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“This book is for Margaret after I am
gone.”
Written
by
Edna Bingham Sabin
Erastus Bingham Sr. and
Lucinda
Gates are the parents of Erastus Bingham Jr. who married Susan Green. Erastus Jr. and Susan Green are the father
and mother of Nephi Bingham. My father,
Nephi Bingham, was born April 9, 1858 at Ogden, Utah.
His mother, Susan, was the first white woman
to live in Ogden. The others were
Indians. They soon moved to Huntsville
where the rest of his family was born.
As he grew older, he had inflammatory rheumatism so bad he
couldn’t
stand the cold weather in Huntsville. So
he moved to Silver City, New Mexico where his brother Daniel lived. They worked hauling ore from the Florita
Mountains to Silver City. Uncle Dan was
married to Eliza Hoover the 8th of April 1886.
Their first son, Esdras, was born May 30, 1887.
Mother had a sister living in Silver City. Her
husband was working with my father and
Uncle Dan. My mother came from Durham,
England to Silver City to visit her sister.
She arrived the 1st of July, 1887.
Father went with her sister and husband to meet the train. They fell in love at first sight and they
were married the 31st of July, 1887 in Silver City, Arizona. Mother’s sister and all her family disowned
her because she married a Mormon. Her
sister went back to England, that was the last time she saw any of her
family.
The next
year, Uncle Dan and family moved to Phoenix, Arizona and my father and
mother
moved back to Ogden, Utah. Their first
two children were born in Ogden. Rebecca
was born January 2, 1889 and Mae (Susan Mae) born June 14, 1890. His rheumatism was hurting him again in that
cold country so he decided to go to Arizona where it was warm. His father and mother told him if he would go
by Mancos, Colorado so they could see their other daughter, Clara, and
some of
their other family living there. They
were Aunt Lucy and Harriet Wheeler, who married Joseph, and Aunt Letty
and
Uncle John went with them. They were all
married. Those that went with them were
Aunt Clara, Aunt Gina, and Uncle Jacob, who was 15 years.
There were others going along and several
covered wagons. They all journeyed for
days. When they got near to the Colorado
River near the crossing, he stopped his wagon as he was the lead one,
told them
all he wanted to do some looking around.
Uncle Jacob, Nephi’s youngest brother, age 15, was riding with
him so
they went down to the river, he looked down the river.
There was a big ledge where the water had
washed way back under the ledge all the ground.
Below there were broken wagons, skeletons of horses, and
skeletons of
people. They went back where his wagon
was. He told all of them waiting in
their wagons that he wanted to drive all their wagons down to the river
and
across as he wanted to make a circle around and not go near the ledge
as it
might cave in. He drove every wagon down
and across river. They were all
overjoyed and thankful to think he would risk his life for all of them. They arrived in Mancos, Colorado in
June. My sister Clara was born July 3,
1892. When Grandpa and Grandma had their
visit out and Mother got strong enough, they journeyed to Arizona. His father and mother and all the rest of the
family stopped at Vail, a little place twenty-two miles southeast of
Tucson. My father, Aunt Violetta, and
Uncle John Holt
went to Nogales. Mother and their three
girls; Rebecca, Mae and Clara; went on to Casa Grande, Arizona. Father leased the Scribner’s place. He stayed there two years.
I was born there. Later, he moved
to Arizola, a little siding
where trains could pass one another. It
was a new track of land. He cleared the
land of sage brush, made fences of hog wire, and stocked it with hogs. The water was very bad, with alkaline. Glen was born there. Then,
all of us moved back to Casa Grande on
the Taylor Place. He made a few trips to
Florence, Arizona to visit his brother Dan and his family.
They moved from Phoenix. Uncle
Jacob came from Vail to Casa Grande to
help Father on the ranch as Father’s health was bad.
My brother Floyd was born August 13,
1889. A year or two later, Uncle Dan and
family moved to Kennelworth. It is now
called Coolage, not too far from Casa Grande.
Later, in 1900, Father sold all his hogs and shipped them to
market and
moved to Tucson, Arizona. A few months
later, Uncle Dan moved to Tucson. Tucson
wasn’t very large at that time. It had
one street called Congress Street. It
wasn’t paved. Two grocery
stores—Wheeler, Perry’s and Ivonich. The
dry good stores were La Banzo and Rosies, and a watering trough for the
horses. My father located a place called
the Davidson Place on the northern side of the Rillito River that ran
the year
around. That was where they got the
water to irrigate the farms. Father
wrote his father living in Vail. They
came to live by us—Aunt Clara, Aunt Gina, and Uncle Jacob.
Aunt Violetta (we called her Aunt Letty) and
Uncle John Holt came in from Steim Pass, New Mexico.
He was working for the rail road. Uncle
Erastus, we called him Uncle Ross, and
Aunt Annie came from Ogden. Aunt Letty
and Uncle John moved into Tucson and later to Richfield, Utah. Aunt Clara to Tucson, then to Ogden. Uncle Jacob stayed with my father. He was married then to Francis Harris. Grandma and Grandpa moved to Mesa where the
Mormons were living. My father stayed a
year. My father and mother and family
moved to the Manning Ranch. Uncle Enock
went with us. It was west across the
railroad tracks. We didn’t stay there
very long. The water was bad, typhoid
and malaria everywhere. The Santa Cruz
River water smelled awful, the well water was bad to drink, Glen caught
typhoid
malaria fever. Doctor thought he
couldn’t live. Father stayed with him
night and day for months. All of us felt
so sorry for him. Floyd cried because he
couldn’t go in the room to see Glen.
Father was afraid the rest of us would catch it.
He would give all of us jobs to do. I
had several jobs so Floyd could go along
with me. I had the chickens to feed and
chicken houses to close at night. And
the ducks to find in the early evenings.
They would go every day up the ditch to Mrs. Boyshey’s place, it
was a
half a mile or more, and they had ducks and we would have to go get
them home
before dark. We had long willow sticks
and would walk in the ditch bank to shoo them along.
We would get them home before dark. As
spring came, Glen got better but had to
learn to walk. He had lost all his hair
and it came back red. He didn’t like
that and cried about it but it changed back to a light brown. He was so tender hearted and cried so easily
after being sick so long. But soon we
moved to the Hall Ranch. We called it
the Hall Place as the ones that had lived there were the Halls. Mr. Bayless had bought the place and hired my
Father to farm it. The land had to be
cleared of mesquite and catclaw and the ground had to be plowed. Snakes everywhere. He
had to build reservoirs to store the water
for irrigating. He had to hire Indians
from an Indian village south of Tucson to help on the farm. He had a little Mexican man named Chapo
Verdugo that did run the mowing machine and do what the Indians
couldn’t
do. Father would go get the
Indians. They lived a short distance
down in the field where there were two little adobe houses and they
made some
little hogans so they all had shelter.
The more land that was cleared and planted, the more water he
needed. The springs he got the water
from was miles up the river and brought down in ditches to the
reservoirs. The head of the ditch had to
be cleaned at
times as cattle would get in it and overflow the ditch banks. When plowing and clearing the land, snakes
were everywhere and all had to be careful not to get bit.
The summers being warm, they crawled
everywhere. One day I opened a dresser
drawer, there layed a field snake.
Father was a
good farmer. He had alfalfa, wheat,
barley, and oats. All kinds of
vegetables, strawberries, fruit orchards.
A dairy he had the Ayshire cattle and won ribbons in 2nd and 3rd. He sold the cream to the ice cream
parlors. Father shared with all that
didn’t have much. He gave to the poor
and the needy and the widows and he would always say “it’s better to
give than
to receive.” Every time he took
vegetables to the store, he took to the orphans home.
He had three
big reservoirs. The wild ducks flew in
by the hundreds. Glen and Floyd would go
duck hunting every morning. They would
sell the ducks to the grocery meat market.
They enjoyed duck hunting. But
one morning Glen and Floyd went, they took their dogs Shep and Tob with
them. When they shot the ducks the dogs
would swim
in the water and bring them to the bank.
But one morning, just as Glen went to shoot, Shep jumped in and
he shot
him. He grieved for days and missed
a
week of school and wouldn’t go duck hunting again.
He was always so tender hearted after all he
had been through.
By that time,
Rebecca and Mae had finished school and Father planned to send them to
Colonia
Juarez, Mexico to college September 9, 1909.
My father would take the older girls, Rebecca and Mae, to dances
at the
fireman’s hall. When Clara and I got
older, he would take the four of us. He
would hire preachers of different churches to speak and invite all the
people
to hear them. Mother was not a
Mormon. My father, Rebecca, and Mae left
for Mexico. My father did have a sister
living in Dublan not very far from Colonia Juarez.
His sister and husband had passed away, but
all their children were living there. He
visited a few days with nephews and nieces.
When he came back to Tucson, Heber Farr, his sister’s oldest son
and his
brother-in-law, Charles Hurst, came with him.
They looked over the old Davidson Place and decided to move to
Tucson if
it was agreed with the ones in Mexico.
My father helped them to finance their covered wagons and horses
to make
their trip out of Mexico to Tucson. My
father began to make plans to have plenty of food for them when they
arrived. My father’s younger brother,
Jacob (we called him Uncle Jake), lived near us and he made plans along
with
him. My father owned a dairy and had
plenty of milk. He butchered a pig and
cured it. We had turkeys, ducks, chicken
and eggs, plenty of bottled fruit, our orchards, dried corn and beans,
dill
pickles, sauerkraut, pumpkins, five gallons of homemade mincemeat, and
a winter
garden. A few days before they arrived,
Father killed a beef. He would hang it
outside in the cool of the night and then take it down in the morning
and wrap
it in sheets and then a canvas to keep the cold in.
On December 15, 1909, in the afternoon light,
covered wagons came rolling out of the catclaw and chaparral bushes
down the
lane to our home. It was a wonderful
meeting to see them all for the first time.
They parked their wagons between our home and Uncle Jacob’s home. Some of them were very sick when they
arrived. The sick and the old slept in
our home and Uncle Jacob’s home and the others in their covered wagons. They all ate their meals in the two homes and
would come and go as they pleased in the day time.
We had Christmas dinner together. Those
that came out of Mexico at that time
were the five of the Farr brothers, their wives and family. Heber, Joseph, Earnest, Wilford, and Ascel
not yet married. The sisters were Edith
and Lindy, their husbands and family, and Mamie Farr was not yet
married. There were in-laws and their
husbands and
wives and family. We all had Christmas
together.
There was a
small wooden schoolhouse nearby where all the children went to school. They were all busy building little
tent-houses to live in until they could build better ones.
They would build the floors first then board
them up on the sides and the ends, leave a space for the door, then
they would
put a tent over it. They were all busy
getting their crops planted. Heber and
Joseph and the Williams lived across the Rillito River on the north
side of the
river. It supplied water for irrigating
the farms. All the others built their
homes on the south side of the river.
The Farr brothers farmed, the brothers-in-laws ran a dairy. Father had Mormon missionaries and mission
preachers
coming for years. On May 21, 1910, my
father and Heber Farr met the train from Salt Lake and California to
get
Brothers George Albert Smith, Joseph W. McMurrin and Joseph E. Robinson. That afternoon, my father, my mother, my
sister Clara, my bothers Glen and Floyd, and myself, Edna, were
baptized
members of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
The following Sunday, May the 22, 1910, the first branch of the
Church
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized in the shade at the
east end of
our home. The opening prayer was given
by President Joseph E. Robinson. The
branch was called Binghampton Branch after my Father.
There was already a little town called by
Bingham in Arizona. Heber Farr was
ordained
branch president, Frederick Granger Williams first Counselor and Frank
Webb
second Counselor. We were all confirmed
members of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
The sacrament was blessed and passed, talks were given, and the
closing
prayer was given by Joseph A. Farr.
Church services were held under big shade trees at the east end
of Heber
Farr’s home.
On the 4th of
June 1910, a blessed event happened after twelve years—another little
boy came
to live with us. Father and Mother named
him Delbert. How wonderful it was to
have a baby in our home. We were so
happy and loved him so much as we couldn’t remember when we ever had a
little
baby in our home. After my Mother didn’t
have enough milk, Father would take him every morning to Heber Farr’s.
My father was
trustee of the Davidson school. He
received permission to build a large school house as more saints moving
out of
Mexico settled in Binghampton and near Jaynes Station east of the
railroad
tracks. It is now called the Flowing
Wells. They cleared the land of mesquite
and catclaw for some company. By the
middle of September, the large school was built. All
the people would come to Church and the
young ones would come to the dances at Binghampton one Saturday night
and the
ones that lived in Binghampton would go the dances the next Saturday
night at
Jaynes Station. Some of the young boys
worked for my father on the farm. My
father furnished transportation for all that wanted to go to the dances
from
Binghampton. Father had two spans of
mules, a big hay rack the boys would fill the rack with hay, stretch
canvas
over it, and all us girls would furnish quilts to put over the canvas
for
comfort. He gave us a little cow bell
and told the driver not to whip the mules, just ring the bell and they
would go
fast enough. By the middle of September
1910, the big school house finished and my Father asked permission to
hold
Church services in the school house. He
had the little schoolhouse added to the south end of the new building. There was room for a stage and two Sunday
School class rooms. At this time, the
Sunday School was organized. Joseph A.
Farr was ordained as superintendent of Sunday School,
Elmer Cardon as first assistant, J. Alma
Young as second assistant, Ellen Bluth as secretary, Heber O. Chlarson
was set
apart as Ward Clerk. Relief Society was
organized with Elizabeth Farr as president and Mae Bingham and Lindy
Young as
her assistants, Hazel Williams as secretary.
School had
started. Floyd and Glen went with
Father and Mother to buy some shoes. I
stayed at home with our little baby.
Soon after they were gone, Rebecca Mae and Clara saddled up the
horses
and went for ride. They hadn’t been gone
very long when they remembered that Father told me to be sure to pick
some corn
for supper. Mildred Smith was visiting
me from town. I didn’t know what to
do—when Father told us to do something we had to do it.
We went to the corral and got old Roudy the
horse and hitched him up to the buggy and went across the river to pick
some
corn. We tied the horse to fence post,
then we dug a shallow place in the sand, put a blanket over it, put the
baby in
it so he couldn’t roll out. It was a
cloudy day and we thought he would be alright.
It was just a short distance from the baby.
We had aprons with strings on. We
had picked some corn just a little ways
from the baby but I heard a wee small voice say, “go to the baby.” I pulled my apron string and ran.
When I got near the baby, there was a big
snake crawling over the bank down where the baby was.
I grabbed his little foot and pulled him
out. I cried for joy loving him. Mildred ask how did I know the snake was
there. I told her I heard a voice say,
“go to the baby.” She said, “I didn’t
hear it.” We were trying to kill the
snake when two men fixing the fence came by and killed it.
It had ten rattlers and a button on it. I
told Mildred not to say anything about this
to my parents as I wanted to tell them myself.
When supper was over and Father and Mother had gone to bed, I
went out
on the sleeping porch. I told them I had
something to tell them. I said, “Papa,
do you remember explaining the Godhead to me?
God the Father, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost and the
wee
small voice.” I told him I had heard
that wee small voice, then I told him the story of the snake. I was crying as I told it.
He told me not to cry, that the baby was
alright and safe in his little bed and you will have a wonderful
testimony of
truthfulness of the Gospel all your life and you will never forget, and
I
haven’t. I can see it as I did
sixty-eight years ago.
Father was
always at the table in the middle of the living room reading scriptures
from
the Bible and Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and was in
the
center of table. He carried the
Doctrines in this hip pocket all the time until it was shaped like his
pocket. When he went down into the field
to see how the working men were doing, he would get in the shade and
read.
Tucson was
growing with all kind of business—banks, flour mills, schools, banks,
homes. When the Mormon people in other
towns heard of a Mormon Church being near Tucson they came from St.
David,
Benson, Bisbee, Douglas, Safford, Thatcher, and Duncan to Tucson to get
work. Gordon Kimble came from
Safford. He got a job working in a bank
soon. His brother Spencer W. Kimble came
to go to the University of Arizona to school.
He drove a taxi to help his way through school.
That was in the year 1912 and 1913. They
all went to Bingham Place to Church
services and entertainments. By that
time the Church was full and the dances were crowded, and there were
lots of
school children.
My father,
being school trustee, he was called to help the school teacher Hattie
Webb to
settle mischievous things that went on in the school room.
One morning when the school bell rang and the
teacher called the school to order, she touched a little lever under
her desk
to get a ruler out a drawer and mice and rats jumped everywhere. At noon she sent for my Father to come the
schoolhouse. It was sure funny. She was talking to him all about it. Father must of had a smile on his face. I was standing by the door and heard her say
“Brother Bingham, its not funny.” Well,
there wasn’t any more rats and mice put in the teachers desk. Those were the good old days.
Never saw so
much love for one another and the way people helped one another. Every fall his nephews would help Father cut
milo, maize and other things to put in the silos for the milk cows to
eat. We all worked. Besides
attending Church and Church services
we would go to dances. On one night a
week all the young folks would meet at our home and play run sheep run
and two
and threes. Then we would have ice cream
and cake and go home. Father always said
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy so he mixed them.
Everyone loved him and my mother. They
were Uncle Nephi and Aunt Lizzy to
everyone. And they all liked to come to
our home.
Soon, my
other three sisters—Rebecca, Mae, and Clara were married, one in 1911,
one in
1913 and one in 1914. In the spring of
1915 I met a tall, dark, handsome man and we were married October 15,
1915. He worked for the Southern Pacific
railroad. He was foreman of a signal
gang that was laying rails along the tracks, and his work was to have
men hook
the rails underground to the signal so when the trains would come near
it would
turn the red blade or the red light of the signal up to let the train
men know
there was another train coming. We lived
in a little boxcar house in the siding on another track.
When the installation was finished, we moved
to Wilcox.
I had a pass
to ride the trains and I visited Father, Mother and the boys often. I saw them every month or so.
They were all so glad when I would write and
ask them to meet the train. It seemed
like every time I would go see them it would rain.
Father made a joke out of it. When
it got dry, Father would say to Mother,
“write Edna to come so it will rain.”
Mother did write me, it was the middle of July and I went to
Tucson. Father met the train, he was
pleased that I came. He had an accident
with the buggy and horse. But a week
later, he had pneumonia and complained of a pain on his chest. We called the doctor and his chest was bad
from an accident. He got worse and he
wanted to see his brother Daniel. So, we
wired Uncle Dan and he came from California.
It seemed to cheer him up and he felt better.
He hadn’t seen him in years. I then
wrote Fred and he came. He and Uncle Dan
would take turns sitting
with him. Aunt Lucy came, but he didn’t
live but a few days. He passed away at
five minutes past 2 a.m., August 2, 1916.
It was very warm those days, so the funeral was held that
afternoon. Uncle Jake and Grandma came
from Sonoita. He was buried in a little
place he had picked in the foot hill to bury a Mr. Farrs in 1902. Its a peaceful place now with hundreds of
graves. Its called the Binghampton
Cemetery.
Next day,
Fred and Uncle Dan went home. I stayed
with Mother a while until she got adjusted some to Father being gone. I stayed two weeks. She
said, “you go home to Fred. I have Glen
and Floyd and Delbert with me and
he is alone.” I went back to Estrella,
Arizona but went often to see her. We
moved to Tucson later that fall and lived near Mother.
We were making plans to go to the Temple to
do temple work. We moved to Tucson and
lived in a part of Mother’s home. A
little girl came to live with us, we called her Margaret.
She was born July 8, 1917. When she
was three months old, we couldn’t
get passes riding over the Union Pacific railroad.
We went on the Southern Pacific railroad
trains to San Francisco and on into Ogden.
Mother and the three boys—Glen, Floyd and Delbert—went on the
Southern
Pacific train to Colton. They changed
trains to the Union Pacific train and we met them in Ogden. Visited some relatives there and a few days
later we all went to Salt Lake to the Temple.
Mother was sealed to Father.
Glen, Floyd, Delbert and myself Edna, were sealed to Father and
Mother. Fred and I were sealed to one
another and
Margaret sealed to us. Mother made
another trip to the Saint George Temple to have Mae and Clara sealed to
her and
Father. Mae and Clara lived near
Mother. That same year we moved to
Tucson from Estrella and lived by Mae near Mother’s home.
She moved to Hurricane, Utah about a year
later. We moved in part of Mother’s
house until the first of November of 1918.
Fred got a
good offer of a paying job in Deming, New Mexico. He
had to take it by the first of December or
lose it. He didn’t want to leave until
our second baby was born and he told the railroad official he wouldn’t
leave my
until the baby was born. When he got
home that Saturday evening from work, he was pleased that the baby had
come to
live with us. We named him Fred Jr. He called the railroad Signal Department and
told them he would take the job. He
shipped all our belongings and left the following week.
By the end of the week, the 3rd, I was over
to Deming, New Mexico. There was a big
snow storm. We had to walk a block or
more to our little box car home. It was
sure cold as it was dark. It was during
the first world war and Camp Cody, a military post, was there. The town was crowded with parents of
soldiers. There was no place to rent, so
the Southern Pacific Rail Road Company put nine box cars in that one
lot for
workers to live in. It was sure a
crowded neighborhood. The snow storms
was awful.
Next day, I
wrote Mother as she couldn’t stand to see me leave with two little ones
seventeen months apart. It was
during
the flu epidemic and people were wearing masks, as people were dying by
hundreds. I went often to see Mother and
she was always happy when I wrote her I was coming.
I could get free passes to ride the trains so
I went every three or four months to see her.
My three younger brothers ran the dairy and the farm. They were young, but smart, and kept the
dairy and farm going. In 1918, Floyd was
married to Lavita Nelson and months later Glen married Lydia Nelson, a
cousin
to Floyd’s wife. They all lived near
Mother and Delbert on the farm. Then
Floyd bought some land along the San Pedro River and moved up there and
stocked
it with cattle. Glen ran the dairy and
the farm. They both had large
families. Lavita came back to Tucson to
live during school season to let the children attend school. Mother lived on Ranch with Delbert. When he was married, she still stayed there
until she passed away.
My father
helped his neighbors all the time when they were planting their crops
by
loaning them machinery like bailers to bail their hay and rakes to
rakes
machinery.