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Joseph Jackson

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JOSEPH JACKSON

(1852-1935)

My father, Joseph Jackson, was born in Leicestershire, England, April 2, 1852. He came to America with his younger brother William, when he was nineteen years of age. He lived with his mother’s brother, Joseph Argyle, in Bountiful, Utah until he could earn enough money to send for his mother and the rest of his brothers and sisters, who had been baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father was baptized some years later and joined the family in Utah.

At a very early age he had been apprenticed to a contractor and builder in England, where he learned the trades of brickmaking, building and architecture. This early training was a great help to the two boys, who at a very early age had the responsibility of caring for and moving the large family to a far country.

With his mother and the younger children came his boyhood sweetheart, Prudence Phillips, and they were married July 7, 1873 and moved to Ogden, Utah. There he had more work than he could do. Soon he had many men working for him, besides his three younger brothers who were old enough by his time to help. Soon he had contracts for buildings in Salt Lake City, as well as in Bountiful and Ogden. He built City Hall and Wright’s Store in Ogden, a home for President Lorenzo Snow in Salt Lake City, and many others. His family grew and he and his wife had nine children.

The pioneers suffered much for the lack of medical care. There were not enough doctors to care for the sick in times of epidemics and many died. Such an epidemic came to Ogden and many died. In father’s family, six of his nine children were stricken and died. The parents were heartbroken and for months were almost unable to bear their grief. One night father prayed for the Lord to send him comfort and help him to understand. He went to sleep and had a beautiful dream. He felt he was being carried upwards. Soon he came to a beautiful garden, and in the distance he saw a beautiful cottage. He continued until he neared the cottage. On the grass in front of the house he saw a group of children sitting in a circle with a beautiful young lady, who seemed to be teaching them. As he drew near them, the teacher arose and came smiling toward him. He recognized her as Mary Talmage, who had died soon after reaching America. She asked him why he had come and told him to step nearer the children. As he did so, he saw his six children seated with many others. They came running to him and hugged him. They said, “Papa, please don’t cry for us, we are so happy here and we are learning so much.” Then the dream slowly faded away and with it went the heavy feeling in his heart. Many times he told us that nothing could have been more real to him. His grief left him and all was well.

Those were the days of polygamy, and Father was among those who embraced the principle. With the consent of his first wife, he married my mother, Mary Ann Stowell, on November 22, 1887, daughter of William Rufus Rogers Stowell and Sophronia Kelly. Soon after this marriage, trouble began that sent many of these families on the “underground.” When this trouble began, it was too much for his first wife, and she made trouble for him. So he sold his business and property in Utah, and moved with my mother to Mexico where the authorities of the Church had arranged for land and a place for them to live and build their homes.

Here Father began a new life for himself and family. They had a daughter, Mary Ann, and a son Joseph. He tried many ventures, but finally built a gristmill on property bought from former Governor Luis Terrazas, of Chihuahua. There was a spring in the foothills above an old mill site that had been used by Indians or very early settlers. This mill consisted of two large heavy stones about six feet across and a foot thick. They turned in opposite directions, grinding corn or what they used for food. The stones were laying on a sort of stand holding them up off the ground, leaving a place for the ground grain to fall. The building was long and wide and built with very thick adobe walls.

Father built his new building a short distance from the old mill. He used the water from the spring to run it. This way he made our living. Later he planted a vineyard near the old mill site and we lived in three rooms adjoining it. The house was very comfortable because the walls were very thick, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We lived about three miles from Colonia Dublan and a mile north of Casas Grandes.

They lost their first two children there with typhoid fever. In those early days there were no doctors, only women who served as midwives and did all they could wherever there was sickness. Smallpox was also a dreaded disease in those early days. My father became a victim of it and nearly died with it.

In a few years when we were older, he sold the mill to Brother James Memmott and we moved to Colonia Juarez where he built a carpenter factory. He also did considerable building. He built the first building that served as a meeting house and a school house for many years. He later built a large white stone house for our home. It was not quite finished when he was called on a mission to England. He hired the McClellan brothers to finish it and move us into it. He also sold his furniture factory to Brother McClellan.

After serving two years in the mission field, he was advised by President Anthony W. Ivins to take a third wife. He then married Maria Jones Ray, daughter of F. W. Jones, who was having a struggle to care for herself and two children by an earlier marriage to Milton Ray, who had deserted her then gone to Mexico City where he soon died. Soon after this marriage all such marriages were stopped, but men were allowed to keep and support the families they already had.

By the time he was released from the mission, Brother Memmott’s health had become poor and he had to give up the mill. So Father sold their home in Juarez to Apostle John W. Taylor, who was moving most of his family to Mexico.

After selling our home we moved to a farm he still owned, about a mile from the mill. Auntie Maria was moved to the mill. They had four children and raised the two she already had. Almost everything he had was sold to keep him on his mission and take care of Mother and the children while he was away. So he had to start all over, with the added care of a new family.

We lived on this farm and orchard for a year and the five older children of the two families attended school in Casas Grandes, where we all learned to read and write Spanish. The next year Mother and all her children, including Auntie’s two older ones, moved to Colonia Dublan where we could go to our own school. We lived there and went to school and Father and Auntie lived at the mill. This is where we were living when the Revolution broke out. About this time mother gave birth to triplets, two boys and a girl, the little girl lived only two weeks. The war kept getting worse until we were told to leave the country with all the rest of the women, children and older men.

Father was at his mill with Auntie and her family. Word was sent to him that the people were leaving, but he was forced to stay with his family to run the mill for the Mexican Army. They took everything he had. Then they locked him in prison to force him to tell where he had more grain hidden. He didn’t have any. He was beaten and locked in a filthy room overnight. With help he got out the next day, and finally succeeded in leaving in the night with his family for the United States border. They finally made their way, taking a cross-country route, away from the roads and beaten trails.

Sometime later he returned to look after his property, but found they had burned the mill and his house. He sold what was left of his land, and moved to Ogden, Utah, with his third wife Maria and unmarried children.

There he bought the same brickyard he had owned as a young man. The work was too heavy for him and the responsibility too much. So as soon as the children were married and Maria died, his second wife Mary Ann, who had stayed in El Paso, went to Ogden to care for him until the last children were married. They moved to El Paso and he died April 13, 1935, and Mary Ann died April 25, 1943. They were both buried in El Paso, Texas.

Harriet Viola Jackson Stevens, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 318

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch,

Daniel Skousen

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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