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George Abraham Smith
George Abraham Smith
Born: 8 June 1879 at Cedar City, Iron, Utah, USALovina Shurtliff
Born: 2 August 1892 at Downey,Bannock,Idaho, USALIFE SKETCH GEORGE ABRAHAM SMITH
written by himself
George Abraham Smith, the son of Joseph Stanford Smith and Arabella Coombs, born in Cedar City, Iron County, Utah 8th of June 1879. Born in the L.D.S. Church.
At the age of three months his parents, Joseph and Arabella were called by President Lorenzo Snow [more likely apostle Erastus Snow, leader of the church in southern Utah] to a colony to colonize the San Juan Country in South Western Colorado [San Juan Mission which included SE Utah and SW Colorado]. My father and Mother didn’t settle in San Juan [Utah], they settled in Mancos, Colorado where they homesteaded a farm and used oxen to do their farming and proceeded to build themselves a home.
When I was the age of three years, Arabella died leaving three children, Ada, Roy, and myself. After her death my father distributed the children among relatives. I stayed with Will and Emma Wilden who were my first cousins, until about the age of eight, during which time I attended school in the city of Mancos, walking three miles to and from school.
My father sold his farm in Mancos and purchased one in New Mexico, near a place called Farmington. My sister was about fourteen years of age at this time. My father got we three children together again and took us to his farm in New Mexico, where my sister Ada kept house and took care of the children. During this time Grandfather Hiram Smith [George's grandfather was actually named Joseph Hodgetts Smith] died. My father gathered up his children and took us back to Utah. We were there six months when father married a woman named Agnes Hendrix, a widow with one daughter.
Father bought a team and wagon and put us all in it and moved back to Mancos, Colorado. He bought an interest in a shingle mill, ran it one winter and moved back to New Mexico. We farmed for about three years and a son was born in La Plata, New Mexico, but only lived about three days and died. He was buried next to my grandfather in La Plata.
We only farmed there for a year, and then the La Plata River dried up leaving us without water for the crops so we moved to Durango. My brother and I couldn’t haul all the furniture at once in one load because my father got a job in a smelter, he got $2.00 a day and boarded himself so he sent us back to New Mexico to get a cow and the rest of the furniture. We started out with the furniture and the cow, we had to stop and camp because we couldn’t make it in one night. We tied the cow to a tree and the horse to the wagon, and we slept on the ground, my brother was 15 and I was 12. During the night the cow got loose and my brother had to get on the horse and go find her. He followed the cow all the way back home and didn’t get back that night leaving me all alone. I couldn’t find anything to eat except pine nuts. Roy came back without the cow because he couldn’t lead her or head her so he left her there, but we got back to Durango all right with our furniture.
Roy and I went to school in Durango, Roy was 17 and I was 14. We went back to La Plata alone and stayed with the Young’s and they were moving to Durango so we went back with them. While on our way our team got frightened and ran away. The wagon tipped over and my brother was injured and only lived three days afterward. He died in 1892. We got a carpenter to make a wooden box and lined it and put a mattress in it and lay Roy in it. We sent word to my Uncle Wilden who lived in Mancos. We buried Roy beside my mother in Mancos.
From then on my father continued to work in a smelter while I attended school, my father got lead poisoning and had to quit work in the smelter. We rented a farm about 12 miles north of Durango called Animas and tried our hand at farming. We lived there until I was 19. In the winter of 1899-1900, I went to school at the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, Utah. During the same year my father took a trip to Idaho with some relatives who wanted him to see the country that was just opening up around Idaho Falls. He decided to buy a place east of Idaho Falls near a little village called Ammon. He paid $1600.00 got 120 acres. In the spring of 1901 he loaded his belongings in a boxcar and stopped in Provo to pick me up, on his way to Idaho. We landed there on May 2, 1901.
A family by the name of Ezariah Williams let us move into two rooms of their home on the town site as there was no building on the farm. I and my father hauled logs about 35 miles to build a two room log house. It had a dirt roof and when it rained the roof leaked. We dug some sage brush and planted and raised a crop of grain and some hay that first summer.
In the year 1907 I was called on a mission to the Northern States. While on my mission my father bought a farm at Shelley, Idaho about 15 miles from Ammon and moved there. It was there that my father’s second wife, Agnes, died. I came home in the spring of 1909 from my mission and on December 7, 1910 married Lovina Shurtliff. Ten children were born to us in this order; Clyde Anton, George Stanford, Leland Andrus, Eva, Max LeRoy, Veda Belle, Cecil Jack, Glen LaMar, Ida Bethene, and Geraldine. Eva passed away when she was twenty two months old.
My hobby was fishing and hunting and enjoyed taking my family camping with me. The first children were born in the little log house that I and my Dad built. In the year 1914 we completed and moved into our new nine room house just west of the old one.
In the year of 1927 I was called to serve on my second mission in Florida for six months.
I have been active in the L.D. S. church all my life serving as counselor in the YMIA in the Ammon ward, President of the High Priest quorum, and Sunday School teacher.
My business activities include 21 years on the School Board, and 3 years on the Farm and Home Administration. My eyes failed me for about 4 years when had cataracts on both eyes and could hardly see to get around. Dr. Battles operated on them and removed the cataracts. Now I wear glasses and see very well and I am enjoying good health and still put in a full day’s work at the age of 78 years. My third son, Leland is working the farm that I and my father bought in 1901.
My father died April 6, 1941 at the Smith Home in Ammon and was buried in the Ammon cemetery beside his wife, Agnes.
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George Abraham Smith