Zemira George Wilhelm

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(→Harvey Gibbons Wilhelm)
 
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| name = Zemira George Wilhelm
| name = Zemira George Wilhelm
| image = ZGeorgeW.jpg
| image = ZGeorgeW.jpg
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| caption = January 1905 (age 33)
| birthdate = [[September 8]],[[1872]]
| birthdate = [[September 8]],[[1872]]
| location = [[Rockville, Utah|Rockville]], [[Washington County, Utah|Washington]], [[Utah]]
| location = [[Rockville, Utah|Rockville]], [[Washington County, Utah|Washington]], [[Utah]]
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| deathplace = [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
| deathplace = [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
| father = [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm]]
| father = [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm]]
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| mother = [[Lydia Hanna Draper]]
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| mother = [[Lydia Hannah Draper]]
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| spouse = [[Nancy Naomi Gibbons]], [[Alice LeSueur]]
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| spouse = [[Nancy Naomi Gibbons]], [[Alice Geneva LeSueur]]
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}}
}}
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'''Zemira George Wilhelm''' ([[September 8]], [[1872]] - [[November 9]], [[1950]]), commonly known as '''George Wilhelm''' or '''Z. George Wilhelm''' or '''Pa'''.
'''Zemira George Wilhelm''' ([[September 8]], [[1872]] - [[November 9]], [[1950]]), commonly known as '''George Wilhelm''' or '''Z. George Wilhelm''' or '''Pa'''.
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== Biography ==
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===Birth in Rockville===
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On [[September 8]], [[1872]], a son was born to [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm]] and [[Lydia Hannah Draper|Lydia Hannah Draper Wilhelm]].  He was named Zemira George after his grandfather Zemira Draper.  George was the 4th child of Bateman and Lydia.  His brothers and sisters were: [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Bateman Haight, Jr.]], born [[June 27]], [[1865]]; Lydia Isora, born January 10, 1867/68; Clarissa Isabell, born Mar 27 1870; Amy Elnora, born Feb. 27 1876, died Oct. 29, 1877; Fanny Marilla, born Apr. 13, 1878 and John Benjamin, born Sept. 6, 1881.  All the children were born in Rockville, Utah save John Benjamin, who was born in St. Johns, Arizona.  George's father was a polygamist and George also had 6 half-brothers and sisters; Marion Lee, born Dec. 1870; Frances Viola, born Dec. 12, 1873; Susan Amelia, born Aug. 3, 1875; Lucy Louisa, born May 27, 1877; Independence Grace, born July 4, 1880 and Mary, born Apr. 1, 1882.
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===The United Order at Orderville===
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The family lived in Rockville until 1873, when they moved to a little town called Mount Carmel. George’s grandmother Clarissa Wilhelm and his oldest Aunt, Susan moved with them. They lived there until about 1874, when Bateman was called to help head the United Order at Orderville, which was about two miles from Mount Carmel. A little while after the move to Orderville a little sister was born to the family, she was named Amy Elnora. She lived until she was 21 months old and then according to her sister Clara, she died of indigestion. Clara said that her mother was unable to get proper food for her and that she was a sweet, little golden-curly headed doll like kid.
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In her autobiography Clara described life in Orderville.  She said, “They built the houses in fort shape and right in the center of the square of buildings was built a large kitchen and dining room. They would select a set of 12 women to work for six weeks as cooks in the kitchen and one man helper and at the end of six weeks, they would chose another 12 women, and so on. There were enough women so they would only have to go into the kitchen every three mouths. But while our mothers were working, we children would have a good and lonesome time of it, for a home without a mother in it is a pretty lonesome place for little kiddos, especially.  Mother would go at 4 o’clock in the morning and probably wouldn’t get home until 10:00 o’clock at night. That made the days pretty long. (At the time they moved to Orderville George was only about 2 years old.)  In the dining room, they had three long rows of tables, the length of the dining hall. I don’t remember the length of the hall, but it seemed very large to me then. In the mornings, they had a bugle call to call every one out of bed and they had one to call the grown people to their meals. The tune “Hard Times” was used to call people to arise of a morning and the tune “Do What is Right” or “The Old Oaken Bucket” for the meals. Then they would clear away the dishes and wash them and call the young people over 12 years of age to eat and the tune was “Oh, Come, Come away from Home” a school song. Then came the children’s turns under 12 years of age and their tune was: “In Our Lovely Deseeret” and it has always sounded like something to eat to me since then. They had nice old ladies to help serve us children. We always called them Auntie. I remember Auntie Harmon, and Auntie Blackburn (the name now a little spoiled) and Auntie Clarage. Of course there were more of them but these were My Aunties that waited the tables where us children ate. There was also a man that walked up and down in the aisles between the tables to keep the children quiet. I remember of how I have been hit a lick on the side of my head with a roll of papers for whispering to some child eating near me. It would sure make ones head ring when a lick came unexpected. They also had little girls 9 years, well I said little girls I should have said little girls over 9 years old, none younger and oh my, I did so want to be old enough to help wait on the tables. But I was Baptised in the summer and we left there in the fall, that same year, so I never had the pleasure of waiting tables before we left there.”
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“I remember a little happening that has always remained with me even since I was grown: We children were all out playing and very much interested in our play and the bugle blew for us to go to supper. I said to the rest of the kids that I didn’t care for any supper and there were some few others who stayed to play as well. When the others came back from supper, they said that they had had bacon. I didn’t know what bacon was, as my father always cured his own pork and he called it salt pork. I just grieved about it for a long time. They didn’t have any more bacon or if we did I thought it was just pork and I thought I had missed such a treat.”
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“We used to get very hungry sometimes as there was nothing in our homes to eat. No matter how we felt or how hungry we got, we couldn’t go to the breadbox or the pantry and get a piece of bread and cake. We just had to wait from one meal to the next.”
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“At first, they had good meals and plenty of dishes to eat out of but finally, there were so many drifted in that the eats were sure poor and many a time I have gone away from the table hungry after trying to eat bread and milk from a dinner plate, not a soup place, just a flat plate, with a fork, and no spoon. As I said before there were all kinds of people drifted in and there were so many people that wouldn’t work, and many others that couldn’t work, old ladies and old men too old to do anything. Cripples and half-wits, and all other kinds that were a burden to those that could and would work. Then young people would marry and come in without bringing any housekeeping outfits, and it just simply overtaxed the rest and soon dissatisfaction crept in.”
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“Oh, yes I had a half-sister born while we living in the Order, too. It was my birthday and mother fixed us children a picnic and we walked down to Mount Carmel and when we came back, we had a little sister. They named her Lucy Luesa (Louisa). I was six years old then. While we were living there we got a pair of magpies. One of them got killed but we had the other one for a long time. One day, a little pup was out in the yard gnawing a bone and the magpie saw him and it went over to the pup and looked at it gnawing the bone. Then it walked around and got a hold of the pup’s tail and pulled at it. Then it would walk back and see if it had the pup pulled away from the bone and it would still be nibbling at it. It made ever so many trips that way before it gave it up. We thought it sure was a cute trick. It would steal thimbles and little things it could find. And it would also pick the horses sore shoulders and backs and we had to have it killed and it sure made us feel bad.”
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===Indians===
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Brigham Young directed church members to feed the Indians, as it was cheaper to feed them than to fight them.  An Indian started coming to the Wilhelm house every night to be fed.  They would give him bread and milk or whatever they had.  One night he showed up drunk, he had been paid for work with a bottle of wine. When he didn’t get fed he got mad and climbed up on a big boulder with his bottle of wine and a big butcher knife and started cursing the Mormons.  He'd take a shot of wine and wave the knife and yell, "Gonna kill all the Wormons!"  George was scared to death and for many years after that had a fear of Indians.
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===George and the knife===
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On George’s fourth birthday his uncle, George Draper, gave him a pocketknife.  He was out playing one day and was running with the open knife in his hand.  He tripped and fell, plunging the blade in full length just below his left eye. He jumped up and turned loose of the knife but it didn't come out.  He ran on to the house with the knife flopping and blood squirting everywhere.  His folks pulled out the knife and doctored the wound themselves, as there were no doctors around.  Word spread to the neighbors and they started showing up to help.  Their medical knowledge apparently included a strong dose of superstition because some of them helped take care of George and the rest took care of the knife.  They left the knife open and wrapped it in a greasy rag and put it behind the kitchen stove in a warm place to keep it comfortable. The wound became infected and for a time they thought they might lose him, but he was a strong boy and pulled through. When they were sure he was going to be all right, the folks in charge of the knife came and got it and buried it in a secret place on the back of the lot, rag and all.  Their mixture of superstition and medical skills must have worked because George's eye healed with no damage to his vision.
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===Guinea Hens===
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The Wilhelm family acquired a bunch of guinea hens as part of a trade.  The area they were living in was very temperate and the hens never made nests, they just laid their eggs all over the yard, the temperature was so warm and even that the hens didn't have to sit on the eggs to hatch them.  There were eggs and little guinea hens all over the place. George was quite impressed by this and often told his sons about it and always wanted to try guinea hens in Vernon, but was afraid it was too cold for them there.
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===Leaving the Order===
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Around 1878 the Wilhelm family withdrew from the United Order and made the decision to move to Arizona.  B.H. made a trip to Arizona to look things over and it was decided they would settle in Concho.  Clara told about the move in her autobiography.  “My folks began to be quite dissatisfied and Apostle Erastus Snow was calling men to move to Arizona to build homes. He called father, so he went with Bro. Snow’s company to look for a place to build us a new home. There were 8 men; I think I heard them say. Edward Noble (Aunt Nancy’s father) was one of the company, Bro. John Nail (or Naegle), Wm. (Bill) Maxwell were others. So they all decided to move to Arizona. As Mother was in delicate health, he decided to take her down to her mother’s in Rockville, and leave her there for a year and take the other family to Arizona. So he drew his property out of the Order. Each one that joined the Order kept a list of the property that he had turned in and they had one in the Order. As I remember, father drew out 3 work teams, 2 farm wagons and one saddle pony and he and his mother drew 50 head of dairy cows besides some dishes and other things. They bought a nice lot of provisions, fresh pork, cheese, butter and other groceries. I thought I never saw anything look so good. Then father started with us down to Grandmother Draper’s.  I remember the first night we camped, Mother fried some of the fresh pork and when we were eating supper my brother George ate piece after piece of pork, and the grease fairly ran out of each side of his mouth. We were under-nourished and half-starved. The folks were watching him eat and mother was afraid that it would make him sick, but Grandmother said it wouldn’t hurt him, so they just let him eat all he wanted. He would eat a piece and say, “Please pass the poke!” Grandmother asked him if he wouldn’t like a little butter spread on it and he said he would, but they didn’t put any on it for him. I know that the folks didn’t know just how us children had suffered for something to eat, that is, food that would nourish our bodies, until we had left the Order and they had started to feed us at home.  Then father took the other family and grandmother and went out in to Arizona. He settled in a little town called Concho. I guess it ran him pretty short of money moving into a new country with such a large family to support. I forgot to state that he took my oldest brother Haight with him.”
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In his book "Mormon Settlement in Arizona", James H. McClintock says that Bateman H. Wilhelm was the first of the Mormon setters to arrive in Concho in March of 1879.
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Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church says: “The Mexican town of Concho is quite old. In March, 1879, Bateman H. Wilhelm, a Latter-day Saint, settled among the Mexicans at Concho. He was followed by others and before the end of the year there were 30 souls belonging to the saints in the place, among whom were Jesse J. Brady and Wm. J. Flake, both Mormons, who purchased the main part of the valley in the spring of 1879. Brother Flake paid for his half interest eight cows, one mule, one set of harness and a set of blacksmith’s tools. Jesse J. Brady settled on the land purchased by Wm. J. Flake in 1879. George Killian and George G. Curtis, formerly residents of Brigham City, on the Little Colorado River, arrived at Concho August 7, 1879, and moved into empty houses in the Mexican town. The saints at Concho were organized as a branch of the Church, March 14, 1880, with Bateman H. Wilhelm as presiding Elder. He presided until September 26, 1880, when the Concho Branch was organized as a ward named Erastus with Sixtus E. Johnson as Bishop.”
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Clara told about the happenings during the time she and her family were in Utah during this year, she said, “We ran out of provisions at grandmother’s and one of mother’s sisters came to live at grandmothers also. During this time, I had a sister born, on the 14th of April, (paf says 13 April, 1878, could this be wrong?  Did it take BH a year to get to Arizona??) and mother named after her two sisters: Fanny Merilla. (Marilla) Mother finally concluded to see if she could get a place of her own and move into it. Grandmother told her she couldn’t make it, but mother felt like she was imposing upon her mother, so she went on trying to find a place to move into. She could not find a house, but she heard about a dugout on a man’s place (Frank Langston). She asked him if she could move into it and he said she could, but that it was full of gopher holes and the first time he irrigated his orchard, it was liable to fill with water. She said she would risk it, so she had it fixed up and we moved into it. I remember how it seemed so fresh, clean and cool. Us children were so happy, as children always are. They always enjoy moving. But with Mother it was different. It came time for supper one night, and she said all we had to eat was bread with a little butter. My brother George spoke up and said he had some dried plums that he had traded marbles for, and sure enough, he had some green-gage plums. Mother stewed them and there were enough for supper and breakfast. All we had was enough flour to make one batch of salt-rising bread, so mother put some to rise. But she didn't have any salt to put in it. I thought it was sure funny, salt-rising bread without any salt! After breakfast, mother started out to find work and she met a woman that was hunting for someone to do some quilting for her. The woman’s name was Cheddle Misner (she was Mrs. Alma Miller’s sister), so she gave mother some work. I know it was the answer to our prayers of that nite before and of that morning. Well, we only lived there in the dugout a little while, as the Relief Society had a small lumber room, where they had been raising silkworms, and as they had went out of the silkworm business for some reason, they told mother that she might move into the little house.
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Mother was very glad to do so, as a great deal of the time she went out and did washings and house cleaning and she would take my oldest sister along to care for the baby, and she was afraid that the water would come in during her absence and fill up the dugout. For anyone that doesn’t know what a dugout is; it is a square hole dug in the ground and a roof put on, and just a little window in the back or at one side of the door.
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So we moved into the little house. It was right across the street, east from Grandmother’s place.
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Mother did everything she could to support her little family. She made flowers for hats out of horsehair, woven with wire and decorated with crystal beads. She made comb cases and wall-pads out of pasteboard and sold them. The people were all very kind and bought whenever they could.
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I remember while we were living at this place, mother left me with most of the housework to do. I always had the light bread to bake. The days were sure long. There would be just my brother George and myself, alone all day, and you can be sure they were long days.”
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===Moving to Arizona===
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The census taken in June of 1880 lists B.H., Grace and children in Concho and Lydia and children in Rockville, Utah, so it took over a year to move the entire family to Arizona.  During the summer of 1880 Lydia and her family came to Arizona.  In her biography, Clarissa Wihelm says, “Haight came for his mother.  We had to wait until quite late in the summer because of high water. . . It rained on us most of the way to Arizona.  We had a hard time finding dry wood.  One morning all we could find were a few weeds.  I lit them under a ledge of rock and got breakfast.  The cattle were uneasy every night but we didn’t lose many.”  In her biography Clara said, “Then it came time for us to think about going to Arizona. As I have said before father took my oldest brother with him out to Arizona. We got a letter from father with $50 in it to pay for our move. Father sent Haight (my brother) back after the family. He was then 15 years old. There were two men came with him as far as Kanab. Their names were Edward Wild and the other was Curtis. The man Wild was counted to be wild in life as well as in name, hut he was a diamond in the rough and he surely had a big heart. The mules that my brother drove were not very trustworthy. This man Wild gave Haight a large ham, a nice big cheese, as well as a nice lot of canned stuff and then tried and tried to give his bed to my brother. As I guess his bed was none too good.  We will never forget his kindness.”
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“Oh, what a trip for a boy of 15 to make, no roads hardly at all and with a span of mules that were only half broken. Father sent for a molasses mill, too. There were 6 in the family to go in one wagon and with the mill on it, we could not have had much room, so we had to walk almost all of the way. Mother started to get ready to move. Father said to wait for company to travel with.”
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“I remember well the day we left the place of my birth. I had the sore eyes very bad. We bade the folks good by and went on our way, I remember when we passed thru Kanab. Then we came to a place called Johnson, on account of there being so many people there by that name. We were here for two weeks and us being children picked currants on halves, or for 10 cents a qt. Mother began to worry for fear our provisions would run out due to the fact of our having to wait so long for company to travel with. But finally there were two families came along, by the names of Olsen and Pitcher, Ted Pitcher. They proved to be only a little better than nobody, as Olsen was so old and his son-in-law Pitcher was only about half there.  They depended entirely on my 15 year-old brother. They would get lost if there happened to be two roads and then Haight would have to hunt them up.”
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“I remember one morning, a funny thing happened in camp; we were all getting ready to move on when we heard the awfullest scream from the Olsen camp. And come to find out, the old man was greasing his wagon and was putting on the wheel and he pulled a little too hard and it slipped off from the thimble of the wagon pushing him into a bucket of water. The hub of the wheel went between his legs, pinning him down but didn’t hurt him at all, only scared everybody. It might have been serious, but it was sure funny, him sitting in the bucket of water screaming at the top of his voice.”
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“Mother walked with us kids and there was nothing happened to mar the trip. We came to Holbrook, then known as Horsehead Crossing. There was only one family living there, a Mexican family by the name of Barradas, who had a little store. This was 65 miles from where father was living, so mother got us some shoes. She did not dare to get us any before as she was afraid she would run short of money for the trip.”
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George told this story about his trip to Arizona to his son Roy:  In the same group with the Wilhelm family was the family of young Andrew Maxwell.  Seven year old George and Andrew soon became best friends.  They teamed up and did their chores together.  Six weeks later when they came to the fork where their paths parted the families stopped and cooked dinner and held a last get together.  George and Andrew vowed that they would not lose touch with each other and the families went their separate ways, the Wilhelms to Concho and the Maxwell’s to Round Valley.  It was to be 42 years before the friends saw each other again! (This may have happened on the way from Orderville to Rockville, where BH left Lydia and family, as the Maxwell family seems to have traveled to Arizona with B.H. and Clara doesn’t mention them as being among the group that traveled with Lydia and children to Arizona.)
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Clara had this to say about their arrival in Concho, “Well in a few days, we pulled into Concho, where father and the other family were living and Grandmother Wilhelm, my father’s mother also. I forgot to tell about us crossing the big Colorado River, they sure did have bum boats. They made the horses swim the river and took the wagons to pieces and put them on an old raft-like boat and took the people over in a little boat that leaked so badly that they had Indians dipping water out of it as fast as they could to keep it from filling up. Oh my, but we were scared, but we got across all right.”
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“We found the folks all well. Aunt Grace had had another baby girl, born on the 4th of July, (1880) so they named her Independence Grace. Father had had a hard time of it. There were about 15 families living in this place and there was a scarcity of flour. Father sold some horses and bought barley and had it ground and they lived on barley for six months. He furnished the people barley to live on also.  So while mother was having it so hard, father was not having it very easy. We lived here for a short time.”
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The following years were busy ones for the families.  B. H. settled his family in a beautiful area in Concho (this is now the Roman Candelaria farm).  Grandma Clarissa Wilhelm was appointed to run the coop store and until a building could be built, the goods were kept in her house. 
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===Summer cheese camp===
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In the summer of 1881 (?), B.H. built a cabin in the mountains a few miles south of Vernon and moved his mother Clarissa, Lydia and Lydia's family up for the summer so they could make cheese. (Z. George told Roy that the cabin was at McKay Spring, however an official Government Survey map of 1884 shows the B.H. Wilhelm cabin about a mile north of Butler Mountain and this site shows evidence of early occupation. At the time they lived there George was only about 10 years old and may have confused the two meadows, which are similar.) (insert copy of map showing bh cabin)
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Clarissa Wilhelm tells a little about what was probably that same summer; “After I settled in Concho, Bateman wanted to make cheese in the mountain near Malipies (sic).  We bought the equipment and started for the ranch, which he was going to homestead.  We found some Mexicans there.  They made trouble for us and the matter went to court.  We won the suit.  After Bateman got lumber for buildings he moved Lydia up.  We soon went to making cheese but the rainy season set in and the Indians got so bad so we decided to move back.  We had an awful time.  It rained solid sheets.  We got stuck and drenched.  I decided to walk to the Malipies.  I was as near dead as alive.  Haight went for help but it was several days before he reached Concho.”
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Clara also mentions an event in her biography that may be this same summer, “Then we moved to a ranch called Malpais and we lived there a year, during this time, father moved mother and his mother there. It is now known as the Wilhelm Ranch and it was then that it got its name. They went up there for the purpose of making butter and cheese and so that father could look after his cattle.” 
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In a different shorter biography she said, “We moved up to the White Mountains for the summers so Father could take care of his Cattle Interests and we made butter and cheese, as Grandmother was an expert at making cheese. We milked 50 head of cows and made cheese that weighed 50 lbs. This was only about 50 miles from Fort Apache. The Indians would come and pitch their camps right near us and Father had to be gone most of the time looking after the Cattle. It gave us quite a lot of worry for you never know how you stand with an Indian.”
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George told Roy a story that most likely took place at this time.  B.H. made a deal with the Mexicans at Mineral to rent a house and graze his cattle up there.  Lydia's family moved up for the summer.  The Mexicans raised a big crop of barley that summer and there was a lot left in the fields after it was harvested.  George found out that barley was selling for five dollars a hundred pounds, the price of a pair of red leather boots he had seen and wanted.  He got permission to gather up what he could and gathered and threshed it by hand until he had a hundred pound sack, quite a job for a little kid to do.  The next time his dad went to town he asked him to take the barley and sell it for him and get him the boots.  B.H. told him yes, threw the sack in the wagon and left for town.  When he returned from town he didn't have the boots and never said a word to George about them.  George felt bad about this for years, but never talked to his Dad about it.
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Clara said: “A little time later, father moved the rest of us to the other ranch and the winter that we lived there, it stormed so much that the roads were impassable and we ran out of flour and had to grind wheat in a coffee mill. It sure was a job. As fast as one would set the mill down, another would have to pick it up if we got enough ground.  It sure gave us an appetite so that we could grind more wheat to get more appetite. We were milking 50 head of cows, five of us. We milked 10 cows each. We lived in tents, and the dairy house was built tent fashion, out of timbers. We had a big cheese vat and Grandmother sure did know how to make good cheese. Most of them weighed 50 pounds. Our corral was built on a little slope and there was a swale ran thru it. It was a very rainy season and it rained most every day. The manure was more than a foot deep, yes, it could have been two feet deep, and wet so by the rain that the cows kept it stirred into a loblolly mess. We would have to take off our shoes and stockings and pin up our dresses (we wore dresses those days) and wade in the muck to do the milking. I think the water from our spring was the coldest I’ve ever saw. It made your teeth ache to drink it. Father made a pond right below it where we could wash our feet every night and morning, but the cold water didn’t seem to hurt us at all.”
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“The Apache Indians used to come and pitch camp right near us and we used to get a little nervous as they were sometimes a little hostile. Our calves used to eat a poisonous parsnip that grew along the little creek and it would kill them and we lost quite a number that way and us kids had to drag them off by hand. I remember one day when a crazy Indian came by our camp, having got lost. They called him Loco, but I think he was just harmlessly foolish. A calf died while he was there and as we didn’t have a team at the ranch, we children got ready to drag it off by hand. The boys tied a rope on its hind feet and then took three sticks and tied them along the rope so as to make handholts where two of us could pull on each stick. There were my three brothers, one sister and myself, so we lacked one of having enough for the six handholts. So the boys asked Loco to help and he was willing to do so. Then they talked it over among themselves and they agreed to make me pull along with Loco. I cried and said I wouldn’t do it, but I had to after all. As we were pulling along, he would look at me and grin and I guess he was wondering what was the matter. We had to drag the dead calves about a half a mile away and then the bears would come and eat them.”
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“The Indians killed two men not far from our camp, so we had to move. We went back to the Malpais Ranch. We had some hogs to take so us kids had to take turns driving them in the rain, dripping wet. Oh, those were happy days! In some ways it was happy, but in other not quite so much. Father went into St. Johns to find a place to move to, as mother was in delicate health. While he was in town, he heard that the Apache Indians were strickly out on the warpath, so he hurried back in the middle of the night and brought Brother Joseph McFate with his team, to help move us. Oh my, that was a terrible trip for us. Every black object we saw in the darkness we were sure was Indians. We had a load of cheese in the wagon that I rode in (Brother McFate’s) and we, my sister Isora and I could not lie down. Just as the sun was coming up we drove into St. Johns, a tired and sleepy bunch. It must have been awfully hard on poor, dear mother, for we hadn’t been in St. Johns a week when my little brother John Benjamin, was born. (September 6, 1881) We left our chickens locked up in their coop with enough feed and water for a while, and some other stuff. Father went back to bring them in, but when he got there, there were nothing but their heads and feet left. They had called some troops out on account of the Indian outbreak and in passing there they found the chickens so handily penned up and as they were colored gentlemen, who never get along with a chicken unless it’s inside of them, they proceeded to do just that. The rest of the things weren’t bothered.”
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Z. George told Roy the story of an encounter the family had with the Indians while living in their cabin in the woods this summer: One morning Lydia looked out the cabin door after B.H. and Haight, their oldest son, had left for the day to gather strays and saw a group of Indians in warpaint.  She knew it was up to her to protect her family so she kept everyone inside.  Lunchtime came and they needed water.  She knew that if she went out and the Indians grabbed her, the kids wouldn't have any water and they wouldn't have a mother either.  She decided the kids would have a better chance of getting the water, so she sent George and his little sister Fan out.  She told them that no matter what the Indians did, to be brave, look them in the eye and tell them off, even though the Indians didn't know English they'd understand.  So Lydia pointed her long tom rifle out the window at the Chief and George and Fan headed for the spring to get the water.  The Indians started harassing the kids but they were brave, filled the bucket with water, told the Indians off and headed back to the cabin.  The Indians apparently thought it was funny to see these little kids stand up to them and let them go.  Soon they got on their horses and headed off.  The next day a rider came by to tell the family that the Indians had declared war on the white man, and they should leave the area.  The family loaded up and headed for Malpai with their cattle.  They ran their cattle there the rest of the summer.
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Clara wrote an account in a short story of highlights of her life that probably took place at the summer camp in the mountains, “One day a squaw came into our camp and she did not act very nice. We thought that she might of been drinking. Mother told her to git out. But she paid no attention. So Mother got after her with a club. She sure drifted. Then we worried all night. For Father was away and we did not know what the Indians might do, but the next day they moved camp. We were living in tents at the time. Mother said afterword that it was a very foolish thing to do at that time as the Indians was very disagreeable at that time.  But it seemed she had to do something. There was just three women in camp, Fathers mother and his other wife. They finally got so hostile that we had to move into Town. Father came for us in the middle of the night. It was a very disagreeable ride, every dark object we saw we would think it was Indians.  We got into St. Johns just as the sun was coming up.  I think that was the longest night I ever saw and poor Mother was in delicate health.”
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The only reference I have been able to find of trouble with the Indians during this time is in McClintock’s book “Mormon Settlement in Arizona”.  He says: “During the time of the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, there was an Indian scare.  This originated in the outbreak of Nockedaklinny, a medicine man of the Coyoteros, who, August 30, 1881, was killed in the Cibicu country, a day’s travel from Fort Apache, by troops led by E. A. Carr, Fifth Cavalry.  Two days later the Indians attacked Camp Apache itself, after killing eight men on the road, and the post probably was saved from capture by the hurried return of the commander, with his troops.  . . A number of murders were committed by the Indians in northern Tonto Basin, but the insurrection extended no farther northward than Camp Apache.  Still it created great uneasiness within the comparatively unprotected settlements of the river valley.  June 1, 1882, was the killing of Nathan B. Robinson, this the only Indian murder of a Mormon in this section.”  It is likely that it was during this time frame that the events told about by George and his grandmother took place.
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The Indian situation got worse and everyone in the outlying areas was told to go to St. Johns and bunch up there for safety.  The Wilhelms loaded up and about dark headed out for St. Johns.  George was pretty scared by this time and as the wagon drove along in the dark he started seeing Indians riding along beside them with their bows pointed at him.  He'd shake his head and the Indians would disappear for a while.  It was just his imagination.  Years later he told his kids, "if you peer hard enough you'll see what you're looking for." 
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===St. Johns===
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The family arrived safely in St. Johns and settled in.  A militia was formed and B.H. was elected captain of the guard.  Clara told about the accommodations that the family found, “We moved into a house that belonged to a man named Joseph Hingley, a white man with a Mexican wife. That was in the days of the open saloon and oh, the drunken men. All night it was tramp and tramp, tramp of the feet of drunken men, passing our house. Mother sure did suffer, not being well at all.  We lived here a while and then we moved to a house that belonged to Thomas Pares (Perez).”
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Clara tells this story that happened during this time in her biography, “While we lived here, a horrid thing happened.  There was a murder committed down on the Colorado River. A man by the name of Breed was killed in his store. Two men were arrested and put in the St. Johns jail and there was a Mexican in there also for killing his brother up at the Mineral Canyon. He had been tried before father’s Justice of the Peace Court at Concho. At this time, a lawyer by the name of Clark, employed to defend the two men against the murder charge, was boarding at our house. He and Aunt Grace were always joking and one evening as they were talking, Aunt Grace jokingly said "I wish those two men would he hung in the morning and you would lose your fee.” Next morning, the lawyer went up town and when he came back, he said “Well, Mrs. Wilhelm you’ve got your wish!” She asked him what wish and he told her that the men had been hung during the night. All three of them had been lynched by an unknown mob. They had been hung in the jailhouse door and as it was too low, they had to double up their legs and tie them there so that they couldn’t reach the floor while they were being hung.”
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Clara said, “After we moved in the Thomas Pares (Perez) place, father put up a butcher shop, killing and selling his own cattle. He did well for a while, but he began drinking badly. Soon, he moved the other family over to Concho Spring and left mother in St. Johns to support herself. Flour was $12 a hundred and we were forced to take in washing and ironing to make a living. Us children had to hunt the wood, mostly willows, to do the work with, but mother saw that we were going to starve to death on what she was earning, so she had to hunt for something else to do, so she went up town and there she met Adam Dash, the jailer, who was looking for some one who would board the prisoners, so mother told him she would do it.  There were four of them and she got $1 each for feeding them. There were two white men, in for stealing horses, a half-breed Mexican, who was in for stealing cattle, named Don Wahl, half—brother to Willie Wahl, our old friend (Mable’s old beaux, who was going to marry Dick Gibbon’s daughter to spite him on account of some difference they’d had over a sheep deal) and the fourth was a crazy man by the name of Aaron Adair, a white man. He had spells of being crazy but I guess most people are that way. They would come with the jailer and the sheriff for their meals, but the crazy man would sometimes have to have his meals taken to him, for when he had a spell, they didn’t dare let him out. They had on their shakles and chains and they would clank, clank as they walked. They had a chain around their ankles and fastened to their belts. We used to have a scared feeling, knowing that they were criminals. The crazy used to say that the devil was always telling him to do things. Mother boarded them for six months, and then the sheriff thought he might as well have the money himself, so he though he’d board them himself, but it sure did help us for a while we had it.”
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Roy told us this story told to him by George:  There was one man that was chained up because he had gone crazy.  George had to take meals to him and a mark was made for George at the outer limits of the man's chain.  If he stayed outside of the line the man couldn't get him.  The man would plead with him to come over and visit with him, but George wasn't taking any chances.  When the man was through eating George would make him push his plate over the line, then he would get a broom and rake it to him so that the man couldn’t grab him.
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George also got a job sweeping out the pool hall and straightening it up.  During the poker games held there if a man was winning too much money the other players would tear up some of the cards in the deck, throw them all on the floor and call for a new deck.  When George swept up the floor he would gather up the good cards off the floor and make up decks and trade them around town.  He was able to make a little extra money for himself that way.  George learned to play cards and enjoyed a good game of cards the rest of his life.
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Clara said, “It was nearing the Mexican’s big day, St. Johns Day and they wanted the house we were living in for some of their relatives to live in, so we had to move out. We couldn’t find a house, so Brother John Harris (Aunt Ellie’s and Aunt Elizabeth’s father) let us have his tent and Brother Babbit and Holgate (Uncle Will) put it up for us, while we lived St. Johns this time. I remember of hearing Grandpa Gibbous speak in church several times and I little thought at the time that the Gibbons people would ever mean anything to me. I was 12 years old then. We lived in the tent just two days and then father sent Haight and a young man by the name of John Maegle (Naegle) to move us to Concho, to the spring where the other family was living. The next day after we left there, was the big St. Johns celebration day and in which, Father Nathan Tenney and a cowboy by the name of Jim Vaughn was killed and the Greer boys, who were pretty tough cowboys. They came very near being lynched. They had to keep a strong guard around the jail to protect them and the Gibbons men played a very important part in guarding them. We lived at the Spring for a short time and then father moved mother’s family to the Mineral so that Haight could look after the cattle and he moved the other family back to Concho. We lived at the Mineral for a year and then father did the worst thing that he ever did in his life; he sold his cattle and bought a store and a saloon. In a short time, he went broke, for he kept drinking all the time and he let so much out on credit and gave so much away that the store did not last long. Then he went to farming and we moved back to Concho and had to start taking in washing and sewing again.”
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(B.H. planted a big orchard and they made many improvements to the homestead.  Incidentally, at the time of this writing (1993) there is still one apple tree of this orchard that has survived drought and  floods for over a century.  (picture of home in concho) Lydia was an exceptional cook and their home was a favorite stopping place for church authorities on their way from St. Johns to Snowflake.)  ??  Did they eat at Lydia’s or Grace’s home?????  Clara’s story sounds like her mother didn’t live in Concho very long.)
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During this time polygamy was declared illegal and the law began arresting polygamists.  In the autobiography of Clarissa Harding Wilhelm, B.H.'s mother, she mentions that B.H. was arrested but managed to get away.  Clara had this to say in her biography, “The officers got after father for polygamy, but he got on his horse and left for Mexico (Old Mexico) in the night. An Old Mexican friend went with him. His name was Desiderio Gallego. There were two men by the same name who lived in Concho. This one was Pedro Candelaria’s brother-in-law.
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In 1884 B. H. received a letter from church headquarters telling him to take Grace and her family out of the area.  Lydia and her family were to stay in Concho so as not to lose their homestead to enemies of the Church.  (letter--insert here) 
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Lydia and her family were not to see their husband and father for many years and Lydia's children felt very bitter about what was perceived as their father's desertion of the family, although B.H. may have tried to get Lydia and her family to join him in Mexico.  Clara said this in her biography, “After father got down into old Mexico, he sent for us to join him.  Aunt Grace was willing, but mother refused to go.  Haight took father’s team and Joseph and Isora went with him to help move their outfit. Father owed D.K. Udall for the store he bought, so we turned all of father’s property over to him as payment and we bargained for a place from Bro. Walter Windsor.  Mother and I supported the family by washing, ironing and sewing while the two boys Haight and George, paid for the place.  It was a hard scrabble, but we finally made it.”  In a different story Clara says, “Father sent back after the Families, but mother wouldn’t go. She had been imposed on beyond endurance.  Father owned several homes in Concho and he owed D K Udall on the store he had gone broke on, so he sent word for mother to pick out the home she wanted and turn all the rest of the property to D.K.  We were living on a place that was not yet paid for so we decided to stay on this place, finish paying for it and let D. K. have all the rest, so he would be sure of his pay.”  This second story fits with the word of mouth history that has been passed down in George’s family, and so it is probably more likely that this was the way it happened and the property in question is the land now belonging to the Candelaria family.
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Times were tough for the family.  Haight and George, being the oldest boys, had to support the family.  Their Mexican neighbors felt sorry for them and gave the boys a little work.  The country was going through rough times and the boys couldn't sell their cattle.  The sheep men could sell a little wool to the government to use making uniforms for soldiers and there were a lot of sheep in the Concho area.  George and Haight got a job shearing sheep, it was a dirty job and no one liked to do it, but it helped feed the family.  One of the sheep men in the area came to George and Haight and asked them why they didn't go into the sheep business.  They told him that they didn't have any money to buy sheep; they couldn't even pay their taxes.  The man offered to sell the boys some old sheep that he had that he figured wouldn't last much longer.  Some of them were pregnant and the boys would get lambs in the spring.  He told them he would charge them a dollar a piece for them and they could pay him when they could afford it, even if it took them years to do it.  The boys had raised a lot of feed that summer, having nothing else to do, so they had plenty to feed the sheep during the winter.  They decided to take him up on his offer and went into the sheep business.  A few years later as George was riding along on a fat new horse with a new saddle, following two herds of sheep to the mountains, check book in his pocket, it occurred to him for the first time that he wasn't poor any longer.
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Things weren't going too well at Concho.  Roy told this story:  The Mormons that had settled the area had put plot numbers in a hat and drawn for them.  Some of them got good land and some of them bad land.  The people with the bad land concocted a scheme to ditch the water in the Concho Reservoir down to the Hunt Valley, where there was good land and they could all have good land.  The ones with good land in Concho said no, the water would all evaporate before it could get there and no one would have any water.  They couldn't agree and it got to where some of the people were wearing guns everywhere, even to church.  Then they stopped going to church, so the church sent one of the apostles down to straighten out the problem.  The more he talked, the worse the situation got.  He decided it was a lost cause and called a meeting of the townsfolk.  He told them that the situation was beyond human power to resolve and that he had the authority to release them from their call as colonizers.  He released them from their call and freed them to go wherever they wanted with a prophecy that Concho would "wither and die like a melon on a dead vine."
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All the Wilhelm's friends and neighbors were moving away from Concho and the area was getting grazed out.  George’s brother, Haight, homesteaded a place at Vernon shortly after his marriage in 1891 and Lydia sold their place in Concho and also homesteaded a place in Vernon.  We haven’t been able to find records that tell exactly when Lydia moved to the Vernon area, it may have been before Haight homesteaded there.  Clara mentions this in her biography, “We sold this place (Concho) and moved to Vernon, where we homesteaded a dry-land farm. We got sheep for the place and it was here that I got better acquainted with Richard Gibbons and in 1892, we were married at the Pinetop Conference, on July 4th.”  Since George didn’t homestead his place until 1900, he most likely moved with his mother to Vernon and helped her homestead and Haight may have homesteaded there because his mother was already there.  Even after George homesteaded his own place he built a home next to his mother’s and lived there because he was unable to dig a well deep enough to find drinking water on his own homestead.
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George told the story of his first meeting with his future wife Nancy Naomi Gibbons, to his daughter-in-law Hazel Hunt Wilhelm Singleton: 
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“When he (George) first met Grandma Nonie, he was living with Uncle Dick Gibbons and his wife, Clara, up at Malapai. Clara was a sister of Z. George and Uncle Dick was the brother of Andrew Vinson Gibbons, Nonie’s father. Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara, along with Grandpa, had been invited down to dinner at A. V. Gibbon's home. Nonie was about sixteen (George was about 22) and during the course of the evening at the dinner she sang and played the guitar for them.  Z. George claimed that he fell in love with her that night and had always loved her from that day.
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When it was time to do the dishes, he got up with her and went in the other room to help. He was drying the dishes with a dishtowel while she washed. He kept putting the clean dishes back into the dishwater that Nonie was using because he didn’t want the evening to end.”
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It was eleven years later, when she was about 27 and George 33 that they met again and Nancy Naomi fell in love with George.
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At this time Nancy Naomi (Nonie) was a young divorced mother of a little daughter named Maude and was teaching school at the small settlement of Malpai, near St. Johns.  George stopped by for a visit and when he discovered Nonie was living there, he decided to extend his visit so they could get to know each other better.  They fell deeply in love during this visit.  They set a wedding date and were married by Marinus Christensen in St. Johns on January 3, 1905.  George moved his new bride and her daughter, Maude, to his homestead in Vernon
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George and Nonie were not to have many years together, but the years that they had were happy ones for the family.  They spent time on the homestead in Vernon and George bought a lot in St. Johns and they had a home there.  Soon children began blessing their home, the first to arrive was George Andrew on October 28, 1905.  He was followed by Carl LeRoy on April 21, 1907 and Marion Walter on July 28, 1909.
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==Children with Nancy==
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===[[George Andrew Wilhelm]]===
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*Born October 28, 1905 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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*Died July 28, 1950 in Pomona, California
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===[[Carl LeRoy Wilhelm]]===
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*Born April 21, 1907 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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*Died December 10, 1998 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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===[[Marion Walter Wilhelm]]===
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*Born July 28, 1909 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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*Died February 28, 1942 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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===[[Harvey Gibbons Wilhelm]]===
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*Born March 16, 1916 in [[St. Johns, Arizona|St. Johns]], [[Apache County, Arizona|Apache]], [[Arizona]]
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*Died November 4, 2013
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==Children with Alice==
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===[[Ruth Naomi Wilhelm]]===
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*Born [[June 25]], [[1925]]
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*Died [[February 25]], [[1933]]
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==Brands==
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Originally George used the '''UZ Bar''' brand, but at some point he sold his cattle and the brand to the White River Land and Cattle Company.  He later registered and use the '''Lazy Y XY''' brand.
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<gallery widths="250px">
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File:UZ Bar 1908.png|'''UZ Bar''' brand, as recorded in 1908
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File:ZG Wilhelm brand 1920.png|'''Lazy Y XY''' brand, as recorded in 1920
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File:UZ Bar Brand.png|'''UZ Bar''' brand in 1920, as recorded in 1920
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</gallery>
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==Family Tree==
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{{ahnentafel-compact5
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|style=font-size: 90%; line-height: 110%;
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|border=1
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|boxstyle=padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0;
 +
|boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;
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|boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;
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|boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;
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|boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;
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|boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe;
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|1= 1. '''[[Zemira George Wilhelm]]'''
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|2= 2. [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm]]
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|3= 3. [[Lydia Hannah Draper]]
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|4= 4. [[John Benjamin Williams]]
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|5= 5. [[Clarissa Harden]]
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|6= 6. Zemira Draper
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|7= 7. Amy Terry
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|8= 8. [[John Andrew Williams]]
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|9= 9. [[Mercy Farrington]]
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|10= 10. Miller Harding
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|11= 11. Elizabeth Tabor
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|12= 12. William Draper
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|13= 13. Lydia Lathrop
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|14= 14. Parshall Terry
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|15= 15. Hannah Terry
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|16= 16. [[Justice Williams]]
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|17= 17. Clarissa
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|18= 18. [[Benjamin Farrington]]
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|19= 19. Susannah Tompkins
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|20= 20. James Harding
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|21= 21. Mary
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|22= 22. Amaziah Taber
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|23= 23. Silence Babcock
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|24= 24. Thomas Draper
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|25= 25. Lydia Rogers
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|26= 26. Isaac Lathrop
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|27= 27. Lucy Pike
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|28= 28. Parshall Terry
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|29= 29. Amy Stevens
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|30= 30. Joshua Terry
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|31= 31. Elizabeth Parshall
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}}
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==Images==
==Images==
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[[Image:ZGeorge.png|thumb|left|150x120px|Zemira George Wilhelm as a young man.]]
 
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[[Image:Z_George_and_Haight_Wilhelm.png|thumb|left|250x200px|Zemira George Wilhelm and his brother [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight Wilhelm]].]]
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<gallery widths="250px">
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file:ZGeorge.png|[[Zemira George Wilhelm]] as a young man
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file:Z_George_and_Haight_Wilhelm.png|[[Zemira George Wilhelm]] and his brother [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight Wilhelm]]
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file:Zemira George Wilhelm Death.jpg|Death Certificate for [[Zemira George Wilhelm]]
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</gallery>
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<gallery widths="250px">
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file:Zemira George Wilhelm's saddle.jpg|[[Zemira George Wilhelm]]'s saddle
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File:1911 George Maude Naomi Roy Marion Andy.jpg|[[Zemira George Wilhelm]], Maude Naomi Freeman, [[Nancy Naomi Gibbons]], [[Carl LeRoy Wilhelm]], [[Marion Walter Wilhelm]] and [[George Andrew Wilhelm]] in 1911.
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File:Z George and Naomi wedding.png|[[Zemira George Wilhelm]] and [[Nancy Naomi Gibbons]] Wedding portrait, January 1905
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</gallery>
[[Category:People|Wilhelm, Zemira George]]
[[Category:People|Wilhelm, Zemira George]]

Latest revision as of 12:51, 5 November 2013

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