Israel Justus Clark Biography

Israel was seven years old when his father died leaving a large family. His oldest brother who now managed the farm was a hard working severe man, he gave his younger brother little time off even for school.

When Israel was 13 years of age he worked for a carpenter who had a turning lathe and they made chairs. He went with the carpenter down the river on a flat boat to deliver the chair to a merchant. The merchant wanted the chairs painted and Israel gladly took the job. From then on he was on his own and never saw his family again.

He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints March 9, 1844 at Osian, Alleghany, New York at the age of 23, he came to Utah with the John Smith Co., in 1848, settling in the Salt Lake Valley. He was ordained an Elder December 10, 1848.

Israel Justice was truly a pioneer, an outstanding colonizer and builder, a great missionary to the Lamanite assisting in the settling of Fort Lemhi in the Salmon River country of Idaho in the early 50's. He was an Indian interpreter and an Indian War veteran. He worked with the Nez Perce, Blackfoot and the Shoshone of the Northwest. He was also great friends of the Indians of the Northern Utah and Utes of the Uintah Reservations. He could speak their language perfectly.

He was some of the original pioneers of Logan Utah, camping on the Little Logan River in 1859. They moved to Clarkston, Utah in 1867 and was the first bishop of this ward, Clarkston was named in his honor. They returned to Logan in 1871. He was called on a second mission October 11, 1875, laboring with the Lamanites in the vicinity in Corrinne, Utah, then a part of an Indian Reservation.

Israel had a wonderful personality. He was 6 ft. tall and walked straight as an arrow. His hair was auburn in color when he was young, but turned white early in life. His keen blue eyes could look an Indian down, yet twinkled when talking to a child. His voice was clear as a bell and could be heard a long distance. When he came to Ashley Valley he would stand outside his door and call to his neighbors half a mile away, "Bartlett, Ashton, Henry, get your teams the ditch has broken.

He came to Ashley Valley in the Fall of 1877 with his family, food and implements over the road from Heber that was little more than a trail crossing Daniels Creek many times. They entered Ashley Valley through the gap at the west. He and his sons were soon in the mountains getting logs and poles for house and fences on their homestead southeast of Vernal.

More and more people were coming to the valley and Indians came too. In the Fall of 1879 after the Meeker Massacre, his friends, the three chiefs of the Uintas came in the night and told him to get his people into the fort for safety. This was done at once. Many times he fed his Indian friends at their table and kept them while they jerked their meat and tanned their hides.

On May 1st, Israel started to Geber City for flour. When he got to Current Creek he encountered snow. He had to leave his teams (four horses and one wagon) on Red Creek, and went the rest of the way to Heber City on foot. He arrived in Heber on Saturday May 14th. He was in a helpless condition, he was forty miles from his teams, and on the day he reached Heber City there was four feet of snow on top of the Strawberry Mountain. Before he could return to Duchesne, Lake Fork and Uintah, streams rose and he could not get back home until the 4th of July.

When Uintah Stake was organized in 1886, he was chosen as the first high councilman. On May the 29th, 1905 he was ordained a patriarch, he was indeed a patriarch at heart and looked much like a prophet.

His carpenter trade was put to good use in Ashley Valley, as he made most of the coffins there. The first was for Mrs. Joseph Black, the first person to die in Ashley Valley, and the first to be buried in Vernal Memorial Park.

Helping to build churches, school houses, and furniture was his specialty. He was blind for a number of years before he died on Sept. 13 1905 in Vernal, and is buried in the Vernal Memorial Park.

Israel Justice Clark is recalled with gratefulness by the members of the Clarkston Ward, Vernal and Ashley Valley. He was an organizer and a spiritual leader, he has left us many inspiring testimonies. He was truly a pioneer who battled and overcame opposing forces. He gave freely of all he possessed to his fellow men and left us a rich heritage.

Taken from findagrave.com

Eliza Jane Stephenson Waddoups Biography

Eliza Jane Stephenson

Eliza Jane Stephenson Waddoups, the daughter of Harris Shannon Stephenson and Isabella Sproul was born July 13, 1863 at Richmond, Utah. She was the oldest of a family of nine children. Cache Valley was just being settled or at least North Cache when she was born and her parents being pioneers had very little of this world’s goods.

Her childhood and early youth was spent at Richmond among the children of that village and she attended school such as that time afforded but the advantages were limited.

When she was fourteen, her family moved to Lewiston being pioneers again in a new place and for many years a barren place, drought and grasshoppers making farming a failure, so she was compelled to go to work to support herself and assist in caring for her father’s family, which she did cheerfully and willingly.

Opportunities for work were very few and wages meager, but she improved every opportunity for making what money she could. She had a gentle, loving disposition and did her work in a way that people appreciated her and younger members of families loved her as if she was one of their family.

She was married to William Waddoups, November 29, 1883 in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City. She was a plural wife and suffered the trials and hardships of her many associates in like circumstances. For many years, she never knew one day where she would be the next and many, many times, she was forced to pick up her babies and flee in the night. She had a great deal of sickness and sorrow and even death visited her family while she had to live this way but she bore it with courage.

She used an assumed name for sometime in order to receive news from her husband and parents. When the time came that she was permitted to have a home and care for her children as she wished, her happiness knew no bounds.

April 23, 1902 she was chosen and sustained as President of the Lewiston First Ward Relief Society to which position she gave herself wholeheartedly. She was a lover of good literature and improved every opportunity to inform her mind on current topics and to be the very front on information respecting the problems of Relief Society work. She was congenial, unassuming and sincere, but humility was her outstanding virtue. She was not a preacher or a lecturer, but she lived, instead of preaching her religion, teaching by example.

In her Relief Society activities, she lived the scriptural advice found in James first chapter, twenty fourth verse – Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions and to keep himself unspotted from the sins of the world.

Gossip and criticism were foreign to her nature, she never allowed trifles to hinder her from performing her duty to her home, her community or her church. Her home was more that two miles from the place of meeting of the Relief Society and she walked to meeting more often than she was conveyed in any other way. She carried one baby and held to the other one’s hand. In Relief Society she and her co laborers worked with untiring zeal and with a love and respect for each other that was almost divine.

Her service in the organization was from April 1902 until May 1909 when Lewiston First Ward was divided and her home was in Lewiston Third Ward making it necessary for her to be released.

After becoming a member of the Lewiston Third Ward, she was put to work at once in the Primary. She also was class leader in the MIA and was later chosen as First Counselor to Emma J. Baird in the Relief Society, where she served faithfully until her health failed.

She was mother of fourteen children, six girls and eight boys. Six of her children preceded her to the great beyond. Her baby was three years old when the mother died July 4, 1912 at her home in Lewiston, at the age of 49.

Sigurd Konrad Warnberg Biography

Sigurd Konrad Warnberg

Sigurd Konrad Warnberg was born on October 22, 1893, in Persberg, Sweden. He was the oldest of six children born to Eric Gustav and Sophia Rodberg Warnberg.

He spent his early life in Sweden and dreamt from the time he was very young was to come to America.

In 1913 this dream came true as he and a friend, Otto Larsen arrived by boat in this country and settled near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sig told of the time he first arrived in Boston then boarded the train for South Dakota. When the train stopped in Chicago he got off the train and went in the station. His train left while he was off taking all the luggage he had with it. Sig had no way of communicating with the people to explain his problem. After much confusion and alarm, he found a policeman in the city that could speak his language. After helping Sig to solve his problem, the policeman put him on the next train and told him not to move or leave one step off that train until he reached his destination.

Sig worked on a farm in South Dakota which turned out to be quite a disappointment to him. After dreaming for years of coming to a land of milk and honey, and he ended up working from daylight until dark and receiving less pay than he did in the mines in Sweden. He finally decided to travel on to Utah to see his Uncle, Julius Rodberg, and then returned back to Sweden if things didn’t work out. His friends told him he sure wouldn’t want to go to Utah. That was where all the Mormons were. Sig told them that the Mormons couldn’t be any worse than the half-Norwegian half-Swedes that lived in South Dakota.

He then traveled on to Heber City, Utah and decided to stay with his Uncle Julius. He worked with his Uncle painting school houses and church houses and other carpenter work.

Both Sig and his Uncle owned motorcycles. When his Uncle decided to leave Utah and move up into Idaho to homestead, he had to promise to buy Sig a new front tire for his motorcycle to get him to come along. Julius moved east of Chester and began to homestead. He bought a team of horses from Alec McFarland. It was at this time that Sig began working for Mr. McFarland. While working here he met his future bride, Eva Henricksen.

Sig joined the Army during World War I and served overseas where he fought in the battle of Argonne with the 112th Infantry Division in 1917. He received his naturalization papers the day he was discharged, July 25, 1918, from the service at Camp Kearny, California.

On October 13, 1921 he married Eva Henricksen at St. Anthony, Idaho.

Sig seemed to be the happiest when he was working. He often told of how someone was always getting after him for whistling while he was working in the coal mines. Some of the places he worked after he was married was at the dam in Mackay, at the sawmill for Clark Jackson. He ran several spud sorting crews working for Lew Davis, Tibbetts, Remington’s and others. He worked on a housing project in Pocatello during World War II. He worked up at Victor, Idaho, farmed at Wilford for 14 years, worked for the State of Idaho Highway Department for 10 years until his retirement in 1960. He received several safety awards while working for the highway department. After his retirement he continued working in the spuds, helping farmers get their crops in and hauling hay. He enjoyed milking his cows especially in his later years. His wife always said that he would milk cows until he died, but he finally sold his cows in 1968 shortly after she passed away.

Everyone that ever knew or dealt with Sig will always remember him for his honesty. His friends and loved ones also knew that if he kidded them and gave them a hard time it meant that he liked them. Looking over this congregation today we could almost imagine Sig saying, “You damned old fools. What do you think you’re doing here.” Which would just be his special and unique way of saying “Thank you for coming and paying your last respects to me.”

Sig had a determination about him that even though it caused him trouble on occasion, it also brought him through his hardships. In 1967 while working for Melvin Rudd on a spud piler he broke both hands. The doctors told him he would never be able to milk another cow. Soon after the casts were removed, he was out milking cows in spite of the pain he would have had to endure as he told us it felt like he was tearing the bones right out of his fingers. He continued milking from that time on without further complications.

Sig always loved to romp and play with his grandchildren and every one of them from the small baby to the married grandchild will cherish the wonderful memories they had and the fun times they spent with their Grandpa.

Sig’s loved ones never realized how much he loved and depended upon his wife until her death in 1968. From that time on there was a sadness and loneliness about him that could not be changed. Whenever her name was mentioned, tears would fill his eyes.

Anyone showing him a kindness during these two years was more than repaid by his gratitude.

When my husband and I came to his home on Christmas Eve he would have to show us the many gifts and food people brought and he was as grateful for the little sack of candy given by some children in this ward as he was by the most elaborate gift. He appreciated anything and everything that was ever done for him.

He enjoyed visiting with his friends and it was at the home of one of his closest friends, Wes Dailey at about 1:00 pm on July 25 that he became suddenly ill and was rushed by ambulance to the Madison Memorial Hospital.

Sigurd Konrad Warnberg passed away on July 26, 1970 at 9:00 am. He is survived by two daughters and three sons: Mrs. Phyllis Davis, Victor; Mrs. Arlin (Ruth) Fell, Rigby; Robert Gene Warnberg, Pocatello; Keith Warnberg, St. Anthony; and Ray Warnberg, Parker; nineteen grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and two brothers and one sister living in Sweden.