Nancy Elizabeth Harris
1858 - 1952

Snowflake, Arizona

November 16, 1987

Dear Lydia:

We enjoyed our stay with you more than you will ever know, we are still dreaming about the things we did and the places we went while there in D.C. Here are some bits and pieces, on Grandma, as we get more we will send it to you and you can add to it.

Grandma as you know was born of goodly parents, the fourth child of John Smith Harris and Nancy Aldridge. She was born in Washington, Washington County , Utah.

In talking with Grandma about her childhood with her family as she was growing up, she mentioned several places that they lived, in Washington where she was born and Leeds, a few miles distant, and Harrisburg a few miles distant from Leeds. The town of Harrisburg was named in honor of Grandfather Moses Harris and was called Harrisburg by Brigham Young, Moses Harris being the only settler there at that time.

She spoke many times of the love that was shown between members of the family, with five brothers and three sisters she had little opportunity to become selfish and self centered. She loved each and every one of them, they were all very dear to her. She was especially close to her brother, Will, who lived close to her in St. Johns. In the fall when the fruit and grapes were ripe he would come to visit with a bag of fruit he had just picked and they would enjoy visiting while eating fresh picked fruit and many times they would reminisce of times gone by and sing songs and recite poetry by the hour.

She also enjoyed her Brother Dodd who would come down from his home in Colorado to visit her. In fact he was a favorite of hers and he took delight in teasing her, and his pet name for her was 'Bus.' He always stayed at her home when coming to St. Johns and would tease her constantly and if she didn’t do for him the way he wanted he would tell her he "Was going to the Barth Hotel," that would bring a laugh and Grandma would pamper him.

Grandma told me a story when she was about 12 that she and some playmates were out in the hills where a wash had cut through an old Indian burial and washed up an old scull. One of the girls she was playing with wanted to know what it was and Grandmother with a twinkle in her eye told her it would make a good soap dish. She told me she always wondered what the girls parents said when their daughter came toting it home.

One of the mischievous things  I remember she did:  she would make paper shoes out of paper and tie them on our old cat. You should have seen the antics that old cat would go through trying to get them off. It was entertainment for us, it gave us something to laugh at, it didn't hurt the cat and was a high light in my life.

She loved babies and one way she had of amusing them, she would put just a little honey on their fingers and then give them a feather. They would amuse themselves for the longest time trying to pick it off from their fingers. She would set and rock them and sing to them for the longest time. When grandma was 5 years of age, in March 1864 the family moved to Glendale, Utah where father John Harris purchased a beautiful piece of property about three miles north of Glendale where he had a small subterranean fed lake, it was about one hundred feet wide by two hundred feet long, grandma said that they hadn't been able to find the bottom of it. It gushed forth a stream about the size of that which ran in the old city ditch there in St. Johns, so he had plenty of water for his orchard and crops. They stayed in Glendale until June 1867 when they were driven out by the Indians, living at Leeds and Harrisburg for about three years when they returned to Glendale. She said that when the family left there her father sold the property for two wagons and four head of horses. The place to day is worth in the neighborhood of couple of hundred thousand dollars.

When Mom and Carroll and I went to Glendale we looked up Hazen Harris who was living in Glendale and he took us up to the old Harris property. We could just envision what it was like when grandma was there.

While in Glendale, Grandma met a handsome young man by the name of Andrew Vinson Gibbons. They fell in love and were married December 6, 1875. by her father, and went by wagon to Salt Lake City to have their marriage sealed in the Endowment House. Grandma told of how she worked for a woman so she could buy her shoes and dress to get married in. Grandma’s father thought it best that they should be married in a Civil ceremony before they left, Grandma said to keep down 'wagging tongues.' I think it was his way of saying in a polite way, "No hanky-panky."

Grandma and Grandpa had two children born to them in Glendale, Mother and Uncle Andy, then in Dec. of 1878 according to Church policy Granddad asked Grandma if she cared if she married her sister Ella for a second wife. Grandma gave her permission but she said it was one of the hardest things she had ever done in all her life to share her husband with someone else. Grandma and her sister Ella got along real well and were a lot of company to each other.

After eight years of farming at Glendale Granddad and his two wives decided to look for new frontiers and so they sold their place in Glendale and with three wagons, two span of horses and a pair of oxen they set out en route for Old Mexico, taking with them enough supplies to last a year and a half. The trip was slow and it took three months to travel to St. Johns, Arizona. Grandma said that the cattle and oxen traveled so slow that after traveling all day they could look back and almost see where they had camped the day before. Grandma said that the weather was rather cold this time of year and so they would heat rocks and put them at their feet in the wagon with a quilt around their legs and they would stay quite comfy. They arrived there in St. Johns Dec.6, 1883 and while they were visiting family there the Church called them to stay. There were others that were called at the same time. The Mexicans and Mormons had been having trouble for quite some time Grandma said the first night they arrived they had to stay in the post office building as it was thick walled and made of adobes. She said there was shooting and bullets hitting the building all night. Grandpa told her to lay still and not raise up in front of the window or she would be shot.

I am getting a little ahead of myself. When they left Utah with their two children, grandma drove one span of horses with a wagon and Aunt Ella drove the other with horses while Granddad drove the yoke of oxen for the third wagon. They also came with a party of three other families, the James W. Watson's, Lorenzo Watson's, and Jim Blazzard's. They had to cross the treacherous Colorado River over the Lee's Ferry Crossing. She said while crossing one of the cows jumped off the Ferry and into the river and the rest followed and swam back to the shore so they had to stop and go back and pick them up. She said that during the trip there was the constant fear of an Indian attack, but none happened. However, it wasn't very long before that a family had been attacked on that route and were killed. The Lord must have been with them to protect them. Grandpa acquired some property north of St. Johns called the Manuel Place or the Hawk Tree farm as it was known. He built a two room adobe dwelling there and it was here that Grandma was inspired by the Lord to tell Aunt Ella to get behind the organ to hide from the Federal Marshalls who were looking for the second wife in order to use her as evidence against Grandpa on a polygamy charge. Such courage she had in the time of adversity!

Grandma had to walk three miles into town to trade in eggs at the store for things that the family needed. Life was really hard in those days, it took all the courage they could muster in order to survive.

After living in St. Johns for awhile Granddad wanted to fulfill his dream of going on to old Mexico and headed for their promised land. Grandma said that when they got over into New Mexico that the hills were so steep they had to tie big logs on behind the wagons in order to give them better breaking power by dragging them behind.

When they arrived at the San Francisco River, there was a runner sent out by the Church Headquarters in

Salt Lake, for all in the party headed to old Mexico to return to St. Johns to help hold the place from the Mexicans and Outlaws or it would become a 'second Carthage.'  Being true Church members, as they were, they turned and went back. We will never know of their disappointment.

At times Grandma said it took the patience of Job to be obedient to the calls that came from Salt Lake City. Finally the Federal Marshalls decided to take Grandma to Prescott and make her testify against her husband for having a second wife. As they left for Prescott the Marshall cut right across the field instead of going by the road and of course the furrows made the ride rough and so Grandma chided him for going so fast and reckless. He told her the court was anxious for him to get her there and Grandma told him, "They expect you to get us there with whole necks don’t they?" That calmed him down and he drove a little more sanely.  Ike Barth was her lawyer and he told her if she didn’t want to testify against her husband that she didn’t have to, so when they got to Prescott she told the judge she would remain silent. That got rid of the Marshalls.

The St. Johns of Grandma’s early years was not the quiet peaceful Mormon community as we know it today. The many human factions present in the area made for some interesting living. On one hand there were the Mexicans who had been friendly at first, but who later became alarmed at the burgeoning numbers of Mormons who seemed to descend upon the area en masse. And then there were the Texan Cowboys, the Greers, who made life interesting and exciting if you take a hankering to dodging bullets. They came into town regularly to shoot up the place and fulfill their yen for a good fight, which the Mexicans were glad to respond to. The place also had its share of land-jumpers who just couldn’t seem to keep their hands off those tempting Mormon plots and who kept the Mormon community bubbling just below the boiling level most the time. The land titles were of such a nebulous variety that it was most often difficult to actually know what belonged to whom. Add to this situation a generous sprinkling of Federal Marshals lurking around the countryside looking for polygamists and you have the whole picture.

Looking back from our point of view the life in early St. Johns would have seemed very meager. There was little food at first except some raw barley. And water to be used for domestic purposes had to be hauled from McIntosh Springs. It was muddy, but they considered themselves lucky to have it.

In 1881 a Mormon Militia was formed in St. Johns of necessity to hold down the roughness and the lynches which took place without benefit of law. Venerable Nathaniel Tenney, a beloved Mormon pioneer, was shot down in the streets as he was making a shaky peace between a group of Mexicans and the Greer brothers-- then things really bristled.

In 1884 a group called the St. Johns Ring was organized by non-Mormons to drive the Mormons from the area. The situation was almost intolerable, and many brethren at the time were arrested on polygamy charges and were sent to Detroit to serve time.

She also liked to read and spent any spare time she could find reading. She liked a variety of subjects. Her first love was the Scriptures and she had her favorite passages marked throughout. She subscribed to the Readers Digest and read it from front to back. Detective stories were also enjoyed, as were Westerns. Zane Gray was a favorite author of hers. She also subscribed to the daily newspaper and kept up on all the news and could talk with anyone about current events. 

I remember when about the age of ten and I had a paper route that I was sick and grandma walked my route delivering my papers. A more loving mother never lived.

All her life she had been a lover of poetry and could recite songs or poems by the hour recalling songs sung as a child or at parties, and of course recalling these songs etc. would always remind her of some party or friend of yesteryear. Grandma liked to have company and her memory was keen and she could keep her company entertained and they would have a desire to come back and visit her again and again. I guess you might say that grandma had a zest for living.

Her interests were varied and many. She loved theatricals and in the early years of my life there were traveling shows that would come through and she never missed a one if at all possible to go. The day came that radio was the thing and of course she enjoyed that. too. Some of her favorite shows were, Amos & Andy, Fiber Mc Gee & Molly, Jack Benny & Fred Allen. She enjoyed the newscasts and especially liked Walter Winchell. The Detective stories were almost a must with her, Gangbusters, Charley Chan, Mr. District Attorney. She knew just when all these programs came on and seldom let anything interfere.

Christmas was a very important time for her, although compared to today's standards it was very meager indeed. However she made it very special to me. One time I found the bottom of a tree that someone had trimmed off of their tree and so came totting it home and she didn’t say anything to make me feel bad but, we set to work and decorated it and I didn’t know for a year or so that it wasn’t one of the finest trees there were. She loved to make candy and cakes at Christmas. At this time of year and as always she was constantly thinking of someone else's happiness.

Along with a zest for life came the adventuress in her. I was quite small when an airplane landed out where the present airport is now but, in those days there wasn’t any airport there. Anyway it was there to take people for rides and she was all excited about it and decided we were going for a ride and so she dug down in her egg money and away we went. Now people wouldn’t think of walking out there from town to ride in a plane but she did. When the plane took off on that rough ground it shuddered and shook so that we began to wonder if it was going to disintegrate and the same thing happened when we landed. What a thrill that was!

Grandma took great pride in her chickens and she always had a bunch of the best flocks in town. Her favorite breed were Plymouth Rocks. She thought they were good layers and were a meaty breed for eating. And of course in those days there weren’t meat counters to go to like there are now.

We always milked a cow and so had our own milk, cream and butter while I was little and growing up. So along with her garden, egg money and we would usually raise a beef to butcher. Of course we had to wait for cold weather to butcher and then we would usually trade with someone else and by doing that we would have beef or pork all winter. In those days the winters were colder and so we could hang our meat on the north side of the house and it would keep fine. In the summer we would lower our milk and butter down the well in a bucket and it was nice and cold as if we had a refrigerator. Once in a while for some reason or other the milk would get spilled in the well and that would really mess up our water supply for awhile.

Grandma told of a running gun fight she saw, not long after they arrived in St. Johns. There were about a dozen Mexicans on horse back who were in hot pursuit of Nat Greer who was also horse back. About six horse lengths in head and firing his pistol back over the saddle at his assailants, it seems that Nat had cut off a Mexicans ear and they were out to get him. This took place down by the old drain bridge in the North section of town. I guess that none of them were very straight shots because she never heard of anyone getting killed at that time. Yes, Grandpa and Grandma truly lived on the frontier She had a lot of trials and hardships to bear.

As you know when my mother passed away when I was born. Grandma was beside herself with grief. My dad wanted Aunt Orpha Standifird to care for me since she was younger and more able to do it than Grandma. Aunt Orpha really wanted me but Grandma wouldn’t hear of it, and so Grandma raised me from a helpless babe, no one could have been a better mother. To show how unselfish she was, when I first wanted to call her mother, she said "No, my Boy you have but one mother and that’s your dear angel mother in heaven; I couldn’t steal you from her." Such unselfishness! It’s hard to visualize a love as strong as that.

Grandma said that she had a premonition that something was going to happen to Mother. After she had been visiting and would go home she would have the most awful feeling and she would have to turn around and go right back to Mother's. This feeling she had for weeks before mother passed away.

While I was growing up she nursed me through sicknesses that would have killed most people. I remember when I had rheumatic fever real bad, the pain was gosh awful, she would wrap my legs in damp towels and place them in a warm oven to help sooth the pain, and hold my head when I was sick and threw-up. She sat up late at night using a kerosene lamp teaching me how to read. I was a slow learner, in fact Wolford Hamblin, the grade school Principal, once called me into his office and said, "Wilhelm, you are as slow as cold tar in the winter time!"

A. V. Gibbons

I was about 6 years of age when one day some men brought Grandpa home. he couldn’t move and they had to carry him into the house and lay him on the bed. He didn’t move from that bed very far for nine long years. During that time she had very little help from any one. Poor old Granddad passed away in Jan. 1932.

Granddad had trouble expressing himself after he had his stroke and one day while Grandma was washing dishes she was thinking about their life together and some of the stormy events that had taken place in their life and she was just wondering to herself if she and Granddad would want each other in the hereafter. Whenever Granddad wanted her to come he had learned to tap his cane on the floor and all of a sudden he, in a very impatient manner, tapped on the floor for her to come. When she went in to him he took hold of her hand and said, "I’m for you and you’re for me."  So that set her mind at ease and she was very surprised that he had been able to communicate.

Grandma was getting up in years when she took on the responsibility of me when I was born, she was 58 years old then, quite old to be raising a second family, In 1939 she lost her only son, Andy, he was killed in an auto accident on the streets of Phoenix. With both of her children gone it was almost more than she could stand, but she kept on going.

While Granddad was still up and around, Grandma was active in Church, in Relief Society, she was Primary President for years and years. Grandma was a very spiritual woman, hers was a practical view of the Gospel. She had trials more than most people could bear. One day as she was going to town, she was feeling extra down. She asked herself, "I wonder just what the Lord expects from us," and just at that moment she saw a little white card lying on the ground, she stooped to pick it up and read it. It said, 

"Serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind". The numerical possibilities of these two things happening by chance, her query and the answer she picked up off the street would run into the trillions. It is very few select people that the Lord would bestow such an honor.

Grandma’s spirituality was taught to her at a very early age by the example of her parents and especially her father. It was said of him that he was the kindest best man that ever lived. He was the type of man that would be put in as scout master in any ward he lived in. All the kids in the neighborhood loved to be with him, and it was considered a stroke of luck to be able to tag Uncle John.

When the key to the local chapel disappeared into the pockets of some of the big boys in town and could not be retrieved by anyone including the bishop:, it was Uncle John who was finally sent to see what he could do. Upon his arrival, the spokesman for the group said, "Ah, Uncle John, we were afraid they’d get around to sending you." The key was relinquished, and Uncle John didn’t even have to ask for it.

During his stay in Mexico he found a widow who had contracted smallpox and was suffering terribly. No one dared go near her to help in any way, and her situation was indeed pathetic. But it was not so with John S. Harris, for he took her into his home, simply trusting that the Lord knew the situation and would bless them. The Harris’ cared for her until she passed away. The neighbors made a coffin but dared not come to help prepare her for burial so John and his family cared for the body and performed the final rites over the grave.

This simple, honest faith which is evident in the previous incident seemed to permeate his life. He was not concerned with the wealth of the world and several times turned away from activities which would have made him a lot of money. He sought out the simple life and was free from envy and strife.

One time when he was in debt to the tune of $200, he went before the Lord and explained the need he had and asked for divine help, trusting that the Lord would care for those that loved and served him. Shortly thereafter his sons discovered a cave full of Indian relics which when sold brought the exact amount to the family of $200 which paid the debt.

In reading of the life of John S. Harris, of his unselfishness, of his great faith in the Lord and of his endurance it is easy to see where Grandmother got her many attributes from.

Thinking of her love and concern for the sick, whenever she heard of anyone that was ill she would go to the chicken run and pick one of her choice hens, she always said that a laying hen made the best soup. Anyway off the old hens head would come and she would proceed to make a soup for them. When it was finished she would call me from whatever I was doing and send me on my way with a bucket of the best chicken soup that anyone ever ate. She always said there wasn’t anything like chicken soup to heal. And of course now some of the Doctors have found that there seems to be something healing to chicken soup.

She loved pretty dishes and many a time when she had gone shopping she would come home with a special dish that she had found

Grandma grew up having to knit her own stockings and so she not only, in the early days of her life through necessity knit her own, she learned to knit men's socks, and also she had learned the skill of making lace. She made beautiful fine lace that was her pride and joy and at one time she took a prize at the fair for it.

There were two dates in the year that were very special to her and as long as she lived she made them special days and while she was able she would have her family in to help her celebrate. The 6th day of August was her birthday and the 6th day of Dec was her wedding anniversary as well as the date they arrived in St. Johns. She would fix chicken soup and dumplings, a stacked cream pie and strawberry pudding. She loved to cook but had her own favorite dishes that were her own specialty.

I loved grandmother with all my heart she was the only mother I ever knew, even though she was sweet and even tempered, when necessity called she could be stern. My older brothers, Roy and Marion use to tease her a lot. One evening just at dusk and visibility wasn’t too good, Grandma was out side just getting ready to go in the front door, when Roy and Marion drove up out front, Grandma couldn’t tell who they were, when one called out in a disguised voice, "Is that kid of yours at home?" (meaning me).

"No", she said "I think he is working up at the theatre."

"Well, we’ll fix him up when we find him, and you don’t need to think your so smart either."

Well, that did it! Grandma squared her shoulders, doubled her fists and headed for the front gate, "What's that you say, you SOB, you can’t talk to me that way!" By that time Roy and Marion could contain themselves no longer they burst out in a fit of laughter until the tears came to their eyes. We will never know what Grandma would have done if my brothers would have been strangers.

Lydia, you and I and all of Grandma’s offspring are very fortunate in having the heritage that we do in Grandma Gibbons. 

What she accomplished seems almost super human. I hope that I have been able to help you out on your writing of Grandmas History. I know that you already knew most of what I have written but just wanted to fill in for my own information as I am going to save a copy of this. I may be wrong on the accuracy of some of what I have said but this is the way I remember it. So please forgive me for any errors you might detect here. Mom and I have enjoyed reminiscing about Grandma.

Good luck to you on your writing endeavors.

Love

Mom and Dad