7 Oct 1893 – 23 Jun 1969
Wife of Junius Welborn Cardon
I was born in the second adobe house that my father built for Mother (his first wife) in Old Mexico at Colonia Diaz. This house had one big living room and two bedrooms and a porch. Our kitchen and dining room, for many years, was in the old house a few yards away, which had been the family residence in the beginning. Later another bedroom and kitchen [were] added to the second adobe house and one of the bedrooms was used as a dining room. The old house was then used for the Post Office, with my mother as Post-Mistress, a position she held for years, and she was still Post-Mistress when we were driven out of Mexico by the Rebels in 1912. This home of my birth was where I grew up, the sixth child in a family of ten children.
As a child I remember being very happy, and my fondest memories are of the evenings spent around the fireplace with Father reading Robinson Crusoe, [the] Ragged Dick series, Swiss Family Robinson and other books. Every night was family night when I was a child, so it seemed to me. Mother was usually busy sewing, as she made dresses for most of the ladies and young girls in the colony. She had a drafting machine and made her own patterns. She always took in so many dresses to make just before Christmas or May Day that she would sometimes sit up half the night sewing. She even made men’s suits, and I remember one summer she went up to Colonia Dublan and took a course in tailoring—but now I am telling her story instead of mine. She was a wonderful woman, so full of ambition, but of all the kind, sweet, patient people that I have ever known, my father stands out in my memory as being the best, and, as I said before, my happiest moments were those I spent with him and my other sisters and brothers at night near the fire in the winter and in the summer going to and from the farm. Father nearly always took us children with him, both my mother’s and Aunt Eliza’s children too. Aunt Eliza was Father’s plural wife. Two of aunt Eliza’s daughters, Myrtle, just older than myself, and Iris, just younger, were my childhood playmates, as well as my sisters. My own sister Amy was six years older than I and my baby sister, Fern, passed away when she was two years old, so these half-sisters and I grew up together and I can say that I really loved them, and still do, although I very seldom see them. They both live in Arizona: Iris at Phoenix and Myrtle at St. Johns.
Our farm was a few miles from town, so each morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Father hitched up the team. We always took a good lunch along and John, Fred, Myrtle, Iris and myself and sometimes Aunt Eliza would get in the wagon and go to the farm. Sometimes we dropped potatoes which Aunt Eliza and Father had cut prior to planting. Then later we had to hoe weeds out of the corn and potatoes, then, when they were ready to harvest, we picked them up and sacked them. This seemed like awful hard work to us sometimes, but when noon came the fun began. The horses had to rest and eat their grain, and under the big willow tree we always spread out a clean tablecloth and our lunch that really tasted delicious after working in the hot sun. Then Father always spread a quilt down on the soft grass under the trees for his noonday nap.
We children stripped off our clothing, and with some old clothes for bathing suits, enjoyed splashing in the irrigation ditch which was always full, and in places pretty deep. However, I never dared venture into any holes over my head, for I never learned how to swim. My older brothers, Fred and John, tried to teach me, but gave it up as I was just too dumb to learn. Myrtle learned and could even outdo the boys at it. Well, when our Daddy whistled for us to come, we knew his nap was over and our fun had to stop for it was time to work again. Father never laid a hand on us, but when he called, we obeyed. It was fun to sit in the back of the wagon with pour feet hanging out, and we would sing on the way home.
I attended the common grade school at Colonia Diaz until I graduated from the eighth grade in 1910. These schools in Mexico were Church schools and we always met in Devotional Exercises at 9:00 in the morning. All the grades, from the 1st to the 8th met together. We sang hymns and had a prayer and then we marched to our different classrooms and our first subject was Theology. This was a subject just as important as the three Rs. Sometimes we studied the Bible or Book of Mormon, or Church History and Doctrine and Covenants, etc. When I was about thirteen, I went with my sister to a little Mexican town, La Ascencion, where she was the Spanish Professor or school teacher there, as she had mastered the Spanish language. She had to live by herself, consequently she wanted me to go and stay with her. It was there that I learned to read, write and [speak] Spanish, more from playing with the Mexican children than from the books in school.
After I graduated from the 8th grade, I went to Colonia Juarez to High School and attended the Juarez Academy for two years. I really enjoyed myself while I was there. My brother Fred and my cousin George Q. Payne and also a friend of mine from Diaz rented rooms in Juarez and we kept house and went to school there. That was about my first experience at managing a house. Although I had learned to bake bread, fry meat and eggs and make gravy, my experience in cooking was quite limited. We found it rather hard, but did have lots of fun and I’m afraid we worried poor Sister Seville who had rented part of her house to us, we were so noisy. Lela Jacobson. The girl friend who [had] lived with us, could not come back after Christmas, so another Diaz girl, Nora Gruwell, then came to stay with us. We moved from Sister Seville’s to the Done house near the Academy. Aunt Lottie Webb and her two daughters, Estelle and Belle, lived in part of the house, and it was then that I learned to love them dearly. Belle and I were real chums. Our boy friends were Guy Hearst and Earl Heber, who were pals and we really had some good times, but did not do much in school. The next year I was a little older and more serious, I guess.
I lived with Sister Patterson from Diaz and her daughter, Ruth, who was about two years younger than I. We lived in part of Ernest Turley’s home and I found it much easier that year because Sister Patterson was there to keep house and cook our meals. Ruth and I did most of the washing and ironing and cleaning the house on Saturdays, but it was wonderful to come home to a good hot meal all prepared.
Choir was what I enjoyed most of all. The first year our music teacher was Brother Haag, who was German, and he was very good. Our choir put on a heavy Cantata, “Saul, King of Israel”, and it was a grand success. I had one of the principal parts and sang a solo. The next year we put on an Operetta, “The Merry Milk-Maids”. I had the High Soprano part in that—“the Queen”. It was this second year that I met my husband, Junius Cardon, on the steps of the Academy. By the last of October we were engaged to be married and before the next Spring of 1912, I was wearing his ring.
Our plans were to be married the following October in the Salt Lake Temple, but in July 1912 the Exodus took place. The rebel leader, Pascual Orosco, who had offered the white people protection, withdrew all protection and demanded our arms.
Consequently, word came from the President of our Stake, Junius Romney, that we would have to leave. The people who lived in Juarez and Dublan left on the train immediately. A runner was sent to Colonia Diaz, who rode horseback all night to bring the word, arriving in Diaz about 4:30 one morning in July. By 10:00 the alarm had spread and the whole town was ready to leave. We were told to only take what we needed to camp out with. We left some young men to take care of the stock, poultry, etc., and my father told us that he thought we would be back home again in two or three weeks, as he believed the United States would intervene and the Mexican Rebels would be forced back. However, the President of the United States was wise in declining to make such a move, as he believed that Japan would have joined with Mexico and we would have been involved in war.
We had to leave Diaz by [team] and my fiancée, Junius, came from Dublan and drove a team out of Mexico for Timothy Jones. Everyone had left town when he and Jesse Richins reached Diaz, except a few young men. My brother Fred was one of them. June came on out to the border where we were encamped and then we traveled on to Hatchita, New Mexico.
Word came from the Whitings, our relatives at St. Johns, that there would be employment for any of the men in our family and asking us to come there. We were practically penniless, but the Government offered all the refugees from Mexico free transportation to go any place that they wished to go in the United States, so my sister Amy, who had a baby just six weeks old, Mother and Carl and Herman (Mother’s oldest grandchild and her youngest child), Amy’s little son Ezrel and myself decided to go to St. Johns. Amy’s husband, Ezrel Thurber, and my father decided to stay on the border for a while to see how things were going to terminate and there was any hope of going back to Mexico to live. They wanted to stay long enough to get some of their stock and household goods out if possible. My brothers also stayed there—Charlie, Bernard and Frank, with their families. It was not long until Frank came to Arizona and got a school-teaching job at Concho, Arizona. As June and I were engaged to be married, Mother told me I must either get married then or go to Arizona with her. I didn’t want to get married then, for I didn’t feel that I was ready. I had some beautiful material for my wedding dress that I had brought along in case we could go somewhere where I could get it made up, and so I was sentimental enough to want to be married in the wedding gown I had dreamed of. Finally, we talked June into going with us to St. Johns early in August 1912. June went to work on my Uncle Edwin’s saw mill and I worked for Eddie and Ethel Whiting, my cousin and his wife. Then I worked for another cousin, Martha Brown, when her third child was born. June and I finally decided we would be married on my birthday, the 7th of October. We had planned to be married in October before when we left Mexico and intended to go to Salt Lake to be married in the Temple, but when we were driven out of Mexico with no money, we had to postpone the trip. Our first baby, Welburn, a fine boy, was born the next July. He was not two years old when our second son, Robert, arrived and so we kept putting off going to the Temple until after we had seven children: Irene, Carmen, Ethelyn, Elwood and LaMarr. We made several moves while our family was coming. In the Spring of 1915, June started to farm for Bud Greer in St. Johns. We went into debt for groceries, feed and for our seed to plant because things looked good for farming and June and Fred had just planted 90 acres of wheat.
The dam in St. Johns broke and destroyed everything that had been planted. We turned the teams and outfit back to Bud Greer and went over to Showlow to work for Charlie Reidhead. We stayed there the rest of that summer of 1915 and then in the Spring, June got a job for the Government at Whiteriver as a carpenter and we moved there until the Fall of 1916. We then moved back to Showlow until my father came with his team and wagon to move us back to Concho where there was work for June, building and doing carpenter work with Fred. However, when we got to Showlow, Charlie Reidhead talked us into staying to run a farm for him at Linden, Arizona. Father went back without us and we did stay with the Reidheads that winter, and then in the Spring we moved to Linden. The farming in Linden did not go well, so we left Linden and moved to Showlow. We rented a house from Brother Adam’s just before our third baby was born. I had written to Mother and told her the baby was coming, so she and Father and my sister. Alice, came to Showlow. Mother had come prepared to stay, but when they found that June and Charlie Reidhead had dissolved partnership, they talked us into going back to Vernon until after the baby came. June had work at Concho and I stayed with Mother and Father there on the homestead. We engaged a trained nurse or midwife, Sister Riggs, and on the 6th of July, our first little girl, Irene, came. She was born in a little lumber shack in the mountains. We were still living at Vernon when Carmen was born, but in the meantime, we had lived at Concho one winter and then taken up a homestead at Vernon. Our next child, Ethelyn, was born in this first home we ever owned, a lumber house consisting of two rooms. She was born on Christmas Day and had a lot of dark hair, and her little red face made her look like a little Indian papoose. She was really quite a beautiful baby later when her skin bleached out. We bought a lot and built quite a cute little frame house in the townsite of Vernon, near the school, when our sixth child, Elwood, came. He was a fine, big boy, 11 lbs, and it was when he was born that I came so near dying. We had no doctor, and it was the faith of my good husband and the Power of the Priesthood that saved me. Elwood was just 1 ½ years old when we moved to Kirtland, New Mexico.
We had planned to take our family and go to the Temple whenever the Arizona Temple was dedicated, but they kept putting off the dedication and by the time it was dedicated there was another baby coming and we had gone into debt for a farm at Kirtland. On 11 July 1928 our LaMarr arrived and he was such a sweet, lovely baby, like all the others before him. He was 2 ½ years old when we finally took our family of seven children in a Ford truck on top of a load of apples that were sold on the way to help pay expenses and went to Mesa to the Temple. On 10 October 1930 we were married again and sealed by the Holy Priesthood in the house of the Lord and had our seven children sealed to us.
The next few years were very bad for us. The Depression was on and we were not able to make our payments on the farm at Kirtland, so they foreclosed on us and we lost everything but a few chickens and our household goods. We did not even have a way to move off, however, friends of ours offered to help. Dan Christensen sent his truck to move us and we rented Elmer Decker’s house at Kirtland. We live there until after LaVerne, our eighth child, was born. She was born 1 February 1934 and was a little more than one year old when we moved to Fruitland. We really enjoyed living at Kirtland in the Decker house. We had such wonderful neighbors; the Harris’, Art Tanner, Hugh Foutz, Joe Bloomfield, Dan Christensen and others. We were near the Church, near the Amusement Hall and our three oldest children, Welburn, Bob and Irene had some very good times. As the Depression was still on, they had to make their own amusements. They had parties in our home and in their friends’ homes. After we moved to Fruitland, on 10 December 1936, our last child, Charles Dee, was born. He weighed 9 lbs and looked like a healthy baby, but as time went on he lost weight and just did not seem strong like our other babies. His father thought I was foolish for worrying about him. He was such a good baby. He hardly ever cried, and when he did, you could hardly hear him. He just lay in his bed, practically lifeless. If any mother ever tried to give a baby good care, I surely tried with him. He was so tiny and thin that I worried about him being cold at night, so I took him in bed with me to keep him warm, as our house was big and cold. I gave him Scott’s Emulsion [and] all the baby foods that were recommended, besides nursing him. Finally I put him in cow’s milk and Karo [syrup] and he began to gain. It was not until after he was two years old that Dr. Moran told me that he was a Mongoloid [had Downs Syndrome]. It nearly broke my heart. I could not eat or sleep for days. I knew that there [was] something seriously wrong with him all the time, for he was more than two years old before he could walk. He was eleven months before he could sit alone.
After Dee was two years old, we took him to Albuquerque to see a baby specialist. To my great disappointment, Dr. Adler told me that Dr. Moran was right, that there was nothing in the world that any doctor could do for him. He said, however, that he was a high type Mongoloid. June said he did not believe the doctors. He said, “My Heavenly Father is my doctor” and his faith has done so much for our boy. He has surprised the doctors in his advancement. Bless his heart, he is a good boy and has learned to read and write. He talks, not very plainly, but understands almost everything. He has learned to play simple pieces on the piano. He has been baptized and confirmed [and] received the Priesthood. He has been a Deacon and received two awards. He was advanced to a Teacher and is now a Priest. He goes Ward Teaching and can offer a prayer in public. He can lead in family prayers and, with a little help, says the Blessing at the table. [He] helps his Daddy around the house, tends the chickens and we certainly love and enjoy him. We don’t know what we would do without him. There is great consolation in knowing that he was born under the Covenant and that in the hereafter he will be normal and all right. This has been our cross to bear, but we can think of worse things that could come to us, so we know our Heavenly Father has been kind to us after all. We are proud of our family. We have eight married children and all have been through the Temple.
In the Fall of 1938 we moved to Farmington, New Mexico. We lived the first year in a house on North Auburn and, in the Fall of 1939, we moved into our home at 1103 West Apache. This home we built ourselves. That same Fall, our Carmen was married and Bob left on his mission. He filled a mission in California, and soon after being released he was inducted into the army. He was with the Army Engineers Corps, went overseas to France, then around through Isthmus of Panama and to Okinawa. Elwood enlisted in the Air Force and was a gunner on a B-17. He was in some fierce fighting in Italy, but came home safe and sound. Both boys came home safe. Elwood was called back into the service from reserve status, but was sent with occupational forces to Germany and so did not have to go through more of the fighting.
In 1955, Gene and LaVerne built a neat little modern home on our lots and lived right next door when their first child, our thirty-fourth grandchild was born. As their family grew they needed a larger home, so we bought the little house and used it as a rental. LaVerne’s husband, Eugene, became a skilled mason and contractor and builder in a very short time, although he knew nothing about this trade when they were married.
As the years went by it became increasingly more difficult for June to continue working in the carpentry trade, due to arthritis that slowly crippled his legs, arms and shoulders. He continued to sharpen saws and do what custom cabinetry he could manage. He did some beautiful built-in work in our home and completed a lovely ash bedroom set for me.
In 1960 he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, in much pain and very discouraged. We took him to Salt Lake City for treatment, which seemed to help very little and his condition worsened until by December of 1961 he was practically helpless. He talked some of Christmastime that was approaching and was concerned about having his children all home with him at that time. Then he lapsed into a coma, from which he never recovered, and passed away Christmas Eve of 1961. We laid him to rest on a bitter cold day [in] one of the worst Winters of Farmington’s history. All of our nine children and their families, which numbered forty-two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, were still living.
In the following Fall, I moved Dee and myself from our home into a smaller rental closer to town and Church, so we would not be so dependent on others. The house rented for a while and then sold in the Spring of 1963.