My great grandfather and
grandmother were Erastus Bingham and Lucindia Gates.
Their son, Erastus Jr., married Susan Green
(second wife). Nephi Bingham, the son of
Erastus Jr., is my father and Elizabeth Dalkin is my mother.| |
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Written
by
Edna Bingham Sabin
My great grandfather and
grandmother were Erastus Bingham and Lucindia Gates.
Their son, Erastus Jr., married Susan Green
(second wife). Nephi Bingham, the son of
Erastus Jr., is my father and Elizabeth Dalkin is my mother.
My father was born April 9,
1858
in Ogden, Utah, Weber County. My mother
was born in Durham, England October 27, 1865.
My father lived in Huntsville, Utah in Bingham Canyon when he
was
young. When he was older, he had
rheumatism so bad he couldn’t walk. So,
he moved to Silver City, New Mexico. He
was living with his brother Daniel.
My father, his brother Daniel,
George Francis Harris, Dan Harris, and Dan Lively were freighting ore
from the
Florita Mountains to Silver City, New Mexico.
My mother had a sister living in Silver City.
She came from London to visit her. My
dad fell in love with her and they were
married July 31. Soon after, they moved
to Utah. Mother’s folks didn’t care for
her any more because she had married a Mormon.
Later, they went back to Ogden.
The next year their first child was born January 2, 1889 in Blue
Valley,
Utah. They named her Rebecca.
They were living with Grandpa Erastus. Grampa
had two large families. His first wife,
Olive, was living with her
two daughters, Luenda and Cedina. They
had both married William Foy on June 14, 1890.
My sister Mae was born at
Torrey,
Utah, out from Richman. Later, they
moved to Mancos, Colorado. My grandpa
and his family moved too. So, he, with
his father and most of his family, moved to Casa Grande.
He leased the Scribner’s place. I
was born June 10, 1895. We lived there a
while, then moved to Arizola
on a new tract of land between Casa Grande and the Arizola rail road
station. My father cleared the land of
brush and made fences of hog wire and stocked it with hogs. I was in Arizola when my brother Glen was
born December 13, 1896. We didn’t stay
there very long as the water was bad and my father’s health was bad so
we moved
to the Taylor Place back to Casa Grande.
Floyd, the second boy, was born August 13, 1898 while living
there. We made a few trips to visit
Grandpa,
Grandma, and Uncle Dan and Aunt Liza who were living near Florence. Uncle Jacob, my father’s youngest brother,
lived with us to help Father with the work on the farm.
He was working in a candy kitchen before he
came to live with us. He made candy with
mare’s milk. He was good to us but he
liked to play tricks on us. He even took
us in the pig pens to see how dirty us girls could look.
Later, Father sold all his hogs and shipped
them to market. His health wasn’t any
better so they decided to move to Tucson, Arizona.
My grandpa and the rest of the
Bingham family that was living at Vail moved in to Tucson and they all
leased
the Davidson Ranch six miles north of Tucson, across the Rillito river. They all built their homes on three sides of
a big square leaving the south side open for the entrance and to see
the
river. Our place was at the north west
corner. My Grandma and Grandpa next to
us. Then Aunt Clara, Aunt Lettie, Benny
Price, Dave Lively, Uncle Erastus, and Uncle Dan.
We went to school across the
river. I was in the first grade with
Miss Nelson. The next year they built a
new school on the west side of the block.
Miss Welcome was the teacher. I
stayed nights with her as she was afraid to stay alone.
There were big beautiful trees around the
homes and a big place with tables to play and make mud pies and loaves
of mud
bread as a ditch of water was a few feet away.
It was in this ditch that everyone got their water.
We had to fill our water barrels to last to
next morning. We got up real early to
get them filled before the cows got in it.
For two or three years I always had to fill Grandpa and
Grandma’s water
barrels. We carried it with buckets and
poured in the barrels.
The next Christmas, Grandpa
and
Grandma gave me the prettiest little doll about eleven inches long,
with brown
hair and brown eyes and pink dress. It’s
the first doll I remembered having. My
sister Clara got a doll with blue eyes and blond hair and a blue dress. We didn’t have doll buggies.
We would get cottonwood limbs and tie our rag
dolls on it and push them along and played like they were buggies. I used to sit on Grandpa’s lap and comb his
whiskers. He taught me how to make
button holes in my panty waist and pantys.
We didn’t have elastic in those days, so we had to use buttons
and
button holes. I always loved my grandpa
and I would take walks with him. I
remember he broke a tooth out of his comb.
It was near his birthday. I asked
my father if he would buy him another one so I could give it to Grandpa
for his
birthday. He just said, “you and your
Grandpa.” Next day, he bought the comb
and I gave it to Grandpa for his birthday.
He seemed so happy and was so good to all his grandchildren, and
was
loved by all of them.
We all lived on the Davidson
Ranch. Dan Harris died when the five
year lease was up. Father was the one
that picked the grave site. Some of my
uncle’s wives got homesick to go back to their old homes.
Some went to Idaho and others went to
different parts of Utah. Grandpa and
Grandma moved to Mesa where there were lots of Mormons.
Father, Mother, and his family moved to the
Manning Ranch near the Santa Cruz River.
The water was very bad there and we were all sick at times. My brother Glen had typhoid malaria fever and
was very sick. He almost died two or
three times. We all went to school but
Glen. We stayed there less than a
year.
We moved to the Hall Place or
Ranch, that was the name of the people living there.
Mr. Bayless bought the place and hired Father
to run it. It was called the Bayless
Ranch. It was on this ranch my father
loved to farm. He cleared the land of
mesquite trees and catclaws. Times were
very scary and we had to keep our eyes on the ground.
The ground had been plowed and snakes were
everywhere.
We all slept outside in hot
weather. We put the bed springs and
mattresses on high wooden horses so the snakes couldn’t climb in our
beds. They would come in the house and
curl up in
corners. One day I opened the dresser
drawer and there laid a snake. Lots of
times we would find a snake with one head and two tails, one had
swallowed the
other.
Father, he planted wheat,
barley,
oats, and alfalfa. He had a big garden
of all kinds of vegetables. We had
fields of strawberries, blackberries, logan and raspberries, all kinds
of fruit
trees. He would help the poor people in
every way he could. He would go six
miles with the wagon to get little children from the orphans home to
bring them
out to spend the weekends. He was so
tender hearted. He wanted to be giving
to all that came to the ranch. He would
take food to the poor Mexicans and Indians.
During harvest season, he would bring the Yaqui Indians to the
ranch. They lived in little wick up
until the crops was gathered. They were
willing to work for a dollar a day. We
had a little store next to our house where they could buy their
groceries. You could sure buy a lot for a
dollar. We had missionary coming every
little while
but no converts, so they didn’t stay very long.
They would stay in town but most of the time at our home. My father was baptized a Mormon when he was
eight years old but Mother and the rest of the family didn’t. Mother belonged to the Lutheran Church. She didn’t understand polygamy.
Clara, Glen, Floyd and myself
went
to old Ft. Lowell to school. We had to
walk two miles going and two miles back.
Mrs. Decker was our teacher. At
the end of two years (fourth and fifth grades) there was enough
children in the
neighborhood to have a school close by our home. My
father saw that a building was built and
he was made trustee of the school district.
Miss Clancy was the first teacher for one year.
Then Mr. Waldrun for one year, Miss Spires
two years, Miss Hendricks.
In September 1909, trouble
with
the Mexicans was coming up. My dad’s
health wasn’t too good and he had to take it easy.
He read the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants
through and through and he was so inspired that in another year or two
there
was going to be a war in Mexico. He had
a sister just older than him living down in the Mexican colonies, had
eleven
children. In September 1909, we went
with my two older sisters to Mexico to go the Colonia Juarez
to go to college. When he came back, he
brought this nephew, Heber Farr, the oldest son of his sister, and
Jane’s
husband. He was a brother-in-law of
Heber. They looked over the Davidson’s
Place where we once lived and decided to move to Tucson to make their
homes. Dad helped them to get horses and
covered wagons to make the trip and on December 15, 1909 the wagons
came
rolling in. All our cousins and their
cousins and their in-laws. They all
worked hard to get their crops in. What
a happy reunion. We were all so happy to
have them there. Everybody loved
everybody. Joe Farr, one of our cousins,
stayed with Uncle Jacob; and Heber Farr and his wives’ folks stayed
with
us. Until they could find other places
most of them lived in tents. They had
wooden floors and was boarded up three feet from the bottom.
Then on Saturday, May 22,
1910, a
most joyous thing happened. Father,
Mother, Clara, myself, Glen, and Floyd were all baptized into the
Mormon. President Joseph B. Robinson of
the
California Mission and President George Albert Smith from Salt Lake was
there. In our front yard, a ward was
organized. Sunday, May 22, 1910 we were
all confirmed. My sisters Rebecca and
Mae was baptized into the sacrament. The
ward was called the Binghampton Ward after my father.
Heber Farr was branch president. George
William was his first assistant. The other
assistant I don’t remember. The Sunday
School superintendent was Joe Farr,
Alma Young and Frank Webb. The secretary
was Clara Bingham. The assistant
secretary was Hazel Williams. I don’t
remember the Sunday School teachers. I
was the primary teacher and took care of the cradle roll.
That job was to get the names of all the
newborn babies and the ones that was too young to enroll in Sunday
School. Later on the Mutual Improvement
was
organized. Elizabeth Farr, President;
Mae Bingham, first councilor; don’t remember the second councilor.
That was the beginning of a
new
life for all of us especially for my father, my mother, and their
family. We were all happy and loved each
other like
one big family. On June 4, 1910, a
blessed event happened. After 12 years,
my little brother was born. We all loved
so much. It was a long time since we had
a baby in our home. My father was so
happy having him in our home. Mother
didn’t have much milk for him. When he
was about three months old, Daddy would take him across the river to a
cousin,
Hilda Farr, that had a baby a day later than Delbert to get one good
feeding a
day. Daddy had a two horse cart and one
horse. He put a little bed down by his
feet for Delbert to lay in. I was
staying with a sick cousin to help her and Daddy would bring the baby
by every
morning so I could love him. Our home
was full of love and joy with him. What
a blessing he was to all of us.
The next year the war
beginning to
get bad in Mexico. Mae and Rebecca had
got back from Mexico by 1912. It was
very bad. The people were driven out and
forced out. Their homes were all
destroyed. They came to Tucson, Douglas,
and El Paso. Binghampton sure did grow
with Mormons. Some of them settled as
Jaynes Station, cleared the land and planted it. A
branch of the church was organized and a
school house built. Every Friday there
was a dance first at Binghampton then at Jaynes Station.
Daddy had a lot of Mormon boys working for
him. He always planned for our
enjoyment. Dad had the boys fill a hay
rack with hay and stretched a canvas over it tight, add quilts, it was
filled
with boys. He had two span of mules he
wouldn’t work on Fridays, so we could use them Friday nights. He wanted us to have a good time but be good
to the mules. He gave us a cow bell to
jingle instead of a whip and the mules would take off like lightning,
then a
little jingle once in a while. It was
ten miles to the dance but we had lots of fun getting there. We would always be home before one a.m.
Dad was loved by every one
with
his kindness and helpfulness. They were
Uncle Nephi and Aunt Lizzy to every one.
My sister Mae was married in 1911 and Clara in 1913 and Rebecca
in
1914. I was the last girl left at
home, In May 1915, my cousin was going
with a tall, dark, and handsome young man.
She went to visit some of her relatives in Mancos, Colorado. When she left, she asked me if I would take
care of Fred while she was gone. I said
what do you mean. She said ask him up to
dinner and Sunday School and church. I
did and he has been eating dinner with me ever since.
We were married the following October 15,
1915. We rented a small apartment in
Tucson. He was foreman of what they
called the steel gang. They were laying
rails from Vail to Benson. Fred’s job
with his men bonded the rail by hooking the underground wires to
the signals that was for safety in running the trains.
Cooked on the baler, cut
wires,
herded sheep. Clara and I and two
dogs. How we paid
tithing. Took care of chickens. Worked in the field. Picked
berries, sold them in town, Took cream
to the ice cream makers it took one hour to go on horse and buggy and
one hour
to go home. Went to Sabrino Canyon for
picnics, Glen, Floyd and I got lost in
foothills. Dad found us at the farm
gate. Uncle Dan died of old age. Dad picked the burial place in foot hill.