A BRIEF HISTORY OF WILLIAM THOMAS & MARY JANE HUNT TRUMAN
By Nellie Ann Truman Clove, a daughter
Enterprise, Utah - July 24, 1994
My father, William Thomas Truman, was born on December 20, 1858 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The actual location was just south of Salt Lake City in a small hamlet known as South Cottonwood. (His father was Jacob Mica Truman, a member of Company C of the Mormon Battalion. Jacob Mica Truman was the youngest member of the Mormon Battalion and almost lost his life while in the service of his country. Read History of Jacob Mica Truman and Elizabeth Boyce, wherein this story is told of Jacob Mica attempting to break a horse/mule. It ran under a large tree limb which hit Jacob Mica in the head and left a large gash in his head, and the company doctor told the commander of Company C to leave him because he would die. Three of Jacob's close Battalion friends stood by him and requested that they remain behind to bury him after he was dead. When the company had departed, the others laid their hands on Jacob's head and by the power of the Priesthood, blessed him and he recovered and was able to travel. This shocked the doctor who was not a church member and did not understand how Jacob could possibly be healed as he was. William Thomas Truman's mother was Elizabeth Boyce, a great pioneer woman who can be counted as one of the true "Saints" of the Latter-days!)
Father was the sixth child in a family of twelve. Jacob Mica Truman and his family moved to St. George (named after Apostle George A. Smith by Brigham Young) in 1862, at the call of Brigham Young to help settle this arid region of Zion. In 1861, Brigham Young had organized a larger settlement of the South Region because of the out break of the Civil War and fearing that the war would take away the supply of cotton, the St. George location was selected because of its warm climate and the availability of water from the Virgin River. On October 6, 1861, some three hundred families were called to settle St. George, many were converts from the Southern part of the United States because they were familiar with cotton and its production. Thus, Utah's Dixie was born! Father was only four years old when the family moved from Salt Lake City to the frontier settlement of St. George. (Later, President Brigham Young would make his winter home in St. George. President Young's old home stand' s today at the corner of second west and second north. When he (my father) was eight years old, the family moved from the heat and sand of St. George to a pleasant mountain valley known as the "Mountain Meadows," 30 miles north of St. George.
The Mountain Meadows is a mountain valley lying west of the Pine Valley Mountains. The valley extends north and south about six miles with an average width of two miles. It lies on both sides of the GREAT BASIN RIM, the northern part of the Meadows drains north towards the Escalante Desert, and the southern part drains south toward the Rio Virgin River. Part of the valley became known to early travelers of the Old Spanish Trail as an extensive meadow land where it was common for migrant trains to stop and rest their livestock and allow them to regain weight before traveling on to the Pacific Coast of Southern California. At the north end of the Mountain Meadows, a small settlement called Hamblin had been established in 1861, at an elevation of about 6,000 feet. This small community was named after the great Indian Missionary named Jacob Hamblin who had built a home and ranch a short distance to the southwest of the community. (It's location was along the Old Spanish Trail, used by the Spanish traders between 1828 and 1848, wherein they traveled from Santa Fe, New Mexico north-west to the Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado River and then turned south-west along the east side of the Escalante Valley through a canyon latter known as "HOLT'S CANYON," south into the Mountain Meadows, over the Beaver Dam Mountains, along the Virgin River through the Las Vegas Valley, over Mountain Pass into the Mojave River flood plain where several springs of water were available during the fall, winter and early spring months to supply water to the wagon/livestock trains who were traveling to the coast of southern California).
Jacob Mica Truman and his wife are buried in the old Hamblin cemetery, located on a small hill just east and above the old town site. Their graves are marked with a grave stone used for members of the Mormon Battalion. (One can find the spot by traveling on the road from St. George to Enterprise: travel to the north end of the Mountain Meadows, turn right on the Pinto/Iron Mountain cut-off Road. You then travel northeasterly approximately 6 miles to the east side of the Meadows until you come to a sign which points left to the Hamblin Cemetery. The cemetery is located about a half mile off the Pinto Road. As a matter of interest, after the Old Spanish Trail was abandoned by the Spanish Fathers in 1848, it became known as the Mormon Trail, The Southern Route and The Hasting Route and The California Road. See history of the area in the book "UNDER DIXIE SUN" published in 1950 by the Washington County Chapter of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, and printed by Garfield County News in Panguitch, Utah).
While living at Hamblin, father could remember the occasion when John D. Lee was brought back to the scene of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, after his federal trial where he had been convicted of being the primary leader of the Massacre. It is interesting to note that Jacob Hamblin was the chief prosecution witness against Mr. Lee because of a conversation Mr. Lee had had with Mr. Hamblin in Fillmore a day or two after the Massacre. Jacob had taken several Indian Chiefs to see Brigham Young the week prior to the Massacre, had heard of the trouble the Arkansas Train was making as it traveled through the Mormon settlements, spoke to Brigham Young about them and was told to go back and make sure that nothing happened to them, but to allow them to pass in peace. On his way back to Cedar City, Jacob met John D. Lee at Fillmore where they camped together for the night. Mr. Lee was traveling to Salt Lake City and told Jacob about Massacre. Jacob wrote this detailed story in his diary and this diary was used as part of the trial testimony that convicted Mr. Lee. You also have to remember that Jacob lived at the North end of the Mountain Meadows with his family. Jacob said that when he arrived at his home at the Meadows, his family was in great disarray because of the events of the Massacre. About 5 or 6 days had passed from the time the Massacre had taken place and Jacob returned home. Jacob said that he went to the South end of the Meadows where the Massacre had taken place and buried close to one hundred remains of the people killed. Jacob said that the wolves had dismembered most of the bodies and that he was sick for several days following this ordeal.
Father said that Mr. Lee was given the freedom to comment prior to his execution; wherein he proclaimed: "Joseph Smith is a true Prophet of God, but Brigham Young is leading the people astray." Father went to the execution with his father, Jacob Mica, but was not allowed to get very close to the actual execution. Those that were close enough to hear and see what happened said that after John D. Lee bore his witness of Joseph Smith and his feelings about Brigham Young, the executioners pulled his cap down over his eyes and then he was shot by a firing squad of federal soldiers. Following the execution, his coffin was nailed shut, and he was taken back to Beaver, Utah where Mr. Lee called home.
The Truman family lived at the Mountain Meadows until 1876 when they moved to Gunlock, just up the Santa Clara Creek from the small hamlet which bears its name. (Gunlock was named after William "Gunlock" Hamblin, the brother of the great Indian Missionary Jacob Hamblin. William was nick-named "Gunlock" because of his remarkable accuracy in shooting a rifle. The story of Pipe Springs, now part of the Arizona Strip, between St. George and Kanab, was named for one of William "Gunlock" Hamblin's feats with a 50 caliber buffalo rifle at the time Major Powell was surveying the Grand Canyon. Jacob and William Hamblin acted as guides for Major Powell during this National Geographic Survey of the Grand Canyon. Jacob had circumnavigated the Grand Canyon twice prior to the coming of Major Powell and the survey party. As part of Jacob's travels to the Indian Mission south of the Colorado River, he had traveled from Santa Clara in both a clock wise and counter clock wise direction around the Grand Canyon. Jacob made it his business to map all of the major canyons and many of the springs around the diameter of the Canyon) . The old Jacob Mica Truman Ranch/Farm was located approximately near the present day location of the Gunlock Reservoir, or thereabouts!
Father had very little formal schooling except what he learned from his father and mother. Father was fairly well acquainted with basic pioneering skills that he had picked up from his father and from growing up in a pioneering environment. Grandfather Jacob Mica loved to pioneer and in settling each new location, Father would have the opportunity of "building things all over again!" Of course this training came in very handy for Father because he too moved around a great deal, especially in his younger years, prior to the majority of the family coming along, and by the time he arrived in Hebron, he was well suited for the tasks at hand, both physical and spiritual.
My dear mother, Mary Jane Hunt Truman, was born on October 11, 1868 in Gunlock, Washington County Utah. She was the third child of Jonathan Hunt and Clarissa A. Leavitt Hunt. She was only ten years old and her sister Lucy twelve, when their dear mother died, leaving four small boys for them and their father to care for. On March 11, 1884, Mother and Father were married in the St. George Temple. Father was 25 and mother was 15. Father often told us kids about the circumstances that led him to Mother and to their marriage. As the story goes, about two years after the death of Grandfather Truman (Jacob Mica) , Father was working in the field one day when the voice of his father came to him and said: "Billie, that girl you are now going with is not the right one for you!" Father thought about it for several days, broke off with the young woman that he had been rather serious about and then a short time latter, Grandfather Truman's voice came again to Father and said: "Billie, go to the home of Jonathan Hunt, there you will find the right girl for you!" A short time later Father went to the home of Jonathan Hunt where he found Father Hunt shelling corn. Father set down and begin to help Father Hunt shell corn when a young girl came in and looked at Father. Father flipped a kernel of corn at her and she smiled at him. Their courtship was short, because a few months later, Father and Mother were married.
Initially, Father and Mother lived in Gunlock; however, after a few years, they moved to the Beaver Dam Wash on the Utah/Nevada line, about 20 miles west of St. George. They then moved to the Mountain Meadows for a short time; then on to Little Pine Valley, and in 1896, they moved to Hebron, Utah. (Hebron is now a Ghost Town, on Shoal Creek, about 6 miles west of Enterprise. Due to an earthquake and severe flooding in the late 1800's, and because of the need for more land to cultivate, the residents of Hebron moved to the present location of Enterprise where there was plenty of land for farming and more space for an expanding population. This location was first settled by the Pulsipher Brothers, John and Charles who called it Shoal Creek. Then a few years later came the Hunt's, the Holt's, the Huntsmen's, the Hall's, the Morris, the Truman, the Jones families, and many more. The Hunt family had come from a small town in Kentucky known as Hebron, so it is no surprise that this townsite was named Hebron).
Father was 10 years older than Mother. Mother was a small, frail little woman with a light, swift step; a somewhat stern manner and except on rare occasions, a serious mind. Father was about 6 feet tall and Mother was about 5' 3" tall; Father had a sturdy build, rough and ready sort of fellow; a jovial companion with a real sense of humor and a hearty laugh. Father never seemed afraid of anything. He was absolutely honest and often made the remark: "Tell the truth if it shames the devil." It can well be remembered by the older children in the family of how, when the creek was running full of water in the early spring, Father would ride across on horseback with the water almost high enough to float the horse, to meet the mail and carry it across. Others seemed hesitant about crossing such a large swift stream, but not Father. To us children, Father was a powerful figure. For him, we did our best, and that was what he expected - our very best! When he spoke to us children, we knew enough to mind his word, not from fear of punishment, since he never laid a hand on any of us, but because of his commanding voice and the great respect we all had for him. Mother was almost the opposite of Father in personality. She was always on the move, had a sharp wit, gentle smile and didn't have time for much horse-play, but she loved a good story and could laugh with the best of them!
Mother and Father had been married a little over two years when their first child was born. Clarissa Elizabeth was born on March 20, 1886. She was named after her grandmother Leavitt. Soon other children were added to the family: Jacob Thomas was born on March 4, 1889; William Jonathan was born on December 12, 1892; their second daughter, Rosell, was born on November 20, 1895. (During the ten years they lived in Gunlock, Father served as first counselor to Bishop Frank Holt, as President of the Young Men Mutual Improvement Association and as Superintendent of the Gunlock Sunday School.)
After Mother and Father moved the family to Hebron, father was with J.S.P. Bowler, his brother Bert Truman, and others when they picked out the site for the new Enterprise Reservoir. Father helped with the building of the dam until it was completed and became operational.
Things were not easy for Father and Mother, but they battled with the greatest of courage to gain a livelihood from the soil. Mother helped Father in every way possible. She raised a good vegetable garden without much help from anyone. She milked cows and did other outdoor chores that would lessen Fathers' burden of providing for a big family. She made cheese and butter to sell or use which ever was needed most. There were times when she had many cheese lofts on the swinging shelves in the little cellar near the home in Hebron. She always kept them numbered so she would know which ones were the oldest. One Sunday, when the family was away to Church at Enterprise, someone took two of the cheese lofts. That evening after returning home, Mother went to the cellar to get the milk and a loaf of cheese for supper. To her surprise, two of the cheeses were gone. She came back to the house and told Father, to which he said: "If they need them that bad, they are welcome to them."
Mother was an immaculate house keeper. Dirt even in the smallest amounts hurt her eyes, and she never lacked the ambition to keep her home in perfect order. She discouraged any help in the house from Father that she might have had in her later years, by letting him know from the very beginning that she could manage her household duties without any men meddling in her affairs. She trained her four sons as they came along in the same manner and never so much as let any one of them make a bed or dry a dish; however, this was a great sorrow to some of our brothers wives as they got married and begin their own families! As much as it was possible, Mother waited on her entire family; no job was to great or task to trivial if it pleased her family or made them more comfortable. In today's society, one might call Mother possessive, but with Mother, it was her role and function as a wife and mother of a family. Mother was a Saint to Father and us children.
On February 23, 1897, their fifth child; Roxie Ellen, another little girl with fair curly hair was born to them; and on December 19, 1899, another girl was born. Her name was Belle, but she was a little different since she had real dark hair and soft brown eyes. Next, on April 9, 1902, Thelma, their seventh child was born. She was followed by a son Alma, born June 30, 1904. Alma was named after the great prophet of the Book of Mormon.
During these years, Father did some freighting to Delamar, a mining town in Nevada about 60 miles west of Hebron; he also did a lot of farming. On one occasion, Uncle Henry Hunt, Mother's brother, and Father had been to Delamar a few days before the 24th of July. Father wanted to get home for the 24th of July celebration. As soon as they harnessed up the horses to leave they noticed that one of them acted sick. When they stopped for lunch at Grassy Spring, the horse laid down and couldn't get up. He acted as if he were about to die. Uncle Henry said that Father told him: "Henry, I know of nothing we can do except to pray for God to heal this horse." They then knelt down by the horse and Father commenced to pray. In relating the story some years later, Uncle Henry said that he opened his eyes in the middle of the prayer to look at Father for the way he prayed it sounded as if he was talking face to face with God. Uncle Henry said that never before or since, had he heard anyone pray with such earnestness and sincerity. After the prayer, they got to their feet and only walked a few steps when the horse whinnied. They looked around, and it was getting to its feet. Father said: "I believe that horse knows as well as we do where help came from." It was perfectly well from that moment and took them back to Hebron without any further delay in time for the 24th of July celebration.
The only aide Mother and Father received while raising their large family was from the greatest of all physicians, the Lord. The older children can remember of only once when a doctor was called. Thelma was just a little girl about six years old when she became very ill. All of the home remedies together with all of their prayers seemed not to help. Mother became so worried lest they loose this little girl that Father telephoned a Doctor in St. George and requested that he come at once. The Doctor said it would be $50 dollars for such a trip. Father told him to come as fast as possible. Someone with a team and buggy brought the Doctor as far as Chad's Ranch, near present day Veyo, and Father sent someone there to bring the Doctor on to Enterprise. Fifty miles was a long way to travel with a team and wagon, and by the time the Doctor arrived, Thelma was feeling fine. The Doctor did nothing except collect his $50 and return to St. George.
Mother had difficult times when her children were born, but she gave birth to twelve children with only the aid of a Midwife and her own faith in the Lord. Heber Reed was born on July 13, 1906 and was the ninth child. On December 25, 1908, an event which had promised to be a very joyful one, since it was Christmas, turned out to be their first great sorrow. Mother being very deeply devoted to her children thought that she could not part with anyone of them and when a sweet baby girl was born to stay only one day, she thought it almost to much to bear. But Father reasoned with her in this manner: "Hadn't they always paid their honest tithes, and wasn't this she child their tenth?" "Didn't she feel that she could give back to the Lord this one when He had been so kind and generous to them?" "Yes, she could say, Thy Will Be Done!" She worked and prayed for prayer would see her through any difficulty. She never doubted the Lord's purposes, and she never believed in crying long over things that she could not help. She took the parting of this little one as God's will.
On July 11, 1911, a beautiful baby girl with blue eyes and brown curly hair came to bless their home. This precious little gift from heaven must have been like soothing balm to their aching hearts . They gave her the name of Mae . They must have felt at this time that their happiness was complete. Their older children had grown up to be thoughtful and obedient young men and women. Their oldest son, Jacob, was serving a mission in the Southern States. Although they spent many lonesome hours while he was away, they thought of those who would be benefitted by hearing the true Gospel of Jesus Christ through their son's missionary service.
About this time, Mother knew that she was going to have another child and suddenly after eleven children, Mother felt afraid. She was tired; she knew that she must have see this vigil through. She wasn't a coward in any sense of the word, anyone knowing with what strength she met hardships of a pioneer life would know this. Because she had gone through this ordeal eleven times before did not make it easier to bear, but this one seemed to leave her without any strength to draw from. On January 7, 1914, Mother went to Patriarch Thomas Sirls Terry, known by all of us as Grandpa Terry, and had him give her a Patriarchal Blessing. She received the strength that she seemed to lack and on January 9, 1914, Mother gave birth to her eighth girl and twelfth child. They gave her the name of Nellie Ann. She was a thin plain-looking child and Mother couldn't have been blamed if she thought that she didn't get much for all her trouble. Mother loved this little girl as she did all of her children. Often as this little girl grew up, and especially after Aunt Esther, Father's invalid sister came to live with us in our home, Mother remarked how much comfort she received from this little girl. (Modesty is a great virtue!!)
To have an invalid sister-in-law come into their home at this time made a change in each of their lives and to Mother especially. Mother cared for Aunt Easter as if she was one of her "special" children. She looked after her as only a "Guardian Angel" could. Father was still robust and healthy. He was out of doors most of the daylight hours, but it was at a time when Mother needed rest and special care herself. Never did I hear Mother complain. She had none of the comforts and conveniences of that day in her own home and seemed to care nothing about them. Money was a commodity that she cared little about except to meet the necessities of life. Although she was usually quiet and serious minded she could enjoy a good joke and on more than one occasion she laughed until she cried. Mother never judged to harshly the faults in others for her soul was one of those ever-loving, ever-forgiving kind. She had a splendid clear soprano voice and could two-step as graceful as you please. It can be remembered by the String Band (A famous Enterprise Band made up of only String instruments which serenades the city every 4th and 24th of July) , when the Band stopped at our home on the morning of each 24th of July, Mother would do a lively two-step on our front porch, and this continued until long after her fiftieth birthday. Each Spring, we would move back to the Ranch at Hebron and each Fall, we would move back to Enterprise so the kids could go to school.
Our childhood days in Old Hebron were very happy and carefree ones. The front room of our two-roomed house was made of white rock. The original Truman home in Hebron was on the North side of the creek, back against the hill. Every spring when we moved back to Hebron from Enterprise, where we spent the winters, Mother would white wash those old rough walls until they gleamed and if she couldn't manage to have a new carpet which had been home woven, to put down over a thick layer of nice clean smelling straw, she at least had a clean one. I remember as a very little girl laying on that soft carpet with its pad of straw while I listened to the songs that Mother knew so well and sang so often.
Our kitchen was a large bare-looking room with a floor of wide-knotty boards which never had a covering but was always mopped clean by Mother with her own home-made soap. All of the drinking water was carried from a cold spring about 1/2 mile up the creek. My sister Mae and I would take our little buckets and carry fresh water at least once or twice a day, just to keep the family in fresh water. Those were wonderful days! Never will I forget those cool watermelons that Mother brought out of the little dirt cellar behind the house. The floor of which she sprinkled two or three times daily to keep the melons and milk cool. Late in those hot summer afternoons, we would sit outside in the shade of an old cottonwood tree to enjoy a melon that Mother had planted, tended, picked and served. (As of this writing, there are still a few old cottonwood trees where the second old Homestead house stood along the road to the Enterprise Reservoirs, on the right side of the road, at the gate that takes you to the Old Hebron Cemetery and just before you cross the creek and turn left toward the Enterprise Reservoirs. When many of residents of Hebron abandoned their homes and moved to Enterprise, Father homesteaded on the south side of the creek where the old grove of cotton wood trees still stand).
The grain thrashing days were planned for with great care and much hard work by Mother. The entire family looked forward to this time of year with great anticipation, especially by us children. Mother had the thrashing crew to feed while us kids played in the big straw stack. Father, who was always of a good nature as could be, never seemed to mind if we spilled a little wheat out of the wagon boxes where a big canvas had been carefully placed to hold the grain until it was hauled to the granary.
In those days, our evenings were all "Family Home Evenings!" We spent almost all of our evenings playing simple games, such as jacks, singing pioneer songs or guessing initials. The game of guessing initials was the one game the whole family joined in on. Father was a great story teller and could tell some hair raising experiences that were really true. He had spent much of his younger life in the saddle with Grandfather Jacob Mica and others chasing wild horses, cattle, game hunting and pioneering springs and water systems, meeting and dealing with Indians, etc. . One day Father caught a large Mountain Lion with a rope. (Father from that time until his passing, at least among the old timers of the area, was known as "THE MAN WHO ROPED THE MOUNTAIN LION!" ) Father put the Mountain Lion in a cage for people to see. You will remember in those days, a Mountain Lion was something to fear and especially by us small children. This was just a part of his ordinary life.
One experience that will always be remembered, was weekly trips every Sunday morning in the summer time from Hebron to Enterprise for Sunday School and Sacrament Meetings. It was a distance of some six miles, and we rode in the buggy drawn by two, good, lively, trotting horses. Regardless of how early Father and Mother had to get up, or how many things were left undone, they never worked on Sunday, but always felt it their duty to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
The years slowly brought a visible change in Mother's health. In these later years, only on rare occasions was her beautiful voice heard to sing the songs that were so familiar to us, and Mother's feet that had walked hundreds of miles in the service of others forgot they ever knew the two-step. Aunt Esther remained in our home for eleven years and even though her presence there meant added work and responsibility for Mother, it was not at all unpleasant. She was a very congenial and easy to please person. She had a brilliant mind and contributed to the education of us younger children who still remained at home. Since she had to have extra care in many ways, it taught all of us in some degree the lesson of unselfishness.
It was in 1922 that Father sold the Ranch at Hebron and moved us permanently to Enterprise. We had built a small home where the Rodney Staheli family now lives, across the street from Alma Terry facing south (100 South, 170 West) . Some of the money they received from the sale of the Ranch was used to send another of their sons on a mission. Alma went to the Southern States on December 6, 1926, returning home on December 20, 1928. On June 4, 1929, Heber went to the Northwestern States Mission where he served as a missionary until January 1931 when the Great Depression became so bad that he had to come home.
As the years went by and the family grew up, many went on missions and got married, Mother and Father felt good about the faithfulness of their children. However, on March 9, 1933, their oldest daughter, Clarissa Elizabeth passed away. Clarissa had contracted cancer of the stomach and had been ill for many years. Father went to Salt Lake City to be with her during her operation, which was not successful, and she did not recover. She had made the request for Father to be with her, but when she was asked if she didn't also want Mother to come, she promptly said no! Then she said: "I will be with Mother soon anyway," as she had only been waiting for the time to come when Mother could follow her. Clarissa told her daughter Lulu that this had been agreed on by both of them years before. Father left Salt Lake City immediately and hurried home to be with Mother in her hour of sorrow, but she had also finished her course. After Father told her of Clarissa's death, she had a stroke and within a few hours she left this life.
To tell of the genuine goodness of Mother could be summed up in the words of Aunt Esther at the time of Mother's death, March 11, 1933, when she said: "In all of the eleven years I have spent here in Billie's and Mary Jane's home, Mary Jane has never spoken an unkind word to me." The next few years were sad and lonely ones for Father. He was as one lost. The love they had for each other had endured throughout the years. He had depended on Mother to be in the home at whatever hour he chose to enter, and to him, she was just as permanent as the kitchen stove. Her heart was in her home and with her family, so it was no sacrifice to stay there and be of service to them. Father spent his time visiting with his children and other relatives. During the winter months he spent some of his time in the St. George Temple. During the fall of 1933, Belle, who had been troubled with a bad heart for many years became seriously ill, and on November 14, 1938, she passed away. Even though Father was sorely grieved because of her leaving five young children, he thought of the joyous meeting of Mother and daughter.
On February 14, 1939, Father remarried. He married Palaree Potter in the St. George Temple. They were happy with the companionship of each other, and Father was content. During the eight years they spent together, they lived in Mesquite in her home in the winter and in Enterprise in Father's home in the summer. He still seemed robust and healthy and could stick a horse on a good fast gallop, but during the summer of 1947, he began to fail. By the last of July, he was almost bedfast and on August 11, 1947, his soul took its final flight. He was eighty-eight years old.
Although we, his living children, felt lonely with the absence of both our parents, we felt satisfied that they had fought the good fight, because their works, their thoughts, and their eyes had ever been turned toward life everlasting and the blessings that come with being true followers and saints of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the World.
Since the initial compilation of this short history of William Thomas and Mary Jane Hunt Truman in 1966, the following children remain with us on this July 24, 1994: Rosell, age 98, lives in St. George; Heber Reed, age 88, lives in Salt Lake City; Mae, age 84 who lives in Enterprise, and myself, Nellie Ann, age 80, and I too live in Enterprise. All of the other children have fought a good fight and can also be called "Saints" in the true sense of the word, as were our wonderful, faithful parents - William Thomas Truman and Mary Jane Hunt Truman!
With a heart full of gratitude and thanksgiving to God for parents who were true followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to the family that I love and cherish so much, may we remain steadfast in our faith, loyal in our devotion and committed to the Lord and to our families, as were our parents, William Thomas and Mary Jane Hunt Truman, is my sincere wish.


WILLIAM THOMAS TRUMAN DIES IN ENTERPRISE HOME 1947
William Thomas Truman, 89, died at his home in Enterprise, Utah, August 12, of causes incident to age.  Funeral services will be held Thursday afternoon in the Enterprise ward chapel.
Mr Truman was born in South Cottonwood, Salt Lake City, Dec. 20, 1858, a son of Jacob Michael and Elizabeth Boyce Truman.  The family moved to St. George when William was 4 years of age and when he was about 12 they moved to Gunlock.  He had lived in Hebron and Enterprise for the past 50 years.
He married Mary Jane Hunt in the St. George temple March 11, 1882, and to them were born 12 children, nine of whom survive.  His wife died in 1933, and he married Mrs Paralee Potter in February of 1939.
He was the last resident to leave the old town of Hebron.  His life's work has been farming and cattle raising.  He has been active in civic and church work.  Holding many church offices as superintendent of the YMMIA and Sunday School, a member of the bishopric, ward teacher, and various other positions.  He was one of the first stockholders in the Enterprise Reservoir and Canal Company.
Surviving besides his widow are the following children: Jacob, William, Alma, and Heber Truman, Mrs. Rose Barlocker, Mrs. Roxie Barlow, Mrs. Thelma Staheli, Mrs. Mae Hall and Mrs. Nellie Clove all of Enterprise, Utah, 68 grandchildren, 71 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
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Also, thanks to Ashley and Lorna Hall for editing and adding additional history that is interwoven with the history of William Thomas and Mary Jane Hunt Truman.



WILLIAM THOMAS TRUMAN DIES IN ENTERPRISE HOME 1947
William Thomas Truman, 89, died at his home in Enterprise, Utah, August 12, of causes incident to age.  Funeral services will be held Thursday afternoon in the Enterprise ward chapel.
Mr Truman was born in South Cottonwood, Salt Lake City, Dec. 20, 1858, a son of Jacob Michael and Elizabeth Boyce Truman.  The family moved to St. George when William was 4 years of age and when he was about 12 they moved to Gunlock.  He had lived in Hebron and Enterprise for the past 50 years.
He married Mary Jane Hunt in the St. George temple March 11, 1882, and to them were born 12 children, nine of whom survive.  His wife died in 1933, and he married Mrs Paralee Potter in February of 1939.
He was the last resident to leave the old town of Hebron.  His life's work has been farming and cattle raising.  He has been active in civic and church work.  Holding many church offices as superintendent of the YMMIA and Sunday School, a member of the bishopric, ward teacher, and various other positions.  He was one of the first stockholders in the Enterprise Reservoir and Canal Company.
Surviving besides his widow are the following children: Jacob, William, Alma, and Heber Truman, Mrs. Rose Barlocker, Mrs. Roxie Barlow, Mrs. Thelma Staheli, Mrs. Mae Hall and Mrs. Nellie Clove all of Enterprise, Utah, 68 grandchildren, 71 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.