YOUNG, John Wesley

1860 - 1926  (65 years)  Submit Photo / Document

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• Name	YOUNG, John Wesley
  Birth	26 Nov 1860	Toquerville, Washington, Utah, United States
  Gender	Male
  Death	19 Apr 1926	Widtsoe, Garfield, Utah, United States
  Burial	21 Apr 1926	Widtsoe, Garfield, Utah, United States
  WAC	14 Aug 1929	SLAKE
  _TAG	Reviewed on FS
  Headstones	Submit Headstone Photo
  Person ID	I52616	Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith
  Last Modified	19 Aug 2021

  
  

  Family ID

  F26091

  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	SHIRTS, Marcia Ann ,   b. 18 Mar 1869, Kanarraville, Iron, Utah Kanarraville, Iron, Utahd. 29 Dec 1925, Widtsoe, Garfield, Utah, United States (Age 56 years)
  Marriage	19 Apr 1886	Escalante, Garfield, Utah, United States
  Family ID	F26090	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	24 Jan 2022

  
  

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• Notes

  John Wesley (Dick) Young, the eighth child and third son of Willis Smith Young and Ann Cherry Willis, was born 26 November 1860, at Toquerville, Washington, Utah Territory. John Wesley (Dick) Young was 16 and Marcia Ann Shirts was 7 years old when their families came with pioneers to settle Potato Valley in 1876. Their parents built homes and farms and Marcy and Dick were married 19 April 1886 in Escalante, Garfield Co, Utah, where Potato Valley is located. They went into the sheep business to support their family, and for the first eight years of their marriage lived in a home in Escalante. The sheep were herded on the range in and around Potato Valley. In the mid-1890's the price of farm products including sheep wool plunged to an all time low and they went broke. They then decided to homestead a farm in a mountain valley above Escalante called at that time Emery Valley. The name was later changed to John's Valley. The family first remained in their home in Escalante during the winters and went up to the homestead in the summers. The Homestead Act allowed them to obtain title to the land if they lived on it five months out of the year and could show improvements for five years. This they were able to do by the time of the 1900 Federal Census. They made a living by gardening, growing grain crops, and dairying. Dick's two brothers, William and Lemuel homesteaded with their families nearby. The nearest town at the time was called Coyote. The LDS church in Coyote was called the Marion Ward. Since the Youngs lived 20 miles away from town, they organized their own branch of the Marion Ward, first called the John's Valley Branch and later named the Henderson Branch. They were a part of the Panquitch Stake. Two towns were built in John's Valley, called Henderson and Widtsoe, both are no longer existant. Dick Young and Marcy had 9 children : Marcy Ann; John Wesley; William Riley; Gladys; Leonard M; Gertrude; Simon; Elizabeth; and Maude Roselt Young. Notes from a granddaughter's Journal of Delsa Young Duncan ; NOTE: We all grew closer to Grandma and Grandpa Young during this time (probably 1925 -1926), as they only lived a short block up the hill and came down to the town hydrant which was located near the corner of our lot to get water. Grandpa wasn't very well, and was very short-winded, so he often stopped to visit and let one of us kids carry hi s water home. They spent Christmas day with us that year. It was a warm sunny day, and Grandma mentioned the saying that a 'green Christmas meant a full graveyard.' She died two days later of a heart attack! The fine weather didn't last and she was buried in a heavy snow storm on New Year's Day." (Marcy died 29 December 1925, age 56, at Widtsoe, Garfield, Utah, and is buried there.) The journal note continues . "I was not a acquainted with death and funerals, and it seemed horrible to bury her up in those trees in all that snow. I had nightmares for weeks about it. A few days later Grandpa closed up the house, took a granddaughter Iris Bullock who had been living with them and went to California to visit his daughter Marcy and son Lenard who lived down there. We all missed them sorely for awhile . However the first part of April, Grandpa decided he wanted to come home. Aunt Marcy let her son Merril drive them home in the car. They camped out overnigh t in a park in Cedar City, and during the night Grandpa had a bad stroke . Here was Merril, just a kid really, with a pre-teen girl (Iris) and his very sick grandfather to care for. He called the store in Widtsoe with the message and Dad's brother picked him up in his car and they"( the note ended here). Dick died 19 April 1926, age 65, at Widtsoe, Garfield, Utah, and is buried there. ANN CHERRY WILLIS YOUNG 14 February 1834--19 November 1910 Written by a granddaughter of Ann Cherry Willis Young. After returning from a trip to Escalante, after an absence of 74 years, I decided to write what I knew and what I learned about my grandmother, Ann Cherry Willis Young, and my grandfather, Willis Smith Young. My grandmother, Ann Cherry Willis, was born February 14, 1834 in Hamilton County, Illinois, the first child of William Wesley Willis and Margaret Jane Willis. He was mustered into the Mormon Battalion as First Sergeant and later, made a Lt. in Captain Hunter's Company, November 10, 1847. He took a detachment of 55 sick men to Pueblo, Colorado, for the winter. No medicine was provided for the sick and only 5 days ration for the 300 miles of travel. One yoke of oxen got mired in the mud and they broke the neck of one, trying to extricate them. They prayed for help and the next morning there was a splendid pair of steers standing by the remaining oxen. They continued their journey, arriving in Pueblo December 24, traveling 45 days. Margaret Jane Willis, Ann Cherry's mother, died in Big Cottonwood after the birth of her youngest child in 1850 (the ninth child). Ann took care of her younger brothers and sisters after her mother's death. She was the mother of 11 children and raised the daughter (Dora) of her daughter Mary Francis, who died in 1884. In her very late life she took Riley, the son of John Wesley Young, to live with her. My grandmother, Ann Cherry Willis Young, was one of the most industrious, thrifty, and immaculate persons I have ever known. She never had more than the barest necessities of life, yet her home and her person were always as clean as soap and water could make them. When I knew her, her home consisted of one log room, with a lean-to for a kitchen and an underground cellar. There were two beds in opposite ends of the room and, if they were ever slept in, the beds showed no evidence of it. They were always snowy white and immaculate. She was always an early riser and if you didn't get up to breakfast you went without. I used to wonder if she ever served a breakfast without hot biscuits spread with butter and honey. The butter she made, and the honey came from a hive of bees she kept. Soon after she moved to Escalante, she was made President of the Relief Society. This organization started from scratch, not having anything and during her term of office, through her thrift and industry, she had built and paid for a small building where the society could hold their meetings. She was one of the pioneers who not only knew, but who wove her own cloth, her rugs and carpets, made her own candles and provided for her family by making and selling butter and cheese. The story is told how my grandfather decided to take unto himself a second wife. He left grandmother to fend for herself and took himself off with this new wife. When he needed some new clothes, he came crawling back, all tattered and torn. Grandmother immediately set to work to weave enough cloth for a suit of clothes and soon had him presentable. The second wife said grandmother was a fool for taking him back, but grandmother took her vows seriously. During the time I knew her, which was until 1895 when we moved from Escalante, she conducted a dairy to supply for her family's needs. She would rent a herd of cows, sometimes as many as 60 for the summer, take them up in the mountain where she had another log room and a milk house and made butter and cheese, which she would preserve during the summer, then take her produce in a covered wagon to Salina, a distance of 125 miles, to dispose of it. She would furnish employment for four or more young people to assist her in this venture. I still remember the two big copper vats in which she made her cheese. You didn't need a mirror--you could see yourself in these copper vats. They were scoured to perfection every day. Her milk house was equipped with numerous shelves. The milk was put in pans set on the shelves in the clean cool milk house until the cream came to the top when it was skimmed from the milk and made into sweet butter and the skim milk was fed to the calves. My first introduction to this milk house came when I went to visit her for a few days and had my first taste of mountain grown strawberries served with some of her good thick cream (no wonder I like cream). She followed this procedure as long as her health continued. It was a great blow to her when my mother and father left Escalante. She and my mother had always been very close and she depended so much on mother for help and companionship. The last days of her life were no brighter than the beginning. She lost her good health but not her ambition. Somewhere around 1900 grandpa suffered from gangrene in his foot and had to have his leg amputated. A few years after this, grandma had a stroke, which practically ended her industriousness. She never recovered from this stroke so she spent the last few months of her life living with her son John Wesley at Widtsoe, where she passed away November 19, 1910.