Joseph Elroy Smith
Born: 14 September 1876 at Cedar City, Iron, Utah, USALIFE SKETCH JOSEPH ELROY SMITH
written by George Abraham Smith
Joseph Elroy Smith, the son of Joseph Stanford Smith and Arabella Coombs, born in Cedar City, Iron County, Utah 14th of September 1876. Born in the L.D.S. Church.
At the age of three years his parents, Joseph and Arabella were called by President Lorenzo Snow [more likely apostle Erastus Snow, leader of the church in southern Utah] to a colony to colonize the San Juan Country in South Western Colorado [San Juan Mission which included SE Utah and SW Colorado]. [At the rim of the Colorado, a narrow crevasse was widened to allow wagons and teams to reach the river. This "Hole-in-the-Rock" descent took all day for the company, and Roy's father spent the day assisting others, then realized his own wagon was still at the crest. With no assistance to slow their wagon, other than that of Belle and one horse, they left the baby in the care of five-year=old Ada and Roy, and promised to come back for them. After a difficult time getting down the first fifty yards, in which Belle fell and gashed her leg, Stanford went back for the children, and they completed the descent.] Our father and mother didn’t settle in San Juan [Utah], they settled in Mancos, Colorado where they homesteaded a farm and used oxen to do their farming and proceeded to build themselves a home.
When George was the age of three years, Arabella died leaving three children, Ada, Roy, and himself. After her death Father distributed the children among relatives. George stayed with Will and Emma Wilden who were first cousins, until about the age of eight, during which time I attended school in the city of Mancos, walking three miles to and from school.
Father sold his farm in Mancos and purchased one in New Mexico, near a place called Farmington. Ada was about fourteen years of age at this time. Father got we three children together again and took us to his farm in New Mexico, where Ada kept house and took care of the children. During this time Grandfather Hiram Smith [George's grandfather was actually named Joseph Hodgetts Smith] died. My father gathered up his children and took us back to Utah. We were there six months when father married a woman named Agnes Hendrix, a widow with one daughter.
Father bought a team and wagon and put us all in it and moved back to Mancos, Colorado. He bought an interest in a shingle mill, ran it one winter and moved back to New Mexico. We farmed for about three years and a son was born in La Plata, New Mexico, but only lived about three days and died. He was buried next to my grandfather in La Plata.
We only farmed there for a year, and then the La Plata River dried up leaving us without water for the crops so we moved to Durango. Roy and I couldn’t haul all the furniture at once in one load because my father got a job in a smelter, he got $2.00 a day and boarded himself so he sent us back to New Mexico to get a cow and the rest of the furniture. We started out with the furniture and the cow, we had to stop and camp because we couldn’t make it in one night. We tied the cow to a tree and the horse to the wagon, and we slept on the ground, my brother was 15 and I was 12. During the night the cow got loose and my brother had to get on the horse and go find her. He followed the cow all the way back home and didn’t get back that night leaving me all alone. I couldn’t find anything to eat except pine nuts. Roy came back without the cow because he couldn’t lead her or head her so he left her there, but we got back to Durango all right with our furniture.
Roy and I went to school in Durango, Roy was 17 and I was 14. We went back to La Plata alone and stayed with the Young’s and they were moving to Durango so we went back with them. While on our way our team got frightened and ran away. The wagon tipped over and my brother was injured and only lived three days afterward. He died in 1892. We got a carpenter to make a wooden box and lined it and put a mattress in it and lay Roy in it. We sent word to my Uncle Wilden who lived in Mancos. We buried Roy beside my mother in Mancos.
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