P R E S E R V I N G   O U R   P A S T

Autobiography of William Jackson

I was born 21, August, 1871, Juab County, Utah.  My father was Samuel Jackson and my mother was Hannah Marie Jaques.

The first school I went to was a private tuition school that Brother Miller held in his home.  He was an old man.  I never finished the eighth grade at school for people didn't seem to be so enthused about school then as they are now.

I was baptized when I was eight years old.  My father was away from home a lot of the time.  He used to freight a good deal in the southern part of Utah and Nevada.  I helped at home until I was sixteen years old.  When I was seventeen I came to Colorado.  Soon after my father came he sent for me and we spent the winter here before the rest of the family came.  We didn't have but little money.  We hauled lumber for Jim McKenzie, and wood to the Manassa mill which was run with engine power.  Steam coal was scarce in those days so they burned wood in it.  It was sure a blessing to the people. Everybody was hard up. They paid $2.50 a cord for the wood.  So we hauled quite a bit to the mill that winter, and it kept us from starving.  We could grind enough flour for us and get bran for the horses and some for the cow that Brother Ellidde let us take for the feed it ate.  Brother Stephen A. Smith let us cut peas on shares.  We got enough for the horses and cow to eat.  (Never saw such heavy peas in my life.)

When I was twenty-five years old I was called on a mission to the Indian Territory, as the mission was called then.  It included Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.  I was sent directly to Athens, Texas, where I started the mission work.  They took all our money from us and that wasn't much, and turned us loose without purse or script, to depend upon the Lord for something to eat and a place to sleep, and you know I soon found out we had to depend on the Lord to soften the hearts of the people as they were quite prejudiced.  There were some of the best people down there; they would feed you even if they expected to mob you afterwards.  

The first time I was mobbed I went to conference and they gave me a new companion, an Elder Ash, a fine young fellow.  We were in a hurry to get down to where  he was laboring, because everyone was ready for baptism.  After conference he expected a Pentecost.  It was Sunday when we reached our district.  They wanted us to hold a meeting, so we gave it out in the Sunday School.  They took us home and treated us nice and friendly and gave us so many good things to eat, and that eating part I enjoyed for I was sure hungry.  Elder Ash asked me if I had bad feelings about the meeting.  I told him I didn't.  He said he did, when they asked him to hold a meeting, "eggs" came to him like a flash.  Sure enough, when we got to the meeting at the school house there wasn't anyone there with lamps and no one who asked us to hold the meeting was there, but there was quite a number from the surrounding district.  They got some pitch that was very rich and made torches for us to hold our meeting.  everything went all right until we dismissed the meeting and then went up the windows on both sides of us.  Elder Ash stood opposite the windows and they sure did plaster him all over with eggs.  He kept telling them to quit but they knocked off her derby hat and hit him in the neck.  I didn't tell them to quit but got in among the people and those throwing at me hit the women and of course the men went after the mob.  The congregation got the eggs instead of me.  I never got hit once, only splashed a little.  A good couple took us home with them that night.  They took us away in the woods.  It was so dark we couldn't see anything unless we laid on our backs, the timber was tall and the road so narrow.  Finally we came to a little clear place in the woods with a nice little stream of water running through it.  (They seemed to cut enough and clear enough of the woods to make a living.)  There we stayed all the next day trying to clean Elder Ash up.  Those people were so good to us; we had plenty of good things to eat and a good bed to sleep in for two nights.

Another time we got a place to stay all night and after supper we just started to deliver our message when a man came to the door and asked the man of the house to go out.  He went out, was gone five minutes, and told us there was a mob coming to take us our and maybe kill us.  At that his wife spoke up and told him that it was his home and he had a right to protect.  She cried and insisted we stay but we told them we didn't want to make trouble, we weren't there for that purpose.  So we thanked them just the same.  About two miles to the next place big, tall timber was all the way, and here the mob came.  We just stepped aside and let them go by.  They thought they would catch us at the next place so we just stayed in the timber that night and weren't molested. 

I was in Texas for six months and had so many experiences of this kind.  I took the malaria fever and would have a chill at noon every day and then would burn up with a fever so they sent me to Kansas. 

I landed in Topeka and went to the place where I was to find my companion.  He had moved and they didn't know where he had gone.  I walked up the street a ways and passed a fellow.  I felt like it was him as I passed so I looked back and he was looking around at me.  He had had the same feeling I did. 

I stayed for eighteen months in Kansas.  It took me more than a year to get over the malaria.  I would have a chill at twelve o'clock at night and twelve o'clock noon.  I don't see how I ever stood it.  I was traveling with a young lawyer by the name of Allred.  We got in the district of the Josephites and this fellow wanted to debate with them and he did.  He was so full of energy we like to starve to death.  I couldn't hold him back.  One day I told him we would have to stop in the shade so I could have my chill.  It was a nice place to lie down in the shade.  He stayed a while with me but got tired and said he would go alone and do some tracting.  I told him to do as hi liked, but I was going to stay there.  The first house he went to the man of the house stuck a shotgun in his face and backed him back on the sidewalk.  He told him if he ever stuck his head in the yard again he would shoot it off, and he used very bad language with it.  It didn't take him long to get back where I was.  We all had instructions never to tract alone but to stay together always as we didn't know what we might run across.  It was for our own protection.  We found all kinds of people in Kansas as we did in Texas.  Some of the best and some not so good.

Another little experience in Kansas was when I was with another companion.  We had walked all morning to find directions of the school board to get permission to hold meeting in the district.  It was eleven thirty when we found the last last one.  He was out feeding his cattle.  It was my turn to talk.  I told how we were traveling, representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  He said, "Latter Day, hell, my Dad helped drive them out of Missouri."  He said to get the hell out of there.  He started to swear at me and said everything he could think of that was mean.  He raised his fork up and it looked like he was going to hit me with it, but I looked right at him and said, "Well, it is about dinner time, what is our chance to get dinner with you today; for we travel without purse or script, depending on the people for a place to eat and someplace to sleep."  He put down his pitchfork and said, "Well, sir I will step in and see."  It looked like his wife was waiting for us, for when we got in I never saw the like of food she had to eat.  This was the first time and the last time I asked for food.  They usually asked us.  I wouldn't have asked him if he hadn't been so mad at us.

I could relate so many experiences of this kind, but I haven't said much about the good people.  We found so many that would ask us to read a chapter in the Bible and have prayer with them night and morning.  They seemed so humble and it made us feel good and encouraged us to continue on.

I came home in March, 1900, and married Mary Georgena Gilbert on March 20, 1900.  I was anxious to get back to work but in ten years I was called on another mission to England.  I had four children and was gone two years.

I arrived in Liverpool on April 1, 1909.  It was quite interesting.  They all seemed to be celebrating.  There were so many people to see us get off the boat.  They had big ropes around so we could go in the checking room.  They went through our baggage.  After we got ready to go there was a nice buggy and span of horses to take us to the hotel.  Everyone seemed glad to see us.  After dinner I went to get my shoes blacked.  I handed him twenty five cents.  He gave me back eleven pennies as large as a 50 cent piece.  I sure had a lot of money in my pocket. We got so many things for a penny, such as car fare, papers and shoe shines.  We went to Edge Land that night to get our assignments.  There was a small branch there.  we had a nice place to hold our meetings.  I was to labor with Elder burn, joined right on to Liverpool, so I went to Edge Lane quite often to meetings.

The first letter I got from home, Sam wrote and told me little Leonard had died.  He took sick as soon as I left home.  Bless his little heart.  He hung on to me and just couldn't let me go.  I felt sure he wanted to see me after he passed away.  I had a dream about the time he died.  I could see him coming.  A woman had him in her arms.  I could see them coming so plain, and it struck me in the heart.  I jumped up in bed and still couldn't understand it until I got Sam's letter and then I could see it was a warning of death.  It is one of the most touching experiences in my life.  It makes me cry to this day to think about it.

I labored in Bootel and then they sent me to Charby to labor with Elder Bomby from Canada.  I was there eight months but had no unusual experiences.  There were quite a lot of nice Saints there, a good branch, but in tracking the people were quite indifferent to the Gospel.  They had plenty and didn't want more.  Then I was sent to Burnby.  It was big factory town.  So many of the women worked in the factories.  There was good branch of the Church and lots of churches.  Sunday morning around 10 a.m. the bells would ring.  Some would ring hymns and the air was full of music.

The British mission was different from the one in this county.  In England we had everything to eat and had someone to cook it. We usually stayed with private families and we knew we were going to sleep and eat and if the weather wasn't fit to be out in, we could stay in and sit by a nice fire and write letters.  They always treated us so nice. 

After I got my release they phoned me I could go home on the Cedric Boat, one of the largest boats of that time.  One other Elder was going on it.  We sailed to New York.  It was sure nice, music while we ate.  It was like being in a lively little city with fifteen hundred people.  I wasn't sick a minute.  It was so large it didn't ride the waves.  We didn't have anything to hold the dishes on.  Everyone was feeling so good and friendly.  The boat I went over on was funny.  About every other wave the hind end of the bat would get above the water and make a terrible noise.  It was the Canada and I was quite sick on it.  One night I was sleeping so good and the thing must have been on a big wave and when it came down so fast it felt like the bed had left me.  I was sure glad when it stopped coming down.

We landed in New York all right.  My companion left me there and went to visit some of his relatives.  I visited all kinds of different stores, and watched them sell all kinds of different stocks on Wall Street.  The buyers had secretaries up in the windows.  The first story windows were open in the offices and while some were waiting for something to come up they wanted to speculate on, they would be throughing up silver dollars.  They all seemed so nervous and excited.  They couldn't keep still.

I left New York that night and was in Chicago the next night.  I was walking around the station and ran across the immigrants and Elders I saw in Liverpool waiting for the same train I was.  The next stop was Denver and then home.

I was in the High Council for several years and then was put in Bishop over the Second Ward when Pete Jensen resigned.  I worked in the Stake Presidency for a few years and then was put in Bishop again.  Since then I have been a ward teacher.  I enjoy that as much as any of my church work.  I hope those who read this can understand what I am trying to say.  I should have hunted up dates, but it would take a lot of time.

-Written August, 1951, when I was 80 years old.  William Jackson.