In the southern part of Utah in Kane County three small towns are located in the mile high valley called Long Valley, Mt. Carmel, Orderville and Glendale. Mt. Carmel is to the south just a few miles north of the Mount Carmel junction off the U.S. 86 highway. Those traveling in from Arizona through Kanab or through Zions Canyon will continue up U.S. 89 through Mt Carmel, sheltered by trees, surrounded by lovely farm’s and orchards. To ride through Long Valley is a delight with the beauties of nature on either side. Surely this is not the land which God forgot, but part of the wonderous land of Utah. He has preserved for those who are seeking peace, solitude and who love the beauties of nature. In the small town of Mt. Carmel back in 1885, the Jolley families lived and that is where Arthur was born on November 29th 1885. Mt. Carmel was the home of many of the old Jolley pioneers. Arthur’s parents were William Jackson and Elizabeth Jenkinson Stolworthy Jolley. His brothers and sisters were, Sarepta Matilda born 16 January 1876, Elizabeth 10 January 1878, William Thomas 11 December 1879, Jesse Levi 21 April 1882, Christabel 17 April 1884, then Arthur followed by Mercy Luella 2 July 1888, Rose Magadline 4 November 1890, Hazel 6 November 1892, Bertha Lorinda 20 December 1894, Edward McKinley 17 November 1896, Sylvia May 27 October 1900 and Vaughnetta 20 May 1902.
Arthur’s father and his brothers were musicians and played for the dances up and down Long Valley, so the place they lived was called Fiddlers Green. Arthur’s Aunt Rose had a daughter I was good friends with, so I always called my friends mother Aunt Rose, but I never realized I would some day be related. I remember one day when I was at their home, an Aunt and cousins came to visit. I saw Arthur for the first time, we were only about 8 or 9 years old. But I never really knew him until we were about 12 years of age.
Arthur’s family moved to Tropic when Arthur was one year, following are some things of his young life from his sister Luella:
Arthur was almost 3 years older than I, mother said she nursed him until he was two years old. When I was a baby and Arthur was about four, father and mother went to Castle Valley in a wagon to visit the Stolworthy grandparents. Mother had some meat along and made dumplings when we camped. Every time Arthur saw water he wanted to stop and make dumplings. One time father took him by the arm and said he would throw him out of the wagon if he didn’t stop bothering so much. Then he wanted to be thrown out, so father held him out over the wagon in an attempt to scare him, but he just kept begging to be thrown out. In the summer we all went bare footed and Arthur was very tender footed. He was always stubbing his toe and from this got the nick name of "Stubbs."
He always said when I take off my hat trouble begins, when I find my hat luck begins.
I remember one time we had finished the milking and were so proud of the amount of milk we got. Arthur decided we should add some water from the ditch to the bucket to make it look like we had even more milk. Mother could see there was something wrong when she saw the milk, so we told her what we had done. We were both unable to sit down from the spanking we got. When Arthur was about 16 he was out in the cedars about two miles west of town, he was riding on the wagon hound with his feet and legs hanging down. There was a stump in the road which caught his foot and bent it back against the brake bar and broke his leg between the ankle and knee. He was in so much pain our Uncle John could hear him screaming and went to his aid and helped him home. Father set the break himself, and mother would put hot sage soaked cloths on it because he got boils on the leg. A quack doctor Mrs. Harris said he would never walk again unless the leg was re-broken and set again. Father said if it was re-broken it would not be by her. Arthur healed and was as good as before.
Arthur was great at handling horses, he liked to break broncos, and at one time tried to turn fathers work horse into a race horse. He had a bet of $5.00 on a race and this was against fathers desires. But father finally gave in and Arthur built a pen for the horse and slept there so the horse wouldn’t be doped before the race. One of the cows got loose and stepped on Arthur’s leg during the night and put him on crutches. I don’t know if the race was ever run or not.
I remember Arthur starting off to Sunday school and on the way met some of his pals. They ended up in Marshall’s barn in a poker game and Arthur won five dollars. When he got home he learned one of his cows had been hit with lightening, he said that must have been his judgment for gambling on Sunday. He was always teasing me and would get me so mad, then he would say to mother, she better behave or I will slap her, but he never did.
Arthur got very sick with a rheumatic heart yet it was called rheumatism, and we almost lost him. Father took him to a Doctor Steiner in Panguitch in a bed made in the back of the wagon, when they returned he was much better and could sit up again.
Arthur was very closed mouth on the things he did, his friend John was always telling of the things they did and bragging Arthur up. When asked why he let John brag him up, he said,” well he always makes me the hero’.
Arthur was a great dancer and I remember him saying he could waltz so smooth that a pan of milk could be placed on his head and he wouldn’t spill a drop. I’m not sure he ever tried it’.
Arthur’s father was in the sheep business and did farming so there was always plenty of work to do. He was in my school class and I have heard him say he would carry his books to school and then with some of the other boys, he would go over in the wash and skate or sleigh ride on the ice instead of going to school. When he was young he loved to run horse races and was very good at handling horses. I remember he got hurt when the horse he was riding jumped sideways and he was thrown off. When they picked him up he was unconscious. It surly frightened us and he was sick for two or three days after.
Arthur was a sheik with the girls and he could go with any of them. Back in 1904 he started going with Sena Harrison. I was working in Beaver and saw some of the boys from Tropic. They told me they were on the way to Idaho with the Harrison family. They thought they could find work there. I don’t know how long the other boys stayed in Idaho, but Arthur was home in a month. He said he left Sena, crying on a bridge which crossed the Snake river about 3 o’clock in the morning and he caught the train to Marysvale, Utah. He had promised he would meet her in Salt Lake City in the fall and they would be married. But he was just 19 years old and was not ready to get married. He returned home and did not even write to her. That was a mean thing to do but I am glad he did not care enough to marry her.
Arthurs’ sister Lizzie lived in Marysvale at that time, so when he got off the train here he went up to her home, a tired, hungry and home sick boy. Tired because he had not slept the night before he left Idaho, hungry because he had spent his last dollar to buy his train ticket and home sick because he had been gone a month from home. He was really glad when he got to his sisters’ place.
I returned home from Milford in September. Arthur was home and we went out together again. On the first of October I went over to Cedar to attend school and Arthur spent most of the winter with his Fathers’ sheep. Father came and wanted me to go home and clerk in the store for him when school closed. I returned home and saw Arthur and went out with him again. That is when he really came into my life. We were married about a year and half after that and we shared our life with each other for 40 years.
Arthur was a great hand to play the harmonica when he was young before we were married. He would play it when he was coming down town in the evening. I think I could hear him as he left home and he played the good old tunes. I am still waiting….not for him to come but wanting to go meet him.
Our simple life was ended as we started on another page in our book of life. We were married October 19, 1907. We did not have much of a honey moon as Arthur went away to work with the sheep just 2 days after we were married. In the spring of 1908 we moved into a little 2 room home. Here our first baby was born, we called her Jewel. Arthur worked over to Hatch town with two teams of horses that summer and fall. Then we had a bad winter that year and he stayed home most of the time.
In the spring of 1909 we went to Salt Lake where he got work with his team. He helped excavate the ground where the hotel Utah now stands. He worked there until August and then we returned home to Tropic. Our second girl Dott was born just a month after we got home. That fall and winter he did freighting. The next spring we bought a home on the south side of town and moved over there. Arthur went with the sheep most of the winter and then worked with his team in the summer, so everything was left for me to take care of at home. They used to take the sheep down on the Tremble mountain in Arizona for the winter. When he went with them he would be gone for 3 or 4 months at a time. Our 3rd girl Eva was born 7 July 1911.
In the spring of 1913 after being gone all winter he returned home the first part of March. As he was crossing the east fork the snow was still 5 or 6 feet deep. There was a hard beaten trail on top of the snow for the mail horses. But now spring was coming and the sun began to soften the snow. His extra weight on the horse made the horse go down in the snow so deep they couldn’t get through, so he walked and led his horse across the mountain walking 7 or 8 miles.
All the men around town had been telling Arthur he was not much of a man because he could not get a boy. Our first 3 babies were girls. So you can see how he boasted when our first boy was born March 30, 1913. Arthur was sure thrilled. When he was home we would spend so many of our evening singing the good old songs together. Arthur did freighting that summer and fall. He also did some farming raising hay on my fathers farm. Malcolm grew so fast and was nearly 2 years old when we had another boy Cecil.
Arthur was gone away with the sheep again and did not get home until a week after Cecil was born. In the spring of 1916 we bought a farm about three fourths of a mile east of town and gave our home as a down payment. We moved down on the farm in the spring after Cleon our 3rd boy was born.
I did not like the idea of living on the farm but Arthur thought it was a good buy and promised he would by me another home in town. We lived on that old ranch for about 7 years but moving into town for some of the winters. Many of our happiest days and some of our saddest days were spent on that old farm. There I did learn that it does not take a lot of money and nice things to bring happiness but a lot of love for one another and our children can make a humble little home into a heaven. We always had a lovely vegetable garden, milk, butter, meat and the fruit I always bottled. So with plenty of clothes and good health we were happy.
On October 18,1918 we added another boy, Leland Dwight to our family. Arthur was going with the sheep again that winter so he moved me and the children into town when our baby was just a month old. He hauled enough wood for the winter and feed for our cows to the place we had rented. When he came home in the spring he started hauling freight for his brother Jesse for his store. He bought some larger horses and a heavier wagon so he could do more freighting. Marysvale was about 90 miles from Tropic. It would take 7 days to make the trip. One trip a big dog followed him home. When he drove into the yard the children all ran to meet him as they always did but the dog would not let them up to the wagon. When they ask what the dogs’ name was he said,” its stranger” so called the dog stranger after that.
On May 17, 1921 the first real sorrow we had ever known came to us. Jewel our oldest girl died. Arthur freighted all that summer being gone a week and then home 3 or 4 days. It was a terrible summer for me. Then on September 21st 1921 we had another baby boy, Kay. Arthur was home part of that fall and winter but went freighting when spring came. He was a great lover of horses and tried to have a good team and took good care of them as they helped to make our living. At one time he had a dark brown team, Press and Coley. Old Press was good at running races. Arthur always loved to race. He would put Malcolm on one of the horses, putting rope around the horse and over Malcolms’ knees so he would not fall off and he would ride the one he wanted to put in the race. Then they would run them up through our fields to practice racing.
August 16, 1923 Curtis was born. That October we moved into town as Arthur was going out with the sheep again until Christmas. After Christmas, he went with some other men to Bingham to work. This was the year of 1924. He started back home but stopped in Elberta to visit with his brother Will. Will was in charge of all the Knight property in Elberta valley. He told Arthur if he would come back he could be foreman on the Knights company ranch. Arthur arrived home and we sold some of our things and put all be could in our wagon and white top buggy. We bid farewell to the old farm and the little town of Tropic, April 2, 1924 and was on our way to Elberta which took about 10 days.
We were all tired and dusty when we arrived in Elberta after traveling over the rough country dirt roads, the distant of about 300 miles. Even old stranger was glad when we did not have to go farther and I think the good faithful old horses Queen and Prince were a little weary from pulling the load so far, but they did not refuse to go any time whether they were tired or not.
When we first arrive at Elberta we lived on the Knight company ranch at the south end of the valley with Will and his children. There were three hired men and Arthur was put in as foreman to oversee all the work on the farm. They raised tons of hay and grain. We lived there until the crops were in that fall. Then we moved to a house near the school for the smaller children.
February 1925 Arthur leased a place on the east side of the valley. It was not much of a farm but we had some hay and a large orchard of peaches and apples. Arthur worked up at Dividend at the mine part of the time. In October of that year, we had our 7th boy, Duane LaVoy. That fall we bought a new model T truck so Arthur could haul our fruit.
One day when he was working in the mine he was nearly buried alive. It was a terrible experience for him. He was working on the 6th level and the men on the 5th level, were dumping waste rock and dirt down the chute to fill in the stoops where they were not working any more. Arthur was cleaning out from under the chute and some dirt and rocks had caught and would not come down. The boss told Arthur to climb up the manway to the side of the chute and tap it with a hammer to loosen the dirt. As he did this the dirt and rocks broke loose trapping him in the manway and burying him except for one arm and his head. He began calling for help but the dust made it hard for him to breath. Finally a man on the 5th level heard him call just as he was about to dump another load of dirt.
Of course the alarm was sent out for the doctor and others to help. As they were digging Arthur could feel the dirt begin to move. This frightened him more as he did not know what was happening. It was not long before the dirt dropped down and they could get him out and took him to where the doctor waited. They placed him on a stretcher and took him into the doctors office. At first they thought his foot was crushed. He was hut bad but no bones were broken. He was bruised and sore all over his body and so hoarse he could not speak out load. It was a terrible shock to his nerves for a long time. Arthur never wanted to work in the mines after that experience.
In the spring of 1927, Arthur went with the sheep for Mr. Oldroyd for 3 months and then later went with his truck selling fruit. We moved from the farm we had lived on for 2 years and Florence was born that June. Arthur took Cecil with him hauling fruit. They went down to Dixie in Washington county and bought fruit and then went to Panguitch and other towns in the Sevier valley. When they sold the load they would go back and buy more. They did this all summer and fall.
That winter we bought a farm from the State just one mile south of the garage. On February 28th we moved there. Arthur did farming and worked part time with the sheep and hauling fruit with the truck. We lived on that place for over 7 years. While there Darlene was born 13 January 1931. One year we picked and shipped 3 railroad cars of apples from our orchard besides the culls we had left to feed the livestock. The culls are about all we got after the expenses were paid. The seasons became drier, for 11 months we did not have one drop of moisture and the water in the reservoir was gone. Arthur and the boys hauled water from Goshen for the house, chickens and pigs. The small boys drove the cows to the creek for water.
Arthur got a chance to lease a large ranch about 7 miles south in the Elberta valley, where there was plenty of water. It was good for livestock and there was a big orchard and other farming ground and a garden spot. We decided to lease the Hancock ranch and moved there loosing about $2000 we had paid on the State place. The only thing I really disliked, we were so far away from church and school.
The second year, 1937 we had some unpleasant experiences. The weather was lovely up until Christmas day and it started snowing and kept snowing and blowing. After the new year, school started again but it was impossible to get through the drifting snow to take the children to school. Arthur would take the horses to clear the snow but it drifted right back onto the road. He tried taking the children part way on the horses but it was too cold. After three weeks of this we decided to move just the things we needed to the tunnel where Malcolm lived.
There were several empty houses there so we lived in one of them. Arthur would hitch the horses to the truck so they could help pull the truck through the snow a little ways, then come back and hitch them to the car and pull it to where the truck was. We travel this way for three hours to cover the three mile distance. That was a winter we will never forget. We took our milk cows to the tunnel leaving our pigs, chickens and other livestock at the ranch. Arthur would go every day to the ranch to take care of them. He could hardly get through the snow on horseback. The winter did break however, and we went back to the ranch about 7th of March. We lost 4 or 5 hundred dollars worth of cattle because of the extreme cold weather during that winter.
The bleakness of winter
The promise of spring
The fullness of summer
The harvest of autumn
all makes us appreciate
the different seasons of the year
we have in this loved state of Utah.
We surly did dread another winter after the experience we had with the last one. Eva and Dave came over and told us about a farm for lease in Lake Shore. Arthur decided to lease this farm so we moved in the spring of 1938 to Lake Shore. We left all the live stock on the ranch and the older boys stayed there to care for them. Arthur planted beets on the farm at Lake Shore and we had hay as well. That fall when school started he brought all the live stock to Lake Shore so the boys could go to school. We did not like it there very well, but we got along alright.
The next spring Arthur leased a ranch up Hobble Creek canyon. He took the boys up there to milk the cows and we had a lot of hay up there. Arthur always did everything the hard way. He worked so hard getting hay cut on the side hills as he didn’t trust the boys on the hills mowing. One day he had worked so hard that when he stopped cutting hay he could hardly unhitch the horses from the mower. He wondered why it was so hard for him to walk, when he started to go to the house. When he came in he layed down for a while he was so exhausted. The next morning it was still hard for him to walk and he was so nervous. I talked him into going to the doctor. I could not drive the car so Arthur had to drive up to Spanish Fork. When the doctor looked him over he said Arthur was to go home to bed and stay there. Little did we know then what a long terrible sick spell he was in for. The boys had to take over the responsibility of putting up the hay and caring for milk cows and other live stock. Arthur could hardly reconcile himself to the thought of being in bed and not working again. It was his heart that was bad.
Dwight got married that fall and the responsibility of the farm went to Kay. Kay did not attend school anymore. Arthur was in bed nearly all that winter and in the Provo hospital for a while. Several doctors checked him out but there was nothing they could do for him. How the time did drag. He had been ill for nearly 3 years when they began taking boys away to the war. Kay went in March of 1942. We leased all our range cattle to Malcolm but had the milk cows there at Lake Shore. Florence and Darlene fed and milked cows for 3 months. Dwight came from Provo and bought a small farm joining ours, so he could run our farm and help the girls with the cows.
We decided to sell the farm and all the milk cows but one and bought a house in Payson. The day we moved from Lake Shore Arthur could hardly sit up. After we had been in Payson for a while he wanted to try selling McNess products. So by me going with him we did quite well for a while, then he would be down in bed again. Time went on and we enjoyed our home in Payson. Arthur was so glad we had a home in town as he had promised me so many years ago before we left Tropic I could have a home in town.
When he was well enough he started to go with me to church. He even went as a ward teacher when he was able. He enjoyed driving our car as that was about all the enjoyment he got. The last year of his life was anything but pleasant. In December 1946, his heart got so bad it caused a blood clot in his right leg and he was confined to bed for the next 6 months. When he got strong enough to get out of bed he could not walk so he would crawl from our bedroom to the bathroom.
In the spring of 1947 he could walk with crutches and by summer time he could walk from the house to the car. In July Cleon drove our car to Tropic for us and we went to the funeral of one of my sisters. Arthur stood the trip quite well, but it was his last trip. He died a month later on August 21, 1947. That was the greatest sorrow that had ever came into my life and it sure left me very lonely. We were married 40 years and it seemed like half of me was taken away.
Arthur Curtis Jolley
Written by Harriet Jolley in 1957
Transcribed from her hand writing by
Jerry and Sheila Jolley 2005
Arthur and Harriet are buried in Goshen, Utah