Fruita

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The Life Story of Annie Christine Petersen (Staley) Jorgensen

Christian Petersen, Maren Sophie Pedersen, Rasmine Hansina Pedersen, Annie Christine Petersen

Another history found in the records of Golden Rulon Andra. This is the grandmother of his wife, Utahna Bird Andra (1927-2001). Archie and Emma Bird are Utah’s parents, Emma is the daughter of Annie.

“Annie Petersen was born at Lindberg Denmark on October 9, 1862. Her father was Hans Petersen and her mother was Kjirstin Jeppesen. They were a poor family as her father was a tenant farmer. Most of his time was spent working for a landlord to pay rent for a small piece of ground that he would call home. They lived in a small thatched roof house and as is recalled there were but two rooms. The landlords brother having come to America at a previous time had been sent to Denmark on a mission from Utah. The landlord was very bitter against the Mormons and forbid his brother to even come on his land but being a very sincere man with no fear the man held meetings at several places. One night he was at Annies fathers home in spite of all the mob warnings to her father. After the people came her brother Chris stood at the door with ax in hand to keep intruders out; at another time while the missionaries were at their home some of the non members climbed on the house and stuffed old rags in the stove pipe and smoked them out. Annie was the oldest of four girls and one boy Christian. When she was about fifteen years old she joined the Morman Church. At that time men of Zion were sending money to women and girls for them to come to America. She was sixteen at the time. As none of her family was able to come at the time, her parents gave her a gallon of butter and a feather pillow and she came alone. It was a rather rough and stormy all the way across the sea. Many were seasick and some died. The day she could see land a big storm came up and blew the ship back to sea and it was a week before she could land. Later her mother, brother and sisters were converted and came to America. Her father later came to America and joined his family. Brother Chris is the father of Mark E. Petersen who is now an Apostle. The family came to Mesa Arizona because that is where the missionary lived and no one was at the station to meet them so since they could speak no English they stayed in the station overnight. They were met in the morning. It took the family 3 years to earn enough to get to Salt Lake where all but Annie settled. Upon her arrival previous to theirs she had been met by Mr. Staley in Kanab, Utah and then went to St. George, Utah where they were married. By covered wagon they went to Old Mexico where she was to live in pologamy with the first family of Mr. Staley. He had children as old as she was at the time and she lived in an adobe house. The first Mrs. Staley was good to her in her way but the life of a pioneer isn’t too easy and she didn’t know the language very well. When she had four children Chester, William, Vermina, and Dicey Ann her husband died and left her 5 months pregnant with her fifth child Maryett (Marie). She gleaned fields, washed, worked in a store and was given the siftings of sugar that were in the bottom of the sacks. She did almost anything to keep the little ones fed. After Maryetta or Marie was born it really was a struggle. The boys helped what they could. With the first money that Chester earned he bought an oil lamp and a small white kettle for her. About 1896 she met Jorgen Jorgensen. He had two teenage sones. His wife had been dead for sometime. They were married and at the time they only place they could find to live was an old cow shed. They worked hard cleaning it up and fixing it to be liveable. She cooked over a campfire. They were later able to find an adobe house which seemed like a mansion. Her husband Jorgen was a miller by trade but because there was no mill there he farmed. While living in Mixico there ware five children born to them. Annie, Ephraim, Pernellie (nell), Emma and Clara. In 1911 there was a mixican uprising and all white people were driven out of the country. One of Jorgens sons had stayed in Arizona and when the uprising came the other stayed behind in Mexico. Minnie had married a Moroni Feen and they had stayed in Arizona. Dicey was married to William Chestnut and they came to the United States with their parents. Before leaving they made a lot of soft soap and made their own yeast cakes of hops and cornmeal dried in the sun. They had two wagons and a load of children. Hyrum Jorgensen and wife stayed in Airzona also. It was a long tireing trip. They stopped on Sundays to rest and when they came to water they stopped to wash and bake bread. Near Moab, Utah one of the mares foaled and they had to wait two weeks before the colt could travel. They settled in Ferron Utah and then moved to Blue Valley to farm. It was a beautiful place; very lush and fertile, but the dirty devil or Fremont river ran threw it and befor long lived up to its name and becuase of the floods in the river they couldn’t keep their dams in the river so they couldn’t keep water on their farms. The last few years they lived there they hauled water in barrels on a sled behind a horse to water their garden. Before long the Blue Valley settlers had to leave their homes and settle elsewhere. Annie and Jorgen moved to Fruita, Wayne Co. Utah in 1914 and had a Fruit Farm. Eph was getting old enough to help so he peddled the fruit during the summers and the smaller children picked fruit and had other jobs. Thus their children grew up. Annie married Floyd Pendelton, Pernellie, George Dewey Gifford: Emma, Archie Bird; Clair, Lamar Nielsen; Eph May Lerwill.

In 1929 they sold out to Nell and Dewey and moved to Salina, Sevier, Utah. There Jorgen died Oct. 1929. Annie lived along as long as she could take care of herself and then lived with her children. She died Aug 1953 age 91 at Salina, Utah.

Jorgen and Annie Jorgensen family, kids (l-r) Annie, Pernelle, Clara (sitting), Emma, Ephraim
Archie and Emma Bird

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Monticello and Vernal

This weekend was a great trip.  I don’t know if I have written this, but Amanda and I made a goal to hit all the Utah Temples before we move away.  We made this goal in Jan or Feb and have been working on it since.  Monticello and Vernal both posed a problem for achieving that part of what we wanted to do.  Why not knock them both out at once?  So we did.  We took this past weekend, drove down to Monticello on Friday and stayed the night.  We stayed at, and highly recommend the Monticello Inn (in the phone book as Triangle H) especially if you are LDS.  They were more than wonderful with us.  She even called the temple to make our reservation for the 8:00 session for the next morning.  We attended the 8:00 session and when we came out, got our photo (we are taking a photo with us and each temple as well, Amanda’s idea!) and headed out.  We drove back up through Moab, over to Fruita, Colorado, up through Rangely, Colorado and into Vernal.  It was a beautiful day for a drive.

Vernal turns out to be one of our favorite temples.  There is something about it.  It has more character than some, and it seemed more like home to me.  We were sitting in the chapel waiting to go on the next session when I kept looking at the only other couple in the room.  I was sure it looked like the parents of a friend from high school.  She looked younger though, and he had some chops, so I had my doubts.  Finally, I just had to know, walked up to them, and sure enough, it was Scott and Anita Jensen from Paul, Idaho.  Anita was a cub scout leader for me for a few years.  Bryan, their son, helped me secure a ring at a great price for Amanda last year.  We chatted, and were one of only a few couples on the session.  I will tell you what, there is something that is inspiring when the rays of the sun are coming through the veil when they lift the curtain before being introduced.  It just lit up the room and I loved it.

On the session was also a Shane Mayberry.  Afterward, I visited with him and asked if he knew a Carma Preece.  He said he went to school with her son.  I asked about her, and found out she only lived a block of two from the temple.  Before we left, by asking others, he had her address and phone number for me.  So, we are close, why not visit.  I gave her a phone call, she was home, and we were invited to stop.

She is the first person I have ever met who is related to me through the Ross line.  In fact, her maiden name is Ross and her father is the brother to my Great Grandfather.  It was interesting to look at her characteristics and physical makeup.  She must have barely have been over 5 foot.  Similar to most of my closer Ross relatives, other than my Dad, who inherited his height from the Donaldson side.  Amanda snapped a picture of a portrait of her parents.  Giving me the first copy of a photo I have of any of the other Ross siblings.  I have a rough, vague, damaged photo of my Great Grandparents, and nothing of them together.  My Great Grandmother died in 1925 after giving birth.  The baby also passed away with her.  For some reason or another, the Sharp line did not like my Great Grandfather, John William Ross.  So he was run off, and my Grandfather’s family farmed out to members of the Sharp family.  My Grandpa to the Ed Sharp family, Uncle Harold to the Delwin Sharp family, and Paul Ross to Fred and Vic (Sharp) Hunt.  The only thing we really know is that he moved to California.

He died in the Veterans Hospital in Livermore, Alameda, California.  As far as we can tell, all of his siblings ended up in California as well.  John had a sister named Fanny, who married a Calvin Dickerson Phibbs, who was the judge in Rupert, Idaho for a time.  Calvin’s father and some other family members are buried in Rupert.  But the Phibbs went to California as well.  Then there was a Robert Leonard Ross, and his life is very sketchy.  Have very little idea of him.  He was married to a Minnie Belle Hambrick, Rose Ann Clawson, and Ruby Leaster Hall.  The only one of these I could confirm was Rose Ann Clawson, who had been married to a Sanders, but he married her in Burley, Idaho.  Then there was Carma’s father, James Thomas Ross who settled in the Vernal area.  Apparently he was the one who went to Utah so his children could marry LDS.  They missed Virginia so much, they named their first child after their old home.  So, Carma’s older sister is named Vesta Virginia.

It seems to me that somehow they caught wind of the opening of the Sugar Factory in Paul, Idaho, so they moved there from Virginia.  I know the Phibbs were there before the Ross family was.  Fanny and Calvin were married in Virginia in 1906.  The Phibbs all moved to Idaho and then Fanny probably invited her other siblings to go.  Fanny arrived there sometime between 1912 and 1914 as children changed their birth locations.  My Grandpa has a half brother, Hobart Day, born in 1911 in West Virginia.  My Great Grandparents were married in Fort Logan, Colorado.  How that ever happened I will never know.  My Great Grandmother was married to a Mark Lewis Streeter, who gave another half sibling to my Grandpa, June Streeter.  Great Grandma went with Mr. Streeter and they operated a confectionery in Paul, Idaho named Streeter’s Confectionery.  There doesn’t seem to be records of this in Paul, other than a Hall’s Confectionery which according to my Grandfather would have been in the same location.  Whatever happened, my Great Grandmother divorced her Streeter husband in 1919.  My Grandpa is the oldest, born in Plain City.  Paul was born in Paul, John Harold in Burley, and Ernest Jackson in Plain City, who died.  So that pretty well breaks down the time in Idaho for my family.  My Great grandmother married Streeter in 1917 or so as June was born in June 1918.  Fanny and Calvin were there until after 1930, when their last child was born in Rupert that year.

James Thomas had only one child born in Idaho at Rupert.  She is a middle child, and the rest were born in the Vernal area.  That child, Sydney Bea was born in 1922.  As for Robert Leonard, he married the one wife in 1919 at Burley, but that is about all that is set in stone for him.

I do not know what the draw was to California.  All of them seemed to have died there.  I don’t know where Robert died, but I know it was in 1944 and everyone says it was California.  Nobody seems to know where, and I have not found a record.  My John William died in Livermore in 1948.  He remarried a Zane Coffey in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  We don’t know what happened to her, if they stayed together.  Fanny died in 1943 in San Francisco.  James died in Los Angeles in 1964.  California had such a draw that both of their parents, James Thomas Meredith (legally, but went by James Thomas Ross) and Damey Catherine Graham both moved to California and died in 1951 and 1933 in Fresno and Marysville respectively.  I do not know if my Great Great Grandparents ever came to Idaho, or spent any time in Utah.  Carma told me that she met her grandparents in California, so that makes it seem that while she has memory, they were not in the Vernal area.  Who knows for sure.  I seem to remember somewhere that James Thomas Meredith/Ross was a Bishop in California at one time, indicating he spent some time there, long enough to become acquainted and be called.  I don’t remember for sure if it was him or someone else who was called as Bishop.

Anyhow, it was interesting to visit with Carma.  She told me of a couple of visits to Grandpa and Grandma’s place.  She told me how impressed she was with how tender they were with Judy.  They have not visited Plain City since the early 1970’s.  She told me of a time that Grandpa came to visit them in Vernal.  She said they took them around and introduced them to the family and showed them the area.  The one comment that was interesting was that Grandpa used to swear up a storm.  According to her, every other word was a swear word.  I have never known him like that.  The only time I ever heard him swear was when the emphasis was needed, or another word sometimes just did not seem to fit.  She was surprised to learn that Grandpa and Grandma had become active.  I thought that was interesting.  She was even more surprised to learn that they both worked in the Ogden Temple for a few years.  Carma now works in the Vernal Temple.

It was good to sit and visit with her.  She loaned me a book that was given to her just the month before with all the descendents of James Thomas Ross (Jr).  I was excited about that.  It looks like we will have to call on Carma on the way to Denver at the end of this month.  To return the book and perhaps to glean some other memories from her mind.  She is 81 now, and who knows how much longer she could be around.  Getting into those ages, things change so quickly.  However, I hope she will still be around when we come to visit Utah again, and that we can pay her another visit.  Funny how things happen.

We had a great visit and we snapped a picture of Carma and me together.  I enjoy visiting family.  There are always more stories to hear.  I have many more, I record of all my visits in my regular journal.  Sorry you don’t get to read of some of those adventures.  Perhaps someday I will reiterate some of them here.