Stephen ("Lon") Alonzo Brown
I, Stephen Alonzo Brown, was born in Springdale, Utah, (Mouth of Zion’s Canyon) 2 March 1865 (a Civil War Baby). I am the great-grandson of Robert Brown and Margaret Polly who were the parents of my noble and courageous grandparents James (Polly) Brown and Eunice Reasor. When I was about one year old, my father’s families moved to Rockville, some fifty miles east of St. George on the Virgin River. Here there was good soil and plenty of water for the gardens, orchards, and cotton fields.
In about 1872, we moved to Kanab, Utah. I was baptized by Brother John Stanford in 1873. What schooling I had was here at Kanab. My brother Jared Taylor was born here, 25 July 1874, then about two and one half years later my youngest brother Joseph Samuel was born, 27 April 1877. In the spring of 1879 it was decided that my parents and their children should move to Arizona, while Jemima (my father's second wife) and her only child Jane should remain in Rockvile. We went with a company of Latter-day Saints and our leader was Jacob Hamblin. The Hamblins had a Jacob Jr. who was my age. We became fast friends for life. (He married Sadie Lythe when he was quite young.) When it came time to start our journey my father was not very well, however, they made plans to leave Kanab about the first of April. My father grew worse as we traveled, and when we arrived at Lee’s Ferry we found the Colorado River raging at flood tide, too dangerous to cross. While we were waiting for the river to subside my father grew steadily worse and passed away on 6 April 1879, at the age of 49. He was buried in a small roadside cemetery at Lee’s Ferry. (Our family placed a beautiful headstone at his grave at one of the family reunions held there many years later.)
We continued the journey with my mother in Springerville, Arizona. The next morning after our arrival it was found that my mother had all the flour there was in camp. There was enough for breakfast for the company. I was fourteen years old at the time. My brother William and I took our wagon and returned to Holbrook for a load of flour for the Saints. Will and I went to work for Augstus Becker who owned the only store in Springerville. We built fences, worked on farms and did anything we could get to do and took groceries from the little grocery store of Mr. Becker. At that time I could have carried most everything it had in that little store on my back, but at his death Mr. Becker was one of the wealthiest men in Arizona.
A few years later we moved on to Luna, New Mexico. We lived at Luna only a short time then moved to Pleasington, New Mexico. There were some saints there. I carried the U.S. mail to Alma and hauled ore from the mines at Mogollon to the mills in Silver City. There was great danger on the road from the Indians. After a few years in Pleasington we moved back to Luna. Lora Isabelle and Mary Agusta were already married, and Will and I were taking care of our mother and younger brothers. We shared everything, worked together, and planned together. Then on 22 March 1887, Will married Rachel Barney. We continued to do things together. We homesteaded land and farmed and raised stock. Our farming tools consisted mostly of a hand plow and teams. We used our teams and wagons to haul supplies from Magdalena for the Becker and Franze merchants. About 1900 Will and his family moved to Thatcher. Here they made their home and continued to live there and raise their family. We had a wonderful relationship and I missed him very much. My mother and I often visited them when I hauled supplies from Thatcher to Morenci.
Most of my living was made hauling freight and raising stock. We had many hazardous experiences while hauling freight. Certain camp sites were established along the way that we tried to reach first day, second day, etc., as we traveled back and forth from Luna to Magdalena. On this one trip another freighter and I were making our usual stops along the way when I received warnings for the third time that we should not stop at this certain campsite. I spoke to my companion about my experiences and suggested that we continue on for a few miles. He said the teams were tired and that I was being foolish. He stopped at the usual place and I continued on for several miles. When morning came I waited for him until he had had plenty of time to catch up but he didn’t come. I returned to the place where he camped and found that he had been killed, his wagon burned and his horses stolen. I know that the Lord watches over us and I’m grateful for the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
There was a time when Will, Isabelle, Agusta, and I all lived in Luna. The four of us would get together and sing for different occasions. Bell sang soprano, Gustie sang alto, Will tenor, and I sang bass. On occasion I would play the fiddle for the dances. We loved music, singing, and dancing.
In the early 1890s I homesteaded 160 acres adjoining that of Bramon Orvil Reynolds and built a two-room log house for my mother. We attended the same church meetings and social functions as the Reynolds family in the small community. Bertha Teresa was their oldest daughter and had been attending school at the Academy in Thatcher, Arizona, for most of the last three years. My mother and I had been visiting in Thatcher and Teresa's school was just out for the summer. Teresa came back to Luna with us and soon after she and I were married, 29 May 1902. I was the last of my brothers and sisters to marry. The next month, on 7 June 1902, I was ordained an Elder by John Bilby.
I continued to care for my mother. After my marriage I turned my 160 acres back to the government and moved my wife and mother to Thatcher. We moved into a house owned by my brother Jared Taylor which was unoccupied. Taylor had lost his wife, and his six-year-old daughter Vera lived with us and my mother cared for her. Our first two children were born in Thatcher: Floyd Alonzo (17 February 1903), and Delbert Reynolds (13 May 1904). We lost our second son Delbert when he was only one year old. Soon after, we moved back to Luna. We lived there until after two daughters were born, Reita 7 March 1906, and Isabelle 15 April 1907. About two years later we moved back to Thatcher and from there we took the train and with Floyd, Reita, and Isabelle went to Salt Lake City where on 2 October 1907 we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple for time and eternity. We were still living in Thatcher when in the fall of 1909 there were epidemics of diphtheria and scarlet fever. Our whole family had both diphtheria and scarlet fever and we lost Reita and Isabelle within a month of each other. Wanda was our baby at the time. She was born 23 May 1909. The next spring we moved back to Luna and on the way back we bought an eighty acre farm on the Gila River near the town of Virden, New Mexico. I paid for it with gold pieces I carried in my “chuck” box. We rented this farm to Robert Johns and went on to Luna to make our home. Our daughter Fern was born in Luna a year later 9 January 1911.
We bought a home on a couple of acres in the town of Luna and this was our home until 1924. Our seventh child was born here, a son Orvil Pratt, 6 January 1913. He was just one month old when I was called on a mission to the Central States Mission. In those days we went without “purse or script” depending on the Lord and the kindness of the Saints. I remember pressing my trousers many times under the mattress of my bed. We had two children after I returned home, Chester Lawrence named for one of my missionary companions, 15 January 1916, and a daughter Gertrude, 1 September 1918.
In January 1923 our oldest son Floyd was called on a mission to the Eastern States from the Luna Ward. While he was away I broke my hip while getting our winter supply of wood. Pratt and Chester were with me when the accident occurred and it was up to them to get me back home. I was crippled from then on from the effects of the accident.
My crippled condition made it necessary for Floyd to return home six months before his two years were up for his mission. In the spring of 1924 he and I went by team and wagon to our property on the Gila River to try and locate a house to buy for a home for our family near the farm we owned there. Over the years we had accumulated quite a bit of property in Luna: our home in town a ranch west of town stocked with “white face” range cattle, a farm in the lower end of the valley, and a house we had bought for Floyd. We sold all this property to get a home near Virden where our children could go to high school and so we could use the farm to make our living. We bought a home from Frank Houlihan near the farm and moved the family with two wagons and teams to the Gila Valley. The boys and my wife ran the farm. I helped as much as I could. Our girls enrolled in high school and we attended the Virden Ward. Our children grew up and married there.
Our farm was four miles out of Virden and we traveled back and forth to our meetings in the Ward with wagon and team until the year 1926 when we got our first car. Even though we lived four miles out from town we were always on time to our meetings. Punctuality has always been important to me and I tried to impress this upon my family. On 20 February 1927 I was ordained a High Priest by Martin Mortensen. After Floyd’s marriage he built a house on the farm where he and his family lived for several years. Then they bought a place of their own just out of town west of Virden and lived there until they moved to Kirtland, New Mexico. By this time Pratt and Chester were grown, Chester was married to Ruby Foster. They lived on the farm, and Pratt worked in Morenci. Gertrude was married to Ivyl Gale and they lived in Morenci, Wanda was married to Floyd Johns and lived on the farm adjoining us, and Fern was working in Deming for the New Mexico State Highway Department.
In 1936 Pratt drove the car and took my wife, my brother Sam and me to visit my half sister Jane who still lived in Utah. I had not seen her since we left her and her mother in Rockville, Utah. We were just children when my mother and father moved to Arizona. By this time I was in my 70s and by late 1938 my health began to fail.
Thoughts from ??
Our dear Dad passed away 4 February 1939 at home with our mother caring for him. He was buried on 6 February in the Virden Cemetery. He was a wonderful father and worked hard to provide for his family. He set a good example and always counseled us to do right.
When his family was young and we lived in Luna, Daddy (as we called him) hauled freight from Magdalena to the merchants in Luna and Springerville. We always looked forward to the day when he would be coming home from these trips and watched eagerly for him to come in sight around the McFate corner. These were happy homecomings. We knew he loved us.
He loved his horses and gave them good care. He knew our living depended upon them. He would curry them at the end of the day and feed them grain in sacks fixed to hang over their ears then give them hay in the manger. The corn we raised was allowed to stay on the stalk until it was dry then we picked off the ears of corn and “shucked” them and stored them in a bin in the granary. Daddy would take the ears of dry corn and lay them on the side of a wooden trough and with a little hatchet he would chop the corn into inch size pieces and put them in the trough for the horses. He would always see that the harnesses and collars fit right on the horses and see that they didn’t get sore shoulders.
We had a neighbor who would work his horses all day, then turn them out on the road at night to find what they could to eat in the “bar pits.” Their ribs showed and their shoulders were sore. This really troubled our Dad.
Our Dad loved the Lord and the Church. When we were young and lived in Luna he always led us in family prayer as we knelt in a semi-circle in front of the fire place, then Mother would hear our individual prayers as we went to bed. Our Dad loved his mission in the Central States Mission. He was a good speaker and loved to quote the scriptures. When we lived in Virden and Daddy was in his 70s, Casey Jones said to Wanda, “There isn’t another man in the Virden Ward who can quote the scriptures like Lon Brown.” Wanda said that when Viola was eighteen months old and had eaten green fruit that caused her to go into convulsions that Daddy and Bill Johns administered to her and she was soon all right.
He was very particular about his appearance. He always had a good hair cut, wore a nice pair of shoes and a good hat. He said, “A good hat and nice pair of shoes always makes a man look dressed up.” He stood straight and tall even after he was crippled. Not long before he passed away we took his picture in the front yard. He has a proud appearance and stood without his cane.
Our Mother always liked nice things and tried to make the home comfortable. She could shop only in the catalog and ordered many nice things for the home and paid for them on a “payment plan” from the money they made from cheese, eggs and cream that they sold. Dad would always fuss and worry until the bills were paid. He never liked to be in debt, always paid cash, and always paid a full tithing at the end of the year. He enjoyed the home and conveniences and appreciated mother’s efforts to make the home comfortable.
We often wonder how our Dad’s life would have been had he not been crippled. Chester remembers yet the experience he and Pratt had bringing him home after the accident. They were out in rough country with a frisky team. Pratt was eleven and Chester was eight years old. Every time the wagon jolted our Dad would cry out with pain. It was a terrifying experience for two small boys.
Our Dad loved home and enjoyed sitting in the swing on the front porch. There was a mocking bird that he loved and it sang and performed for him by perching on a tree stump in the yard and doing all kinds of flips and maneuvers. He and Mother spent many happy hours there in the swing preparing fruits and vegetable for canning. They had a cheese press and he made the cheese and helped with all the chores, but he was unable to do anything in the fields.
It was hard to see our proud Dad have to give in to illness. Gertrude said when she lived in Morenci and came home for a visit at the Christmas before he passed away in February, when she put her arms about his thin body to say goodbye he cried and said “I probably won’t see you again. I wish I could turn back 20 years.” He was eighteen years older than Mother and knew that she would be alone for many years. Gertrude said it was the only time she had seen him cry.
Even now when we talk with friends in their 80s they say what a wonderful man our Dad was. After his father passed away his only concern was for his Mother and younger brothers and sisters. He was 37 when he got married, yet he continued to care for his mother to the end of her days.
We are proud of our heritage, and are grateful for the sacrifices and hardships our parents and grandparents endured for us. We are grateful for their love for the Church. They endured faithfully to the end and may we follow their example.
In about 1872, we moved to Kanab, Utah. I was baptized by Brother John Stanford in 1873. What schooling I had was here at Kanab. My brother Jared Taylor was born here, 25 July 1874, then about two and one half years later my youngest brother Joseph Samuel was born, 27 April 1877. In the spring of 1879 it was decided that my parents and their children should move to Arizona, while Jemima (my father's second wife) and her only child Jane should remain in Rockvile. We went with a company of Latter-day Saints and our leader was Jacob Hamblin. The Hamblins had a Jacob Jr. who was my age. We became fast friends for life. (He married Sadie Lythe when he was quite young.) When it came time to start our journey my father was not very well, however, they made plans to leave Kanab about the first of April. My father grew worse as we traveled, and when we arrived at Lee’s Ferry we found the Colorado River raging at flood tide, too dangerous to cross. While we were waiting for the river to subside my father grew steadily worse and passed away on 6 April 1879, at the age of 49. He was buried in a small roadside cemetery at Lee’s Ferry. (Our family placed a beautiful headstone at his grave at one of the family reunions held there many years later.)
We continued the journey with my mother in Springerville, Arizona. The next morning after our arrival it was found that my mother had all the flour there was in camp. There was enough for breakfast for the company. I was fourteen years old at the time. My brother William and I took our wagon and returned to Holbrook for a load of flour for the Saints. Will and I went to work for Augstus Becker who owned the only store in Springerville. We built fences, worked on farms and did anything we could get to do and took groceries from the little grocery store of Mr. Becker. At that time I could have carried most everything it had in that little store on my back, but at his death Mr. Becker was one of the wealthiest men in Arizona.
A few years later we moved on to Luna, New Mexico. We lived at Luna only a short time then moved to Pleasington, New Mexico. There were some saints there. I carried the U.S. mail to Alma and hauled ore from the mines at Mogollon to the mills in Silver City. There was great danger on the road from the Indians. After a few years in Pleasington we moved back to Luna. Lora Isabelle and Mary Agusta were already married, and Will and I were taking care of our mother and younger brothers. We shared everything, worked together, and planned together. Then on 22 March 1887, Will married Rachel Barney. We continued to do things together. We homesteaded land and farmed and raised stock. Our farming tools consisted mostly of a hand plow and teams. We used our teams and wagons to haul supplies from Magdalena for the Becker and Franze merchants. About 1900 Will and his family moved to Thatcher. Here they made their home and continued to live there and raise their family. We had a wonderful relationship and I missed him very much. My mother and I often visited them when I hauled supplies from Thatcher to Morenci.
Most of my living was made hauling freight and raising stock. We had many hazardous experiences while hauling freight. Certain camp sites were established along the way that we tried to reach first day, second day, etc., as we traveled back and forth from Luna to Magdalena. On this one trip another freighter and I were making our usual stops along the way when I received warnings for the third time that we should not stop at this certain campsite. I spoke to my companion about my experiences and suggested that we continue on for a few miles. He said the teams were tired and that I was being foolish. He stopped at the usual place and I continued on for several miles. When morning came I waited for him until he had had plenty of time to catch up but he didn’t come. I returned to the place where he camped and found that he had been killed, his wagon burned and his horses stolen. I know that the Lord watches over us and I’m grateful for the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
There was a time when Will, Isabelle, Agusta, and I all lived in Luna. The four of us would get together and sing for different occasions. Bell sang soprano, Gustie sang alto, Will tenor, and I sang bass. On occasion I would play the fiddle for the dances. We loved music, singing, and dancing.
In the early 1890s I homesteaded 160 acres adjoining that of Bramon Orvil Reynolds and built a two-room log house for my mother. We attended the same church meetings and social functions as the Reynolds family in the small community. Bertha Teresa was their oldest daughter and had been attending school at the Academy in Thatcher, Arizona, for most of the last three years. My mother and I had been visiting in Thatcher and Teresa's school was just out for the summer. Teresa came back to Luna with us and soon after she and I were married, 29 May 1902. I was the last of my brothers and sisters to marry. The next month, on 7 June 1902, I was ordained an Elder by John Bilby.
I continued to care for my mother. After my marriage I turned my 160 acres back to the government and moved my wife and mother to Thatcher. We moved into a house owned by my brother Jared Taylor which was unoccupied. Taylor had lost his wife, and his six-year-old daughter Vera lived with us and my mother cared for her. Our first two children were born in Thatcher: Floyd Alonzo (17 February 1903), and Delbert Reynolds (13 May 1904). We lost our second son Delbert when he was only one year old. Soon after, we moved back to Luna. We lived there until after two daughters were born, Reita 7 March 1906, and Isabelle 15 April 1907. About two years later we moved back to Thatcher and from there we took the train and with Floyd, Reita, and Isabelle went to Salt Lake City where on 2 October 1907 we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple for time and eternity. We were still living in Thatcher when in the fall of 1909 there were epidemics of diphtheria and scarlet fever. Our whole family had both diphtheria and scarlet fever and we lost Reita and Isabelle within a month of each other. Wanda was our baby at the time. She was born 23 May 1909. The next spring we moved back to Luna and on the way back we bought an eighty acre farm on the Gila River near the town of Virden, New Mexico. I paid for it with gold pieces I carried in my “chuck” box. We rented this farm to Robert Johns and went on to Luna to make our home. Our daughter Fern was born in Luna a year later 9 January 1911.
We bought a home on a couple of acres in the town of Luna and this was our home until 1924. Our seventh child was born here, a son Orvil Pratt, 6 January 1913. He was just one month old when I was called on a mission to the Central States Mission. In those days we went without “purse or script” depending on the Lord and the kindness of the Saints. I remember pressing my trousers many times under the mattress of my bed. We had two children after I returned home, Chester Lawrence named for one of my missionary companions, 15 January 1916, and a daughter Gertrude, 1 September 1918.
In January 1923 our oldest son Floyd was called on a mission to the Eastern States from the Luna Ward. While he was away I broke my hip while getting our winter supply of wood. Pratt and Chester were with me when the accident occurred and it was up to them to get me back home. I was crippled from then on from the effects of the accident.
My crippled condition made it necessary for Floyd to return home six months before his two years were up for his mission. In the spring of 1924 he and I went by team and wagon to our property on the Gila River to try and locate a house to buy for a home for our family near the farm we owned there. Over the years we had accumulated quite a bit of property in Luna: our home in town a ranch west of town stocked with “white face” range cattle, a farm in the lower end of the valley, and a house we had bought for Floyd. We sold all this property to get a home near Virden where our children could go to high school and so we could use the farm to make our living. We bought a home from Frank Houlihan near the farm and moved the family with two wagons and teams to the Gila Valley. The boys and my wife ran the farm. I helped as much as I could. Our girls enrolled in high school and we attended the Virden Ward. Our children grew up and married there.
Our farm was four miles out of Virden and we traveled back and forth to our meetings in the Ward with wagon and team until the year 1926 when we got our first car. Even though we lived four miles out from town we were always on time to our meetings. Punctuality has always been important to me and I tried to impress this upon my family. On 20 February 1927 I was ordained a High Priest by Martin Mortensen. After Floyd’s marriage he built a house on the farm where he and his family lived for several years. Then they bought a place of their own just out of town west of Virden and lived there until they moved to Kirtland, New Mexico. By this time Pratt and Chester were grown, Chester was married to Ruby Foster. They lived on the farm, and Pratt worked in Morenci. Gertrude was married to Ivyl Gale and they lived in Morenci, Wanda was married to Floyd Johns and lived on the farm adjoining us, and Fern was working in Deming for the New Mexico State Highway Department.
In 1936 Pratt drove the car and took my wife, my brother Sam and me to visit my half sister Jane who still lived in Utah. I had not seen her since we left her and her mother in Rockville, Utah. We were just children when my mother and father moved to Arizona. By this time I was in my 70s and by late 1938 my health began to fail.
Thoughts from ??
Our dear Dad passed away 4 February 1939 at home with our mother caring for him. He was buried on 6 February in the Virden Cemetery. He was a wonderful father and worked hard to provide for his family. He set a good example and always counseled us to do right.
When his family was young and we lived in Luna, Daddy (as we called him) hauled freight from Magdalena to the merchants in Luna and Springerville. We always looked forward to the day when he would be coming home from these trips and watched eagerly for him to come in sight around the McFate corner. These were happy homecomings. We knew he loved us.
He loved his horses and gave them good care. He knew our living depended upon them. He would curry them at the end of the day and feed them grain in sacks fixed to hang over their ears then give them hay in the manger. The corn we raised was allowed to stay on the stalk until it was dry then we picked off the ears of corn and “shucked” them and stored them in a bin in the granary. Daddy would take the ears of dry corn and lay them on the side of a wooden trough and with a little hatchet he would chop the corn into inch size pieces and put them in the trough for the horses. He would always see that the harnesses and collars fit right on the horses and see that they didn’t get sore shoulders.
We had a neighbor who would work his horses all day, then turn them out on the road at night to find what they could to eat in the “bar pits.” Their ribs showed and their shoulders were sore. This really troubled our Dad.
Our Dad loved the Lord and the Church. When we were young and lived in Luna he always led us in family prayer as we knelt in a semi-circle in front of the fire place, then Mother would hear our individual prayers as we went to bed. Our Dad loved his mission in the Central States Mission. He was a good speaker and loved to quote the scriptures. When we lived in Virden and Daddy was in his 70s, Casey Jones said to Wanda, “There isn’t another man in the Virden Ward who can quote the scriptures like Lon Brown.” Wanda said that when Viola was eighteen months old and had eaten green fruit that caused her to go into convulsions that Daddy and Bill Johns administered to her and she was soon all right.
He was very particular about his appearance. He always had a good hair cut, wore a nice pair of shoes and a good hat. He said, “A good hat and nice pair of shoes always makes a man look dressed up.” He stood straight and tall even after he was crippled. Not long before he passed away we took his picture in the front yard. He has a proud appearance and stood without his cane.
Our Mother always liked nice things and tried to make the home comfortable. She could shop only in the catalog and ordered many nice things for the home and paid for them on a “payment plan” from the money they made from cheese, eggs and cream that they sold. Dad would always fuss and worry until the bills were paid. He never liked to be in debt, always paid cash, and always paid a full tithing at the end of the year. He enjoyed the home and conveniences and appreciated mother’s efforts to make the home comfortable.
We often wonder how our Dad’s life would have been had he not been crippled. Chester remembers yet the experience he and Pratt had bringing him home after the accident. They were out in rough country with a frisky team. Pratt was eleven and Chester was eight years old. Every time the wagon jolted our Dad would cry out with pain. It was a terrifying experience for two small boys.
Our Dad loved home and enjoyed sitting in the swing on the front porch. There was a mocking bird that he loved and it sang and performed for him by perching on a tree stump in the yard and doing all kinds of flips and maneuvers. He and Mother spent many happy hours there in the swing preparing fruits and vegetable for canning. They had a cheese press and he made the cheese and helped with all the chores, but he was unable to do anything in the fields.
It was hard to see our proud Dad have to give in to illness. Gertrude said when she lived in Morenci and came home for a visit at the Christmas before he passed away in February, when she put her arms about his thin body to say goodbye he cried and said “I probably won’t see you again. I wish I could turn back 20 years.” He was eighteen years older than Mother and knew that she would be alone for many years. Gertrude said it was the only time she had seen him cry.
Even now when we talk with friends in their 80s they say what a wonderful man our Dad was. After his father passed away his only concern was for his Mother and younger brothers and sisters. He was 37 when he got married, yet he continued to care for his mother to the end of her days.
We are proud of our heritage, and are grateful for the sacrifices and hardships our parents and grandparents endured for us. We are grateful for their love for the Church. They endured faithfully to the end and may we follow their example.
Bertha Teresa Reynolds
Bertha Teresa Reynolds Brown holding Fern,
Wanda and Floyd standing beside her - 1911
Bertha Teresa Reynolds went by Tess or Teresa, pronounced (and often spelled) "Tressa".
I saw the first light of day in this world in Taylor, Navajo County, Arizona, on the 12 of January 1883. I was the fourth child and the first girl to be born to my parents Braman Orvil Reynolds and Gertrude Elbertine Henderson. There were three brothers born before me, the oldest, Braman Orvil having died when he was one year old, the 9th of October 1878. My two brothers living Amasa Owen and Claude Elias and I with my parents lived in a one-room log house which was our home. Just a few families lived in this little town of Taylor, farming and trying to make a living. Father was a carpenter by trade.
My parents with the two small boys came to Taylor in the fall of 1882 and I was born in January of the following year. When I was about a year old my parents heard of a small valley in New Mexico called Luna, where it was said they could homestead land. We went there and stayed one year. They were having a hard time making a living so decided to go back to Bountiful, Utah, where my father’s mother lived and where they lived before they moved to Taylor, Arizona. My father’s sister Teresa Rose was married to Sidney Kent and lived in Lewiston. We moved back to Bountiful in the fall of 1884 and on the 2nd of May, 1885 my brother James Ray was born. We stayed on in Bountiful that summer because my father was suffering from rheumatic fever.
In the winter of 1886 we returned to Luna, New Mexico, and my father homesteaded 160 acres. It was during this winter on the 29th of January, 1886 that we lost my brother Claude Elias. He was five years old.
Not many families lived in Luna at this time, but the parents got together and built a big log school-room; they made the desks and benches for the children and paid the teachers themselves. The bench my father made for me is now at 143 S. Olive in Mesa. The log school house was also used for our church meetings. The building still stands in Luna and is considered a land mark for that community. When I was five years old my mother taught me the alphabet and started me to school. Sister Charley Curtis was the teacher. Later I went to sister Haywood, Inez Lee, Lora Tenney, Lew Wimmer. Some of them were very good teachers, one especially, Jessie James. We often had school in the summer because of the cold winters and the scattered conditions of people living on their farms. We lived one mile from the town. When I was eight years old my mother let me have a party. One girl gave me a thimble. I was very proud the Christmas I was eight my father made me a little cupboard just like the one he made for mother. Mother’s still stands in the old house where we lived. I gave mine to my youngest daughter who was named Gertrude after my mother. My baby granddaughter, Cherri Lynn plays with it. I was also baptized when I was eight years old on the 2nd day of July 1891. My father baptized me, and Bishop Gilbert E. Greer confirmed me the same day. We then had fast and testimony meetings on Thursday. I was baptized in the morning and went to meeting and was confirmed a member of the church in the afternoon.
My best playmates were my brothers. We spent long hours hauling sand and rocks building what we called our temple. This was during the time they were building the Salt Lake Temple. I was old enough to help mother in the house. I swept the house and washed dishes and helped with the children and did many chores. I have always been grateful for a mother who taught us to pray at her knee. At evening we all knelt in prayer in front of the big fire place, and in the morning we knelt by our chairs around the table.
Amasa was the oldest living brother. He was a swell brother; we played together, said our prayers together and took care of our little brother Ray. After our little brother Claude passed away we were very close. We now lived on the 160 acres that our father filed on and it was here that they built our future home. We lived for years in one big log room with a lumber lean-to. Some years were good and some not so good. Rich grammer grass grew for our cows and other stock to graze on in summer. We were located on the Frisco River which carried a beautiful clear stream of water. Our house was on a hill over looking the river. Some years they raised beautiful crops of oats and other small grains and fee for our stock through the winter. We raised big gardens of vegetables which we put in cellars and pits for winter use.
There were times when sickness was in our little family. One night mother took with very severe cramps. We didn’t know what to do for her. Father hitched the team to the wagon and went about a mile for a kind lady, Sister Curtis who came and did what she could. Amasa came and took me by the hand and lead me from the room. We went around by the east door of the kitchen where we took turns asking our Heavenly Father for help. When morning came mother was better and able to be up and care for her family. After I grew older I thanked my Heavenly Father for that brother of mine and for the power of prayer, and for parents who knelt with us morning and evening for our family prayers.
We lived more than a half mile from neighbors so our home life was very much to ourselves. Sister Maggie Lillywhite and her sister were a little older than I, but they were my playmates. They were our closest neighbors. They taught me how to make doll clothes and we spent many long, happy hours together. When Maggie married the family moved away from Luna. Maggie gave me her dolls and doll clothes.
My sister Myrtle Cordilla was born the 3rd day of April. Soon after my father put in a small crop and went to Fort Apache where he worked all summer as a carpenter, then came home in November to bring us supplies. He took some of the wheat we had raised to Eagar and had it ground into flour. On January 14, 1889 father left and went to Thatcher, Arizona and worked at his trade all winter. Amasa went to school that winter to Walter Brown. Father came home the 9th of May that year and put in some wheat and a little corn. The wheat was on the low land and grew rank and fell down and rusted. He also planted oats and rye. That was the spring of 1889. After he got his crop in he went to Snowflake and built a house for a man by the name of Kartchner. He returned home late that fall and remained home all that winter. The next summer he raised the best crops we ever had. He laid the foundation for our house that summer. The next spring, the 1st day of February my sister Virginia was born. My father worked off and on in northern Arizona until he took sick in the fall of 1903. My brother Amasa went after him in October and he passed away on the 19th of November of that year. In the meantime brothers George Milton and Acel Van were born, also my sister Maybel Albina.
My father was a handsome man. His work took him away from home a great deal, and in his later years he lost his hearing which made it difficult for him to work very much in the church, but he was a wonderful man and a good provider. He died at the age of fifty-six. He had worked hard and lived on the frontier all his life. My mother was dark with dark hair and eyes and combed her hair piled high on her head. She was a kind and gracious mother whom we all loved. She worked hard and bore eleven children. She did many services in the Luna Ward as well. They had two teams of horses and wagons, and when we came from Bountiful to Luna mother drove a team of white mares, Kit and Doll. We children rode in her wagon with our luggage and bedding. Father drove a span of horses and had the provisions and other belongings. We brought a cow with us. Her name was Rose—I remember when she died. We carried water from the Frisco River that ran clear and beautiful at the foot of the hill. Willow, wild flowers and hop vines made a beautiful picture along the river. We brought provisions from Bountiful to help us with living, but Grandma used to send us two or three five gallon cans of honey and a lot of dried fruit every fall and sometimes bedding and clothing.
I love to think of my dear parents. Father had a very pleasing personality and looked forward to the future with hope for improving our home and making life more comfortable for my mother. He had a strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and studied the standard works of the church and taught honesty and integrity to his family. He believed in paying a full tithing and helping anyone in need. I remember hearing him bear his testimony back in the days when we held fast meetings on Thursday and Gilbert Greer was the Bishop.
When I was a young teenager I worked for Mrs. Franze and earned a little money to help me go to school at the Academy in Thatcher. I attended school there from September 1900 to May 1902, during the winters.
On March 28, 1900 I received the following patriarchal blessing by Patriarch Samuel Claridge: Dear Sister Teresa, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I lay my hands upon your head and give unto you a patriarchal blessing. There is a great work for you to do upon this earth. You have a good father and mother and the blessings that were sealed upon them will be realized by you. The holy angels of the Lord have watched over you and preserved your life in times of sickness, and your way will be opened up before you to accomplish all that the Lord desires you to do. You will have the privilege of gong to the Temple of the Lord and receiving your washings and anointings, and you will do a great work in the temple of the Lord assisting to redeem you kindred. The Lord will bless you with light and knowledge and your spirit will be quickened to comprehend the glories of this latter day work. You will go to the center stake of Zion and you will see the City of the New Jerusalem built up and that glorious temple reared and the glory of God will ret upon it. You will enjoy the spirit of peace and love that will be in the hearts of them that live there. You will see your Heavenly Redeemer when he comes in the clouds of heaven, and you will enjoy the riches of this world, and I say unto you dear sister be comforted in your spirit and be not discouraged and cast down for the Lord will save you up, and all these blessings I give unto you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
When school was out in May 1902, Stephen Alonzo Brown and his mother had been visiting in Thatcher and were going back to Luna with a load of provisions. I took this opportunity to get back to Luna from school. We came by way of The Blue and the road out of The Blue was steep and rough, so Lon as he was called, and I walked up the hill behind the wagon. As we walked along he asked me to marry him. We were married at the end of the month, 29 May 1902 in the home of my parents by Melvin Swapp. It was not until October 9, 1907 that we were able to be sealed in the Temple. We traveled by train from Luna to Salt Lake City with three small children: Floyd Alonzo who was four years old having been born 17 February 1903, Reita who was almost two ears old, born on the 7th of March 1906, and Isabelle who was just eight months old, born on the 15th of April 1907. We had lost one child, our second son Delbert Reynolds who was born 13 May 1904. He died on May 20, 1905, just one year old. In those days doctors and hospitals were scarce and there were many serious contagious diseases. When Floyd was only one week old, Grandma Brown broke out with something on her hands and arms—little did we think of it being smallpox. Lon and I both took the disease from her and I was ill with it when Floyd was born. My hair came out and when it grew back it came in grey. Most of my children never saw me with dark hair.
After we returned from Salt Lake City we moved to Thatcher to make our home. We had lived there about two years when scarlet fever broke out. Our little girls took it and passed away within a month of each other. I remember throwing myself on the little graves and sobbing my heart out. It was almost more than I could bear. They were buried by our little son Delbert. Isabelle passed away first, 13 October 1909 and Reita just one month later 12 November 1909. I’m so grateful for my testimony of the plan of salvation for I know I shall see them again and hold them in my arms.
Wanda was five months old so we thought we should move back to Luna for fear we would lose her. On the way to Luna she came down with scarlet fever. I had a strong warning that we should go back or we would lose her. So we turned around and went back to Thatcher. She got all right and we returned to Luna in the spring of 1910. Fern was born about a year later. We were living in the lower part of the valley at that time, 9 January 19ll. The remaining years we were in Luna we lived in or own home in town near the Luna Valley Mercantile Company store. It was a two room long house. We later built on a large room made of lumber for a kitchen and dining room.
Pratt was born in this house on 6 January 1913 and when he was just two months old my husband was called to fill a mission in the Central States Mission. He felt so sad to leave us but wanted to go. He spent much of his time in the state of Kansas. He returned home in the spring of 1915. He came by way of Magdalena to meet Sam and some other freighters who were there for supplies. He came home with them. Brother Swapp was one of them and it took them ten days to make the trip when ordinarily it took only five days in good weather. The day before the wagons got home Brother Swapp’s son Melvin rode a mule out to meet them. The rest of them camped that night and rested their teams and came home the next day. But Daddy rode the little mule back and arrived home just before dark. I had just started to milk the cow and saw him coming in the lane. I threw my bucket down and called to the children and ran to meet him. I soon was in his arms. How many times since he passed away have I longed for that embrace. It will be heaven to me when I am finished here on earth to go to his arms as I did then. No other shall ever take his place.
Chester was born 15 January 1916 and Gertrude 1 September 1918 in our home there in town. The children grew up there. We had a lovely garden in a spot leveled out down in an arroya where water ran from a spring and from the mountains when it rained. This spot was at the back of our lot. I worked many hours there raising all kinds of vegetables for our use and to store for winter. We had a granary where we stored our wheat and corn in bins and where sides of beef were hung in the cold weather. We had chickens, eggs and pigs and beef, plenty of good food but not much money.
In January 1923 our oldest son Floyd Alonzo was called on a mission to Illinois. While he was away Lon and the small boys were out getting wood for the winter and Lon had an accident and broke his hip. He hauled freight from Magdalena for the store in Luna and Springerville and after the accident he was unable to work. Floyd still had six months to complete his mission, but he was released to come home. He helped us get situated in the Gila valley where we owned property so the children could go to high school. This was the fall of 1924. We lived about four miles out from the town of Virden. Our children road the bus to school there and we attended the church organizations there.
All our children married in Virden except Fern who was working as a secretary in Deming, New Mexico. Floyd married Elmina Mortensen in the Logan Temple 22 September 1926. Wanda married Floyd Pace Johns, son of our neighbor Robert Johns, 12 February, 1927. Chester married Ruby Joyce Foster 3 October 1936 and Gertrude married Ivyl Lavar Gale 29 May 1936 on my anniversary four months before Chester and Ruby were married.
Daddy (Lon) used crutches and a cane for the rest of his life, and the boys ran the farm. He helped me make cheese and put up fruit and vegetables that we grew in our yard. We spent many happy hours in the porch swing shelling peas, snapping beans and peeling fruit for canning. His health began to fail in the fall of 1938 and he passed away in our home 4 February 1939. He was buried in the Virden cemetery. Pratt was killed in an automobile accident 24 April 1939 just three months after his father passed away. He was also buried in the Virden cemetery. We were very close and I missed him so much I felt I was really alone after he died. He loved children and usually had one in his arms if any were around.
I lived on at the farm with Chester caring for the place. In August 1944 Chester and his family moved to California and I rented the farm to Orsen Richens for four years. On 2 August 1945 my home burned. World War II had just ended. Fern had purchased a lot of war bonds during the war. She cashed them and came to Mesa and made a down payment on a lot and had a home built on it where I now live. I finished paying for the lot and had the home put in my name. The next year Fern married Jess Lee Yerby. They lived in El Paso, Texas, for a year then moved to Mesa. We have made our home together ever since.
I sold my farm to Floyd and Wanda. Part of their farm was next to mine. They took it over in January 1949.
Floyd Brown and his family now lived in Kirtland, New Mexico. He had lost Mina on 18 February 1947 and was now alone with the children. I stayed with them two months and then came home to go with a group to Lee’s Ferry, the crossing of the Colorado River, where my husband’s father, Neuman Brown is buried. When I came back I brought Rita, his youngest child, home with me to have her tonsils removed. A year later, Floyd got seriously ill. They took him to the hospital in Farmington. I went up to see him but he didn’t know me. He passed away 1 November 1948 and was buried beside Mina in the Virden Cemetery.
While I lived in Luna I was called to many positions in the Ward organizations, among them Relief Society President and Primary President. I was a teacher in Sunday School and Primary and have always been a visiting teacher since I was a young girl. I was a Visiting Teacher in the Wards in which I lived here in Mesa, and not long after I moved here I was called to work in the Temple baptizing for the dead, helping the children who came there to be baptized. I worked there for ten years. I loved every minute of it. There is a peace and love there that is not found outside.
It is fifty-one years on the 28th last March 1951 since my first patriarchal blessing was given. As I look back over the years that blessing is one of the strongest testimonies of the gospel I have. In that blessing I was promised as a girl of seventeen years that in connection with my brothers and sisters I wold do a good work in genealogy and Temple work. I have found much pleasure in so doing and by brothers and sisters have enjoyed helping me in many ways. There was no Temple closer to where I lived than St. George, and I lived in St. Johns Stake. How the Lord has provided ways and means for me to fulfill that blessing pronounced on my head is a testimony to me of the inspiration given to Patriarch Claridge when he gave it. At the age of thirty I had those blessings promised me by Patriarch Claridge, reconfirmed by Patriarch Brown of St. Johns Stake. In later years Patriarch Nash gave me a blessing, he also reconfirmed those blessings given before and gave me others among which he said the Lord has received you mission of mother hood. This was a great comfort to me. I am the mother of four boys and give girls, which have given me many joys. And now in my declining years I get more comfort and joy from my children and grand children than anything except the gospel. I am very grateful for the health I have been blessed with which also was promised me in that blessing.
Thoughts by ??
Mother loved poetry and her books are filled with a collection of poems. She gave many readings in public and was considered quite good at it. We benefited over the years from her wisdom and counsel. She was quite hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid when she went ot. But many hours were spent with her own thought and memories, writing letters, working on her genealogy books. Everyone in the neighborhood called her Grandma brown and loved her. She was especially kind and loving with the little children. She had a “green thumb” and she sang as she worked in the flowers and her gardens. She took great pride in her yards where ever she lived. She had hardening of the arteries in her last years and it affected her memory. She was ill for three years, but seemed not to suffer much. She passed away on 7 May 1962. Her funeral services were held in the Mesa 13th Ward Chapel with Bishop Joseph H. Martineau officiating. The invocation was given by Howard Gale, her grandson. “Oh My Father” was sung by the Relief Society Singing Mothers. A reading was given by her daughter Gertrude Gale. The poem was a favorite of mother’s.
I saw the first light of day in this world in Taylor, Navajo County, Arizona, on the 12 of January 1883. I was the fourth child and the first girl to be born to my parents Braman Orvil Reynolds and Gertrude Elbertine Henderson. There were three brothers born before me, the oldest, Braman Orvil having died when he was one year old, the 9th of October 1878. My two brothers living Amasa Owen and Claude Elias and I with my parents lived in a one-room log house which was our home. Just a few families lived in this little town of Taylor, farming and trying to make a living. Father was a carpenter by trade.
My parents with the two small boys came to Taylor in the fall of 1882 and I was born in January of the following year. When I was about a year old my parents heard of a small valley in New Mexico called Luna, where it was said they could homestead land. We went there and stayed one year. They were having a hard time making a living so decided to go back to Bountiful, Utah, where my father’s mother lived and where they lived before they moved to Taylor, Arizona. My father’s sister Teresa Rose was married to Sidney Kent and lived in Lewiston. We moved back to Bountiful in the fall of 1884 and on the 2nd of May, 1885 my brother James Ray was born. We stayed on in Bountiful that summer because my father was suffering from rheumatic fever.
In the winter of 1886 we returned to Luna, New Mexico, and my father homesteaded 160 acres. It was during this winter on the 29th of January, 1886 that we lost my brother Claude Elias. He was five years old.
Not many families lived in Luna at this time, but the parents got together and built a big log school-room; they made the desks and benches for the children and paid the teachers themselves. The bench my father made for me is now at 143 S. Olive in Mesa. The log school house was also used for our church meetings. The building still stands in Luna and is considered a land mark for that community. When I was five years old my mother taught me the alphabet and started me to school. Sister Charley Curtis was the teacher. Later I went to sister Haywood, Inez Lee, Lora Tenney, Lew Wimmer. Some of them were very good teachers, one especially, Jessie James. We often had school in the summer because of the cold winters and the scattered conditions of people living on their farms. We lived one mile from the town. When I was eight years old my mother let me have a party. One girl gave me a thimble. I was very proud the Christmas I was eight my father made me a little cupboard just like the one he made for mother. Mother’s still stands in the old house where we lived. I gave mine to my youngest daughter who was named Gertrude after my mother. My baby granddaughter, Cherri Lynn plays with it. I was also baptized when I was eight years old on the 2nd day of July 1891. My father baptized me, and Bishop Gilbert E. Greer confirmed me the same day. We then had fast and testimony meetings on Thursday. I was baptized in the morning and went to meeting and was confirmed a member of the church in the afternoon.
My best playmates were my brothers. We spent long hours hauling sand and rocks building what we called our temple. This was during the time they were building the Salt Lake Temple. I was old enough to help mother in the house. I swept the house and washed dishes and helped with the children and did many chores. I have always been grateful for a mother who taught us to pray at her knee. At evening we all knelt in prayer in front of the big fire place, and in the morning we knelt by our chairs around the table.
Amasa was the oldest living brother. He was a swell brother; we played together, said our prayers together and took care of our little brother Ray. After our little brother Claude passed away we were very close. We now lived on the 160 acres that our father filed on and it was here that they built our future home. We lived for years in one big log room with a lumber lean-to. Some years were good and some not so good. Rich grammer grass grew for our cows and other stock to graze on in summer. We were located on the Frisco River which carried a beautiful clear stream of water. Our house was on a hill over looking the river. Some years they raised beautiful crops of oats and other small grains and fee for our stock through the winter. We raised big gardens of vegetables which we put in cellars and pits for winter use.
There were times when sickness was in our little family. One night mother took with very severe cramps. We didn’t know what to do for her. Father hitched the team to the wagon and went about a mile for a kind lady, Sister Curtis who came and did what she could. Amasa came and took me by the hand and lead me from the room. We went around by the east door of the kitchen where we took turns asking our Heavenly Father for help. When morning came mother was better and able to be up and care for her family. After I grew older I thanked my Heavenly Father for that brother of mine and for the power of prayer, and for parents who knelt with us morning and evening for our family prayers.
We lived more than a half mile from neighbors so our home life was very much to ourselves. Sister Maggie Lillywhite and her sister were a little older than I, but they were my playmates. They were our closest neighbors. They taught me how to make doll clothes and we spent many long, happy hours together. When Maggie married the family moved away from Luna. Maggie gave me her dolls and doll clothes.
My sister Myrtle Cordilla was born the 3rd day of April. Soon after my father put in a small crop and went to Fort Apache where he worked all summer as a carpenter, then came home in November to bring us supplies. He took some of the wheat we had raised to Eagar and had it ground into flour. On January 14, 1889 father left and went to Thatcher, Arizona and worked at his trade all winter. Amasa went to school that winter to Walter Brown. Father came home the 9th of May that year and put in some wheat and a little corn. The wheat was on the low land and grew rank and fell down and rusted. He also planted oats and rye. That was the spring of 1889. After he got his crop in he went to Snowflake and built a house for a man by the name of Kartchner. He returned home late that fall and remained home all that winter. The next summer he raised the best crops we ever had. He laid the foundation for our house that summer. The next spring, the 1st day of February my sister Virginia was born. My father worked off and on in northern Arizona until he took sick in the fall of 1903. My brother Amasa went after him in October and he passed away on the 19th of November of that year. In the meantime brothers George Milton and Acel Van were born, also my sister Maybel Albina.
My father was a handsome man. His work took him away from home a great deal, and in his later years he lost his hearing which made it difficult for him to work very much in the church, but he was a wonderful man and a good provider. He died at the age of fifty-six. He had worked hard and lived on the frontier all his life. My mother was dark with dark hair and eyes and combed her hair piled high on her head. She was a kind and gracious mother whom we all loved. She worked hard and bore eleven children. She did many services in the Luna Ward as well. They had two teams of horses and wagons, and when we came from Bountiful to Luna mother drove a team of white mares, Kit and Doll. We children rode in her wagon with our luggage and bedding. Father drove a span of horses and had the provisions and other belongings. We brought a cow with us. Her name was Rose—I remember when she died. We carried water from the Frisco River that ran clear and beautiful at the foot of the hill. Willow, wild flowers and hop vines made a beautiful picture along the river. We brought provisions from Bountiful to help us with living, but Grandma used to send us two or three five gallon cans of honey and a lot of dried fruit every fall and sometimes bedding and clothing.
I love to think of my dear parents. Father had a very pleasing personality and looked forward to the future with hope for improving our home and making life more comfortable for my mother. He had a strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and studied the standard works of the church and taught honesty and integrity to his family. He believed in paying a full tithing and helping anyone in need. I remember hearing him bear his testimony back in the days when we held fast meetings on Thursday and Gilbert Greer was the Bishop.
When I was a young teenager I worked for Mrs. Franze and earned a little money to help me go to school at the Academy in Thatcher. I attended school there from September 1900 to May 1902, during the winters.
On March 28, 1900 I received the following patriarchal blessing by Patriarch Samuel Claridge: Dear Sister Teresa, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I lay my hands upon your head and give unto you a patriarchal blessing. There is a great work for you to do upon this earth. You have a good father and mother and the blessings that were sealed upon them will be realized by you. The holy angels of the Lord have watched over you and preserved your life in times of sickness, and your way will be opened up before you to accomplish all that the Lord desires you to do. You will have the privilege of gong to the Temple of the Lord and receiving your washings and anointings, and you will do a great work in the temple of the Lord assisting to redeem you kindred. The Lord will bless you with light and knowledge and your spirit will be quickened to comprehend the glories of this latter day work. You will go to the center stake of Zion and you will see the City of the New Jerusalem built up and that glorious temple reared and the glory of God will ret upon it. You will enjoy the spirit of peace and love that will be in the hearts of them that live there. You will see your Heavenly Redeemer when he comes in the clouds of heaven, and you will enjoy the riches of this world, and I say unto you dear sister be comforted in your spirit and be not discouraged and cast down for the Lord will save you up, and all these blessings I give unto you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
When school was out in May 1902, Stephen Alonzo Brown and his mother had been visiting in Thatcher and were going back to Luna with a load of provisions. I took this opportunity to get back to Luna from school. We came by way of The Blue and the road out of The Blue was steep and rough, so Lon as he was called, and I walked up the hill behind the wagon. As we walked along he asked me to marry him. We were married at the end of the month, 29 May 1902 in the home of my parents by Melvin Swapp. It was not until October 9, 1907 that we were able to be sealed in the Temple. We traveled by train from Luna to Salt Lake City with three small children: Floyd Alonzo who was four years old having been born 17 February 1903, Reita who was almost two ears old, born on the 7th of March 1906, and Isabelle who was just eight months old, born on the 15th of April 1907. We had lost one child, our second son Delbert Reynolds who was born 13 May 1904. He died on May 20, 1905, just one year old. In those days doctors and hospitals were scarce and there were many serious contagious diseases. When Floyd was only one week old, Grandma Brown broke out with something on her hands and arms—little did we think of it being smallpox. Lon and I both took the disease from her and I was ill with it when Floyd was born. My hair came out and when it grew back it came in grey. Most of my children never saw me with dark hair.
After we returned from Salt Lake City we moved to Thatcher to make our home. We had lived there about two years when scarlet fever broke out. Our little girls took it and passed away within a month of each other. I remember throwing myself on the little graves and sobbing my heart out. It was almost more than I could bear. They were buried by our little son Delbert. Isabelle passed away first, 13 October 1909 and Reita just one month later 12 November 1909. I’m so grateful for my testimony of the plan of salvation for I know I shall see them again and hold them in my arms.
Wanda was five months old so we thought we should move back to Luna for fear we would lose her. On the way to Luna she came down with scarlet fever. I had a strong warning that we should go back or we would lose her. So we turned around and went back to Thatcher. She got all right and we returned to Luna in the spring of 1910. Fern was born about a year later. We were living in the lower part of the valley at that time, 9 January 19ll. The remaining years we were in Luna we lived in or own home in town near the Luna Valley Mercantile Company store. It was a two room long house. We later built on a large room made of lumber for a kitchen and dining room.
Pratt was born in this house on 6 January 1913 and when he was just two months old my husband was called to fill a mission in the Central States Mission. He felt so sad to leave us but wanted to go. He spent much of his time in the state of Kansas. He returned home in the spring of 1915. He came by way of Magdalena to meet Sam and some other freighters who were there for supplies. He came home with them. Brother Swapp was one of them and it took them ten days to make the trip when ordinarily it took only five days in good weather. The day before the wagons got home Brother Swapp’s son Melvin rode a mule out to meet them. The rest of them camped that night and rested their teams and came home the next day. But Daddy rode the little mule back and arrived home just before dark. I had just started to milk the cow and saw him coming in the lane. I threw my bucket down and called to the children and ran to meet him. I soon was in his arms. How many times since he passed away have I longed for that embrace. It will be heaven to me when I am finished here on earth to go to his arms as I did then. No other shall ever take his place.
Chester was born 15 January 1916 and Gertrude 1 September 1918 in our home there in town. The children grew up there. We had a lovely garden in a spot leveled out down in an arroya where water ran from a spring and from the mountains when it rained. This spot was at the back of our lot. I worked many hours there raising all kinds of vegetables for our use and to store for winter. We had a granary where we stored our wheat and corn in bins and where sides of beef were hung in the cold weather. We had chickens, eggs and pigs and beef, plenty of good food but not much money.
In January 1923 our oldest son Floyd Alonzo was called on a mission to Illinois. While he was away Lon and the small boys were out getting wood for the winter and Lon had an accident and broke his hip. He hauled freight from Magdalena for the store in Luna and Springerville and after the accident he was unable to work. Floyd still had six months to complete his mission, but he was released to come home. He helped us get situated in the Gila valley where we owned property so the children could go to high school. This was the fall of 1924. We lived about four miles out from the town of Virden. Our children road the bus to school there and we attended the church organizations there.
All our children married in Virden except Fern who was working as a secretary in Deming, New Mexico. Floyd married Elmina Mortensen in the Logan Temple 22 September 1926. Wanda married Floyd Pace Johns, son of our neighbor Robert Johns, 12 February, 1927. Chester married Ruby Joyce Foster 3 October 1936 and Gertrude married Ivyl Lavar Gale 29 May 1936 on my anniversary four months before Chester and Ruby were married.
Daddy (Lon) used crutches and a cane for the rest of his life, and the boys ran the farm. He helped me make cheese and put up fruit and vegetables that we grew in our yard. We spent many happy hours in the porch swing shelling peas, snapping beans and peeling fruit for canning. His health began to fail in the fall of 1938 and he passed away in our home 4 February 1939. He was buried in the Virden cemetery. Pratt was killed in an automobile accident 24 April 1939 just three months after his father passed away. He was also buried in the Virden cemetery. We were very close and I missed him so much I felt I was really alone after he died. He loved children and usually had one in his arms if any were around.
I lived on at the farm with Chester caring for the place. In August 1944 Chester and his family moved to California and I rented the farm to Orsen Richens for four years. On 2 August 1945 my home burned. World War II had just ended. Fern had purchased a lot of war bonds during the war. She cashed them and came to Mesa and made a down payment on a lot and had a home built on it where I now live. I finished paying for the lot and had the home put in my name. The next year Fern married Jess Lee Yerby. They lived in El Paso, Texas, for a year then moved to Mesa. We have made our home together ever since.
I sold my farm to Floyd and Wanda. Part of their farm was next to mine. They took it over in January 1949.
Floyd Brown and his family now lived in Kirtland, New Mexico. He had lost Mina on 18 February 1947 and was now alone with the children. I stayed with them two months and then came home to go with a group to Lee’s Ferry, the crossing of the Colorado River, where my husband’s father, Neuman Brown is buried. When I came back I brought Rita, his youngest child, home with me to have her tonsils removed. A year later, Floyd got seriously ill. They took him to the hospital in Farmington. I went up to see him but he didn’t know me. He passed away 1 November 1948 and was buried beside Mina in the Virden Cemetery.
While I lived in Luna I was called to many positions in the Ward organizations, among them Relief Society President and Primary President. I was a teacher in Sunday School and Primary and have always been a visiting teacher since I was a young girl. I was a Visiting Teacher in the Wards in which I lived here in Mesa, and not long after I moved here I was called to work in the Temple baptizing for the dead, helping the children who came there to be baptized. I worked there for ten years. I loved every minute of it. There is a peace and love there that is not found outside.
It is fifty-one years on the 28th last March 1951 since my first patriarchal blessing was given. As I look back over the years that blessing is one of the strongest testimonies of the gospel I have. In that blessing I was promised as a girl of seventeen years that in connection with my brothers and sisters I wold do a good work in genealogy and Temple work. I have found much pleasure in so doing and by brothers and sisters have enjoyed helping me in many ways. There was no Temple closer to where I lived than St. George, and I lived in St. Johns Stake. How the Lord has provided ways and means for me to fulfill that blessing pronounced on my head is a testimony to me of the inspiration given to Patriarch Claridge when he gave it. At the age of thirty I had those blessings promised me by Patriarch Claridge, reconfirmed by Patriarch Brown of St. Johns Stake. In later years Patriarch Nash gave me a blessing, he also reconfirmed those blessings given before and gave me others among which he said the Lord has received you mission of mother hood. This was a great comfort to me. I am the mother of four boys and give girls, which have given me many joys. And now in my declining years I get more comfort and joy from my children and grand children than anything except the gospel. I am very grateful for the health I have been blessed with which also was promised me in that blessing.
Thoughts by ??
Mother loved poetry and her books are filled with a collection of poems. She gave many readings in public and was considered quite good at it. We benefited over the years from her wisdom and counsel. She was quite hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid when she went ot. But many hours were spent with her own thought and memories, writing letters, working on her genealogy books. Everyone in the neighborhood called her Grandma brown and loved her. She was especially kind and loving with the little children. She had a “green thumb” and she sang as she worked in the flowers and her gardens. She took great pride in her yards where ever she lived. She had hardening of the arteries in her last years and it affected her memory. She was ill for three years, but seemed not to suffer much. She passed away on 7 May 1962. Her funeral services were held in the Mesa 13th Ward Chapel with Bishop Joseph H. Martineau officiating. The invocation was given by Howard Gale, her grandson. “Oh My Father” was sung by the Relief Society Singing Mothers. A reading was given by her daughter Gertrude Gale. The poem was a favorite of mother’s.
Information for Stephen Alonzo Brown
Parents: Newman Brown & Lora Ann Taylor
Birth: 2 Mar 1865
Place: Springdale, UT
Marriage: 29 May 1902
Place: Luna, NM
Sealed: 2 October 1907
Place: Salt Lake Temple
Died: 4 Feb 1939
Place: Virden, New Mexico
Buried: Virden, New Mexico
Spouse: Bertha Teresa Brown
Spouse’s Birth: 12 Jan 1883
Spouse’s Birthplace: Taylor, AZ
Died: 7 May 1962
Place: Phoenix, AZ
Buried: Virden, NM
Spouse’s Parents: Brayman Orvil Reynolds & Gertude Henderson
Birth: 2 Mar 1865
Place: Springdale, UT
Marriage: 29 May 1902
Place: Luna, NM
Sealed: 2 October 1907
Place: Salt Lake Temple
Died: 4 Feb 1939
Place: Virden, New Mexico
Buried: Virden, New Mexico
Spouse: Bertha Teresa Brown
Spouse’s Birth: 12 Jan 1883
Spouse’s Birthplace: Taylor, AZ
Died: 7 May 1962
Place: Phoenix, AZ
Buried: Virden, NM
Spouse’s Parents: Brayman Orvil Reynolds & Gertude Henderson