ON THIS DAY IN WILLIAMS FAMILY HISTORY

September 30, 1915

Joseph Elmer Williams and Vera Louie Marsden were married

Elmer and Vera were neighbors in Taylorsville, Utah, and attended the same one-room school house when they were youngsters. Two entries from Vera’s Life History give a glimpse of their courtship and marriage.  Elmer’s father, Joseph Williams, was in partnership with his brothers raising sheep.  The Williams brothers had purchased 200 acres in Moreland, Idaho, near Blackfoot, and Elmer spent his summers there herding the flocks.  There is much to “read between the lines” in Vera’s account of saying goodbye to Elmer one spring as he left for Idaho.

From the Life History of Vera Louie Marsden Williams:       Elmer went to Blackfoot, Idaho in the summertime to help with his father’s sheep.  Their summer range was up in the mountains near Brockman Creek.  One time when he was going to Idaho he stopped to see me and tell me goodbye.  He was going to walk to Murray, (two miles) carrying a saddle, and his clothes in a flour sack.  He said, “I must go or I will miss the streetcar and the train.”  He kissed me and said, “Goodbye, Darling,” and I was so thrilled, I said, “Say it again!”  He did, and he missed the train.  He called from Salt Lake and said he was going to sleep on a bench in the depot and wait until morning for the next train.

In 1912 Elmer was called on a mission to the Central States, and two years later, prior to Elmer’s release to return home, Vera was called as a missionary to the same mission.  Elmer and Vera had been engaged since the fall of 1911, but it was important to her to put the Lord’s work first, and she entered the mission field in May of 1914. Vera wrote:   My fiancée had been home from his mission for a year in September [1915] when he went to Chicago with a [rail]car of fat lambs.   After selling the lambs, he went to Independence, Missouri, and had a talk with [mission] President Bennion.  I was called to the mission home.  President Bennion said, “This man needs you and I am going to release you provided you marry him within two weeks.  He will take the train home and you will leave later, and he will be in Salt Lake to meet you when you arrive home.”  Somehow he missed the train in Denver and caught the next train, the one I was on.  We arrived home on Friday and were married the next Thursday, September 30, 1915, in the Salt Lake Temple for Time and Eternity.  We had been sweethearts for six years, three of which we waited while one or the other was in the mission field.  

THIS DAY IN WILLIAMS FAMILY HISTORY

Vera Mae Williams

Born 23 September 1917

The year 1917 was notable in history for both political and social wars. On April 6^th the United States joined their allies fighting in Europe in what came to be known as the Great War or World War I.  At the same time a social battle on American soil was being waged. On August 28th in Washington D.C. ten women were arrested and jailed for picketing the White House demanding female voting rights.  In the midst of the first world war and the turmoil of social injustice, in a tiny, two-room farmhouse in the rural community of Thomas, a few miles southwest of Blackfoot, Idaho, Vera Louie Marsden and Joseph Elmer Williams welcomed their second child and first daughter. The baby arrived at sunrise on Sunday, September 23, 1917.  Elmer named her Vera after her mother, and May after Vera’s mother, Clara May Elsmore Marsden. When Vera May started school and learned to print her name, the teacher insisted that M-a-y was the name of a month, not a girl, and taught her to spell it M-a-e.   And that is how she was known the rest of her life.

FINE AS HOG’S HAIR

Among the personal papers collected by Vera MarsdenWilliams were several newspaper write-ups about her husband, Joseph Elmer Williams, who was a prominent figure in the L.D.S. Church, the Blackfoot community, and the State of Idaho.  One of the articles, in particular, revealed things about Elmer that were new to me. I thought you would be interested in seeing this column that was probably printed in the Boise newspaper after Elmer began serving his first term as Idaho State Senator in 1938.  Since the photocopy of the article is difficult to read, the transcription follows:

“If a one-word description would be applicable in the case of the senator from Bingham County, he might be termed ‘different.’  Two hundred pounds of well-trained bone and muscle with a capacity for tongue lashing when the occasion arises, Senator Joseph E. Williams stands out already as an able legislator, although this is his first senate term.

            “As evidence of his willingness to stay in the background, however, many senators didn’t know about Williams for some time, not until he got up last week in opposition to a bill which would raise salaries for the public utility commissioners. Then in forceful language, and with the scowl of a wrestler which he has been for 25 years, he pounced on the pay raise issue with all fours as fellow senators sat back in surprised admiration. 

“Practically everything about this amiable senator is different, from his closely cropped pompadour to his ability to sling the king’s English.  When you ask the senator how he feels, he doesn’t resort to the common place, unimaginative ‘okay’ or ‘first rate,’ but tells you ‘as fine as hog’s hair.’  And as for his nationality, he tosses this forceful phrase back at you:  ‘I’m a Scandinavian Welshman, and I sing Irish songs.’

“After he left the University of Utah, it seems young Williams asked his dad for a team of horses and a wagon to get started in farming.  His dad refused and told him instead, ‘I’ll give you the whole state of Idaho to make a living.’  As it developed, Williams took the whole country, moving about as a wrestler from match to match and city to city.  But a sense of sportsmanship turned him against many of the phases of the modern theatricals of the grunt and groan business, and eventually he was back in Idaho running a ranch and dealing in livestock.

“Meanwhile, came marriage and subsequently four little wrestlers and two girls.  However, only one of the four boys actually turned to the mat game, and he, Marsden Williams, went far enough to win a couple of amateur crowns.

“The Senator, president of the Blackfoot LDS Stake, has been a member of the school board for many years.  Out of the campaign he has coined an expression, based on the lines made famous by Bottolfsen[1] during campaign days:  ‘I have observed,’ declared the senator, ‘that honesty and simplicity go together.  Complex methods bring corruption.’”            

---

[1] Clarence Alfred Bottolfsen (October 10, 1891 – July 18, 1964) was an Idaho politician. He served as the 17th and 19th Governor of Idaho, from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1943 to 1945.

FUN IN YOUR FAMILY TREE

Please note the link to Relative Finder on the side bar.  Relative Finder is a website created to show your relationship to famous (and infamous) people.  The site can be accessed with your Family Search login.  A link to Family Search is also on the side bar for those who may still need to create their own free account.  Relative Finder uses the world-wide Family Tree at Family Search to determine who you are related to, and shows you the ancestors you have in common with them. See the example below. 

You may also create your own group of friends, neighbors or co-workers, and see if and how you may be related to each other.  If you are brave enough, you could include your spouse in the group.     Have fun!

THIS DAY IN HARWARD FAMILY HISTORY

1872-1936

Leon Sinclair Harward died September 7, 1936

Excerpt from the life story of Vera Mae Harward:   Mother and Father Harward loved nature and were especially fond of riding in the country and basking in the scenery.  It was a particularly coveted experience because they did not own a car.  Merrill and I tried to see that they had frequent outings because they enjoyed them so much.  We had only been married for a couple of months and were living near them in Blackfoot, Idaho, when Merrill suggested we take his parents to see his dad's sister who lived in Springville, Utah.  Dad Harward had mentioned how much he would like to visit her.  So one weekend in early September we drove them down to her house and had a very nice visit.  On the way back, we bought bushels of peaches from a fruit stand in Brigham City for me to can.  This would be my first experience bottling fruit for my own home, and I was excited. We enjoyed eating some of the ripe, juicy peaches on the drive back to Idaho.  Father Harward found great pleasure in the trip and said so many times.  But the travel wearied him.  We returned to Blackfoot on September 6, 1936.  When we drove up to their house, he commented that he was so tired he didn't ever want to leave home again.  His wish was granted.  The next morning, very early, Mother Harward called and urged Merrill to come quickly as his father was having a "bad spell" with his heart.  They lived just a few blocks away, and we got there in a matter of minutes. But we were too late. Father Harward had died.  After the funeral, his body was taken back to the Springville Evergreen Cemetery and buried next to his two sons, Kenneth and Rees. He was one month shy of his 64th birthday.