(From an Interview of Francis Marion Gibbons conducted by Daniel Bay Gibbons September 26, 2001 in Salt Lake City, Utah)
The Larger Environment of St. Johns
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| Birdseye view of Old St. Johns |
DBG: This is Wednesday the 26th of September, 2001. This will be the second interview with Dad. Dad, last time we talked in a lot of detail about St. Johns. I wonder if we could just pick up from there. We talked about your family home and the homes of your grandparents. I wonder if you’ll give me an overall impression of St. Johns, and maybe the larger environment of St. Johns.
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| Near Mount Pleasant - J. George Midgley, about 1940 |
The Lombardy Poplars of St. Johns
FMG: St. Johns was noted in the days when I grew up there by the Lombardy poplars1 that lined all of the main streets of the town. It was always exciting to me when I had been away from home for a while to drive over the crest of the hill to the west and to see the town lying below me with those Lombardy poplars that looked so pleasant. I therefore have always associated the Lombardy poplar with St. Johns, but of course this was typical of the Mormon communities that were established in the western United States. The pioneers usually very early on planted poplars because they grew fast and they had a very graceful appearance about them. Overall, St. Johns was a very pleasant little town. Except for the Mexican population, you knew everybody in town.
The St. Johns Ward
We all belonged to the same Ward. We all worshiped together. We held our church meetings in what was originally the St. Johns Academy,2 which was a two story brick building. The assembly room was on the second floor of the building and the classes were on the main floor. So when you went to Sacrament meeting you always had to walk up the stairs to the chapel.
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| Antique Mormon sacrament tray and glasses This is likely a similar pattern to that used in St. Johns during the early twentieth century |
Administration of the Sacrament in St. Johns
My memories of those Sacrament meetings are conditioned to a large extent by the way the Sacrament was administered. They had at the Sacrament table some very heavy attractive silver trays for the Sacrament glasses. We had no cups then but used the glasses. And then they had a good sized pewter – not pewter – silver chalice that was used when all of the glasses had been emptied. They would pass this silver chalice down the line and everybody would take a sip. So this was back in the days before germs had been identified. (Laughter).
Bishop Anderson and His Family
I have a clear memory of our bishop in the St. Johns Ward, whose name was Anderson. Bishop Anderson.3 He was the father of Carl Anderson,4 who married Genevieve Gibbons, who was one of Uncle Roy’s daughters. Bishop Anderson owned a store adjacent to the Barths, and also had a drug store. Carl, his son, was a registered pharmacist. The Andersons, because of that commercial facility, exerted quite an influence in town.
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| President DK Udall |
President David King Udall
The most distinguished citizen of St. Johns was David King Udall, who had been the first Bishop of the St. Johns Ward, and then became the first President of the St. Johns Stake. I had always admired D.K. Udall. He was a very distinguished looking man, and he always had a certain air about him that was impressive. He was the father of Levi, who succeeded my father on the District bench in St. Johns. D.K. was a native of England and was converted and migrated to the United States. He later filled a mission in England after he was married. We have a book here in the library called “Arizona Pioneer Mormon,”5 or some such title, which is a biography – and partially an autobiographical sketch – of D.K.’s life. I was always impressed by the fact that when D.K. was called as a missionary to England he had been married for a short time and was quite concerned about leaving his young bride home. He came to Salt Lake for his final instructions as a missionary. At the time the Salt Lake Temple had not been completed. He tells the story in this little sketch of his life that he mounted the partially completed walls of the Temple. It was a beautiful night when the moon was out, and it was quite brilliant. And he said that he kneeled there on the partially completed walls of the Salt Lake Temple and pleaded with Lord that he would protect his wife during his absence. While there kneeling he committed himself to the service of the Lord for the rest of his life if He would protect his wife and his personal interests while he was in the mission field. I saw in the later life of D.K. Udall the way in which he had fulfilled that commitment that he made to the Lord at that time. He was the first President of the Mesa Temple, in addition to being the leader in the St. Johns area. He was the principal latter day saint resident of St. Johns. His home on Cleveland Avenue across the street south from the high school and the Church chapel later was converted into a hotel. The Elm Hotel. There was a big elm tree in front of D.K.’s home and it was the most distinctive home or building in town other than the Church buildings.
The Conviction of D.K. Udall on Federal Charges
D.K. was a polygamist. During “the Underground” in the 1880's he kept one of his wives in Kanab. For that reason they were never able to prove illegal cohabitation. But the Federal officials were determined to charge and convict D.K. He had signed an affidavit of six month residency for Miles Romney, who was the editor of the St. Johns paper, in connection with an application for a patent on government lands. It was a printed form and as such contained technical misrepresentations on the part of D.K. Udall. The Federal officials picked this up and charged him with perjury and convicted him. And D.K. Udall spent nine months in the Detroit Correctional Institution on this trumped up perjury charge.
President Grover Cleveland’s Pardon of D.K. Udall
He was pardoned by President Grover Cleveland.6 When D.K. Udall was pardoned, about his first official act in a civic sense was to see that the main street of St. Johns was renamed Cleveland Avenue. And the first child born into the Udall family after his pardon was named Grover Cleveland Udall.7 Its an interesting thing that as a boy growing up in St. Johns, I knew Grover Udall, but I didn’t know the significance of his name, nor did I know the significance of the name of the main street in St. Johns – Cleveland Avenue. So when you go to St. Johns next, you might want to check out Cleveland Avenue. That was the street on which D.K. Udall had his home.
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| 1904 photo of the San Juan Day parade in St. Johns. Notice the girls in fine white dresses. This holiday was popular among the Hispanic inhabitants of St. Johns, because it coincided with the summer solstice. The Monarch Saloon, shown in upper left, was owned by J. R. Armijo (1843-1921), a boyhood friend of ASG. Armijo was a cattle rancher who served as a county supervisor three times and county recorder once during the years that ASG was a teacher at the high school and later Apache County Attorney. |
The Segregation of the Mormon and Mexican Populations
As to the Mexican population, I had very little contacts with the Mexican children, chiefly because there were two separate grammar schools. There was a school for the whites – the Mormon children – and then a separate school for the Mexican children. So there was a complete segregation in terms of education. Therefore, as I’ve stated, we never interfaced at all with the Mexican children.
My Father’s Many Contacts with the Mexican Population
But my father, because of his role as the Judge, had many contacts with leading Mexicans. I don’t remember all of the names. I’ve mentioned, I think, already a man named Joe Salazar who was an entrepreneur in St. Johns. It was Joe Salazar from whom we usually purchased our juniper logs that he would cut up and sell to us. Then there was a Garcia8 family and a family I think named Apodaca.9 And there were many others. So my father had a close and friendly relationship with the leading Mexicans.
Mexican Food
There was a woman whose name I cannot remember who cooked for the prisoners in the County jail. We used to buy tamales and enchiladas from this woman, who was an excellent cook of Mexican food. When she made tamales she put them in real corn husks, so that they had a wonderful flavor to them. Her other Mexican foods were just delightful. So quite often my father would arrange to purchase Mexican food from this Mexican woman.
The Mexican Part of Town
We seldom went into the Mexican part of town. Their buildings were very close together, were of adobe mostly. Some of the adobe buildings had plaster on them, but many of the Mexican buildings were of the raw adobe. The Mexicans were very clean people. Of course there was a Catholic church there that the Mexicans attended.
Notes
1 Lombardy poplars are, perhaps, aside from the width of the foursquare streets, the most ubiquitous feature of the Mormon village landscape. In 1945 Maureen Whipple wrote:
"Already Brigham saw the trees neat as marching soldiers serried across the land–long lines of Lombardy poplars grouped like pointed spears, cottonwood branches delicate as cobwebs against a winter sky. Already he saw the green of alfalfa checkerboarding sage–gray miles. Already he saw the colonies radiating out from Salt Lake City...Mormon villages trooping down the rivers and irrigable valleys, cuddling at the mouths of canyons under the stored snows. It came to be a landscape pattern as characteristic as a Mormon coat–of–arms."
Of the affection Mormon settlers had for the Lombardy poplar, Wallace Stegner wrote:
“Perhaps it is fanciful to judge a people by its trees. Probably the predominance of poplars is the result of nothing more interesting than climatic conditions or the lack of other kinds of seeds and seedlings. Probably it is pure nonsense to see a reflection of Mormon group life in the fact that the poplars were practically never planted singly, but always in groups, and that the groups took the form of straight lines and ranks. Perhaps it is even more nonsensical to speculate that the straight, tall verticality of the Mormon trees appealed obscurely to the rigid sense of order of the settlers, and that a marching row of plumed poplars was symbolic, somehow, of the planter’s walking with God and his solidarity with his neighbors. Nonsensical or not, it is not an unpleasant thought. Institutions must have their art forms, their symbolic representations, and if the Heavenward aspirations of medieval Christianity found their expression in cathedrals and spires, the more mundane aspirations of the Latter-day Saints may just as readily be discovered in the widespread plantings of Mormon trees. They look Heavenward, but their roots are in the earth. The Mormon looked toward Heaven, but his Heaven was a Heaven on earth and he would inherit bliss in the flesh.” Wallace Stegner, “Mormon Trees”, in Mormon Country , pages 23 - 24.
2 Almost immediately after the Mormon settlement of St. Johns in 1880, the Saints placed great emphasis on the quality of the schooling provided for the community. An important milestone was reached in 1899 with the opening of the new St. Johns Academy. For the first few years classes were held in the upper rooms of the tithing office building, located on the same block as the Gibbons family compound. Shortly after the school opened in 1899, construction was begun on a new Stake building which house not only the school, but also serve as a Stake center and meetinghouse for the St. Johns Ward. The final building was a large two story brick structure with gabled entryways in all four directions. This was the building where the Gibbons and Christensen families not only worshiped, but where ASG taught. See , History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, pages 58 - 59.
3 Albert F. Anderson: FMG’s Bishop in St. Johns. He was born at St. Johns, Arizona, to Charles P. and Anna Louise Anderson, on 27 October 1889. He was called as Bishop of the St. Johns Ward when he was 39 years of age (about 1928), serving for nine years. His counselors were Hugh Richey, Arthur Whiting and, later, Ove Overson. He later served many years as President of the St. Johns Stake. He was a pharmacist, and owned the St. Johns Drug Company. He died on May 22, 1979. See , A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 156.
4 Carl Anthon Anderson: A St. Johns pharmacist. Born 17 June 1900 in St. Johns, Arizona to Charles P. Anderson and Anna Louise Anderson. In 1942 he was also called as Bishop of the St. Johns Ward, like his father. He was a pharmacist in St. Johns until his retirement in 1980. He died 21 November 1981. A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 157.
5 David King Udall, Arizona Pioneer Mormon (D.B. Udall, publisher).
6 Grover Cleveland
22 nd (1885 - 1889) and 24 th (1893 - 1897) President of the United States. Lived 1837 to 1908. President Cleveland was a personal acquaintance of John W. Young, son of President Brigham Young. John W. Young spent many years living on the east coast engaged in business and political ventures. In the course of his associations in the east he had become acquainted with many powerful men, including Grover Cleveland. It is felt by many that it was John W. Young’s influence with him that was responsible for the President’s decision to grant pardons to David K. Udall, Ammon Tenney and the others who had been railroaded on the charges of polygamy and perjury. A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 294. Following his pardon, D.K. Udall named the main street in St. Johns and his next son after President Cleveland.
7 Grover Cleveland Udall was a contemporary St. Johns friend of FMG. The son of President D.K. Udall, he became a prominent St. Johns area farmer and cattleman. A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 332. He was named for President Grover Cleveland who had recently pardoned his father.
8 There was a wealthy Garcia family whose members were prominent in dam construction, land and water transactions and politics in St. Johns from the 1880's through the 1930's. The most prominent members of the family were Jose’ La Cruz Garcia and Monico Garcia. Jose’ La Cruz Garcia is mentioned as a former large landowner in the St. Johns area. The Garcia land was acquired by the Barth brothers and then “sold” with other land to Ammon Tenney and D.K. Udall for the benefit of the Mormon settlers in 1880. See Deed dated 18 November 1880, in History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , pages 35 - 36. Jose La Cruz Garcia was a wealthy man, and later became a partner with the Patterson family, the Overson family, the family of Bishop C.P. Anderson and others in the St. Johns Water Works Company, which brought a modern irrigation system to St. Johns after 1910. A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 300. Monico Garcia was one of the three bondsmen, with Jacob Hamblin, Jr. and Fred T. Colter, who pledged principal financial responsibility for the $250,000 reconstruction of the Lyman Dam between 1909 and 1912. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 66. Monico Garcia was also County Recorder and Clerk of the Board of Supervisors from 1901 to 1903 and then became one of Judge AS Gibbons’ predecessors on the Apache County bench, serving as Superior Court Judge from 1909 until 1913. He also served as School Superintendent from 1909 to 1912. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , pages 256 - 259. Later, Monico Garcia was a key witness to a 1929 incident in one of the most significant cases to be handled in Apache County Superior Court – the decades-long litigation arising out of the handling of the estate of Nasif Tamer. See, In Re Barth , 46 Ariz. 281, 50 P.2d 564 (1935). In the early history of the St. Johns area there is also the mention of “Tom Garcia’s Meadow” – a pioneer hay ground in nearby Vernon which sat in the top of a volcanic cone with an access road so steep that a loaded wagon had to drag a pine tree to make it safely down. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 131. Vernon had been first settled by the Mexicans, including the Garcia family. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 127. Emelio, Joe, Concie and Chimio Garcia were all cattlemen in the greater St. Johns area. A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 330. Judge AS Gibbons, late in his life, appeared as co-counsel with a James Garcia in Phoenix, although James’s connection with the Garcias of St. Johns is questionable. Rose v. State 53 Ariz. 20, 85 P.2d 53 (1938).
9 The Apodaca or Apadoco family were prominent in the early years of St. Johns. Jesus Apodaco had been one of the large landowners in the St. Johns area, whose land ultimately passed into the hands of the Barth brothers and then in 1880 to Ammon Tenney and D.K. Udall for the benefit of the Mormon settlers. See Deed dated 18 November 1880, in History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , pages 35 - 36. Another family member, Serafice Apodaco, served as the first Apache County Assessor from 1885 to 1887. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, page 257. There is an “Apodaca Street” in the eastern section of town which connects Water Street and Highway 180 at approximately 1 st East. See data from Apache County GIS, October of 2001. This is in the old Mexican quarter of St. Johns.
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