The Visit

Last night the Ward Mission Leader, by appointment, which we had forgotten about and didn’t even have the porch light on, brought the missionaries assigned to our ward for a visit.  One of them was named Elder Carroll.  “Two ‘r’s’; two ‘l’s’,” he quips. 

I’ve met several people named “Carroll” but none of them has turned out to be related.  “Where are you from?”  “Arizona.”  This is getting suspicious.  “Did your grandparents move from Emmett, Idaho to Gilbert, Arizona?” 

“Yes.” 

“I think we might be quite closely related.  Who are your grandparents?” I asked. 

“Do you know Charley and Darlene Carroll?” 

It didn’t ring a bell.  “Darlene?  But wait, I knew a Charley Carroll.  We called him Charles.  He was my classmate, friend and cousin.  All the girls in elementary school were in love with him.  Especially me.” 

Play School.  Teacher Emily Adair.  Charles Carroll, front row, second from right.  Jeanette, back row left.

Reversed, boys in back. ?, Kirt Carpenter, Jack Crofts, Charles Carroll, Dale Heaton, John Hardy, Odean Crofts ?, Front:  Jeanette Esplin, Georgia Troy, Mary Lee Esplin, Juanita Chamberlain, Lorene Chamberlain, Maureen Crofts.  Mama's front lawn.

He didn’t know much about their history.  His grandmother is still alive but Charles died before this 18-year-old was born.  “When Grandpa died, he had two grandchildren.  Now he has 60,” Elder Carroll says.  His grandfather had two acres; his grandmother still lives on one acre and his father and his family live on the other acre.  Charley and Darlene had 13 children.

So I told him what I could remember about his grandfather.  His family moved from Orderville just after the War to buy a dairy farm near Emmett, Idaho.  We took my mother to visit them there once.  My brother spent a summer with the family working on the farm.  We exchanged Christmas gifts even after they moved.

This child didn’t even know he had roots in Orderville or anything about the United Order or that his grandfather’s great grandfather came down from Heber City with his wife and 14 children and financially rescued the United Order.  “The United Order verged on bankruptcy, Brother Carroll came up with the money to pay its debts and the Order continued to exist for ten years (1875-1885). “

  I knew most of those 14 children of Charles Negus and Kezia Giles Carroll.  They were my great aunts and uncles and when I grew up in Orderville, most of them lived there.

THE CARROLL FAMILY.  Grandma Heaton, inserted center back.  Gathered for her funeral.

 None of us will ever forget the row of great aunts with stern faces and Aunt Lucy, more pleasant and accepting, sitting on the exact same row each Sunday in church.  We always had to pass them to get to the back row where we liked to sit with our friends but just a glance at their row was enough to let us know we had better behave in Church no ifs-ands-or-buts.  (That was in the days when families didn’t sit together.  Teens always had the back rows.)

All of my great aunts and uncles were a stern and stabilizing force in my life.  My Great Uncle Ed Carroll gave me my Patriarchal Blessing.  He also gave me Scotch Blessings for running around with those “wild” Kanab kids who ran stop signs (DeRay).  He was also the Justice of the Peace.  (DeRay said he stopped.)  I think Uncle Ed might have been a little carried away with his job and a little prejudiced!  That was just my feeling; maybe because I liked a certain Kanab boy!

The only one I didn’t know was my grandmother, Lucy Elizabeth Carroll Heaton, who was the first to die.

One lovely day in May, Jonathan Heaton noticed three wagons, two drawn by horse teams and one by a yoke of oxen, coming down the canyon.  Also in the entourage was a bunch of sheep driven by two small boys.

"Someone moving," he said to himself.  When they stopped nearby, he went up to inquire their destination.  He learned that it was Brother Charles Carroll, moving his family and all his possessions to join the United Order at Orderville.

Was it the fact that Brother Carroll had a large family and most of them were girls that caused Jonathan to dream that night that he married Lucy, the second daughter.  In his dream, the children born to them would come in even numbers, two boys, two girls, two boys, two girls, two boys, and one girl.  His dream came true and even though he was then a young married man with two children, he made Lucy his plural wife.  They were married in December, when Lucy was sixteen years old.  Those were the days when the Church was building up its number by the process of plural marriage.  Those entering this sacred Order did so in faith and with absolute willingness to live this principle.  No one did this with greater fairness and justice than Jonathan Heaton.  From The Other Mother by Amy C. Stark, 1938.

This is how I am related to Elder Carroll.

His Great Grandmother, Elsie, is my mother’s half-sister; and my dad’s (half) first cousin.

His Great Grandfather, Rulon, is my mother’s first cousin on his dad’s side and my dad’s first cousin on his mother’s side.

Elsie and Mama had the same father but different mothers.  Elsie’s mother was a half-sister to my dad’s mother.  Mama’s mother was a sister to her husband, Rulon’s father.  Daddy’s father was a sister to Rulan’s mother.

The married couples were not related to each other in anyway.

This is not a riddle.

It is polygamy.

Intertwined in complex ways.  I doubt I’ve covered them all.

Elder Carroll did not know any of his great uncles or aunts.  Clarence, Albert, Donald.  They all moved to Arizona when his grandfather moved.  Eventually Elsie and Rulon moved down there too.  And died there.  The girls, whom he didn’t know either, Marlene, Lucille, Clara Mae and another one that I can’t remember, all stayed in Idaho.  Margaret maybe.

I loaned him a big, fat hardbound book on the Carroll family, a request gift from my sister, Carol, one “r”, one “l”.  He needs to know about his ancestry.  He says the Don Carroll running for Fruit Heights mayor is our cousin also.  Neither of us knew if he won or lost.  I didn’t vote because he had a family name and he was running against a woman.  How could I vote against a cousin or a woman?  I would choose both.

How many cousins visit my home on a dark November night and I do not know it because they do not carry the family name?  All married women’s identities are lost to pleasant reminisces.  (And we have a double loss because DeRay changed his family name.)

I would have combed my hair if I had known I was going to meet a long lost cousin; a grandson of a cherished childhood friend.

“He looks like him too,” I mused to DeRay as they closed the door.

I wish I had taken his picture.  Maybe when he returns the book.

 (An interesting side note on missionaries.  Bob Smith, our Ward Mission Leader, said there are so many missionaries out, they don't know what to do with them.  That's why they visit the ward members and leave a short message.  A note in our ward bulletin on Sunday, November 17, read:  "Our missionaries, Elder Carroll and Elder Martin, are available Tuesday thru Saturday from 10:00 to 3:00 p.m. for any service needed for members.  Contact number is 801-309-8963."  Last week they were only available from 12 noon until 2 pm.)

CHARLES NEGUS CARROLL

From Page 4 of THE SECTION by Amy Stark:

Willard Carroll writes: I was born May 10, 1848, at a backwoods place called Carroll's Ridge, British Province of New Brunswick, Canada.  My grandfather, Patrick O'Carroll, with his wife Ann Negus and his sons William, Charles Negus, and Patrick cleared farms adjoining each other.  There I was born and there I remained till I was six years of age.  On May 10, 1854, my birthday, we took the Steamer "John Warren" on the St. Johns River for our start to Utah. 

Brent Hugh adds: The St. Johns River flows into the Bay of Fundy (famous for its high tides) which connects into the North Atlantic.  This is near the NE tip of the U.S., ie, bordering Maine.  Most probably the group steamed all the way down the east coast of the U.S., around into the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, then up the Mississippi to Saint Louis.  Probably around a two- or three-week journey, possibly all in the same ship, or possibly changing to a riverboat in New Orleans. 

Father was presiding elder of the branch in South Hampton and was put in charge of a company of fifty-seven converts on their way to Zion.  I remember going aboard the steamer, and of being sick.  I remember landing at St. Louis, MO., and the camp ground at Ft. Leavenworth, where my mother died of cholera, also my brother, Frederick, and my sister, Emma, the three being buried in one grave.

Brent Hugh: It would have been possible to steam up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Independence (and probably as far as Leavenworth, too).  My impression is that this was the usual way to cross the state.  By 1854 I think the railroad had reached Independence (if not 1854 then soon after), so that is a possibility, too.  The third possibility is that they simply went overland from St. Louis.  This would have been the cheap way, but he makes it sound as though the "oxen" part starts in Leavenworth.

"Ft. Leavenworth" is Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on the Missouri River and in fact just across the border from Missouri.  Fort Leavenworth was one of the oldest of the U.S. military forts, established in the 1820s.  Its purpose was to guard the frontier in general and the travelers on the Oregon Trail in particular.  Ft. Leavenworth was a major stop along the Oregon Trail, probably three or four days out from Independence (the trailhead).

The city of Leavenworth, Kansas was established adjacent to the fort by a group of settlers from Missouri in 1854, the very year the Carrolls were there. 

Today, Ft. Leavenworth is remarkable mostly because it houses one of the largest federal penitentiaries.  Leavenworth is near the Kansas City International Airport, that is, about 30 miles from our house in Raytown. 

When I was in Leavenworth a few months ago, I noticed a large and rather old looking cemetery.  I wonder if by any chance these graves could be found there.

At the beginning of the travel year when the Carrolls were there, probably a large camp was maintained around Ft. Leavenworth, as groups collected and prepared for the westward journey.  With a large group, quick turnover, and poor sanitation, cholera outbreaks were probably rather common (cholera is spread only by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the stool of other cholera patients).  Cholera begins with chills, progressing to diarrhea and vomiting, which is so severe it can lead to circulatory collapse and death within one hour.  Even if patients survive this first onslaught, they are susceptible to relapses (often fatal) for several weeks.  Without modern medical treatment, the death rate is on the average 50%.  It sounds like the Carrolls experienced pretty much the entire gamut of the cholera experience.

I remember that start by ox team, but not much of the journey across the plains, as I was very sick.  My brother, George, died two weeks after we started the westward trek by team, leaving my father and myself as the only survivors of our family of six.  I was so sick and wasted I could not sit up.  The days were hot and sultry, and I had no energy, not even enough to brush the flies from my face. 

Brent Hugh: I can testify to the truth of this.  By now it would be late June/early July, ie, 90 degrees/90% humidity, and not a shade tree in sight.  And they would have been coming from winter in a cold climate--quite a shock.

BTW, at this point they were following the traditional Oregon Trail, not the Mormon Trail.  The way they were coming, going by the Mormon trail would have entailed traveling a couple hundred miles out of their way.  It made more sense to just take the Oregon Trail, which eventually meets up with the Mormon Trail anyway. 

I suspect that the first part of the Mormon Trail (between Winter Quarters and where it meets the Oregon Trail) was relatively little used by now, as Winter Quarters was mostly emptied of Mormons (Remember Edward Pugh stayed in the area gathering foodstuffs for various travelers until about 1856. I suspect he was one of the last Mormons to leave the area.)

Father was so worn out with loss of sleep and grief and sorrow, that he could scarcely care for our needs and those of the oxen.  He often crawled into camp on his hands and knees, being too exhausted to stand up and walk.  All the long and weary way across the plains, he had to lean heavily on the yokes of his oxen for support.

He later married Kezia Giles Carroll, who joined the church and immigrated to America from England with her parents and 8 siblings, spending the first two years in St. Louis, Missouri, before crossing the Plains in 1856 in Captain Merrill’s Company.  She married Charles Negus Carroll and they soon started the settlement now known as Heber City where they lived and prospered for 20 years before moving to Southern Utah to join the United Order.