 18, 1916.

In 1912 the Revolution started in Mexico and the Church ordered all Latter-day Saints to go to the United States. The Haymores lost much in the leaving their property, including homes, stores and cattle ranches. However, a store in Agua Prieta on the Mexican border near Douglas, Arizona had been opened with Millard as the manager. Later the other brothers helped out after leaving the colonies. Franklin D. remained president of the firm several years, then the boys took over. He lived in Douglas, Arizona with his family at 1139-8^th Street, and later brought property and a home in Mesa, Arizona. He divided his time between these two places. In 1924 he had a serious operation at El Paso, Texas from which he never fully recovered. After a lingering illness of several months he passed away on July 8, 1931 at Douglas Arizona. His wife Mary Ellen preceeded him in death by one month, June 7, 1931.

Franklin D. was very affectionate and was known as a peacemaker. He had a very kind, patient, loving disposition. He never used a slang word, much less a swear word. He remained faithful to the Latter-day Saint Church, a religion he had given up so much for in his young life. But perhaps it was the teachings of this church that helped him to be the kind of man he was. He always bore a fine and convincing testimony, despite all the trials and hardships he had endured during the 82 years he lived. His children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren honor and rever the memory of this good and noble man.

Arthur S. Haymore, son,

As told by Leah Haymore Kartchner

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch pg 263

Hyrum Albert Cluff

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Hyrum Albert Cluff

(1866 – 1913)

I was born in Provo City, Utah, October 26, 1866, and was baptized when I was eight years old by David Jones. I was confirmed by Henry Rogers.

My father, Moses Cluff, moved to Arizona in 1877 in Apache County, to Show Low. We cleared off the pine timber and fenced our farm, built large houses and ground are corn in hammer mills. For nearly 2 years, I herded cattle for Mr. Cooley with the Apache Indians, during the summers. In the year 1878, we moved to Forest Dale.

In 1879 my father went to Provo, Utah. My mother, Jane Margia Johnson Cluff, and the family moved to Arizona. My oldest sister got married that winter to James Clark Owens. Then my mother moved to Woodruff on the Little Colorado, and my father moved to the Gila River in Arizona, Graham County.

I worked on the Woodruff dam and bought me a span of horses, then worked on the railroad and bought mother of rock house in the Woodruff Fort.

In 1881 the Woodruff dam went out and I helped put it in again. In September 1882, I worked for J. C. Owens putting up hay and in October 1882, mother and I moved to the Gila in Graham County, Arizona, where my father was. There was quite a settlement and lots of mesquite brush all over the town and you could hardly see from house to house…

Mother and I went back to Woodruff on a visit. Mother stayed there and I came back and helped father on the farm. Mother took sick, and sent for me. I started for Woodruff in January, 1885 and came back in March, the same year, with William Rollans. We were nearly killed by Apache Indians. We camped on Turkey Creek, 10 miles from an Apache camp and the Indians danced and sang all night. We traveled down the Black River, which was running very high and we nearly drowned. The next day, the tongue of the wagon broke and when we stopped to fix it, an Indian road up and told us to follow him and to hurry. He seemed very uneasy. He led and we followed as we thought the other Indians were after us. The next day a party of white men passed on the road and told us that two of their group had been killed the day before and to keep our eyes open for Apaches…

In May, 1885, I met and started going with Rhoda Haws and hired to William Hunly to drive a team. In March 1886, I heard George M. Haws and worked and bought me a farm. I planted some corn and made adobes through the summer. My mother came from Woodruff that summer with brother Combs and Rhoda and I went to meet them. On September 5, George M. Haws ordained me an Elder in the Church and later that day, Rhoda and I were married. On September 6, 1886, the day after our wedding, Rhoda and I started for St. George…

The first night out, we camp at Thomas, Arizona. When we got to Black River, it was up quite high I crawled across in a big rope and got the boat on the other side. When we sent across the wagons, the women had to stand on the spring seats to keep them from getting wet. Brother Matice’s wagon tipped over, but we got it out of the river in one piece. We camped in Seven Mile Canyon and that night we had a dance on the ground around the campfire. From Seven Mile Canyon, we traveled to Woodruff. We stayed there for two days and had a good visit with my sister and her husband, J.C. Owens. We went on to Saint Joseph on the Little Colorado. We stayed at Brother Porter’s and had a dance. Then Rhoda, James Cluff and his wife went on and left the rest of us. They traveled to Black Falls where we caught up with them and traveled together to the Willow Springs.

When we got to the Colorado, it was up and Brother Johnson was herding a big herd of cattle over for Brother John Wiley. We had to take wagons all part and ferry them over in pieces but we got across all right. We arrived in Kanab and had a dance. We stayed there for three days and found one of our cousins there and then went to Long Valley where we stayed two weeks with Brother Warner Porter. They had lots of fruit which was quite a treat. We also saw G[eorge] M. Haws, Rhoda’s brother and his wife. We went on to St. George and went through the temple on October 26, 1886, and saw and heard many great things which we will never forget. There we were sealed for time and all eternity by Brother McCallister. We then went to Washington, six miles from St. George. We stayed there all night and then started for Provo. It was a nice trip, but cold. We arrived in Provo on November 10^th. We stopped at James Meldrum’s, Rhoda’s sister’s husband. We stayed with them all winter I hauled wood out of the mountain and frosted my feet that winter…

In May, 1890, I took my wife, her mother and two sisters and started from Mexico. We had a very dry trip. We got to the Animas Valley, horses got alkalied and the water made all the sick. We arrived in Colonia Diaz Sunday morning on June 6^th. We got the Colonia Juarez on Friday the 11^th and to Colonia Pacheco Sunday the 13^th. We found Brother Haws and his family all well. Brother Haws went to Round Valley and I thought that it was the prettiest place I had ever seen.

We stayed at Pacheco and spend the Fourth of July there. Started back to Central and arrived there on 23^rd of July. It was an awful muddy trip. The 24^th of July we celebrated with the community.

I freighted from August to March of next year between Wilcox and Globe City, Arizona. On August 19, 1890, I started from Mexico. When I arrived at the Custom House at Senicone (Asencion), I had to give the $50 bond before they would let me pass. Bring your troubles went with me to look over the country around Colonia Garcia. Peter McBride, John Hill, George Haws and me went Round Valley to look for land for a farm but gave it up. I settled in Corrales, build the house and fenced me a lot.

The following spring was very dry and we had to live on cornbread. Brother James Sellers and I built a dam the creek and got irrigation water to our land. On October 20, 1892, I went to Colonia Juarez to make brick for George Haws. I went to Colonia Diaz in November to get some cattle from Hendricks. Arrived in Corrales with the cattle December 6^th. On Christmas I was the clown and George Hardy was Santa Claus. While he was taking the presents off the tree, the cotton on his suit caught fire from the candles and he was burned quite badly. It was an awful experience…

In September, 1893, I was out hunting my horses and ran across a bear. I took out my lasso and caught him by the neck and pulled him out of a tree. The commotion frightened my horse and he threw me off. Somehow, I managed to hang on to the rope. The bear must have been as scared as I was because instead of attacking me, he tried to climb back up the tree. When he got up to fork in the tree, I let the rope go slack. The bear, caught off balance, fell headfirst through the fork in the tree and yanked the rope tight, he hanged himself as he was unable to touch the ground.

On the first of October we were counseled to move back into town because some Indians were acting up. We moved closer to Corrales and lived in a log house. The next February, we moved out to the ranch….

I also helped cut the road from Pacheco to Round Valley. Moved to Round Valley December 8, 1894 and cut logs and put a log house up. We moved into our new house on January 14, 1895 and had a dance. I plastered the house in April and helped survey the graveyard in Garcia.

Saturday, June 9^th, Rhoda was not feeling well, so I didn’t go to meeting. Sister Phoebe J. Allred anointed Rhoda and confirmed the anointing. On June 10, 1895, at 1:00 a.m., Fernie Jane Cluff was born. Annie D. Farnsworth came in and helped us with household chores.

On July 24, 1895, we had a celebration here. People came from Pacheco, Cave and Juarez. We played ball, had a picnic and in the evening, we put on a very good program. I took the part of the nigger…

In November, I wanted cattle drive to Juarez. We camped out one night in Corrales. That night the cattle stampeded. When we got to the corral we found that they had mashed the log corral fence down and some of them were under the big logs. We stayed up all night to put the corral backup and at daybreak went out to look for the cattle that had stampeded. Rhoda met me at Pacheco and went on to In November, I went on a cattle drive to Juarez with me. The last of the month, I dug potatoes and went out hunting. I got four big gobblers. Rhoda put her carpet down the 29th…

On August 22, 1896, we went to Juarez to conference. We heard some very good instruction, but Fernie, the baby, took sick and we had to come home. She kept getting worse. She passed away on September 12, 1896 at 6:00 a.m. The funeral services were held at my house at 10:00 a.m. and called to order by Elder J[ohn] T. Whetten. We sang “Come Let Us Anew Our Journey.” The prayer was by Frank Shafer and we sang “Weep Not for Her That’s Dead And Gone.” A.L. Farnsworth spoke for some time and gave some very good remarks. Then Brother J. T. Whetten spoke a short time, and read some nice verses composed by Mary Farnsworth. They we sang “Farewell All Earthly Honors.” We then went to the graveyard and paid the last respects. The dedicatory prayer was by Brother Farnsworth…

In July 1898, we moved to the sawmill where Rhoda cooked for the mill hands and I worked with the logging. I took her from there with me up to work on the wagon road at Soldier Canyon. I was the road overseer. From there, we went home in November.

The spring of 1899 was very cold. I was called by the Bishop to take a man from New York up to inspect the timber of the nearby country. He was with a railroad company who was anticipating building a railroad near here…

July 24,1900, we held a celebration representing the Pioneers reaching Utah. We had Indians camped on the square. We put up a liberty pole and I was the first one to climb it.

On August 3^rd, we were visited by Joseph F. Smith, Second Counselor to the President of the Church. He brought with him, Brother Seymour B. Young, the First President of the Seventies.

On September 12, 1900 Benjamin Cluff, President of the Brigham Young Academy, visited us. He was traveling with a party from the Academy, on their way to South America. They stayed in Garcia one week and excavated some ruins and got some specimens. I traveled 75 miles south with the expedition as guide. On returning home, I met a couple of outlaws. They drew their guns on me and held me a prisoner for several hours. They finally decided to let me go and I gratefully returned home in one piece.

I cut the oats for the people here in Garcia with a self-binder. Went out hunting and trapping. Got two big lions and two wolves. When I returned home, Apostle A[braham} O. Woodruff and President Ivins were there at Garcia. They held meetings and then went on to Chuhuichupa where they organized a ward. G{eorge] M. Haws, Rhoda’s brother, was appointed Bishop. After the conference held at Juarez, Thomas Allen and Brother Harris followed some Indians who had been stealing corn and potatoes. They ran onto their camp and killed two of them. Brother Ivins and Woodruff helped bury the Indians. Bishop Whetten sent a runner out to Chuhuichupa to warn the people and another to Juarez to take the report to get ammunition for the protection of the ward…

February 23^rd, Rhody and Josephine Haws, my sister, started to Gila Valley for a visit. I am getting along fine. There is now plenty of water thanks to the dam we put in. The ground is in fine condition for plowing and every one is preparing to put in big crops this year.

March 9^th, got a letter from my wife, Rhoda. She and the children arrived in Pima alright. I went to Juarez after Dr. Shipp who came to operate on Sister Ida Whetten. She took a baby from her. I rode all night and it snowed and rained on me most of the way. I caught cold in my eyes and I have been housed up doctoring them and it seems so lonesome here alone without Rhody and the children. This is the first time that Rhoda and I have been away from each other for any length of time since we were married.

June 3^rd, the country is on fire and the valley is full of smoke.

Brother Taylor of Juarez sent for me to come down and trap some bear in his pastures. They are killing off his cattle. July 2^nd, trapped one week and caught three bears and while I was there, Rhoda and the children arrived from Pima. I was glad to see them again. The baby looked quite bad.

August 23^rd, got a letter from a Dr. Hughs of Philadelphia. He wanted me to go out with him as a guide on a hunting and trapping trip. He came with a party of friends and we killed several lions, grey wolves, foxes, turkey, and deer. I took them down to Casas Grandes station and they returned from there back to Philadelphia apparently well satisfied with their trip to the wilds of Mexico.

While I was out with Dr. Hughs, I took him to the old ruins 15 miles on the west side of Garcia Valley. We excavated some ruins and found one skeleton. Many thoughts passed through my mind while working on these ruins and reflecting on the people who built those houses.

October 22^nd, me and Mr. Barker and Ernest Stiner started out trapping. We went south-east from Garcia on the Rio Almais. We were gone six weeks. We caught and killed five bears, eight lions, eleven turkeys, and several deer. The last bear we killed pretty near got Ernest and myself. It was a large silver tip bear and he came within ten feet of us with his mouth open and had it not been for the dogs, he would have gotten both of us…

September 10^th, I went to Juarez and took my family and then went on to El Paso. I took Matilda and Lorena and Sister Haws with me to El Paso. We returned home from there and I brought a hunting party in. When we were between Casas Grandes and Juarez, I got on a mule and it jumped in a hole and fell. I got my foot caught in the stirrup and the mule dragged and kicked me until finally the stirrup broke and I got loose. I was badly banged up and the backs of my legs and my back were black and blue. I didn’t have any broken bones though and was able to take the hunting party to the Blue Mountains.

November 22^nd, I took another hunting party from Kansas on a trip. We sow one lion but didn’t get anything. I also showed them some ancient buildings.

December 25^th, the band serenaded the town. It was a very enjoyable holiday.

February 8^th, was permitted to accept the high laws of God which was a very great trial to Rhoda. The Lord has blessed us a great deal and I’m sure everything will work out. I married Delia Floretta Humphrey here in Garcia, Mexico. The year is 1903.

April 1^st, I took a gentleman by the name of R. C. Cross of New York out on a hunt. We visited the ruins at Cave Valley. I took the folks out to Peacock after my traps and camped. Rhody and I went into a very deep canyon and ate dinner. I took her picture twice. That day as we came over some very rough places, Rhody very nearly fell off her horse. She went with me to hunt bear that had been gone with my trap for six days. We were in some rough country but we found the bear dead and then found the trap on our way back to camp. I killed three deer and took the picture of Rhoda’s horse and deer.

October 2^nd, Floretta went to Juarez to put up fruit for us. I got a letter from her.

January 1, 1904, the weather is very cold and windy. The people seem to be getting careless and there is neglectful spirit among them. I received word that my brother, James Cluff, was cut off from the church for adultery. We put a drop curtain in our meeting house. It cost $36…

March 7, 1904, this morning at 11:00 a.m. our first son was born to Rhoda and I. He is our 9^th child. He weighed nine and a half pounds. We are so proud of him and all the neighbors has been in to see him and congratulate us. We have named him Hyrum Albert Cluff.

April 3^rd, we took our boy to the meeting house and had him blessed. The measles are raging here. There are 44 cases here in the Garcia Ward. So far there have been no deaths.

April 15^th, 1904, the measles are still raging. Rhoda is sick with them and five of the children are down with them. We were called upon to give up our dear baby boy. He only stayed with us one month and four days. It is so hard to part with him because he is the only boy we have ever had. I had to leave Rhoda and take him up to the cemetery. She was sick and in bed with the other four children. I am so sorry she could not at least see our sweet baby buried. There were only two wagons, but there was quite a large crowd. Elder Clark of Dublan offered the dedicatory prayer. The ward choir sang “Your Sweet Little Rose.” Bishop Whetten offered prayer and we returned home.

April 16^th, the children and Rhoda were awful sick again last night. It is a very gloomy time for all of us but we feel to say in our hears that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Sunday, April 24^th, the family and I went to Bishop Whetten’s for dinner. Most of the people are getting over the measles.

August 25^th, there was a large flood that came down the creek here and washed out some fences. Also the river at Hop Valley was up and washed out lots of the logs and ties which we cut for the railroad. I was rolling logs and wading in the river until 12:00 last night. Sister Haws and her daughter came here from the Gila Valley to visit. Rhoda was glad to see her mother and sister. Her mother is getting quite gray. They visited in Chupa [Chuhuichupa] and then came back here.

October 12^th, I took all of my folks and went to Cave Valley with Rhoda’s mother and sister and some of their brothers from Pacheco. We had a good time and then they went back to the Gila Valley.

Sunday, October 23^rd, we had a good meeting. Spoke on the order of the marriage covenant. I am still shocking my corn.

October 26^th, this is my birthday Rhoda gave me a nice liver righ for a present. My aunt’s father’s fist wife was here on her way to Chup. She came on a visit from the Gila Valley.

October 31^st, Bishop Whetten’s wife is very ill. It seems that her life hangs on a thread. I just got a letter telling me that my brother John’s wife passed away. She and the baby were buried together.

November 31^st, Bishop Whetten’s second wife, Emma died today. She was sick and almost a solid sore from head to foot, but it healed up before she died.

December 25^th, Christmas. Rhoda and I and two of the children went to Juarez and bought flour and apples and toys for Christmas. We had a community program and played all kinds of games. At night we had a dress party. Rhody and I represented George Washington and his wife Martha. Floretta represented the flower girl and Tillie represented Little Bo-Peep. Rhody and I won the prize.

January 2, 1905, just settled my tithing for the year, 1904. The amount was $100.25. My brother Brigham Cluff is here from Pima, Arizona, also George Haws, Jr. The Relief Society got up a big party to get money for the purpose of getting burial clothes for people. It is a hard matter to get clothing on such occasions as we are 50 miles from any railroad and 35 miles to where they can buy much from the stores. The stores here are small and don’t keep much supplies.

February 14^th, I took a load of lumber to Juarez. I saw Apostle Teasdale and he blessed me. I have started up a trade and am trying to handle produce for the people.

March 20^th, there has been some talk and discussion on the God Head and I was called to make a special visit to all the people who had advocated that doctrine that Adam is God and the Father of Christ. We were told to tell them that this doctrine is definitely false. Today in meeting all were given one week probation and if they didn’t repent they would be dropped from their positons in the ward…

September 14^th, went to Colonia Juarez to conference at the Stake Academy. As President [Joseph F.} Smith and party entered the building the congregation stood and sang, “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet.” President Jarvis opened the conference and spoke of the growth of the people and stated that this was one of the greatest days that the people had enjoyed in this land by the presence of President Smith. He mentioned that it also was the national day of Mexico. I attended 11 meetings at the conference and all our children shook and with President Smith at Sunday School. Two thousand two hundred seventy-two souls attended the conference. President Smith told me to go and be baptized for my dead father.

Floretta came up to stay with us for awhile. On September 4, 1905 she gave birth to a boy at a quarter to seven o’clock in the morning. We named him Charles G. Cluff. It is her first child.

December 2^nd, there has been lots of rain and the river has been up quite high. The river washed lots of fence away at Corrales and took 4 houses out of Colonia Juarez, 8 in Colonia Diaz, 33 in Sonora and left the people without anything only the clothes they were wearing at the time. Their household goods all were lost in the flood but through the blessings of the Lord, there was not one life lost. The people of the Stake has made up a fund for the homeless.

My tithing for the year 1905 was $74.50.

March 3rd, we have got the telephone poles up through our town and it will only be a matter of time when the telephone will be in all of the homes of the ward in this stake. It will be a blessing to all of us.

April 2^nd, had been out on the mountain hauling logs for H.H. James’ sawmill. Art Farnsworth came over to tell me that the baby, Alberta, was sick. I went home and arrived there at 4:00 in the morning. I found her quite sick. Friday night at 9:00, she passed away. She was a sweet little girl and she brought sunshine into our home with little time she was with us. The people here have been very kind to us and in all they can for our dear little pet. She was such a sweet baby. There seems to be so much sickness in the ward now.

September 24^th, Rhoda and I are preparing to start for Salt Lake City this morning to do temple work.

February 26^th, the Garcia sawmill blew up, killing George Turley and injuring Art Farnsworth and Sumner O’Donnal quite bad. The money panic which was raging in Utah and Arizona has struck us here and times sure are hard.

May 15, 1908, our 12th child and third son was born to Rhoda. We named him William Templeton Cluff.

June 5, 1908, Apostle Anthony W. Ivins and our stake presidency called a special meeting here in Garcia. There had been some differences and trouble in the order, but after the brethren were called together and matters were properly adjusted, there was a general hand-shaking all around and a good spirit prevailed. I was called his second counselor to Bishop J[ohn] T. Whetten of Garcia Ward and was set apart in ordained a High Priest…

June 19, 1909, Floretta had a baby girl. We named her Violet.

July 5, 1909, I planted corn on my lots. Times are very hard and the Bishop is letting the people have the tithing corn to eat…

February 2, 1910, a comet appeared in the western skies. June 16, almost all men Garcia are up in the mountains working on the railroad. I came home to check on things and found the farm is looking good. Those are staying here have planted all the farmland in the Valley in grain, mostly oats. There are quite a lot of apples, peaches, plums, charities and a number of kinds of small fruit being raised here this year.

June 22, 1910, Rhoda had another boy which makes 13 children. We named him Harold Alton Cluff. Rhoda and the baby are getting along fine.

October, the rebels here took it up against the government. It has caused great excitement among the people, but they seem to be peaceable towards the Latter-day Saints. The Church President, Joseph F. Smith, sent Apostle Ivins to assist the people here and he was the means of getting guns and ammunition in for the Mormons.

January 19, 1911, it is very cold. Forty rebels came into Garcia and bought supplies in the store and paid for them. They appeared very friendly.

January 24, the outlaws killed Sister Mortenson of Guadalupe and also her brother. The officers caught three of them and one got away. One of the rebels came and stayed all night here in town and said he was on his way to United States the purchase ammunition for the rebels. They have to of a great many of the Mexican soldiers and taken a great many smaller places, but not been able to hold them.

October, when hunting with a party from New York. Madero was the victor of the Revolution and was elected President of Mexico.

December 11^th, the railroad is nearly completed above San Diego Canyon. It will be a great benefit to the mountain colonies. The Revolution abated only for a short time. Some of Madero’s generals became jealous of Madero and started another Revolution. Every now and again there is a band of rebels that will ride into town and demand something like food or livestock or ammunition. One bunch numbered 250.

January 1912, the Church sent guns and ammunition to the colonies. The rebels are taking a lot of the colonists’ horses and saddles and are killing off cattle for meat. So far they have not stolen from Garcia…

The people here are getting quite alarmed about the rebel situation. They have attacked quite a few of the Mormons, beating them up with their guns and stolen their horses. Some people have been stopped by rebels on their way to church. They had to sit there in the wagons and watch them unhitch their horses and ride off with them. The rebel generals have gone back on their word to leave the colonies alone. Our men number about 300 and there are about 1,500 rebels in and around this. We are expecting to be called to leave for Pacheco any day now.

July 24^th, we held a dance and had quite a good time.

July 28^th, we received word to leave our homes. We spent the 29^th packing what few things we could take and cooking. We just walked out and close the door and left everything. There were 27 wagons. The men stayed to defend the town and our property but the women and children camped in a lumber shed with very little room. The babies cried all night making sleep impossible for the rest. On August 2^nd, Rhoda and the children left for Pima, and arrived the next day.

We men all gathered in Juarez where we decided to hide out in the mountains. I went back to Garcia herd our horses up into the mountains. When I got the horses up to the men, we decided to take them to the border. From El Paso, I went on to be sure Rhoda and the children were all right. On September 20^th, some of us went back for as many cattle as we can drive out. October 13^th,I arrived in Pima. We put Tillie and Lorena in school in Pima and November 4^th, we started for Bluewater, New Mexico. We arrived there the 5th at 1:00 a.m.

November 11^th we moved into Nelly Chatman’s house. Tilly went to work at the general store, clerking.

Heber took sick on June 21^st and on July 17^th, he died.

September 24, 1913, Hyrum* became very sick and was bad from the very first. We couldn’t get a doctor and we just didn’t seem to be able to do anything to help him. He died October 16^th and was buried October 17^th. His funeral was held at the meeting house in Bluewater. We sang “Come Let Us Anew” after which Brother Tietjen gave the opening prayer. We sang “Oh, My Father” and Brothers Call Hakes, Charley Martineau, Bishop Whetten and Welcome Chapman spoke. We sang “Resurrection Day” and Brother Welcome Champman closed the meeting with prayer. Brother Tietjen dedicated the grave.

We are left alone without a home, no one we know to help us and in a strange new place.

From the journal of Hyrum Albert Cluff, submitted by Mrs. Sarah Matilda Cluff Lewis, daughter.

Stalwarts South of the Border page 113.

*For clarity, the last entry would have been written by someone other than Hyrum as he was the person passing in the entry.

Ernest Isaac Hatch

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Ernest Isaac Hatch

1878 – 1952

Ernest Isaac Hatch, fourth child and second son of John and Maria Matilda McClellan, was born September 21, 1878 in Greenwich, Piute County, Utah, a small hamlet consisting of six widely separated families in Grass Valley lying in the tops of the snowbound Wasatch mountains.

Ernest’s father, John William Hatch, was born April 3, 1850, in the Old Union Fort, Salt Lake City, Utah, and grew up in Payson, Utah. He met Maria Matilda McClellan, and they were married on March 14, 1874.

In the early 1880’s, William C. McClellan, father of Maria was called by the Church leaders to move with others to New Mexico and settle on the San Francisco River. The small town was named Pleasanton. John and Maria left their home in Greenwich, Piute County, Utah and moved with four of their small children to Pleasanton.

The life of the settlers was hard. The Apache renegade, Geronimo, gave no little fear to the settlers of that area. John was called to carry, in his wagon, the bodies of four U. S. soldiers from where they were ambushed to their burial spot near the town of Alma.

John and Maria had two daughters, Myrtle and Pearl, born to them at Pleasanton. Pearl died soon after birth was buried there.

As a Pleasanton project did not work out well for the settlers, they moved out, John Maria returning to their former home in Greenwich.

Except for three years spent in Pleasanton, New Mexico, Grass Valley was Ernest’s home until he was 20 years of age. He hearded a sheep in the summer, voluntarily being the soul shepherd for his grandfather’s sheep one summer when he was but nine years of age. His herding also included cows for his father’s dairy at Fish Lake where he helped with the milking and assisted in the making of butter and cheese for sale.

He went to school one term each winter, breaking fresh trail through the snow drifts each day. When he had finished all Grass Valley had to offer, his parents were able to send him to Ephraim, to the Snow Academy, for two years. This opportunity spurred plans to continue his education with his favorite cousin, Jim Bagley, at the Brigham Young Academy at Provo.

The long winter evenings for the Hatches were turned into a miniature factory when, seated around a blazing fire, they picked wool, sewed carpet rags, pieced quilt blocks, carded wool, knit socks and stockings as their mother read to them, propping open her book with the scissors, rocked the cradle and knit. Each child would be occupied in tasks best suited to his age. Ernest served longest at the carpet rag sewing, saying in later years he could remember when he cut his first tooth, but not when he learn to sew carpet rags. He also took his turn at the washboard and at scrubbing the pine board floors and chair seats. His parents were thrifty and frugal and drafted every child into an organization that “kept the best side out.” “We may live in poverty,” his mother would often say, “but it will be slick poverty,” and use every child help make it so.

A crisis in Ernest’s life came when his mother suddenly decided she could no longer endure the long cold winters in Grass Valley. Of the nine children born after Ernest, including twins, five had died. I move to a warmer climate was imperative. Ernest’s strong objections to his interrupted education plans, and the need to sell everything just at the peak of prosperity, subsided as he saw affairs definitely moving toward Mexico, and he finally promised to go and help with the move, but found that nothing could make him stay. With that understanding, the move got underway.

They left their home, friends and relatives in Grass Valley in October, 1898, and arrived in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico in mid-December of the same year. The slow team travel had taken them through most of Utah and Arizona, across New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, where Maria’s father and brother met them to help with immigration and custom inspection. From there they all enjoyed their first train ride on the newly completed Mexico Noroeste railroad, with their wagons, teams and other traveling gear being shipped with them.

It was a good time to become members of the Juarez Ward. Holiday festivities were underway, giving all a chance to make quick acquaintances. A large family with eight unmarried children, as well as a married daughter with her husband and three children, were welcome additions to the Ward. Each member of the family found friends of their own age, and all were soon happy over the move. All but Ernest, that is, who was still determined to return to Grass Valley.

Three things changed his mind. First, Professor Guy C. Wilson convinced him that his ninth grade could offer as many advantages as could the Snow Academy and he could remain at home as he studied. Second, Dennison and E. Harris offered him a job after school and on Saturdays clerking in his store, to keep him going as he studied. Third, and most of all, he fell under the charm of fun-loving Lillian Haws. He canceled all his intentions to return to Grass Valley and enrolled in school.

He was soon under the spell of Professor Wilson’s psychology and from it was born a desire to make a teaching career. He graduated from the Juarez Stake Academy in May, 1901, he not only was a member of the first graduating class, but he also had two engagements, one to teach school in the institution from which he had gained his training, and the other to marry the girl he had courted through the years.

He was married to Lillian Haws, May 15, 1901, and spent the summer in Naco, Sonora, earning enough money to set them up in housekeeping. By fall they were established in the Olive Stolwell home and Ernest had started a career that kept him many years in the classroom. December 29, 1901, Lillian prematurely gave birth to a baby girl, and complications following its immediate death kept her hovering between life and death for six weeks as Ernest and the doctors fought off a stage of puerperal fever. She survived, but was threatened by its recurrence with each succeeding birth.

By July, 1912, Ernest was certified as head of the commercial department in the Juarez Stake Academy, was teaching bookkeeping and rapid calculation, was School Registrar, and he knew and could call by name each registrant, and was a successful athletic coach, with basketball and baseball teams competing successfully with teams along the border of the United States. Business-wise he had invested in a cannery and had a car load of cans ready for use. Church-wise he was Sunday School Superintendent, a Stake YMMIA officer, and a teacher in his Priesthood class. Family-wise he had a neat brick bungalow, a family of five children: Lillian, Fleeta, Ernest Seville, Genevieve, and Ernest LeRoy.

He had also seeing how the breakup of law and order can change otherwise peaceful and friendly neighbors into enemies with murderous intent that came with the beginning of the 1910 Madero Revolution. He had been one of the deputized officers commissioned to arrest Juan Sosa, a belligerent malcontent, and was on the ground when the murderous attempt to kill Frank Lewis was stopped with a volley of shots that killed Sosa. He had lived through the aftermath, facing the shocking fact that when the licentious usurpers are in control, there is justice for no one and anything can happen. With turbulence quieted and a seemingly reliable recognition of neutrality for the colonists, a complete evacuation of the colonies from Mexico was a horn of the dilemma not then to be considered. Nothing could more definitely halt the progress and kill the prosperity they were enjoying.

When it came, however, no matter if it was disaster supreme to him, he followed the dictates of Priesthood leaders without a murmur.

The anguish she suffered as he sent Lillian, again in a delicate condition, to the U.S. border, was endured because he was sure the move was only temporary. Lonely vigil along with other men and boys was endured for the same reason. But conditions forced the men to follow their families.

Acting on the notion that there is “no luck without pluck,” he located and provide for his family until his return, and borded the first train for home, arriving again in Colonia Juarez by September first. There, with marshaled neighbors, he canned vegetables wasting in the gardens and preserve the fruit from the orchards. Back in El Paso he earned money to pay doctors fees when their third son Ernest Sanford, was born November 25, 1912 and for his caring for Lillian, as they fought off another siege of puerperal fever. The little fellow died Christmas Day.

Six weeks later, in February 1913, he joined a pilgrimage, 65 strong, headed by Bishop Joseph C Bentley, that took them by team from Columbus, New Mexico back to their homes in Colonia Juarez, each one choosing the hazards of Revolutionary life in their own homes to insecurity and homelessness in the United States.

For three years they endured this strippings of roving bands. The incident most closely affecting Ernest was when his father, in self-defense, killed Guadalupe Treviso, and he and his brothers were forced to endure bullying from first one party then another until he could be cleared in a reasonable court session. Watching his neighbor Ernest L. Taylor he manhandled by an extortionist, and once stood up to be executed, was another ordeal that touched him, especially when he could do nothing about it. But he still faced situations as they came and found life reasonably good until the cruelest blow of all struck him. He lost his loved companion. Lillian, with the birth of their fourth son, Ernest Herman, March 27, 1916, succumbed to her old enemy, puerperal fever on April 29. He was bereft of a wife and was left with six motherless children.

By that time Pancho Villa had made his hit-and-run attack on Columbus, New Mexico, and the Punitive Expedition of 12,000 men, under General John J. Pershing, was engaged in the famous but unsuccessful manhunt. In November of that year Ernest was ordained a High Priest and made Second Counselor to Bishop John J. Walser in Colonia Juarez, a position he held a short time. With a partnership offer from Lillian’s brothers, Jim and George Haws in Mesa, Arizona, in the dairy and poultry business, he moved his family there for five years.

At the end of the first two years, prospects for accumulating property, machinery and teams were good. Yet life was lonely. He needed a companion, his children needed a mother and home life. On August 19, 1918, he married Nelle Spilsbury, an associate teacher from the JSA and one month later they were sealed in the St. George Temple. Home life for Ernest went on as though uninterrupted.

The first crisis in their life came when Ernest contracted the Spanish flu and narrowly escaped death in the epidemic that swept the country, leaving countless victims in its wake. The only reason he survived was his intense desire to live and his faith in the power of the Priesthood. Nelle’s first daughter, Ernestine, was born May 25, 1919.

When the partnership with Lillian’s brothers dissolved, Ernest was in possession of a 40 acre tract of land, and his share of cows, teams, chickens and sheep. When an offer came to take over a couple of the farms in Colonia Dublan, he accepted. He left Nelle to dispose of his farm to the highest bidder and went to put in his first crops.

Then the bottom fell out of everything. The depression following World War I struck, farm after farm went falling into the hands of receivers, banks closed their doors, and Ernest’s valuable farm, almost overnight, became a liability. Even, produced on this farm was sidetracked on an Eastern market demanding demurrage. On top of it all, his crops in Dublan failed.

At the end of two years his rosy dream of a model dairy and poultry farm, fed by rich yields from his farm, collapsed, and with things going from bad to worse, he moved his family to Colonia Juarez. His farm in Mesa, his Ford car, his machinery, most of his teams and cows were lost in the final settlement. With his family he settled into a happy home and began again from scratch from that time, there was no direction to go but up, Nelle’s first son, Garth Spilsbury, was June 29, 1923.

One by one he tackled the problems besetting the half-paid for Junius Romney orchard. Coddling moth left its pollution in every apple, killing frost could in one night wipe out a crop, and apples shriveled on the trees during the dry season. Finding himself in a vicious circle of needing a fruit crop to buy spray material, smudge pots, and sink a well, how could he get these things until he had a fruit crop? Yet, whipping one problem after another, he soon realized that he had made the best investment in life.

Among the other challenges that Ernest faced was that of the death of his parents. His father, John William Hatch, died January 22, 1932, at the age of 82, after suffering a heart attack. Maria followed her husband and was laid to rest at his side in the cemetery of Colonia Juarez on July 27, 1940. They were the parents of 14 children: Lillian Maria, Minnie Almeda, John Alma, Ernest Isaac, Mary Agnes, Rhoda Evelyn, Myrtle, Pearl, Cynthia Irene, George Lynn, Frances Fern, Elmer Hugh, and twins Charles and Carroll.

In 1932 he entered the fruit market in Mexico City with the first carload of apples to be shipped from the colonies since 1896 as an exhibit in the Coyoacan Fair. He re-established the quality of colony fruit and opened up a market that has since steadily grown and still flourishes.

With his original orchard paying off, other orchards on both sides of him were purchased and soon yielding handsomely. His family was soon enjoying the fruits of his labors, though going through “the narrows” had taught them many lessons such as the worth of the dollar and the value of family unity in solving family problems.

During those years of pulling himself up by his “bootstraps,” his last child, Madelyn, was born October 19, 1925. He had taught school a couple of years to keep his family eating, had filled six months mission in California, had continued as Sunday School Superintendent, promoted the Boy Scout program, and had acted as watermaster for the East Canal. Hi0s family followed his example and fill positions in church work along with him. He was released from the High Council to be First Counselor to Bishop Anthony I. Bentley in 1934.

In September, 1937, he was set apart as Bishop of the Juarez Ward with David Samuel Brown and Velan Cal, and later Willard Shupe as Counselors. He was now in a position to continue a rehabilitation program that is still in progress (1966). Blackened walls of burned buildings dotted the town, homes were windowless and porches were sagging and floorless. The elementary school building (original Juarez Stake Academy and the only Church house the Ward had known) was remodeled into a modern one-story building. Church functions were moved to the Ivins Hall in the JSA building, which did service until October, 1966 when a new chapel was built.

Home rehabilitation began with his own home by removing the rotting roof and changing it into a Spanish-style residence, adding a sleeping porch and a kitchen, and commencing a system of landscaping around the grounds that is still in progress.

Ernest’s term as Bishop ended in October, 1944. The remainder of his life was spent serving as High Councilman. His sons took over the management of his orchard. Life ended for him October 7, 1952 in Dalhart, Texas, where his tired heart suddenly stopped. Leaving a posterity that now numbers eight children, 43 grandchildren, and 32 great-grandchildren, he was buried in Colonia Juarez cemetery October 11, 1952. Typical of the regard in which he was held by the Mexican people, is a remark made by a neighbor boy: “I had lost a father, adviser, banker, neighbor and friend.”

A member of the first graduating class himself, he was the first to have a daughter graduate, and the first to have a granddaughter graduate, from the Juarez Stake Academy.

An officer in both Stake and Ward MIA, six of his children have been Ward Presidents, and one has been Stake Superintendent. One daughter is currently Stake Primary President, having served first as Ward President. Two of his sons are eminent physicians, one of them a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, a daughter an accredited nurse and anesthetist, a grandson an oral surgeon, a son-in-law a dentist and a grandson-in-law a dermatologist. Himself a teacher, four of his children have done service in the classroom, while two have made it a career. Himself and one son having served as Bishop of the Juarez Ward, another has served in two Bishoprics. Himself a missionary, a son and daughter and two daughters-in-law have filled full-time missions while two sons have served as Mission Presidents, and his 13th grandson is now in the mission field.

All the posterity can truly say, “we are following in your footsteps.”

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 241

Eli Archer Clayson

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Eli Archer Clayson

(1876 – 1933)

Eli Archer Clayson was born at Payson, Utah, on November 12, 1876. He was the son of Nathan and Annie Harriet Butler Clayson.

Eli’s father, Nathan Clayson, had been baptized into the Church at the age of fourteen. At seventeen, he had left his birthplace in Northamptonshire, England, and emigrated to America. After a passage of 46 days between London and New York City, Nathan’s family went by train to Florence, Nebraska. From Florence, Nathan drove a team of oxen to Salt Lake City, suffering from frostbite and frozen feet on the plains. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on December 3, 1864, moving on to Payson, Utah, where the family made its home. In 1877 the family moved to Lake Shore, where they cleared land for a farm. They lived in a dugout for years until a home was built. Eli Archer was one of twelve brothers and sisters.

In 1881, with Eli was 14 years of age, his parents went to Colonia Juarez, Mexico where they were instrumental in colonizing the settlement of the Latter-day Saint Church. It was there that he met Mary Louise Naegle, who had come to attend school. The Church had an academy in Colonia Juarez. In 1896 and 1897, Mary attended Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah. The following August, Eli went to Utah and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple, August 6, 1897. They then returned to Mexico and made their home in Colonia Juarez.

In 1908, Eli was called to serve a mission in England. He left his wife and four children to give himself to this calling. He returned in 1910.

His father ran a harness shop in the colony. They also have an interest in the local tannery. They were expert in making shoes, harnesses, callers, settled, bridles and other leather articles. Eli also purchased tracks of farming and rangeland and stocked them with valuable cattle and horses. In addition to this, he owned two homes in Colonia Juarez.

In 1912, the Mexican Revolution made the lives of Mormon colonists miserable. The Revolutionary forces hoped to drive Americans from Mexican territory and divide the land among themselves without giving compensation for what they took. During 1912, Mexican soldiers repeatedly invaded the vicinity of Colonia Juarez, trespassing on private property, tearing down fences and pasturing their horses on the lots and fields without the least regard for the rights or objections of the owners. They took anything they wanted from the tannery and other stores, never making payment of any kind. On one occasion, in the latter part of June, 1912, and Mexican army officer entered Eli’s shop and demanded that he produce all the equipment they wanted, saying that they knew it had been concealed. They impressed him with the seriousness of their demand by threats of violence, accompanied by thrusting a pistol in his side. Needless to say, Eli produced merchandise which they took without payment. On another occasion, a group of colonists gathered on Eli’s lawn, discussing the situation confronting the colonies. They were becoming increasingly concerned for the safety of women and children. On this occasion, a soldier walked by the group of men observed a box of crackers that one of them had purchased from the store, yet wrapped in paper.

The Mexican immediately he rushed to the schoolhouse where his officers were holding a meeting and said that they had some dynamite, apparently referring to the box of crackers. He said they were on their way to blow up the schoolhouse where the Mexican officers were located. Immediately one of the officers led troop pf soldiers to the place we the Americans were still discussing and arrested Eli, marching him as a prisoner to the schoolhouse.

Before this happened, Eli had given one of the Mexican officers a saddle horse. When the arresting officer said he was going to shoot Eli at once, the individual to whom Eli had given the horse stepped forward and remonstrated, saying he should not be executed, at least for the time being. They continued to hold the prisoner until one day when Mexican scouts rushed in stating the force of Yaqui Indians under the command of General José de la Luz Blanco, a federal, was approaching town. The rebels lost no time in saddling and packing their horses and departing, leaving Eli behind. But for this occurrence, it is likely he would have suffered the same fate many others had met, that of cold-blooded murder.

Because the help the Americans of hoped for did not materialize it was necessary to leave homes and properties behind and go to the United States. Many years later, in February 1936, the Mexican government made a financial settlement with the people who left Mexico and had been disposed of their properties. Eli had calculated that the total of his expenses due to the Revolution amounted to $10,872. The total value of his property loss was placed at $13,202. The family therefore submitted a claim of $24,074. They received from the Mexican government only a percentage of what was asked, nothing in the actual amount that was lost.

After leaving Mexico, Mary Louisa, with her children and mother-in-law, went to Bountiful, Utah. Eli followed several months later, finally securing a job in a harness shop in American Fork, Utah. His family later relocated in American Fork. Three years later they moved to Spanish Fork, Utah where Eli spent the rest of his life. It was there that he purchased the harness and saddle shop from the Spanish Fork Co-op, and oversaw it until illness forced his retirement in the early 1930s.

Eli Archer Clayson was always active in the Church and was a member of the Bishopric in Colonia Juarez. He was a member of the Superintendency of the Spanish Fork Third Ward Sunday school for an number of years and was the Chairman of the Genealogical Committee until his final illness. He was ill for 16 months, following a stroke. He died on November 27, 1933 in buried Spanish Fork, Utah.

Roslie Clayson Mikkelsen, daughter and Mary Louisa Naegle, wife.

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 111

Martha Cragun Cox

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Martha Cragun Cox

(1852 -1932)

Martha Cragun Cox was born March 3, 1852 in the Mill Creek Ward, Salt Lake County, Utah. Her father, James Cragun, was a descendent of Patrick Cragun, born in Ireland, who came to America, settling in Massachusetts. Family tradition has it that in his early manhood he was one of the “Indians” threw the English tea overboard in Boston harbor.

Martha’s mother Elenor Lane, a granddaughter of Lambert Lane who was born in England and emigrated to America with his parents when he was about 12 years of age.

Martha’s parents joined the Mormon Church in 1843 and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1849. They received the call to pioneer the Dixie, Utah country in 1862. As a girl, Martha learned to leave on her mother’s loom. She made cloth for her own dresses and earned a little money weaving for other people. Quoting from her “Reminiscences,” we learn of an experience that had a profound effect on her life:

One day I was taking from the loom of piece that I had woven for a pair of pants for Brother Jeffreys, a cultivated English gentleman. It had been made from nappy yarn and I told him it did not reflect credit on the weaver. “Oh, well,” he said, “twill only be for a little while we will need it. Twill soon be worn out and then my nappy cloth and the weaver’s work will be forgotten and the weaver too. Though she becomes round shouldered over the loom in trying to serve people with good cloth, (she) will wear out and be forgotten and no one will know that she wove.” These words fell on me solemn-like and prophetic and I pondered them deeply. “What profit is there finally,” I said to myself, “in all this round of never ceasing labor? Weaving cloth to buy dresses to wear out. When my day is past, my warp and woof in life and labors ended and my body gone to rest in the grave, what is there to mark the ground in which I trod? Nothing!” And the thought maybe weep.

I went to McCarty (her brother-in-law James McCarty) and told him what brother Jeffreys had said to me. What can I do that my work and myself will not be forgotten, I asked. He answered “You might plant.” To this I replied that the day would come that our neighbor with all his fine trees, flowers, vegetables, etc., that he had given to St. George would be forgotten by the people and his fine gardens vanished. “Plant in the minds of men and the harvest will be different,” he said. “Every wholesome thought you succeed in planting in the mind of a little child will grow and bear eternal fruit that will give you such joy that you will not ask to be remembered.” His words, though they enlightened, brought to me an awful sadness of soul. I was so ignorant. I saw that I had hitherto lacked ambition for I had been content to dance, laugh, and sleep my leisure time away, never supposing that I might reach a higher plane than that which enabled me to support and clothe myself.

Opportunities for schooling in those pioneer days were very limited and books were not plentiful, but Martha read everything she could find. She kept a list of words of which she wanted to learn the meaning and pronunciation. She would quiz available people for information, including strangers passing through the country, cowboys, miners, old timers. She started teaching school in her middle teens and taught school for 60 years of her life.

Martha married Isaiah Cox December 6, 1869 and became the mother of eight children, five of whom lived to raise families of their own. Isaiah died April 11, 1896 in St. George, Utah.

Martha taught school in Bunkerville, Nevada until 1901, then she went to Mexico to be with her daughters, Rose Bunker, Geneva, and Evelyn. She traveled by way of team and wagon with some of the David F. Stout family. Arriving on the Mexican border, they made camp and stayed for some time in Naco, Sonora. Living there was a family of Indians of the Yaqui tribe. In Martha’s writing she said, “This family of Yaquis were the finest of the human race and looks. The woman who was the honored mother of a large brood had splendid features. In fact, I thought as I looked at her that she was the noblest looking woman in face and form I’ve ever seen.”

Martha had deep sympathy and love for all the Indian tribes. When just a young girl she listened many times in the town of Santa Clara, Utah, to Jacob Hamblin relate his incidents and experiences among the Indian tribes. She felt sure the Walker War trouble in Utah came about because white men broke their promises to the Indians.

Martha taught school in Colonia Diaz in the winter of 1901-1902. The 1902 the family moved to Colonia Morelos in Sonora. By 1906 Martha had moved to Colonia Juarez and for several years taught the Mexican children there. The class was held in the rock basement of the schoolhouse. When Bishop Joseph C. Bentley informed her that the people of Juarez refused to furnish funds to maintain the Mexican school any longer, she was astonished. The Bishop, too was grieved over the condition. “It is better,” he said, “for us to educate them than to try to control a hoard of uneducated ones.” On visiting the home of a Mexican family Martha met the mother, an intelligent woman who spoke her mind on the closing of the Mexican classes. “You Mormons,” she said, “came her poor, you were good people. You teach our little children, we work for you, wash, scrum, anything. You are now rich, you got your riches in our country, now you say you do nothing for us, not teach our children, we are fit only to do your work. You will treat us right or we will in a little while drive you out of our country.” The woman knew more than Martha at the time thought she knew.

Martha taught school in Guadalupe, Chihuahua, the last year or so before the Exodus. Returning to the States, Martha joined her family members including her two sons Edward and Frank Cox and their families. Again she taught school in Utah and Nevada for many years before moving to Salt Lake City where she worked in the LDS Temple as recorder and did other services there. She also taught classes in the next branch of the church, and the MIA and the Relief Society.

In 1928 she commenced writing a biographical record of her life entitled “Reminisces of Martha Cox.” This record ran to 300 handwritten pages, well done and very legible. The journey to Mexico, she writes:

… was the commencement of what I term the fifth chapter of my life. The first being my childhood to adult period. The second chapter, the time from my entering marriage until our family came separated. My third chapter seemed to be proper to my life on the Muddy, in Nevada, comprising nearly 10 years being instrumental in acquiring over 300 acres of good farmland on which the town of Overton was built. The fourth chapter might be my years in Bunkerville and the fifth of our lives in Mexico.

A six chapter, consisting of the 20 years after the Exodus from Mexico, might have been added.

Martha died at 80 years of age on November 30, 1932 in Salt Lake City and was buried there.

Emerald W. Stout, grandson

Stalwarts South of the Border page 123

A longer account of Martha’s life taken from her 300 page autobiography can be found here:

http://goo.gl/fgC179

Leland Claude Robinson Jr. (Funeral Program)

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July 9,1918 – March 16, 2014

Mary Ellen Elizabeth Wilden Lillywhite

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Mary Ellen Elizabeth Wilden Lillywhite

(1850-1922)

Mary Ellen Elizabeth Wilden, daughter of Charles and Eleanor Turner Wilden, was born December 5, 1850 at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Her parents had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England and although Charles a better work for more than 14 months, they left their home with their six children, their relatives and friends to gather with other Mormons in Utah and establish a new home. They sailed from Liverpool, England, November 10, 1849 and arrived in New Orleans on December 24 of the same year. Then they went on to St. Louis, Missouri, where they spent two years preparing for the journey to Utah. Here the youngest child, Maria, died in the next year Mary Ellen Elizabeth was born in a dugout.

In 1852, when they started their journey across the plains to Utah, they had a 50 pound sack of cornmeal supply the family on this long journey, but the father was a good marksman and was able to exchange meat for other foodstuffs. The father and the oldest son were the only members of the family with shoes when the journey began, but they were able to make use of shoes, bedding and clothing discarded by a company of gold seekers on their way to California and lost many members due to cholera.

They were among the first settlers of Cove Creek (now Cedar), Utah. Times were hard indeed. They gathered segos and other roots for food, along with mushrooms and wild berries. The women and children gathered willow twigs on which they found honeydew and from which they were able to make a syrup for sweets. Charles Wilden took the first sheep into this area. These animals were a great help to the family, not only furnishing food but also wool from which they may clothing and blankets.

In 1866 the family moved to Beaver, about 25 miles from Cove Creek, where they established another frontier home and made life comfortable and pleasant. They planted fruit trees and Mary Ellen spent some of the happiest days of her life there. It was at Beaver that she met and fell in love with Joseph Lillywhite. She went with a group of young girls to visit him while he was recovering from a gunshot wound in the chest. He had been working on John D. Lee’s ranch a few miles from Beaver, when they were attacked by Indians. Joseph was taken to Brother Lee’s home where he received the best care and it was there that Mary Ellen went to visit him. They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, December 5, 1867, traveling in the company of others for protection from the Indians.

In Beaver they lived in a little one-room log house with the bare essentials of furniture consisting of a bedstead, (two trestles with boards across, a straw tick and another of cat tails), a table, one home each year, as though, no stone but a big oven, one iron kettle, a brass bucket and a few dishes, most of which were wedding presents. Their clothing was made at home, spun and woven in those days. But what mattered hard work and crude furniture so long as they had each other? For the young husband was a very kind, affectionate man. On October 25, 1868, their union was blessed with a baby boy who may need Joseph for his father. On January 28, 1871, another boy, Benjamin, was born, living only a few weeks.

July 4, 1872, the liberals, joined by a Mormon apostate group, tried to “gun” the town. Their yelling and cursing aroused the townspeople and they armed themselves with clubs, guns or any other implements they could lay their hands on and met the intruders at the saloon. They were cursing and threatening to kill President Young. Joseph Lillywhite left his wife and young family in their home on the edge of town to join with his brethren to help drive the unpleasant element from town. President Murdock was out of town so his 18-year-old son took charge and told the intruders that they would not be harmed if they would leave town, which they did.

Several days later, on the 13^th, Mary Eleanor was born. By this time they had been able to buy a small farm and plant fruit trees. The textile factory was operating, so spinning and weaving at home where unnecessary. By 1874 they were able to build a two-story home and the orchard was bearing fruit to help with their needs. Charles Wilden was born this year, 26 December. Lawrence was born January 29, 1877 and John LeRoy was born April 6, 1879. Six months later they decided to move to the San Juan country. Her husband’s health was not good due to his collapsed lung, so they thought a move to a warmer climate might help.

They were the first company to go through the Hole-in-the-Rock to San Juan. They were six months on the road, having to use their seed wheat and corn for food on the way. It was too late to plant crops when they finally arrived and the water from the San Juan River was not available. So they went on to Bush Valley, Arizona. They found the altitude of Bush Valley too high for Joseph. So, in October 1881, they moved to Woodruff, Arizona, having worked on the Santa Fe Railroad with his older sons to earn enough to buy their year’s provisions. They were among the first families to settle in Woodruff and lived in the Fort. They spent a good part of their lives there.

October 24, 1882, Horace Franklin was born. The dam across the river which furnished water for their gardens and farms had to be rebuilt each year so they could have fresh vegetables and irrigate farmland. Mitchell Woodruff was born December 24, 1884 and Annie Louise on April 11, 1887. When the baby was three months old the whole family came down with the measles. Eight-year-old John died from complications, while his mother was that fast. Six months later, Mary owns husband Joseph died of pneumonia. This was on January 18, 1888.

Mary Ellen knew she needed to prepare herself to care for her six children, so she took a course in obstetrics and cared for the sick. President Jesse N. Smith set her apart to do this work. During her lifetime she delivered some 300 babies including 11 pairs of twins. She was 71 years old when she attended her last delivery.

In October, 1893, when her son Franklin was 16 years old, he went with some friends to the lake to kill geese. On the way home they were playing soldier when a friend, thinking his gun was empty, shot and killed Franklin. So much sorrow in such a few years would dishearten most people, but not Mary Ellen. She carried on in spite of difficulties.

When her son Charles came home from his mission, the entire family moved to Colonia Morelos, Sonora, Mexico. Arriving there November 5, 1900, Charles became Bishop of the ward until the Exodus in 1912. They built comfortable homes for each of the sons and their families and also for Mary Ellen and her children who were not married. They also built a flour mill which they operated along with their farms. There were the usual tasks confronting the settling of a new community; canals to be built to bring water onto the farms; land to be cleared; crops planted and harvested; school and church houses to be built. In November 1905, the Bavispe River flooded and washed away many homes and farms. Soon after, the flour mill burned. All had to be rebuilt.

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and soon bandits and soldiers began arriving in around Colonia Morelos, first one faction and then another. All demanded food for themselves and their horses. They also needed arms and ammunition. The colonists stood firm to remain neutral, but finally it was necessary for all to pack up and leave on short notice. By August 1912 they were all in United States, living in tents provided by the government, taking with them only what they could hurriedly pack into their wagons.

The Lillywhite families moved to Mesa, Arizona in March 1913. Mary Ellen’s children were all married now, so she lived with her son Mitchell and family. She stayed on with Mitchell’s wife and children after his death in July 1913 from complications of typhoid. In 1920 her health was so poor that she could not be left alone while her daughter-in-law worked, so she went to live with her son Horace.

Mary Ellen was small in stature, but large in spirit. She had a dynamic personality and was very positive in her views. Her judgment was always considered seriously by her family. Even in her later years she continued to be of service. One incident which showed the faith and courage of this remarkable woman occureed while the family still lived in Woodruff. A man residing in town was thrown from his wagon, inflicting a large scalp wound. There were no doctors available, so people just stood around not knowing what to do. As soon as Mary Ellen arrived on the scene, she called for hot water, clean clothes, a needle and thread, and a strong man to help her. But strong men became weak, fainted or turned away with nausea, and were helpless. Joseph Lillywhite, her oldest son assisted her and the man’s life was saved. Years later, after they had been many years in Mexico, Charles, the second son, was on the train going to Salt Lake City. Someone called him by name and an old gentlemen in the next seat asked, “Do you happen to know Mary Ellen Lillywhite?” Charles answered, “She’s my mother!” The old man said, “I want to shake the hand of the son of the woman who saved my life.”

Her hair was white and her body bent from many years of bending over patients, caring for and lifting them. But her dark eyes still had their sparkle. She died July 6, 1922, at the age of 72, in the home of her son Horace in Chandler, Arizona. She was preceded in death by her husband and five of her eight children.

Compiled by Ernestine Hatch from material submitted by Ethel Lillywhite, Georganna Lillywhite, daughters-in-law and Eleanor Romney, granddaughter.

Stalwarts South of the Border page 405.

Las Colonias – The Mormon Colonies in Mexico

Everything You Need to Know about Mormon Colonies in Mexico

Tag Archives: Colonia Juarez

Cabe Adams, Noted Old Cowboy and Texan

Anthony W. Ivins

Alexander Finlay Macdonald

Franklin Demarcus Haymore

Hyrum Albert Cluff

Ernest Isaac Hatch

Eli Archer Clayson

Martha Cragun Cox

Leland Claude Robinson Jr. (Funeral Program)

Mary Ellen Elizabeth Wilden Lillywhite