James Lloyd Griffiths
James Lloyd Griffiths was born in Pengarnddu,
Glamorganshire, South Wales on 31 October,
1863, son of John Jenkin Griffiths and Eleanor
Lloyd. His father worked in the coal
mines there and he and Eleanor were converted to Mormonism by the early
missionaries. Of course their great
ambition then was to come to Utah so Eleanor
went to work in the mines also to help raise money for passage to America and, after a year of toil, part of the
time in "The Family Way", carrying my future father, James Lloyd,
they gathered enough money for her passage to America.
So with her little family of two children, Mary Ann, 3
years old and James Lloyd, approximately 6 months old, she set sail in a
sailing ship in the spring of 1864 leaving her beloved husband behind to work
another year in the coal mines to earn enough money for his passage.
Eleanor arrived along with a part of Welsh converts to
the church, including a cousin or two at Boston
Massachusetts where handcarts and
wagons were amassed for the long journey across the plains.
Mary Ann was a good child willing to ride in a cart owned
by another member of the party but little James, a robust child, was fretful
and cross and would not ride in a cart so a papoose type carriage was devised
and he was strapped to his mother's back where she carried him while she walked
those long miles.
Grandmother, Eleanor, could not afford a means to ride so
she walked the entire distance from Boston to Salt Lake
over the long stretches of plains, over mountains and through rivers, most of
the way carrying her small son. It is
thought now that the baby was constantly hungry as he depended wholly on his
mother's milk for nourishment. Her great
hardship in walking those thousands of miles with little to eat for herself must have been a terrible burden to her. Her faith was strong and there were times
when her cousin carried the baby to let her rest if the going was especially
rough. They would strap her to lower her
over the high places and pull her through the rivers to help her along.
This humble party of pioneers arrived
in Salt Lake City, Utah
and were almost immediately sent by Brigham Young to colonize in Beaver County,
in the southern part of Utah. So with a party of Welsh people they traveled
some 200 miles further on south of Salt to ultimately settle along the Beaver
river at Adamsville, where there were lush meadows to farm and raise a little
food from this virgin land.
In the same time period, Grandpa Griffiths worked until
he had enough money then embarked on a sailing ship to find his beloved Eleanor
and his babies. Not being able to speak
English, and Welsh being one of the most difficult languages you can imagine,
it is easy to see his great hard-ship not being understood in a strange and
hostile land.
In the meantime, Eleanor lived in a mud dugout with her
babies, wondering if she would ever see her beloved husband again. Grandpa was sorely disappointed on his
arrival in Salt Lake to find that Grandma and the babies
had been sent 200 miles further on.
One spring morning, a year or so after Eleanor had
arrived in Adamsville, or as it was known, "Aberdare",
in Beaver county, she was out in the yard when she saw a man coming some
distance away walking on foot and momentarily worried, she stood tall, being a
large woman, clasped her hands beneath her large white apron and watched
him. Suddenly, she threw her hands up
and cried, "Oh John!" and ran into his arms. There was a joyful reunion there in the
pathway and many tears as they told each other of their hardships and longings
for each other and his joy in find his family at last.
In the years following they added to their family by six
more lovely children, having lost one as an infant in South Wales, so they had
a total of nine. Jenkin, Mary Ann, James Lloyd, John
Jenkins, Margaret Ellen, David Lloyd, Catherine Hannah, Sarah Ellen and Ester
Elizabeth.
James, my father, grew to young man-hood learning to read
and write by the light of the fireplace, using the hearth and charcoal for
blackboard and pencil. He was an avid
student learning everything he could and at the time of his death was well
versed in current events, history, geography, astronomy, politics etc. and was
a wonderful and interesting man with a lot of love and beautiful sense of
humor. For instance, one of his favorite
stories went something like this:
One day two old farmers met on the road, each driving a
team of horses and a wagon, one said.
"G'morning Si" - "G'morning Eb" - "Say,
Si, what did you give your horse for bellyache?" - "Turpentine"
--------- "Well, G'morning Si" --- "G'morning Eb" --- "Giddap". A few
morning later the old friends met again, --- "Say, Si, what did you say
you gave your horse for bellyache?" --- "Turpentine" ---
"Well, it killed mine! ! " ---- "Killed
mine too! ! !"
In his young manhood, Father married Sarah Ellen Jones,
daughter of John J. Jones and Sarah Griffiths and they had a small daughter,
Sarah Rosetta, and a son, John Lloyd, when soon after "Aunt Nellie"
as I was told, became ill with diphtheria and died. (19 October, 1890) so
relatives took care of the children while father went to the sheep camp and
lived in a crude sheep wagon.
One day he came home in the afternoon, as he stood at the
window, called his mother and said "who is that girl coming up the
path?" and
Grandma replied "she is the new school teacher and rooms here with
us." James told his mother, "I
am going to marry her!: So Grandma introduced him to the lovely lady
who indeed became his wife in the Manti
Temple on April 18, 1894.
Clara Elizabeth Slaughter was born 13 January, 1867 in Salt Lake City, Utah,
the daughter of Samuel Nathaniel Slaughter and Annie Elizabeth Huey. She brought to the marriage a tiny daughter,
Claire Coleman, along with another infant daughter, Millie, who died soon after
birth, both daughters of Robert Coleman, her first husband. So it was, that
James and Clara started their family with her small daughter and his two small
children.
James and Clara lived in the sheep wagon that first
summer while father herded sheep and later moved to Adamsville where their
first two sons were born, Earl Edward and James Clark.
Earl died of diphtheria at the age of three in Frisco, Utah
and is buried there in a small almost forgotten cemetery amid the sage-brush,
pinion pines and cedars. Clark was a very sick baby and died at the age of two
months and is buried in the Beaver cemetery.
It was a terrible heartbreak for father and mother to lose their two
first born sons.
Soon after 1896, the family moved to Frisco, Beaver county, Utah
where a very famous silver mine, the Horn Silver, was located and where Clara's
parents, Samuel and Annie Huey Slaughter owned a general merchandise store and
post office.
Not long after moving to Frisco, James and Clara bought
the store and home from the Slaughters and Clara became the postmistress and
James took care of the store. Grandpa and Grandma Slaughter moved to Salt Lake City, Utah
where they opened a small neighborhood grocery store.
I shall always remember the old store in Frisco, the memories are very dear to me as they are to all
who lived in the precious old town. I
remember the cider barrel in the old dugout cellar at the back of the store, the stacks of overalls on a big table by the window
where I loved to climb up with a kitten and sun myself. There was a show case with ribbons and laces,
and best of all, a show case of candy.
I remember shoes, materials, and dry goods of all kinds,
the big desk with the dental forcipes tucked into a cubby hole, to be used by
father when any one needed a tooth pulled.
Many a dirty old miner or drunk from one of the saloons would come in
with an aching, smelly tooth, and father would deaden the pain with a shot of
whiskey. I wonder now if they came for
relief from the pain or for the strong drink.
There was the tiny post office in one corner, the
groceries, the big cheese cover with a round of cheese
under it, the coffee grinder and the big pot bellied stove where the tough old
miners from all over the world used to sit and tell yarns on a cold day. In the summer they sat on the store porch and
whittled sticks and told the same yarns.
Of course, these memories were after father and mother bought the store.
Upon their immediate arrival in Frisco, father was
employed at many things, he was a big strapping man with sandy hair and blue
eyes, a handsome man, very strict, yet very gentle, while mother was a tiny
five feet tall and wore a small white pair of home made slippers, size one and
a half, the same slippers she wore in the Temple when they were married.
Father hauled logs for the mine off the quartz-side
mountain using a magnificent team of matched gray horses whom he loved to tell
about. They would pull the heaviest
load, muscles rippling, responding to father's gentle voice. "Mag and
Doll" were indeed his pride and joy.
One day he found the hired man whipping them because they
were mired down in the mud with a heavy load, the man was using a whip and foul
language and the horses were badly frightened.
Father dashed out, grabbed the whip and in a stern voice said to the
man, "If I ever see you whip one of my horses again, I'll use this whip on
you!" Then father started to talk
to his horses and they quieted right down, dug in, muscles rippling, and pulled
the load out -- a wonderful sight.
After the death of the two first born, both
boys, father and mother were blessed with three lovely daughters,
Eleanor, later married to John W. Evans and the mother of four. Anna Huey, later
married to Clarence Grimshaw and the mother of two
and Estelle Grace, later married to Charles L. Fowler and became the mother of
one.
Father's oldest son, John Lloyd married Mabel McCurdy and
was the father of five, Sarah Rosetta (Zetta) father's oldest daughter married Louis Ivan Jensen
and became the mother of four. Claire,
mother's daughter, married R. Whitney Groo and became
the mother of three.
After the birth of Estelle there was a big thrill in the
birth of a handsome baby boy on valentines day. Walter David was indeed the apple of his
parent's eyes. After all the girls he
was much adored by his sisters. He
married three times, Juanita Hickman, Betty Lynn and Lucile Wood and was the father
of four boys.
After Walter came the birth of three more daughters, Alta
who married Samuel G. Hickman and became the mother of six children then came
Thelma, who died as an infant and Inez, who is myself,
the last of the children. I married
Joseph J. Steurer who died and later married Michael Bujanovich.
Mother had eleven children, nine of them by my
father. He had eleven children, nine of
them by my mother.
Thelma died soon after birth in Idaho
where she and Alta were born as the folks had moved there about 1905 to
homestead in the Moreland, Idaho
area. They were unhappy in that cold
climate, so far from home and returned to Frisco where they bought the store in
approximately 1909.
They also bought Grandpa Slaughter's home, a big rambling
lumber house painted a dark yellow. The
house was always full of laughter and love, children and happiness.
Grandpa Slaughter had planted the only tree in town, a
great locust there in the sagebrush and also a lilac bush. They grew and blossomed despite the fact that
only sage and rabbit brush flourished there.
There were also scrub cedar trees and pinion pines from which we and the
Indians used to gather pine nuts, a delicacy.
Frisco was a wonderfully happy place for this large
family, there was so much love and happiness among us despite the hardships.
As there was no water in town, it was hauled to Frisco in
big tank cars on the railroad and then peddled from door to door by a big water
wagon and sold by the bucket or barrel.
We would use it sparingly as it was used for everything a big dipper
hung on the barrel.
Occasionally we could catch a bit of rainwater in the
rain barrel at the corner of the house when we were blessed with a very
infrequent rainstorm and the softness of the water was heaven to bathe in.
Most of the time we had to rely on the water we bought
and mother was very careful about not wasting any. For instance, she would wash and rinse the
dishes then clean with the same water if she could maintain soap suds. On bath day, which usually came once a week,
she would put the old round washtub in front of the big wood range in the
kitchen and we would all have our turn bathing.
As the children were bathed and the water cooled, mother would add a bit
of boiling water from the tea kettle and bathe another child until all were
shining clean. Then she would use the
same water to scrub the floor and the back porch and when that was finished the
tub was carried out to the tree and the water was carefully poured down a pipe
into the ground so it wouldn't be wasted but soak into the ground slowly.
The same was done with the wash water, always doing a bit
of scrubbing after the clothes were washed and hung on the line to dry. No matter how black and dirty the water was
it was poured down the pipe and the tree was watered with what was left.
The great locust stood guardian over the children
providing a shady place to play, to climb and to romance in the hammock as they
grew older and the aroma of the blossoms in the spring were heaven in that
mountain wilderness of sage brush and pinion pine.
Many of the houses in Frisco were set at random through
out the sage brush, except for the ones along the main street. Some bad white picket fences as did ours to
outline the yard. The main street came
from the east where the town of Milford
was situated.
Main Street
ran past our store, a big wooden building, turned sharply at the Sachett Hotel and the Horn Silver store and ran a mile
south to the railroad depot, the spur having been laid from Milford
to haul the ore from the mine and to bring the drinking water and freight from Milford. There was also a passenger train.
From the depot the road ran west and south to the
mine. Midway to the mine is the small
cemetery where my brother Earl is resting.
He died at the age of 3 from diphtheria and because of the contagion,
could not be taken to Beaver where the folks had plots in the cemetery there.
From the depot the road ran south and west around the
point of the mountain to Newhouse, another mining town and to Wah Wah valley.
During the years the folks lived in Frisco, running the
store and mother as the post mistress, raising her family at the same time,
they were always on call in case of trouble or illness and many a time I
remember father going with the team to help someone, giving credit at the store
with food and necessities, "because the children might be hungry",
knowing some people would never pay their bill.
When the store burned in 1920 there were hundreds of dollars owing on
the books that were never collected.
Mother was the only doctor in many cases and would be
called at any hour of the day or night to deliver a baby, set a bone or treat
anything from smallpox to convulsions, there were even a few cases of gun shot
wounds in that rough and ready town. As
I mentioned before, father was the town dentist, a job he did not relish but
did of necessity.
Each fall the Indians would come with loads of roasted
pine nuts gathered from the pinion pines to sell at the store and father would
buy them. They were a delicious treat
for all the towns people.
Frisco, in it's heyday, was a
roaring town with saloons lining the length of main street and many were the
shootings and disturbances. People kept
the window blinds pulled and the doors locked at night but I never heard of any
girls being molested and I think it was due largely to the "Ladies of the
even" of which there were many.
We had a big barn with a hay mow and father would always
have the corral available to the cattle and sheep men on their drives through
town. We always had a cow names
"Buttercup or Daisy" for milk as fresh fruits and vegetables were so
scarce and mother felt her children needed the nutrition provided by the good
rich milk. I especially had been a sick
baby and, as a child, used to get my cup of foaming warm milk right from the
cow in the barn every morning and evening.
We also had an outhouse at the far end of the back yard
as did everyone in town and a Sears Roebuck catalogue available. It was a quiet place to while away the time,
looking at the pictures till one figured the dishes were done in the
house. It wasn't so bad in the summer
but could be pretty awful in the winter cold.
We kept a potty under each bed so we didn't have to go out in the snow in
the night and every morning these were emptied and washed and put back clean.
We also had the only telephone in town, a big wall phone
that had to be cranked to call the operator so she
could put the call through.
There was a phone in our house and one in the store as
well as one over at the mine. Mr. McCauly was foreman at the mine and I remember him going to
work carrying his lunch pail and wearing a tooth pick over his ear. It was always exciting to hear the big mine
whistle at 8 a.m., at noon and again at 5 p.m.
One day, as the shift was changing and old shift had just
come up the elevator, or hoist, and before the new shift went down, the whole
side of the mountain slipped down with a tremendous crash, fortunately without
loss of life. The cave in was due to the
many tunnels that had been dug all through the mountain and today one can still
see the ends of tunnels exposed on the cliff sides.
Our big house had wall papered walls, re-papered every
year or two and it was fun to pick out a pretty new pattern and make the room
look clean and pretty. The ceiling was
cheese cloth, a thin material tacked to the bare rafters and then white
washed. They would billow in the winds
and storms and sometimes they would get torn and have to be mended.
Mother had green velour drapes in the parlor and a red
velour or velvet couch she sent to Sears Roebuck for and a great walnut upright
"Beckwith" piano, also from Sears and what a joyous instrument it
was. Eleanor was given piano lessons and
Ann was blessed with a beautiful soprano voice.
The two girls were much in demand by many people to entertain with their
music at various functions until Ann's death in 1927.
Also in the parlor was a big bookcase, desk
combination. It was beautiful with books
and picture displayed on it. The piano
is now owned by Harold Hickman, a grandson in Provo, Utah.
When I was 8 years old in 1920, the store burned down one
morning when father went to open up before breakfast. He struck a match, it broke and fell beneath
the floor and, after many years of cleaning the floor with kerosene, was like a
torch and with no water except a little in a cement cistern that father had
built to catch the rain water from the store roof, the building was a roaring
inferno within minutes.
Everyone turned out to fight the fire and to save some of
the stock. The lace and ribbon showcase
was saved and a few other things but not the candy and gum much to my disgust.
Mrs. Roth, a small immigrant woman who did chores and
cleaning for mother at home, reached through the window of the burning store
and came up with a card of hat pins then slightly out of style and in her
strong foreign accent asked, "Mrs. Griffiths, are these any good?" to
which mother rushing replied, "no, not much" so Mrs. Roth threw them
back in the fire.
We moved to Milford
soon after, living in the big Burns house, a large gray stone house that was
heaven to me with it's running water and indoor
toilet. We lived there until our own
house was built.
Father tore down the big old dance hall in Frisco as well
as several other buildings for their lumber as Frisco was by then on the
decline and hauled load after load of lumber down to Milford to build the white
house in town, just north of the Clarence Grimshaw
home, later owned by Mr. Koch. He also
built another home in south Milford,
where he owned 80 acres of farm land. We
moved the following year to the farm spending a couple of winters in town.
I remember the farm with absolutely no pleasure or fond
memories, except the love of my parents for me and the occasional visits of my
brothers and sisters. The ground was
pure gumbo clay and the flies were unbelievable. Father had always wanted to try farming and
promise of alfalfa seed was great but it didn't materialize. So at 58 he was not prepared for the hard
work and mother at 54 was beset with chores and house work far beyond her
strength.
I remember the mud being tracked into the house, turning
into powder dirt to be swept with a broom, raising clouds of dust. We would sprinkle the floor with wet tea
leaves to try to lay the dust as we swept.
I remember milk pans and the cream separator and many dishes, all with
the same buck of water that seemed to follow us from Frisco as we had no
running water in the house. The water
was dipped out of the irrigation ditch, fed by the pumping of the well and was
so hard you couldn't raise soap suds on it.
The water had to heated in the wash boiler, sliver some lye soap into it
to raise a thick scum to be skimmed off before it was ready for the wash. The same had to be done for washing the
dishes.
Of course there were good times too, when our dear ones
came along with the grand-children, then there were relatives and many, many
friends to enjoy.
We lived on the farm about 10 years, moving into town
during the great depression of the 30's, where we lived in a tiny house with a
tap in the kitchen for running water--heaven!!!
Father passed away on 20 May, 1936 at the age of 73 in Milford and is buried in the Beaver
City cemetery in Beaver county, Utah.
Mother lived with Alta and Sam in Beaver, occasionally
visiting one or another of her other children until her death on 7 April, 1946
in Beaver and joined father there on the beautiful hillside in the Beaver
cemetery. She was 79 years of age.
They were wonderful, devoted parents, full of love and
consideration for each other and for their children. Their accomplishments were many and their
friends were legion.
Written by their daughter,
Inez Griffiths Bujanovich
February, 1974 Citrus Heights, California
Additional information
provided by Kenneth L. Jones, 1993
