Look Upstream: Junius Romney in Mexico and the United States

© 2012 by JOSEPH BARNARD ROMNEY. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/20/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4895-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4894-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4896-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915087

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Junius Romney—Grandpa Romney—who with his wonderful wife Gertrude Stowell Romney—Grandma Romney—

lived a courageous life, and overcame daunting challenges by his dedication to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, as practically applied in all stages of his life. In doing so he successfully completed a swim upstream in his mortal existence.

Acknowledgment

Writing this book has been a family affair. Some of the participants have passed on, but perhaps they might still learn about it. Grandpa himself wrote much about all stages of his life, but especially the period of the exodus in 1912. All the rest of his life can be measured as before the exodus and after the exodus. Still, it was always a full life. Grandma Romney was an anchor to which he was attached. Moreover she collected a massive quantity of documents that provide insight into her husband’s thoughts and actions. Children Olive, Junius S., Kathleen, Margaret, Eldon, and Paul participated in various ways as characters in the drama and also participants in the preparation of the documents which reveal Grandpa’s life. Likewise the extended family provided a complex of relationships which were a significant part of Grandpa’s life

My wife, Florence, spent many hours organizing the letters, and other documents—a monumental task. She also made significant contributions in editing the text and preparing illustrations. Our children, Matthew, Suzanne, and Aaron, and their families also assisted in many ways. A special thanks to the other grandchildren of Grandpa Romney, for their encouragement and support throughout this labor of love.

Time was provided in sabbatical leaves from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA and Ricks College, Rexburg, ID. Billie McKimm at Cal Poly helped with the typing. Thanks to AuthorHouse for pulling this all together.

Writing this book has taken more time than I anticipated. I hope it does some good in helping us all know more about Junius Romney, whether we are family or not. He is a man worth knowing about.

Introduction

In his role as the young stake president of the Juarez Stake in Mexico, Junius Romney is the central figure in this last great Mormon exodus. It follows in the series of exoduses, which began in Kirtland, Ohio, and continued through Missouri and Nauvoo to the Great Basin. He, with many others, lost virtually all of their material possessions in that final exodus.

Romney’s life exemplifies the lives of pioneer Latter-day Saints who made the desert blossom as a rose. Born in 1878 in St. George, Utah, he moved with his family to Mexico in 1885 where they contributed to the founding of Colonia Juarez. This was one of eight Mormon colonies founded in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora. He attended school in the Juarez Stake Academy, with some studying in Salt Lake City, Utah. Junius away from a career as an educator, he became a successful businessman. He was active in the church and held several callings before being called as president of the Juarez Stake when just 30 years of age. The last two years of his tenure as stake president were during the Mexican Revolution. As the religious leader of the colonists he was also their de facto political leader. As such, he was the central figure in the struggles, which the colonists had during the Revolution, which eventually led to the entire stake evacuating their homes in the summer of 1912.

After the exodus, Junius’ family lived in El Paso, Texas, for several months, then moved to Los Angeles, California, finally before moving to Salt Lake City, Utah. Soon after the exodus Junius found work as an agent for The Beneficial Life Insurance Company where he rapidly rose to a position of leadership. Because of the actions of others, with which he felt uncomfortable, he left Beneficial Life. He tried four other occupations with several associates, before he bought the State Building and Loan Association.

Later named the State Savings and Loan Association, the company increased its assets from about $200,000 at the time of its purchase, to about $30,000,000 at the time of Junius’ retirement. During the same time, Junius sold life insurance, with sales frequently in excess of $1,000,000 a year. While doing this, he and Gertrude raised a family of six children—three boys and three girls.

From the time he began to earn money after the exodus he was generous in dividing his income among his immediate family, his extended family, and others who were likewise trying to find their way in a new country. He settled in a home in Salt Lake City, which became the center of his family life, and where he lived the rest of his life until he died at 93 years of age.

From the time of his birth Junius was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. His life was founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ. His belief in the restored gospel was the basis for his determination, which led him to succeed in the face of many obstacles. His sense of humor enlightened his own life and the lives of those around him. His character was unblemished.

This story uses some published sources, but draws largely upon Junius’ papers, which fill about ten file boxes. Much of it is told in his own words. As a result it is a book principally on the life of Junius Romney, not on Junius Romney and his times.

Contents

1.   England To Mexico

2.   Junius’ Youth In Mexico

3.   Early Married Life

4.   A Young Stake President

5.   Life As The Revolution Begins

6.   The Revolution Intensifies

7.   The Exodus Of The Women And Children

8.   The Exodus Of The Men

Illustrations

9.   Exodus—The Aftermath

10.   Rebuilding Life Through Life Insurance, 1913-1920

11.   New Occupations, Church, And Family, 1921-1928

12.   A Mature Business And Retirement, 1949-1957

13.   The Final Stretch Upstream After Almost A Century Of Life, 1958-1971

Illustrations

Chapter 1

ENGLAND TO MEXICO

England to St. George, Utah

Romneys like to trace their ancestry back to George Romney, one of England’s greatest portrait painters of the 18th century. They would also likely approve of being connected with the geographical area of southeastern England in the county of Kent where the towns of Romney and New Romney are located and where the breed of Romney sheep originated. They are less interested in tracing their ancestry back to the Headless Horseman of Romney Marsh. They might accept as a statement of their independence (some mistakenly call it stubbornness) what one writer has said that the inhabitants of that area revel in their remoteness almost to the point of hostility to strangers and proudly declare that there are five continents in the world—Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney Marsh.¹

Junius’ grandparents lived in Dalton-in-Furness in the county of Lancashire, interestingly the location of the grave of the famous George Romney painter, not far from Liverpool, England. Their ancestors for several generations had lived in that area. Those grandparents, Miles and Elizabeth Gaskell Romney, heard the message of the restored gospel in 1837 from the lips of Orson Hyde, who was on the first Latter-day Saint mission to Great Britain. They were baptized in 1839 and traveled on the ship Sheffield to New Orleans then up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois where the Saints had gathered. After being forced from Nauvoo in 1846 the Romneys stayed in the Mississippi valley until 1850 when they traveled by team to the Salt Lake Valley. Miles subsequently served a mission in England and then moved with his family to St. George, Utah.

Junius’ father, Miles Park Romney, was the sixth child of Miles and Elizabeth. Born in Nauvoo, he moved west with his parents. Following his marriage at eighteen years of age, he served a mission to England. In 1867 he responded to a call to settle in St. George, Utah, where he married his third wife, Catherine Jane Cottam in 1873.

Catherine’s ancestry followed a path similar to that of her husband. Her parents were also born and reared in Lancashire, England, where they likewise heard and accepted the gospel message as preached by missionaries in 1837. They immigrated to Nauvoo and then moved west to Salt Lake City, where Catherine was born in 1855. The Cottams were among the first to colonize St. George to which they moved in 1862. To the union of Miles Park and Catherine was born their third child, Junius, on March 12, 1878.²

It can be seen that these people were of good pioneer stock, willing to go where they had to go and do what they had to do. Their lives required significant effort. They were like the prophet Joseph Smith who said, I was born to swim in deep water. Another saying of unknown origin applies the water metaphor to the Romney family: If a Romney should drown in a swift moving stream, look for his body upstream. This particularly applies to Junius. To understand him one must look upstream as he swims against the currents of life.

St. George to Mexico

Miles Park worked in St. George as head of the carpentry shop, which was particularly involved in the building of the tabernacle. His father was the principle architect and general superintendent of the construction of that building. By 1879, Miles Park had married Hannah Hood, Caroline Lambourne, Catherine Cottam (Junius’ mother), and Annie Marie Woodbury. Also by that time the United States government had passed several statutes prohibiting polygamy, which statutes had been declared constitutional. Believing, as he did, that polygamy was divinely instituted, Miles Park determined to do what was needed to continue practicing it in spite of governmental actions to stamp it out.

Responding to the call of the Presidency of the church, Miles Park moved from St. George to St. Johns, Arizona in 1881, taking Catherine and her five children with him. While there he was vigorously pursued by Federal marshals and even brought to trial. Catherine was on the underground for much of the time, which sometimes required her to hide in cornfields during the day and stay with friends during the night. This led her to flee to a place in New Mexico called Luna Valley.

After a time the family returned to St. Johns, but the persecution there led Miles and two of his wives, Catherine and Annie and their families, to return to St. George. Caroline had left Miles and returned to Salt Lake City and Hannah remained in St. Johns. In that same month the church leaders in Salt Lake wrote to the saints that the government officials were determined not to punish polygamy alone but to destroy our religion. Their advice, to those members who chose to, was to obtain a place of refuge under a foreign government.³

Miles, Hannah, and Annie made their way to Mexico in 1885 and 1886. Two years later Catherine and her family followed them. Before leaving they were invited into the parlor of grandfather Cottam’s home to receive a parting blessing from President Wilford Woodruff, who for some time had been an occupant of the Cottam home, together with his plural wife, Emma, and their daughter, Alice.⁴ They traveled by team to Milford, Utah where they boarded a train to Deming, New Mexico, where they were met by Miles. They traveled by team and wagon to Colonia Juarez. Sadly not long after their arrival, Claud, Junius’ brother, was stricken with scarlet fever and died. This death so affected Junius that well into his later years he took measures to properly identify Claud’s death with an appropriate headstone in the Colonia Juarez cemetery. They arrived after Colonia Juarez had relocated from its original location on land owned by Don Luis Terrazas, a rich and powerful landowner, to land two miles to the north where the valley narrowed considerably.⁵

We can now go back over this same period of time, specifically following the life of Junius Romney. Born in St. George, Utah, March 12, 1878, he was later told by his mother that he was an exceptionally robust child at birth. Junius said only that the first four years of my life were spent in St. George.⁶

Catherine was apt at making chair seats, a skill she learned from her father. We can imagine Junius sitting comfortably on the seat of a chair made by mother and father. He undoubtedly had many children with whom to play since by the time he was four he had thirteen brothers and sisters (these titles were given by Junius to all children of any of Mile’s wives), many cousins, and lots of neighbors. His mother likely spent considerable time cleaning red dirt and dust from his hands and clothes. Although he may not have been able to recall any experiences during those first four years, they undoubtedly molded his character. We can see in his adult life not only the genetic characteristics he received at birth, but also the impact of the character of parents, which he described in this way:

My recollection of my father is of a man with a keen intellect, of great natural endowments as an actor, a man of public spirit and a natural leader with high ideals, but with very strong likes and dislikes; a man with stern rigid discipline but with a kindly heart. My recollection of my mother is that she was a woman of tenderest sympathies who threw the mantle of charity around the weaknesses of everyone and who was a natural peacemaker and friend of the oppressed. She was the kind of a woman that everyone in sorrow or distress would instinctively turn to and was a woman of refinement and great natural endowments, but whose experiences had called for constant self-denial and self-sacrifice which she learned to endure without the slightest complaint. She was a lover of nature, which love she sought to cultivate in her children and to look for the good in people with whom they came in contact.⁷

In 1881 Junius moved with his family to St. Johns, Arizona traveling in a covered wagon, which crossed the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. He remembered watching the wagons and horses load onto the ferry and crossing in a small boat from which he allowed his fingers to trail in the muddy water.⁸ They lived in St. Johns for about two years, first in a log cabin with a dirt floor… . then in a substantial two story wooden home.⁹ Life was not easy there, and the harassment for polygamy must have made life there very unsettling. One of Junius’ sisters relates a miraculous healing he had in St. Johns during that time. Once while Catherine was left alone for some weeks, Junius developed ear trouble that caused him to scream with pain. Despairing one night, his mother prayed fervently for relief. She stated later that as clearly as if a voice spoke to her, the promptings of the Holy Ghost told her that if she would have a certain patriarch bless him the child would recover. It was late at night and the elder patriarch lived about a mile away, so she wrapped the child in a blanket and walked to his home. He got out of bed and blessed Junius, saying that if Catherine’s faith were sufficient her child would recover and live to fill important positions in the church… . The child who had been screaming… went to sleep while the blessing was being pronounced.¹⁰

While the Romneys were undergoing these difficult times in St. Johns, an event occurred in Ogden, Utah, which was to be a great blessing to Junius and to his potential posterity. Brigham and Olive Bybee Stowell, together with Brigham’s father, worked a ranch located on the east side of the valley, not far from the present location of Ogden High School. They had suffered the heartbreak of losing two small daughters to diphtheria when their third baby girl, Gertrude, was born on May 27, 1882. Years later, Junius wrote of the sadness occasioned by those deaths, but then envisioned what must have been the surroundings of that birth—the beautiful spring weather with majestic mountains towering above, a brook running through the property, and buttercups and Indian paint brush crowding the bench land. He continued, Not only the beauties of nature, however, delighted the occupants of this modest home on that particular day, for it was on that day that their third little daughter, later given the name of Gertrude by them, came to cheer their lonely hearts.¹¹

Back in St. Johns, the antagonism of the gentiles in the valley and the persecution from the marshals became so intense that Miles was not able to pursue his business enterprises. Leaving Hannah and her children behind, he, Catherine, Annie, and their children left in the fall of 1883 and retraced their journey of three years earlier past Lee’s Ferry and up to St. George. During the monotonous trip, a Brother Bradshaw carried some of the children in his wagon. Junius recalls that during that two-week trip, his older sister Caroline organized them all into a Sunday School during which they sang practically all the songs in the Sunday School song book. We nearly drove the driver insane.¹² Junius’ older brother Thomas also recalled this experience and noted that, when Brother Bradshaw vehemently told the kids to be quiet, Miles forcefully said that his children were not kids.¹³ They arrived in St. George in January 1884.

Junius and his family again lived with his Cottam grandparents. He recollected the care with which Grandfather Cottam tended the tabernacle and its grounds, of which he was custodian. He also remembered the spritely steps of his grandmother as she walked as straight as you could shoot an arrow down the street. He loved the fragrance and the beauty of two large lilac bushes that graced the front of the Cottam home.

The Romney family did all they could do to help themselves. Catherine took in washing to help pay their way; Thomas helped in the fields; and Junius tended cows. Some forty-five years later Junius wrote:

My recollection of these early experiences is very vivid for it was an extremely lonely experience for a boy of seven years of age to spend the day alone with a herd of cows and listen to the mournful notes of the mourning doves. The sands were so hot that I used to run from one bush to another and stand on one foot at a time in the shade and hold the other one up crying bitterly while the other foot cooled. I remember with what pleasure I spent the few hard earned dimes purchasing presents for mother and the members of the family.¹⁴

A school was taught in the basement of the tabernacle, but Junius gave no indication that he attended classes there. He was baptized in the temple font when he was eight years old by a Brother Winsor.

After the passage of the Edmunds Act in 1882, persecution for plural marriage became more intense. Catherine and her children were even forced to live under an assumed name.¹⁵ They were requested by Miles to join him and Annie’s family in Mexico. The generosity of the Cottams was again demonstrated as they provided clothing for the children—Junius was furnished with two new suits of clothing, two pairs of shoes and plenty of warm underwear and even with ear muffs¹⁶ and other things to make him comfortable. The Cottams also paid for their railroad fare as far as it would take them. As had happened years before when they left, President Wilford Woodruff came down from his upstairs apartment and talked with the family in the parlor. He blessed them and gave each of them a kiss as they departed.¹⁷

¹.   Dore Ogrizek, Great Britain, England, Scotland and Wales (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1949), 317.

².   For the lives of Miles and Elizabeth see Caroline Eyring Miner, Miles Romney and Elizabeth Gaskell Romney and Family (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1978). For the family of Miles Park Romney see Thomas Cottam Romney, The Life Story of Miles Park Romney (Independence, Missouri: Zion’s Press and Printing Company, 1948).

³.   Romney, Life Story, 177, 178.

⁴.   Ibid, 180.

⁵.   The general history of the Mormon colonies, including the period of time we have just discussed can best be read in a book by Junius’ older brother, Thomas Cottam Romney, The Mormon Colonies in Mexico (1938; republished with an introduction by Martha Sonntag Bradley, The Univ. of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 2005).

⁶.   Junius wrote an autobiography tracing his life up to 1930. It was typed and added to documents later, with the help and encouragement of his daughter, Olive, and divided into several sections. This narrative and his other essays and sketches will be designated by the title they carry in his papers, preceded by the initials JR. This current reference is to JR, Early Life, 1.

⁷.   Ibid, 1.

⁸.   Ibid.

⁹.   Miner, Miles Romney, 153; Romney, Life Story, 168.

¹⁰.   Miner, Miles Romney, 204-5.

¹¹.   JR, Biography of Gertrude Stowell Romney, 1.

¹².   JR, Caroline Eyring Miner, 2.

¹³.   Romney, Life Story, 174-75.

¹⁴.   JR, Early life, 2.

¹⁵.   Miner, Miles Romney, 155.

¹⁶.   JR, Early Life, 2.

¹⁷.   Junius and his brother Ernest were later able to repay the railroad fare. Romney, Life Story, 188-89.

Chapter 2

JUNIUS’ YOUTH IN MEXICO

By the time Junius was eight years of age he had lived in St. George, Utah twice and St. Johns, Arizona once. His next move was to Mexico. It was a momentous move for the entire family, not only because it was another pioneering activity, but also because it was a move into a culture different from their own. But with increasing persecution for practicing polygamy and their commitment to continue that practice, moving to Mexico was their best option.

Miles Park Romney had three wives and eighteen children by the beginning of 1884 when his family left St. Johns. When they decided to go to Mexico they moved piecemeal. Annie and her family went in the vanguard in the spring of 1885, while Hannah and her family stayed in St. Johns, and Catherine and her family were in St. George.¹ In Mexico, Miles and Annie stopped temporarily near a site of what later became Colonia Diaz, and moved again to a temporary camp near Casas Grandes. Then in December of 1885, they moved to Colonia Juarez. Hannah and her children followed the others to Colonia Juarez in 1886.

When Miles and Annie moved to Colonia Juarez they made their home on land that was fertile, where the valley, through which the Piedras Verdes River flowed, broadened out. It was discovered a year later that a mistake had been made in the location of the old town site, so the settlement was moved northward about two miles to the new town, where the valley narrowed and the soil was less rich.²

Catherine and her children left St. George in January 1887. They were assisted by the Cottams to Milford, north of St. George, where they were put on a train to Salt Lake City, then to Deming, New Mexico. Junius vividly remembered two experiences on that trip—one inconsequential, of the type a young child would recall; the other, more dramatic and significant.

When he was 82 years old, Junius used the first experience as a teaching device directed, I suppose, toward his progeny. Entitled The First Dog Fight I Can Remember he wrote:

Only a few days after I was baptized in the Saint George Temple my mother started, with her six children, to Mexico where we were to try to make a new home. We went to Milford by team and by train to Salt Lake. There we changed from the Union Pacific to the Denver and Rio Grande railroad. When we reached La Junta, Colorado, we had to change trains again. While we were waiting at the depot I noticed two beautiful little bull dogs on the green lawn near the depot. They seemed to be friends and to be playing together. But soon, like some little children do, they seemed to get angry with each other and began to fight. When they started to fight, a third white bull dog just exactly like them came rushing out from a house nearby and joined in the fight.

I could not tell why he should want to get into a fight, which he could just as well stayed out of, but all three would grab each other by the throat and hold on until it looked to me as though the one they had by the throat was dead. I could not tell who was fighting who and it did not seem to me the dogs could tell either whose side they were on. I never could understand this dog fight.

Now I hear often of teen age boys, and girls, who have no more sense than these three bull dogs had. They just start to fight people they have never met before. People who can think and reason should know better than to fight unless to defend their rights.

The Savior said we should do good even to those who treat us badly.³

The second experience involved a serious accident on the trip, mixed in with some humor and a happy ending. When they arrived in Deming they were met by one of Hannah’s sons, Miles A., who was about eighteen years of age, and a Mr. Williams. Williams went ahead with one freight wagon, and Miles followed in a covered wagon carrying Junius and the others. On the way they had a scary experience which, years later, Junius described as follows:

As we were traveling along over the dusty roads of the prairie, I attempted to follow the example of the men in the party whom I had seen climb down on the double tree and jump to the ground while the wagon was in motion. I was only eight years olds at the time and my sister Caroline was driving the team while my brother Miles was taking a rest in the covered wagon. While I was standing on the double tree making ready to jump to the ground, Caroline struck the horses with a whip and as they lunged forward I fell beneath the front wheel of the wagon which was loaded with about 2,500 pounds of freight. My head had fallen in the track in front of the wheel and as the wheel struck my head it pushed it to the side and passed over the left ear scraping most of the skin off my head and completely severing the ear from the head except the skin and fleshy part at the top and bottom. As the front wheel passed over my head I rolled in the track and would have been crushed to death by the rear wheel passing over my body but for the fact that I threw up my arms over my head and through the spokes of the wheel which drew me up off the ground and prevented the rear wheel from passing over my body. By this time and before I had been crushed between the front wheel and the box the team was stopped and I was removed from the wheel. There was no doctor available so my mother replaced my ear and bound it in position so that it grew back almost perfectly.

We got in the wagon and my brother Miles began driving as fast as he could to overtake P. S. Williams who was some distance ahead with the other team. As we approached calling to him to stop he thought we wanted him to hurry on and in the chase which followed the wagon struck a deep rut in the track throwing my brother Miles into the air. He lit in such a position that his wrist was dislocated so we had a very serious situation confronting us with two of us so seriously crippled. We finally succeeded on stopping Brother Williams and he and two of the older boys administered to me. On reaching Colonia Diaz about half way to our final destination that night, we were met by father who had come to meet us. This was the first and only time that I ever remember having seen father with a full beard. As I had not seen him for years I did not know him.

I have never forgotten the experience through which we passed of having to wear a red hood continually until my head healed as I was constantly teased and tormented by all of the boys of the village.⁴

Upon their arrival in Colonia Juarez, they were welcomed by Annie and her family who were living in a dugout, ten by twelve feet in size, augmented by a pole and brush extension out from the river bank, and by Hannah and her family who were housed in a stockade house, one with upright poles chinked with mud. These dwellings were apparently still in the old town, the first movement to the new town having just begun in January of 1887. When Catherine moved to the new town site she first lived in a wagon box, to which was added a bowery for shade and later a boardroom. Junius remembers that a pole cat which took up residence under this room, was also shot there. Its aroma reminded the Romney family daily of its presence for several months after its demise. Soon after their arrival, Catherine and Claud were stricken with scarlet fever from which Claud, scarcely seven years old, died.⁵

Two years after their arrival, the Stowells came to Colonia Juarez, and fortunately for Junius, they had with them a sweet five-year-old girl by the name of Gertrude.

The Romney and Stowell families played prominent roles in the life of Colonia Juarez. Miles P. became a counselor in the first bishopric of the ward and was later a member of the Stake Board of Education. He established a lumberyard on his town lot, a furniture manufacturing plant in the northwest part of town, and was an active building contractor. He was also the foremost dramatist during the early years in the colony. Gertrude’s grandfather, William Rufus Rogers Stowell, established an important gristmill in the southern part of town. Her father, Brigham, operated a cattle ranch, which was soon augmented by a butcher business.

The Mormons in each of the colonies kept pretty much to themselves, away from the Mexicans, mostly by choice, but also by necessity, since they were the sole settlers where they established their colonies. Their lives were integrally tied to church organizations and practices, which served as a political, economic, and cultural framework for their lives. Sunday meetings, for example, were important for their doctrinal instruction and spiritual improvement, but also useful as a time to plan and coordinate civic projects such as canal building.

Colonia Juarez, as well as the other colonies, was built on an agricultural base. Raising grain, cattle, hogs, fruit, dairy products, and vegetables were the vocations of most of the colonists. To sustain this agriculture the colonists soon developed an impressive system of canals for irrigation and a couple of wells for culinary use. This water served an additional purpose of powering an electrical generator, which furnished power to light the homes in the town. In addition to agriculture, other businesses developed—construction, a gristmill, a cooperative mercantile store, a tannery and a butcher shop. It was not many years before the products of the colonists’ diligence were displayed at regional and national fairs where their quality was readily apparent and recognized by compliments and awards. Thomas Romney recorded that, on one occasion, six Romney boys, likely including Junius, were outfitted in homemade suits of colorful, even gaudy material. Junius’ hair was likely cut by his mother, since Catherine seemed to have served that function in the family. As she had done in Arizona, Catherine also made chair seats with strips of rawhide for the frames built by Miles, not only for her own family, but also for others. She was also skilled in weaving baskets from native materials.⁶

Food was simple in the early years. Staples were corn, beans, molasses, and greens. As the colonists became established, variety entered into their diet. The scarcity and simplicity of their fare left a lasting impression on Junius.

The family subsisted at the time of our arrival and for many years subsequent thereto almost entirely on Mexican beans cooked without meat or grease and with no seasoning other than salt, and cornmeal cooked without grease except sufficient to keep them from sticking to the pan, and made only by stirring the cornmeal in water with a little salt added and baking it in the oven. To this fare we had added molasses, and for a family of twenty, about two quarts of milk. This was provided by one Mexican cow. This milk had to be thinned with several quarts of water in order to go around and it was the constant habit of the children to drain all the milk back into the glass from the corn bread to make it last through the meal. I remember the first wheat bread that we tasted. It was after the first harvest when several of us went to the wheat fields and gathered up a few heads that were left by those who were fortunate enough to raise wheat. We cleaned the wheat from the chaff by hand, ground it in a hand coffee mill, and stirred it into cakes which I think were the most delicious I have ever eaten. Some people were not as destitute as father’s family and on a very few rare occasions during those early years I was fortunate enough to be invited to eat away from home and I can remember distinctly each time that I had the pleasure of eating flour bread under such circumstances. One of those occasions was when I went to the sawmill and the Campbells invited us to dinner where they served white flour biscuits made from yeast dough.⁷

Junius’ description traced the evolution to more attractive and palatable food. Those who shared his table in later years realized that Junius was proud to serve food to satisfy the most exacting tastes and horrendous appetites. At the same time, his later years demonstrated his taste for simplicity in foods such as a sweet apple right off of the tree, or a slice of cheese with bread and milk for an evening meal.⁸

Recreation took simple forms such as children’s games—run sheepy run, ante-I-over, softball—and dances, in early times on a dirt floor to tunes played by talented colonists. A band was organized quickly and dramatic productions, led by Miles, were an important part of the cultural life in Colonia Juarez.

Annie Romney started a school in her dugout in old Colonia Juarez before Catherine and her children arrived, one that was continued with the move up the river into the new town and eventually into a new schoolhouse in 1889. But even when these formal schools were operating young people customarily only attended three to six months out of the year. Miles was well versed in the classics, a knowledge and appreciation of which he tried to pass on to his children. He also subscribed to several periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, which must have been read by his children. Junius doesn’t speak of formal schooling during these early years, but he could not have escaped the intellectual influence of the community, more particularly from his parents.

In late 1887 or early 1888, after a year in Colonia Juarez when Junius was about ten years of age, Miles entered into a partnership with Heleman Pratt, son of Parley P. Pratt, to settle several thousand acres at Cliff Ranch. The Ranch was about thirty miles up the Piedras Verdes River from Colonia Juarez and eleven miles downriver from Colonia Pacheco, which had just recently been established by the colonists. The ranch was beautifully situated in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains where Spring Creek flowed into the Piedras Verdes River from the northwest. A wide variety of plants and animals abounded and the soil was fertile, but the growing season was short. This was in the territory, which was earlier dominated by the Apaches. They had been somewhat subdued, although just two years after the Romneys and Pratts left Cliff Ranch two members of the Thompson family, who had moved there, were killed by Indians.

The major inhabitants of Cliff Ranch were the members of the two families, which included the three Romney wives, their families, and the Pratts. Miles stayed at the Ranch only when he was not working as a builder in other colonies. As a result, for the majority of the time, the three Romney wives took the responsibility of running their families.

During this period of time, Junius became even more grateful for his capable and sensitive mother. She, along with the other adults, organized a Sunday School, Primary, and regular school for their children. Junius later wrote:

Here is where I learned to know and appreciate the sterling qualities and beautiful characteristics of my mother and Sister Pratt. With only their own children about them they organized at once Sunday School and Primary organizations. They persisted… in providing an atmosphere and environment of education and culture for their children.⁹

Junius also described her role as a homemaker in this rough environment.

She converted almost everything nature produced to meet our simple needs. The heart of the yucca, or ooze, she used as a cleaning agent until later fats and greases were available and were converted into homemade soap with the help of wood ashes as a substitute for lye. From the straw and husks of the field we were supplied with nice clean beds. From the same materials our hats were made and likewise the mats on which to clean our feet at the door. Even the weeds were converted into foods until more palatable vegetables could be provided to replace them. Nature provided the herbs for medicine and the pine trees our gum, the willow trees our baskets and the cowhides our chair bottoms. Made over clothes descended from person to person and were made to look like new at the expense of countless hours of her needed rest. If we were fortunate to acquire white manta¹⁰ or domestic, it was transformed into shirting or dress material by the use of the bark of the black walnut tree which, incidentally, also furnished our nuts in lieu of candy and were even used for cakes or cookies when later such delicacies were possible. Wool was carded by hand and made into quilts and covering which consisted of scraps of worn out denim pants cut and sewed together in every conceivable shape. The socks were knitted by hand. The washing was done scrubbing the clothes one by one on the old fashioned board. The children were all bathed in the washtub by the kitchen stove where the water was heated in a teakettle over a wood fire, and after each bath must be carried out and emptied. The bare floors were scrubbed by hand on bended knees. Interspersed between these and countless duties, mother found time to tell us bed-time stories of the Christ and of famous men and women to inspire us in an ambition to arise above the environment of material handicaps.¹¹

Equally as important, Catherine seems to have led her children to a greater appreciation of the beauties of nature, which surrounded them. Junius recounts:

She distracted our attention from the loneliness and dangers which I know she sensed keenly, by taking us by the hands or in groups and strolling up the beautiful canyons with waterfalls, pointing out the lovely moss-covered stones by the stream, the interesting climbing vines, the stately pines and oaks and the infinite variety of gorgeous wild flowers of every hue and color. I remember how she especially loved the simplicity and perfume of the wild roses along the streams.¹²

These descriptions tell us something about Catherine, but they also tell us about the life Junius led. Although isolated and poor by the standards of the world, he seemed to have enjoyed a rich family association. Furthermore, he learned how to work as he participated with his brothers to construct a dam and irrigation system for their fields, and as he herded cows, as he helped to grow potatoes and other crops, which were in turn traded for merchandise in Colonia Juarez. He also went out to retrieve a deer shot by his brothers George and Thomas (no distinction was made between full and half-brothers), an unusual experience since the Romneys were not generally hunters.¹³

Apparently innovation was required, but not always successful. In her quest for nutrition and variety, Catherine once fried alfalfa for a vegetable, reasoning that what served the animals in the field might likewise serve people in the kitchen. The result was unacceptable to her flock. But red root and pig weed were used successfully. And a lunch of potato pie was welcome after working hard for all morning on the irrigation dam.¹⁴ And Junius recalled the savor of a good molasses cake made by his mother when he went out to meet the young men as they returned with the deer his brothers had shot.¹⁵

In the fall of 1890, in the same year that President Wilford Woodruff, who had bid them farewell in St. George, was announcing the Manifesto, which formally terminated more plural marriages, the Romneys left Cliff Ranch to return to Colonia Juarez. They were followed the next spring by the Pratts. At least some reasons for the move were the attraction of better education and the desirability of Miles being able to be with his family more consistently. The Romneys sold their interest in Cliff Ranch for some cows.

In his fourteenth through sixteenth years, 1891 to 1894, Junius lived on a farm, which his father purchased one mile up the Piedras Verdes River from Casas Grandes, away from the colonists and in the midst of the Mexicans. While the older brothers worked at the building trade, Junius and his brother Ernest, Hannah’s son of about his same age, lived with Hannah and her children on the farm to produce food for the rest of the family. Their home was of typical rural Mexican architecture consisting of two or three rooms with a flat roof.

Junius and Ernest worked together on the farm, and in the season during which the school in Colonia Juarez was in session, they covered for one another so that each attended school for three months each year. Visitors came by occasionally. B. H. Roberts, church leader and historian, once stayed overnight. A visit by Bishop Sevey furnished the occasion for a conversation that describes the success of the boys as farmers and the pride of their father in their work. Junius reports the conversation they had while looking at the field this way:

Father: Bishop how do you like the looks of the grain crop?

Bishop Sevey: Wonderful! The color is perfect, but it is just ready for water. I am struggling with all my might to build a dam and ditch for that purpose.

Father: How much do you think that 20 acres will produce to the acre?

Bishop Sevey: It will go at least 20 to 30 bushels per acre.

Father: Bishop. Who do you think will have raised that crop?

No one but my 15-year-old boys. Junius there plowed the ground, planted and watered it and soon he will have to go to school and Ernest will come and continue the work until the crop is harvested and in the bin. You know I am not entitled to any credit for it. I am not able to be here, but these boys are Men!

Referring to an earlier statement by Miles, that his family made their way by operating on the principle of root hog or die, Junius concluded that the little ‘hogs’ resolved to root with all their might.¹⁶ Those of us who never saw him raise grain can testify that he later put his agricultural talent to good use in raising beautiful flowers at his home in Salt Lake City.

The farm also produced melons, which along with sacaton grass which they cut with a sickle, the boys sold door to door in Casas Grandes. On these trips the boys were accompanied by a large black haired dog named Major, who was the object of intensive barking by the numerous dogs owned by the Mexicans. Usually Major ignored the barking, but occasionally he reacted, as described in later years by Junius:

One day I sold a load of this produce to Manual Hernandez who told me to deliver it at his home. I drove into the patio through the open gates. He had a very ferocious black dog chained inside with a very long light chain. This dog came charging at me. I was very much frightened as this dog charged. Major stood looking on but when the dog got close Major jumped on him knocking him sprawling. He then picked this dog up in his teeth and shook him violently. When he dropped the dog he [the other dog] ran whimpering to his corner. All the fight was gone out of him and I was able to make delivery of the load of produce undisturbed.¹⁷

Junius’ ability to write engaging prose, directed to both young and old, was foreshadowed in his fifteenth year when he had three short essays published in the