John Morgan Diary, November 17-22, 1888

1888

[November 17, St. Johns, Arizona]

At 7 p.m. another meeting was held. The speakers were J.R. [John Riley] Hulet, D.K. [David King] Udall, and Jno. [John] Morgan. We stayed at brother Udalls for the night.

November 18

Meeting at 10 a.m. The speakers were Elder Jno. Brown [John W. Brown, first principal of the St. Johns Academy], a recently returned Missionary, W.H. [William Hoover] Gibbons, and Jno. Morgan. The meetings were all well attended. Sunday School Conference convened at 2 p.m. Supt. Rancher [William David Rencher] called the meeting to order and spoke to the people. He was followed by Chas. Jarvis, Assistant Superintendent. Brother Doxie [sic] spoke to the people followed by John Morgan.

At 7 p.m. meeting convened. Superintendent [John H.] Murdock of the St. Johns Sunday School spoke first.

Brother D.K. Udall spoke at some length, followed by J.M. after which conference adjourned.

November 19

Brother Eliza [Elijah] Freeman called with his wagon. Mary [Linton Morgan], Ida [Hunt Udall], and myself drove over to the Reservoir; from there to the mill. In the afternoon visited with brother Freeman and family.

November 20

In company with brother W.H. Gibbons, H.J. Perkins, we went to brother Udalls ranch at Springerville, a distance of 35 miles. Ida and David [Udall] followed in another wagon. Arrived after dark.

November 21

Wrote a letter to Annie [Smith Morgan] and wrote up my Journal. Afterwards in company with Brother W.H. Gibbons and brother D.K. Udall, drove to the town of Springerville. Had dinner with Bishop George Crosby and at 2 p.m. met with the Saints.

Brothers H. J. Perkins, D.K. Udall, and myself were the speakers. From there we drove to Eagerville [now Eagar] and called on sisters Eager [Eagar] and Tenny [Tenney] and from there to Brother Udalls where we spent a most enjoyable evening.

November 22

Bid the folks goodbye and in company with brother H.J. Perkins and William A. Jones, started for Erastus [now Concho], a distance of thirty-five miles. Arrived there at 5 p.m. and stayed with Bishop C.I. Kempe [Christopher Jensen Kempe]. Held meeting at 7 p.m. It was addressed by Brothers Perkins, Jones, and Freeman, and myself. Erastus is a good location, but is poorly managed.


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Sources:
Arizona Pioneer Mormon
Flickr
Freeman Family History
Latter-Day Saints' Millennial Star
Mormon Settlement in Arizona
New Family Search
Wake Family History
What I Remember of the Benjamin Brown Family
Young Woman's Journal

Grandma Morgan—Mary Ann Linton Morgan, Part 2

Grandma and Mom were always at odds, Mom couldn’t understand her and talked about her to us children so terribly that we had little use for her either. I understood why this was so much later when I found out Grandma Christensen disliked her so much for being a polygamous wife.

Grandma married John Hamilton Morgan in the Endowment House against her Mother’s wishes. One of Grandma’s aunts or cousins helped her to come to Salt Lake where she and Grandpa Morgan were married in the Endowment House. After the Manifesto Grandma was in Hunt, Arizona working for the D.K. Udall family and married “Uncle D.K.” I am sure that Grandma Christensen knew about this secret.

Mom was not a tidy housekeeper and Grandma would try to teach her how to be neater. Grandma had a tendency to snoop, too, (so Mom says) and Mom was upset with her about that.

During Grandma’s last years Mom took her into her home to care for. Aunt Eudora (Lin’s wife) came from California and said Grandma could no longer care for herself. Grandma had arthritis very bad and walked with a cane. She had little use for children and gave Jimmy a hard time while we had to stay with Mom and Dad at 777 Fourth Ave. until our house on 12th West was completed.…

Finally Dad was persuaded to put her in a nursing home on 13th South and it was here she died. The name of the home was Hill Haven and had been an orphanage while we children were growing up on 13th East and 13th South.

Grandma was the spur who interested Nicholas Groesbeck Morgan (Grandpa’s eldest son) in genealogy. He had the Morgan line traced back to three brothers who came from Glamorganshire, Wales to settle in the United States. One settled in New England; one in the middle Atlantic States; and one in Virginia. Our line comes through the latter man.

[A note from my dad: This information is probably inaccurate. In fact Nicholas Morgan traced the genealogy to Virginia where there were a number of Morgans. There is no evidence or proof that the Morgan he selected is the right one... A careful reading of the John Morgan book shows clearly that he just randomly selected a line that continued as opposed to ending the line in Virginia.]

Grandma had bunions on both her feet, one of which was most painful. Her arthritis kept her from raising her elbow but a little way and she combed her hair by propping elbow on her chest of drawers.… Lin was always Grandma’s favorite but it was Dad to whom she looked for the most support and help. She was always asking Dad to help provide for herself for genealogy, or one of his brothers.

Mom didn’t like to visit with Grandma, but one time we took a dinner in the pots and pans on the streetcar to surprise Grandma. I just remember how many parcels we all had to carry. We didn’t stay too long as there were too many of us for that little room. I remember going down the hall to the bath. There was a toilet with a long chain from the box at the top; a bathtub that stood on legs and in which all that whole floor bathed. Grandma had this small sink in her room in a sort of closet and Mom said she used it to wash dishes in…

Grandma used to call the managers of the Deseret News to see why Dad didn’t come to see her more often. This was upsetting to Mom, also.

Grandma was always praising Uncle Lin’s and Aunt Eudora’s kids to us. Aunt Eudora was an Eggertsen from Provo, and Grandma had a higher opinion of her than she did of the Christensens in St. Johns.

I trust Grandma has found peace and her rightful place in the hereafter. She endured many hardships for her belief in the Church and was persecuted severely for her participation in polygamy as a third wife. I am grateful to her for telling me there was a hereafter and that we should all be together again after death.

Photo of the Salt Lake Temple from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimberlyfaye/2483954549/.

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part V

On March 28 of the following year Jessie and I were married at her home, the ceremony being performed by President David K. Udall. The same afternoon we left on our honeymoon to Salt Lake City. We spent our first night in Hunt at the insistence of my mother. This incident we both have many times regretted. At Holbrook we took the train. What a wonderful trip.

In Denver we boarded a ‘rubber-neck’ bus for a tour of the city. Enroute we had our picture taken. We bought a print, but much to our regret in later years it became lost or misplaced. When we left St. Johns we thought we were dressed in the best of fashion. The picture certainly deluded us of any thoughts along this line. My hat came up to a peak and Jessie’s hat, the best in Whiting’s store [in St. Johns] was hardly the latest Paris fashion. The whole affair has given us many a good laugh.

When we boarded the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad that evening, the porter recreased my hat and shined my shoes. While traveling over Tennessee Pass of the Continental Divide, our Pullman and two coaches ran off the track but did not overturn. It gave us quite a fright but in two or three hours we were again on our way.

On arrival in Provo we went to the home of Jessie’s sister and brother-in-law, Andy and Addie Gibbons. They had three lovely children. [Eventually five, including Francis Gibbons, author and former member of the Council of the Seventy.] We were there a few days and then went on to Salt Lake City. We took rooms in the old Morgan hotel, which had greatly deteriorated since my father built it.

The Salt Lake Temple in 1912.

Our marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple April 8. Officiating was Alvin Smith, a son of Church President Joseph F. Smith. It was an all day session. The following day we returned to Provo, spent two days there. Then short of funds but long on love we started our return to Arizona. Andy Gibbons tried to persuade us to stay in Provo and go to the Brigham Young University, but for some reason which we still haven’t figured out, we rejected the offer.

Never will I forget the long two day and night ride. We had nothing to eat the last day but peanut butter sandwiches. It was a long time after this before I could stomach peanut butter. On arrival in Holbrook I cashed a check. However, we had a lousy breakfast and we were glad to get out of there. On arrival in St. Johns we rented what had been the family home of the Udalls for many years. I went back to work on The Observer. While there may have been many disappointments and frustrations, I recall few of them. All I remember is that we had much fun raising a small garden, consisting largely of summer squash. For this I still have a hankering.

Marinus and Francis Christensen

The next year on May 2 our beautiful baby Helen was born in the home of Father Christensen. [“Father Christensen” was Jessie’s father Marinus Christensen, the town blacksmith.] Harking to the advice of some of the Udalls we secured the services of Dr. Garland Pace, their osteopath son-in-law. It turned out he knew little about obstetrics. Jessie after being in labor about 16 hours was delivered with instruments by Dr. T.J. Bouldin. Except for a few head abrasions, the baby was fine but Jessie hovered between life and death for more than two weeks. After about two months she was finally well enough to return home. During Jessie’s confinement John H. Udall’s wife Ruth, died during an operation in Los Angeles. [John Hunt Udall was a son of David King Udall. He married Ruth Woolley Kimball on 5 June 1912. She was President Spencer W. Kimball’s sister.] Shortly after we accepted his invitation to live in his newly built home on the hill overlooking the town.

That same year I purchased The Observer from Montross. Jessie often came to the office with the baby. On publication day she would feed the papers into the press while I set type by hand for the next issue.

One day while attempting to show her something about the operation, my left hand in which I held some type was caught in the press. The type saved my hand from being crushed, but it was badly lacerated. The impact crushed the knuckle.

To be continued...


Photo of the Pullman Coach from wikipedia.
Photo of the Salt Lake Temple from: Frederick Converse Beach and George Edwin Rines. The Americana; A Universal Reference Library, Comprising the Arts and Sciences, Literature, History, Biography, Geography, Commerce, Etc., of the World. New York: Scientific American compiling department, 1912.
Photo of zucchini from flickr.com/photos/yashima/2545504317/.

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part III

The half a dozen houses [in Hunt, Arizona] were situated in a valley about 10 miles long and five miles wide. Through the valley coursed the Little Colorado and Zuni rivers.

Udall had more than 1,000 acres under fence and cultivated about 250 acres. The balance was used for grazing. Irrigation water was obtained from a reservoir about seven miles east on the Colorado. When the river flooded as it did often in the spring it would wipe out the dam and it would take most of the next summer to rebuild it.

It was a stupendous job to build and maintain miles and miles of canal and diversion dams. The farm produced all kinds of grains and alfalfa. Also sugar cane and a truck garden. It was a daylight to dark job of harvesting the crops in the summer. In addition we milked 25 to 30 cows night and morning in addition to our many other chores.

During the winter we attended a one room school. Part of the year we attended classes in one of the Udall houses and the other part in the home of Rancher Harris Greer, a mile and one half distant. We walked this distance night and morning for three or four years and had great fun doing so. We also had lively times at night after the chores were done. We would gather with the neighbor children and play outdoor games. When the weather was unfavorable we would stay in door while Aunt Ida Udall read to us faith promoting stories and from novels of that time. We had family prayer night and morning. The boys slept in a small upstairs room. The beds on the floor were so close together it was almost impossible to walk between them. At the spot where we turned to climb the stairs over the roof of a lean to the sleeping quarters, stood a large greasewood bush, one of the hardest shrubs on the Arizona desert. Here the line would halt as the eight or 10 boys answered the call of nature. Although of greenish hue for many years the bush gradually took on a saffron look.

For may years Udall had a contract for carrying the United States mail from Holbrook, the nearest railroad station to Springerville, about 35 miles south of St. Johns.

When the boys at the ranch reached 15 years of age they took turns driving the span of horses hitched to one-seated buckboard on which were piled sacks of mail. Two of the boys were employed driving between Hunt and Holbrook and two others between Hunt and Springerville. I had both routes at different times for months on end. It was a lonely all day ride on either route. Often time in addition to the mail, we carried a passenger, mostly traveling salesmen. For a year or more I was camp attendant at a way station near the Petrified Forest. Here the drivers would change horses. During the day while herding the horses, I would ride over the multicolored clay hills and washes. It was lonely but a lot of fun.

While in my early teens I drove a four horse team carrying farm produce from the ranch to Holbrook or St. Johns. On return from the railroad station we would load with flour, sugar and other staples for the St. Johns stores. Jesse Udall, now an Arizona Supreme Court Justice, made numerous trips to the White Mountains to bring out poles for the telephone line under construction from Holbrook to Springerville and building materials for the Udall mansion then building in St. Johns. We had many good times together.

Among the many sports we staged at Hunt were the rodeos, which we usually staged on Sunday after Sunday school. We would round up some wild steers and calves in a cedar post corral. The animals would be placed in a smaller corral and turned loose in the larger arena after they had been mounted by one of the would be cowboys. Other times we would corral a bunch of wild horses. These rodeos were equal to any I have seen.

After the rodeo we would climb aboard our ponies and race four or five miles to a crystal clear body of water called Indian Lake for a swim. Every kid had to learn to swim. Two of the larger boys would seize a non-swimmer, carry him to a ledge overhanging the lake and throw him in. The water was about 12 feet deep. The half scared boy would thresh the water with his arms and legs to keep himself afloat and soon would be swimming as good as the next one. Those were happy and exciting days.

To be continued...


The picture of fields with alfalfa is from flickr.com/photos/oceanflynn/1535397596/.
The picture with the horses facing each other is "Meeting of the Mail Carriers" from Arizona Pioneer Mormon.
The horse and wagon picture is of Isaac Thomas (probably a cousin or uncle of Jessie Christensen's) driving the mail.
The picture of the wild horses is from flickr.com/photos/findthejake/2386385008/.

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part II

Other Nephi highlights:

For several years my Uncle John Linton operated a large ranch near the little railroad town of Juab, about 15 miles south of Nephi. My brother, Lynn [Richard Linton Morgan, about two years older than Harold] and myself were often invited out there to spend three or four days. Here I learned to ride and drive horses. It was great fun.

My uncle and his wife, Eliza, had a large family, seven girls and one boy. They were fine people. We also used to go out there to skate in the winter. Hundreds of acres of meadowland would be covered with ice one to three inches thick. I also used to visit at the homes of my aunts, Julia Crawley and Alice Ovard in Eureka, which was about 35 miles west and south of Nephi. Their husbands worked in the lead, silver mines. On one occasion I was allowed to accompany my uncle, Joseph Ovard to the 700 foot level.

For a number of years following the death of my father of typhoid fever in Preston, Ida. Aug. 14, 1894 and her return to the home of her parents in Nephi my mother clerked in a department store. She was quick at figures and was well liked and respected by all who knew her. She had great faith in prayer and fasting.

During her marriage, my father was away from home a great deal attending to business and church duties. Being a polygamous wife, my mother was forced to move frequently to avoid arrest by federal agents, who were seeking evidence against my father. I remember my mother telling that on one occasion she carried me in a water bucket from the home of one friend to another. My courageous father must have led a charmed life during these years as he was never arrested though he went about freely attending to business and church affairs.

In the 1890’s he built one of the finest hotels in Salt Lake City. He also established the first business college in that city. Many of the later leaders of church and state attended his school. A bronze bust has been erected on Salt Lake City’s Main Street, at the front of the college site. He was an excellent penman and authored a number of missionary tracts for the church. A number of these are still in use. [The best-known was “The Plan of Salvation”, still in use into the 1960s.]

One of the saddest Nephi periods was when my mother decided to take her three boys and move to Arizona. She felt that here they would have greater opportunity and also have the guidance of an old friend, David K. Udall, then president of the St. Johns Stake, who had lived in Arizona for many years. He had two wives and 11 children. His second wife, Ida Hunt Udall, was a close friend of my mother. [Mary Ann Linton Morgan married David K. Udall April 9, 1903, in Preston, Idaho. They were married for time only by Matthias F. Cowley.]

We were accompanied to Arizona by our old Nephi friends, David and Rebecca Udall. I shall never forget that train ride from Nephi to Holbrook, Ariz. My mother was in deep sorrow, torn between what she thought was her duty to her boys and her duty to her aging parents. The closest relationship existed between she and her mother. In fact the Linton family felt close to their mother. This was in contrast to the feeling they had for their father. I remember him as a strict disciplinarian who had little tolerance for childish play and pranks. During much of the time we lived with my grandparents, he was afflicted with rheumatism and in the winter would sit in the corner by the stove reading the Bible. He was an excellent gardener and a man of strong will and purpose. He lived to be 87 years old.

On arrival at Holbrook were met by President Udall and his wife, Ida. The following day we journeyed in a white top carriage to the little town of Hunt, 20 miles southwest of St. Johns, the county seat of Apache County. [Harold was turned around like many others in St. Johns. Hunt is to the northwest.] This was to be our home for the next 12 years.


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To be continued...

The photo of the John and Eliza Ann Linton family is from lintonfamily.org.
The photo of the Utah mine is from flickr.com/photos/lamzydivey/3006443545/.
The photo of Mary Ann Linton Morgan is from a pedigree chart. The photo was carefully trimmed. I don't know of any other photos of Mary besides this one, the one with her three boys which was in the last post, and one other which I will eventually post in her bio.
The next photo is John Morgan.
The photo of trains in Holbrook is from flickr.com/photos/scottash/589313620/.
The photo of David K. and Ida Hunt Udall is from Arizona Pioneer Mormon. (Link to entire book on sidebar Family History Links as "David K Udall.")