Biography of Andrew Vinson Gibbons (1849-1932) Part 4—Glendale and Marriage

Cemetery in Glendale, Utah

Biography of Andrew Vinson Gibbons (1849-1932)

Part 1—Childhood

Part 2—Santa Clara
Part 3—St. George and the Muddy Mission
Part 4--Glendale and Marriage
Part 5--Arizona
Part 6--St. Johns

By Andrew Smith Gibbons, III, Ph.D.

GLENDALE 

But the Muddy Mission years were destined to end as the two states of Arizona and Nevada both claimed the area for taxation purposes, A.V.'s father elected to move to Long Valley on Utah's Sevier River. Townsites which Mormon settlers had abandoned earlier due to Indian pressures seemed a good location for settlement, and the Gibbonses were among those who chose to relocate there. On March 1, 1871, after a one-month journey filled with many hardships, the party entered southern Long Valley. Some families remained in the Southern end of the valley and settled in an area they named Orderville while others including the Gibbonses, continued north to Berryville Fort, later renamed Glendale. When they arrived measles were spread through many families. Poor weather was no help, and three of A.V.’s brothers and sisters—Charles Rudolphus, Evaline and Adeline—died shortly after arriving. Once again there was sorrow and a sense of loss, this time greater because the children had grown in age and formed attachments with the family. As if to deny death power over its members, the Gibbons family continued to add new members. On September 4, 1872 a child destined to live, Le Roy, was born. 

Also in reaffirmation of their hopes for life, the older Gibbons children began to marry at this time. Sarah had married previous to coming to Long Valley in September of 1863. William married during the trip from the Muddy Mission to Berryville Fort in February 17, 1871, and Eliza married on June 30, 1872, two months before Le Roy's birth. This left four children in the Gibbons home after September 1872: A.V., 23; Richard, 14; Joshua, 10; and infant Leroy. Andrew Vinson was not to marry for three years and so remained the only one of the older children free to devote full time to his father's household. Since Andrew Smith Gibbons spent much of his time at home during this period (until the end of 1873), it means that A.V. may have had much of the company of this distinguished man during work and while attending to church duties during that period. 

One of A.V.'s memories of this period related to his grandson, Andrew Smith Gibbons, Jr., illuminates the character of A.V. and his father and something of their relationship. A.V. remembered that the job of weeding the garden was handled in the form of a challenge. The challenge was to determine who had the longest reach. A.V. and his father each stood in one spot and picked as large a radius of weeds as was possible standing, then kneeling, then finally lying flat. There is no information as to whose radius was larger, but the image of father and son lying on their bellies in the garden, probably laughing at each other, is wholesome and appealing and makes us wonder what it was that the pioneers were missing that we have so much of today. 

Rizpah Gibbons bore her final child, Lola May, in 1874, while A.V. was still at home. By now he must have fully mastered the moves of the expectant brother/father and been an efficient assistant to the midwife when that was necessary. 

MARRIAGE 

Bishop John Smith Harris,
Father of Nancy Elizabeth Harris,
Performed her marriage to
Andrew Vinson Gibbons

It was not long after this event that A.V. married seventeen year-old Nancy Elizabeth Harris, also of Glendale, and entered a sequence of events that was to draw him into a whole new world of experience and to still another new home. The exact date of A.V.'s marriage is not clear. Three sources give conflicting dates. The LDS Encyclopediagives the date of December 26, 1876. Nancy Elizabeth Harris, the girl that he married, told a reporter (or at least the reporter remembered it that way) that the date of marriage was December 6, 1875. Family group sheets in possession of family members give both dates. The marriage was performed by Nancy's father, John Smith Harris, the Bishop in Glendale, Utah. 

On December 27, 1875 family group sheets show the couple being sealed in the St. George temple. The date of sealing is more supportive of the 6 December 1875 as the original wedding day, since it is a considerable overland trip from Glendale to St. George, and the date would allow time for that trip between the wedding and the sealing. Besides there being some doubt as to the date of the marriage, there is also some doubt as to its location. Family group sheets show the sealing taking place in St. George. Nancy, however, in a published newspaper account describes travelling to Salt Lake City by wagon to have the Glendale marriage sealed in the Endowment House.

Regardless of exactly where and when they were married, it is sure that the young couple decided to settle in Glendale following their marriage, where A.V. practiced farming and stock raising skills he had learned in his youth. 

Nancy Elizabeth Harris as a young woman

A.V.'s judgment in selecting a companion appears to have been fortunate, for he married a woman of energy and principle. Elizabeth was born August 6, 1858 by her own account (or 1856 by some existing pedigree charts) in Washington, Washington County, Utah, near St. George. To place the date in perspective, it was only a few years after the "Utah War", in which the U. S. Government army entered Utah for the purpose of dealing with the "Mormons." Elizabeth's family consisted not only of brothers and sisters, but the father John Harris, and his father, Moses Harris, and Moses's wife Fanny Smith Harris. Also associated with the family in its moves was Elizabeth's maternal grandfather, William Aldredge, who died in Washington only a few years after Elizabeth's birth.

Elizabeth is remembered as a lively companion, energetic, determined, intelligent, and concerned for the spiritual welfare of her family. Reminiscences characterize her as a person of strong conviction—religious and otherwise—and as being willing to follow up conviction with action, even when it was unpopular and sure to net unpleasantries in return. If she was impulsive, then her history shows that that trait was balanced by long-term commitment to worthwhile goals. At a time undetermined, the Harris family moved to Harrisburg, then to Leeds, and finally to Glendale when Elizabeth was about eleven years old (about 1869). 

It did not take time for the young family to expand. On April 3, 1878 a daughter, Naomi, was born to Nancy. In less than a year after Naomi's birth, on December 20, 1878 the family grew again. This time it was not a brother or sister that was added to the family, but another mother. Following the example of his father, and in accordance with the Latter-day Saint principle of celestial marriage, Andrew Vinson married Sarah Ella Harris, sister to Elizabeth and five to seven years her junior. 

Elizabeth is remembered as a person of action and energy, and Ella as a person with a more sensitive, thoughtful nature. Her emphasis, too, was on the spiritual welfare of her family, and she trusted the Lord implicitly. Her patience and industry, as that of most women who took part in multiple marriages, appear to have been exemplary. 

It must have been around this time that A.V. and his families lived in the white house at the north end of Glendale. The house, which still stands today, is a handsome white frame, two-story structure. Judging from its age, it was well-built. 

The family did not grow again for almost exactly two years. On December 16, 1880, a son, Andrew Smith Gibbons, was born to Elizabeth. He was born in the white house, and being the first son no doubt was the object of much pride for A.V. Given a few years this son would not only be a valuable worker in A.V'S farming and stock raising pursuits, but with time would become the one to carry on that work. There would certainly be much to do, for it is reported that during the years in Glendale A.V.'s fortunes continued to grow steadily under the hands of the experienced, well trained husbandman. 

Somewhere in this period the constant motion of A.V.'s father, which had been stilled for a few years, began again, at first with assistance trips to work with Indian matters, but eventually with a call to join the effort of colonizing northern Arizona lands. A.S. Gibbons as usual accepted the call and left the southern Utah home in which he had spent so many undisturbed years with his oldest son. Not only was A.S. Gibbons involved in this call, but A.V.'s brother William, and his family and A.V.'s father-in-law, John Smith Harris as well. The calls appear to have been made as part of an apportioned quota of calls made throughout Utah under the direction of the First Presidency of the Church. These calls were made to fill an urgent need for the settlement of St. John's, Arizona Territory, and other northern Arizona LDS colonies just being settled. 

No doubt A.V. watched the departure of his father with some of the feelings he had experienced as a boy, when he had also watched his father prepare to travel and then leave. This time, again A.V. was not to travel with his father, and it must have crossed his mind that his father was advancing in years and the northern Arizona country was still quite wild. 

A.V. could not have guessed the circumstance through which he was to be reunited later with his father. As his father left he may have felt the pull of adventure or of filial ties, but projects in Glendale had been started and required attention, particularly the job of further building his own family. The next major event in that effort took place April 5, 1883, when Lovina Ella was born to Ella in Glendale. 

To be continued . . .