Daniel Skousen
1865 – 1940
Daniel Skousen was the sixth child and fourth son of James Niels Skousen and Sidsel Marie Pedersen. James Niels Skousen was born September 30, 1828, in Herslev, Vejle, Denmark. Sidsel Marie Pedersen was born August 23, 1826, in Leasby, Aarhus, Denmark.
They heard the message of the Elders after they were married, believed and were baptized. He was one of the King’s Guards in Denmark. Soon after they joined the Church they began saving to move to America. They had four children born in Denmark before they accumulate enough funds to make the journey. The oldest child, a girl, Petria, and the third child, Parley Pratt, died in Denmark.
On April 17, 1865, Daniel was born in Draper, Utah. He had eight brothers and sisters and had to help his parents make a living in a new and strange land. He went to school but a few months each year and all the formal schooling he gained was during those few months in Draper. The work Daniel did was to herd cows and as with most boys, he found time to swim, play and lie in the sun. But he learned early in life, as did the other members of his family, to obey. Sometimes he learned the hard way. His parents were very strict. His mother was especially strong willed, a characteristic passed on to Daniel. But also he inherited, among other things, wisdom and a desire to work.
The Church soon called the Skousen family to help settle Arizona. With all their belongings loaded into two wagons they started on this move. Dan drove the cows and loose stock. They settled in St. Joseph first and there they lived the United Order. After a short time it was discontinued. Then they moved to Springerville, took up farms and thought this would be their permanent home. Dan’s father had taken a plural wife who was also a woman from Denmark, so it wasn’t long until the law took him to prison. This left the responsibility of care of the family on Daniel and his brother Peter.
Daniel was a sober man but very attractive and a first-rate baseball player, checker player and wrestler. He enjoyed good sportsmanship. He was a sports fan and it stayed with him through life. Not only did he enjoy sports but he loved to dance and sing. The arts were always interesting to him. He was put on the spot many times in his social life and forced to stand up for what he knew was right. This was especially the case with the Word of Wisdom. Very often designing men would tempt him, almost with force, to go against what he thought was right. But he stood by his convictions and would talk his way out and leave the drunken companions with his explanations.
It seems that he seldom escorted only one lady friend alone. They usually went in groups. But all the time he had his eye on one special girl, Melvina Clay Greer. She was his favorite dancing partner. When his younger sister, Caroline, decided to go to St. George and be married, Daniel thought it a good idea to go along. He convinced Melvina to accompany him. The four of them made the trip by team and wagon to St. George where they were married for time and eternity on December 9, 1885.
It was soon learned that one of Dan’s father’s families would have to leave the country if his father were to remain out of jail. So Dan, with his young bride, took his mother and younger brother and sister to Mexico. Dan and Malley (Melvina) had no idea of staying in Mexico, since his brother Peter had also come to Mexico to make his home and could take care of his mother. But it wasn’t long until Dan decided to make his home in Mexico also. The people were still living below the present town site and were sorely in need of lumber to build things. Brother Joseph Moffett and Dan went up on the mountain, sawed lumber by hand, to help build homes, furniture and other things. This was the first lumber sawed in the colonies.
Dan was a healthy, stalwart, robust young man, six feet tall. Never was he afraid of work. “Early to bed and early to rise” was his theme song, and a light scarcely ever found him in bed. He always enjoyed good health except in the last year of his life when he was stricken with terrible pain. After taking him to a specialist in El Paso, they operated and found him afflicted with cancer. He was bedridden for nine months, and his body wasted away with the disease.
Dan was a faithful member of the Church. He upheld authority both by deed and precept. He worked in the Sunday School Superintendency for years and was always punctual and depending. He instilled these qualities into his children. He was an honest tithe payer and always had family prayers. The choir depended on his rich bass voice and he enjoyed singing at public gatherings. At all the old folks’ gatherings, which were held once a year, he was asked to render one or two vocal solos. He encouraged his children not to only improve their talents but also render service whenever possible.
Dan worked wherever he could to earn a living for his family and for his mother, as his father did not come to Mexico to live but remained in Arizona. He found work in Galeana on a thresher at harvest time and as foreman of a big hacienda owned by Don Luis Terrazas in San Diego. Wherever he went, he made a good name for himself through his honest, fair and well-done work. His employer soon found out that they could trust him and could depend on what he said.
Daniel met was several severe accidents is almost cost him his life. One of these was while freighting down the San Diego Canyon. Two span of horses drawing a big wagon loaded with lumber were coming down the steep grade when the brake block broke turning the load loose. They were nearing a bend in the road and Dan knew they were going too fast to make it, so he climbed out onto the tongue of the wagon and dropped to the ground, hoping the load would pass over him and leave him unharmed. All would have been well, but the tongue chain caught his foot and threw it under the wheel crushing his foot and ankle. Brigham Pierce, living nearby, hearing the noise, came to see the cause. Seeing Dan badly hurt, he was going to take him to his home but Dan, being a lover of animals, asked him to please go cut the teams loose first. He could hear them struggling far down the hill. Dan was confined to his bed for four months. Blood poisoning set in and Dr. Lake did all he could for him but to no avail. One day Edmond Richardson came in. Seeing the pain Dan was in, he turned and walked out, returning soon with a drug. This brought relief and with the administration of other strong drugs he was soon up and around on crutches.
His dependability was proverbial. When a Sunday school representative came from Selig city, desiring to go to Pacheco, he could find no one who was able to take him. He then inquired where Dan Skousen was. Dan was plowing but when the request came he unhitched his team from the plow put on his light buggy and took Brother Stoddard and started to Pacheco.
He was Counselor to Bishop John J. Walser and people were yet taking plural wives. President Anthony W. Ivins, a close friend, asked him why he didn’t do likewise. Dan was slow to act but when he decided to join the ranks, he already had one picked out: a lively girl, Sarah Ann Spilsbury, who had been helping Dan and Malley in their home. They were married by an Apostle.
In 1901 he bought a gristmill from William R. R. Stowell. Don Luis Terrazas advanced him the money. By this time Dan Skousen’s name was as good as his bond, he could borrow money or have credit anytime he wanted. He also took a contract with Brother Stowell to build a dam for Luis Terrazas up on Tapiacitas. The dam held for many years. Dan built a 14 room house for his family and was always reaching out for more property. He leased a large tract of farming land south of the Colonia Juarez purchase and he bought a 300 acre farm called the “Ojo,” north of old Casas Grandes.
Dan had the ability to get along with Mexicans. He was willing to help show them how to plant and irrigate their land and how to harvest the crops. He worked on committees to visit the governor and often went to Mexico City on legal matters. He was known as “Don Daniel” by his native friends. Especially was this manifest during the Revolution. The coming and going of different factions was a difficult situation and it was his policy, as recommended by the Church, to be neutral. Very often he was called in to settle disputes for them. At the time Poncho Villa was in Casas Grandes, when leaders of the Stake and others had gone to get him to return some of their horses, Villa sent them on their way with threats. Dan also called upon him. And although Villa was very disturbed, without raising his voice or losing control of himself, Dan convinced Poncho Villa of their need and soon Villa gave him an order for some of the horses to be returned.
At the time of the Exodus, when most colonists left the country, Dan Skousen and his wife, Sarah, were among the first to return. Brother Ivins, former Juarez Stake President, said, “If I had a mill full of wheat like brother Skousen, I would go back.”
Dan’s material wealth, was almost depleted by the end of the Revolution; but they couldn’t take his land, only what he raised on it. He still had faith in future crops. Many of the rebel leaders ate at his table. He believed “it is better to feed them than to fight them,” but often it wasn’t all voluntary. During the Revolution he never knew when he went to bed at night what would find in his spacious yard the next morning. He trusted in the Lord and taught his family to have the same faith and prayer. He was held for ransom many times, with guns held at his head if he didn’t give over all his money or his guns. He was threatened with having his hay, mill and home burned, but with that same reasoning power, “that a soft word turneth away wrath,” he evaded many possible catastrophes. Many a person, Mexican and Anglo alike, came seeking help, either for themselves or for their family, eating either money or protection until opposing forces left. But it must be said to the honor of the Revolutionaries, that while on the ranch, soldier and leader alike, they were courteous to the womenfolk. At times, however, the women would cut the ropes from around the horses neck, put a child on its back and give therefore suspect, sitting the writer on the run for the tall cornfields or plum thickets to hide until the rebels and gone away.
Dan was a devoted husband and father and very much the head of his family. He sired 14 daughters and seven sons. Seven of these 21 children died in their tender years. Three of them filled honorable missions. All the living children obtain their education in the Juarez Stake Academy and graduated, many with honors. One became a registered nurse and returned to Colonia Juarez and was an angel of mercy to her hometown. They have all fill positions of leadership in their Wards and Stakes. Three children obtained their degrees from college and many of them have taught school, two of them in the Academy.
Dan was an active member of the High Council for many years and on the board of education. He was proud of each of his children and never missed an opportunity to attend cultural events sponsored by the school. Sports were his love and when his boys took an active part he was always one of the fans.
His love of animals and his ability to get them to respond to his desires because of his kind treatment was phenomenal. He always had a favorite horse that he would ride. And scarcely ever did one see him without his shovel. He could irrigate probably more profitably than anyone else, and water was at a premium in those days. So Dan, his horse and his shovel were a common sight on the streets of Colonia Juarez.
He lived in Colonia Juarez 54 ½ years. He was well thought of by businessmen of the area and in the border cities as well. He enjoyed the respect of many and left the example of his stalwart characteristics to his posterity.
Sarah S. Skousen, wife
Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 610
